You’d be surprised how busy we keep ourselves with cottage life. Lets start out with a look at a regular week that has no special occurrences, which is actually almost more irregular than a “regular” week since something is always going on. Anyways I start out my Monday waking up late, making breakfast checking emails, then I have a a class at 2pm which lasts until 5pm with the sweetest, but probably the worst Theology professor I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. Mary means well, but the only two redeeming factors of lectures is that she’s sweet and has an Irish accent. After our three hour torture session we return to the cottages and maybe start some homework, check out the coast, and relax. At some point in the night our cottage cook Jake will start making some meal I wouldn’t dare make, we all enjoy our meals, then start looking for activities for the night. Night activities include: mini cottage parties, reading, walking to the Spiddal pubs to listen to some Irish pickup music and have a pint or several, going to the Lodge bar to hang out with JP (coolest Irishmen yet), or just setting up a movie in the Lodge lounge. Tuesdays are quite similar but History starts at 10am and runs until 1pm then we have an Ethics class shortly thereafter. Our History professor is fantastic. I wouldn’t describe him as amazingly exciting, but he relates his growing up in Belfast to what we’re learning about very well, he’s plain old interesting, and well articulated. This class will definitely be the most work, though. Our Ethics professor is the Professor from CSB/SJU travelling with us, and she is an interesting woman. That’s all I’ll say about that class for now. Wednesday we just have a 10am to 1pm class with the most fantastic Irish Literature professor one could ask for. He encompasses all that is class and cool about Literature professors with an Irish accent. Finally, to end the week, we have an Ethics class on Thursday and Friday.

Now keep in mind the above doesn’t actually happen that often, there’s usually much more involved in our weeks. First of all there’s already been about 9 21st birthdays so that means that at least 9 of our nights have been cabs into Galway and rough early mornings. Also about every 2 or 3 weeks we go on large excursions starting on the Wednesday of a week. We leave on the Wednesday then spend 4 or 5 days travelling, seeing Ireland landmarks and historical sights, “sleeping” in hostels, and checking out the local pubs.

We’ve also been getting creative with our activities. Some of the girls have been getting intramurals setup for us, some of the guys have been trying to pickup Hurling (great game), all kinds of stuff. I’ll write about the excursions we’ve had thus far next.

Hope all is well at home with everyone. Can’t wait to see you all!