You know the world must be flat, because when people leave town they never come back.

Hello from the other side of the world!!! I would just like to confirm that there actually is another side of the world. As we flew into London I said to the man next to me, ¨Wow, there it is, Europe. It´s really over here.¨ Profound, I know. But cut me a break, I´m from Lincoln. When most diverse thing you see in your hometown is an albino elk you really start to wonder if all those people and places on TV are really out there. (I have Lucinda to thank for these thoughts, her theory is that maybe the rest of the world is fake like the Truman Show).

It´s kind of amazing that I´m here, just about everything that could have gone wrong on the way over did minus missing a flight or taking a swim in the Atlantic. I nearly missed my flight out of Missoula because I was chomping on toast. Dad said a cloud of black smoke was coming from the plane. In Minneapolis, Amber Hutson and I went out for sushi, a first for me. I have to say it´s not bad, but little squishy. London was an absolute wild goose chase from the moment I landed. I went off in a sketchy hallway trying to find a bathroom and this security guard must have thought I was up to no good. All of a sudden I hear, ¨You there! What are you doing, miss?¨ (English accent implied). He was practically running after me as visions of me in jail in a foreign country flashed through my head. He seemed embarassed when I told him I just have to pee! So anyway I went off to find my next gate so when my plane took off in 6 hours I´d know where to go. But first I had to go reclaim my baggage, which didn´t make sense until later. So I grabbed one of the little trolleys and loaded up my two huge bags that look like bags with dead bodies in them, and are about as heavy, plus my two carry ons. The signs in the airport are pretty insufficient so I just started following everyone else. Picture hundreds of people pushing carts whose wheels have a mind of their own up and down ramps and through a maze of hallways, trams, and elevators. No joke, there were elderly, fragile looking people digging their heels in like mules to keep their carts from having a serious runaway down these ramps. Anyway after 15 minutes of pushing my little cart every way it didn´t want to go I finally got to the North terminal, where someone told me to go. Nope, now someone else says Aer Lingus is at the South terminal. So I sweat through another round of cart pushing and finally get to the south terminal. No Aer Lingus. I was seriously beginning to think this was a big joke everyone was playing on the dumb American girl who had more luggage than entire families. It turns out my plane was taking off from a completely different airport 30 miles away. So I pushed my little cart all the way out of the airport, transferred money to pounds, bought a bus ticket and rode to the other airport. This part wasn´t so bad, minus the fact that it cost £17, becasue I got to see some of the English countryside. It was so green it nearly hurt my eyes - absolutely gorgeous. And all the houses look like little gingerbread houses. So anyway after following terminal signs up 8 escalators only to find myself on the roof of the parking garage in search of my gate, and problems at the baggage check, I arrived at my gate to find my plane had been delayed two hours. Please don´t judge, I know I blonde but at this point I´d been awake for roughly 20 hours. (You can´t sleep when you get the only seat that doesn´t recline during a 7 hour flight.) But the cherry on the top was yet to come. We finally flew out of London to Shannon, which was basically an hour of the kid behind me kicking my seat, and landed.... and then took off again... It was so windy that we barely touched down and were being blown all over the runway so the pilot pulled it back up and we flew around for 15 more minutes. Meanwhile the kid behind me in his little Irish accent says, ¨Daddy I need to go pee.¨ Well the stewardess wouldn´t let them get up because the air was so rough, so for 15 minutes this kid is screaming at the top of his lungs that if his dad doesn´t let him get up he´s going to pee in his pants. The poor dad was trying to coax his son to pee in a cup, meanwhile the plane is jolting all over the place and I´m convinced that I´m going to arrive in Ireland damp, and not from the rain. It would have been funny had I not been slightly uneasy about whether we were going to land safely. Obviously I made it but I could have done without some of the drama!

Mick and his friend Guy picked me up at the airport as promised and we drove to Galway. I was dog tired having been up for some 30 hours but I was so excited I knew I wouldn´t be able so sleep. We went to Mick´s brother´s and then eventually went ´downtown´. Galway is about the size of Bozeman but as far as the bar scene goes you would think you were in downtown LA. The bars (of which there are over 600 in County Galway alone, no joke) are all smoke free and mostly have kind of an R Bar feel to them. And everyone is so dressed up! Most of the girls were wearing skirts, etc. (Mom you don´t have to say I told you so.) And yes, Guiness is everywhere. We went to a dance club called Cuba which is like KO´s minus the trashiness plus 300 people dancing. It was really a good time. I met tons of people, and a couple guys that I think will turn out to be good friends. As if I hadn´t been up long enough, at 2 we all went to one of these guys´ house and hung out for a while. Everyone is so nice!

I told mom that flying into Ireland in the dark was like a big mysterious present, and waking up (today at 2) was like opening that present. I looked out the window and was just blown away. Not only is it green as can be but every single building is so old! I figured there would be some places that looked more modern but there really aren´t hardly any in the main downtown area. The vegetation is what really gets me. It´s just so different. (I need to get some pictures uploaded, I´m in the process of figuring that out.) And absolutely everything is made of concrete or stone, stone fences everywhere. The weather is a little chilly but only really cold when the wind picks up. The rain is more of a mist and just comes & goes. The streets downtown are extremely narrow, where there are sidewalks you can barely fit two people side by side. People drive like maniacs, and it's amazing how instinctive it is to look left, THEN right at a crosswalk, and here you have to look right first - I´ve come to terms with the fact that I will probably be hit by a car at some point. I don´t know why, but I haven´t seen one car, in London either, that is over 10 years old.

The hostel that I´m staying at is pretty nice. The rooms are clean, so are the bathrooms, and the water is good. The shower is kind of goofy, you push a button and the water comes on for about one minute so you have to keep pushing it. Downstairs there´s a TV room, computer room, a huge lounge and kitchen. I stay in a room that has 4 bunk beds, so 8 girls altogether. Tonight a bunch of us went downtown and listened to a live band of old Irishmen, they were hilarious.

My thoughts are kind of random.... the accents aren´t that bad, I can understand most people but it helps to read their lips. Everything is pretty expensive, it´s about 4 or 5 euros for a drink, a little less for beer. I promise mom & dad, I´ve only bought two. : ) I think it won´t be hard to find a job, practically everyone I´ve met works at a bar. At the hostel there are a bunch of ads up for rommates wanted so I´m going to start calling those tomorrow, after I get a phone. It´s like completely starting a new life over here. I feel like I just dropped out of the sky (which I guess I did) and have to make a life. No job, no school yet, no phone, no friends, no home, no family, no nothing! Just a pile of clothes and a debit card. I really love it though. No obligations! -for the time being. I´ve had little spurts of loneliness, or kind of what-did-I-do-ness. But I just push them aside and think about everything I´m experiencing. I´m really looking forward to finding roommates and starting class, starting a little niche. Well I better get some sleep. I promise the next entries probably won´t be so long and boring. Thanks for reading, and please please please keep in touch. I live for email right now! Oh, and you can post comments below here... Love you all.