New Country, New You (pt 1)

I woke up at 5 am on my second day in Ireland to find the light still on. I got up and turned it off and then went back to sleep. I woke up again around 8:30 am and decided to get up. It was still dark outside and it was really cold. I fiddled with the heaters, of which there are about 5, each of them with a different operating system, and the water heater, again with a different system. I was going to go explore, get a cell phone and open a bank account. The problem was that I didn't know where to go to do these things. I spent a couple hours dithering at my computer and reading the student info book about the apartment. I had to reset all the heaters because I'd messed them up. They're not terribly effective unfortunately. Unlike American heaters they don't blow hot air, they raidate warmth. So, if you're sitting about two feet away, you'll feel it, but any farther and it's as if it's not on. The water heater is also really weird. It only heats water from about 4am to 8am and that's all the apartment has for the day. There's a boost dial that can heat up more water for up to two hours, but it's supposedly realy expensive to use. And while I'm on the subject of technical stuff, the internet at Gort na Coiribe is all wired, but it's still very slow and not reliable. It was okay the first couple days because it was only some of the international students, but as more people have arrived it's slowed to a crawl. Some days my computer can't even find the networks even though the cable is plugged in. It's a pain. There's supposed to be something I reconfigure on my laptop to make it like Irish internet better, but I can't find whatever it is so it's a toss up whether or not I'll actually have internet. Any ways, back to my second morning: I was still trying to find places I was going to need to go when my roommate showed up. See, I live in a three person apartment. There's a room with a single bed in it and a room with two beds in it. The single room is the Irish girl's room (she was here last semester so she gets to keep her room). I was assigned to the double room. Since I got there first, I got to pick which bed and desk I wanted. I picked the ones closer to the window, which is probably the colder area, but I wanted to be able to look out the window from my desk. There's one bathroom we all share, a semi-equipped kitchen, a living room and dining room combination and a closet where the water heater lives. (I'll photograph all of this eventually) So, I knew it was likely I'd be living with a girl who's part of my particular program, but I didn't know who. All of the students on my program, but one, are from Willamette because it's technically WU's program. The girl who isn't from Willamette is my roommate. Her name is Jamie Mullett and she's from Kentucky. Her school, Bellarmine, has a partnership with Willamette so she got attached to our group. She's nice. : ) 

The view out my window

Embarrassed at being caught in my pajamas, I decided it was probably time to go out and see what I could find, my internet research having yielded nothing useful. By 11:30 I was leaving the apartment. I was going to get food, but I wanted to save my money until I had opened a bank account (just in case there was a minimum amount needed to open one) and had a cell phone.

One of the arches into Gort na Coiribe. My apartment is on the ground floor on the other side of the staircase near the car.

Looking towards Cuirt na Coiribe (more expensive apartments) and Dun na Coiribe (townhouses). This is also the way to the school, although I didn't know that when I took this. It may look lovely and warm, but it wasn't. I was wearing a wool coat, a hat, gloves and a scarf to stay warm.

The Dunnes that's right across the street from Gort na Coiribe. That's where I got my bedding and towel.

Since I had kind of already seen what was in the immediate area around Dunnes and in the Galway Shopping Center, I decided to investigate the stores across the street from the Galway Shopping Center, starting with Curry's.

Outside Curry's

Inside Curry's #1

Inside Curry's #2

So basically Curry's equals Best Buy. It's the same sort of idea. Mostly electronics and some music, movies and video games. I found a hair dryer there for 13 Euros that looked like it might not just fry my hair and I made a mental note to come back and get it later (I didn't want to carry it with me while I explored).


Next door was Aldi.

The outside of Aldi (obviously)

Inside Aldi

Also inside Aldi.

Aldi is a gorcery store for the most part. There's also, as you can see in the picture directly above there are these metal things set up in teh middle of the shop where they put random other stuff. There's everything from clothes to rain boots to speakers and CD players to toys and cookware. All of the random stuff is much cheaper here than it would be elsewhere but it's a gamble what'll be there. And I don't know how good the quality is either...

After Aldi, I went in Woodie's just out of curiosity.

The inside of Woodie's

Woodie's was kind of an odd experience for me. It smelled, in part, like Home Depot, which smells like boredom. But it also smelled like other things. And there were tea sets and aprons and other more houseware-ish things for sale there. For example, this was the first and only place I found pants hangers at all like the ones I'm used to. I couldn't find more than the one pack so I got those. The lady I bought them from was kind of hard to understand when I asked her if there were more, so I just left it at that.

Harry Corry is a designer furniture/bedding/towel place as far as I can tell. I wandered through really fast looking for an extra blanket, but I didn't have any luck so I kept going down the line.

Smyth's, a toy store

The Mickey and Minnie section!

The next place I went in was Smyth's. I was so pleased to see and old fashioned toy store with blocks and books and games and stuffed animals. They're a dying breed in the US and more's the pity. I liked the Disney section a lot. Didn't buy anything here though.

The movie theatre!

The movie theatre is also in this complex. I didn't go in it, but I took a picture to help me remember where it was. I was at once disappointed and kind of pleased that it was pretty much all American movies. I mean, there are a bunch I wanted to see and didn't get to, but at the same time, it would've been cool to see Irish movies you couldn't see in the U.S.

I went back across the street to the Galway Shopping Center, thinking of heading to the Car Phone Warehouse to get a cell phone. On the way there I explored the shops at the end farther from me that I hadn't looked at the night before. I found a Subway attached to an arcade.

DDR!

I found a DDR machine! I was ecstatic so I stopped to play a round. Didn't do too bad for not having played in months. Now I've played DDR in three different countries (US, Japan and Ireland)!! I'm ridiculously proud of myself for that.   

Spongebob paintings on the wall of the arcade. ^_^

A butcher shop

Inside the Galway Shopping Center I decided to wander around now that the stores were actually open. I took a picture of the butchers because you see them a lot here, but you don't really in the U.S. anymore and I thought it was interesting. I went in and out of the bookstore, Eason's and some of the other places before I went in Car Phone Warehouse. I explained to the guy behind the counter what I wanted and he said some stuff too fast for me to follow (in my defense his accent was kind of thick) about going to town because they couldn't help me there. So I wandered around some more and finally went in an outdoor wear shop and asked the man for directions to get into town. He was really nice about it. He could tell I was American. He went to NUIG too and so we talked about Gort na Coiribe for a bit and then he gave me directions.

I think I'm going to have to cut this day into two posts. I think blogger doesn't like this many pictures in one post... Sorry it's taking me so long to put stuff up. I know I'm way behind. The internet was broken for a couple days and then I was out in Connemara learning Irish all weekend and I've got school during the days... Any ways just bear with me and know that I'm working on it.

First Day

It felt like my first day in Galway really started after that shower. The shower is a tiny, tiny stall with barely any room to move around and the drain doesn't work very well (I need to go report it and ask for maintenance people to come but thanks to the short hours at reception I haven't had the chance). I had to use an extra shirt to dry off because I didn't have a towel yet. None of that mattered because it felt so nice to be clean. I was not very long out before someone knocked on the door to my apartment. I thought it might be my roommate so I ran to open the door. Turns out it was an American girl, but not my roommate. Her name was Bridget and she had also just arrived. She didn't like her apartment and so she'd asked if anyone else had arrived yet so she could see if they were all like hers and the people in reception directed her to me. I let her in and showed her around. She said my apartment wasn't like hers at all. We walked over to her apartment and as she pulled the front door closed behind us the inside handle came off. The floors really were sticky and the downstairs was missing a seat completely. I could see why she was upset. After that she decided to go talk to reception and see if she could get moved. I went back to my apartment and worked on unpacking some more.

Alcohol...

About a half hour or so later Bridget came back over and we went across the street to Dunnes to get food and look at bedding. Dunnes is kind of like a small Fred Meyers. They have food and clothes and shoes and some houseware type stuff. We were both really hungry so we just picked pre-packaged sandwiches and juice and sat down on a bench in the store to eat. Then we wandered upstairs and looked at the pillows and sheets and towels. We were going to go to another store, but Bridget wanted to get her housing situation figured out before she bought bedding, so we came back. I went back to unpacking and eventually finished getting everything put away. I waited for a couple hours and then I started to get hungry and worried that I wouldn't get the stuff I needed that night. I waited until just before 6 pm and then I took off on my own.

More alcohol...

Still more...

And more. I've never seen so much alcohol in a grocery store-like place. I was going to take more pictures in Dunnes, but Bridget and I were REALLY hungry and we got distracted looking for something edible.

I walked over towards Dunnes and decided to explore off to the left first. There was a place called N17 Euronics (yes, just like the movie rating) and so I went in there looking for a hairdryer. I found short Cat-5 cables for 5 Euros (I brought my super long one just in case and with all of it coiled on my desk there's no room for anything else) and some hairdryers but they seemed kind of expensive. I wandered through the whole store and then they told me there was 5 minutes to close. It was only 6pm. I bought my Cat-5 cable and went on my way. I went out to the Galway Shopping Center, a little farther on down Headford road, the street that goes by Gort na Coiribe. I was looking for Penney's and I found it, but it was closed. I stuck my head in Car Phone Warehouse, but they were closing too. Tesco is the only 24 hour store nearby and they are mostly groceries but some other stuff too. As the shopping center shut down for the night I wandered around feeling lost and kind of lonely. I went over to Supermac's, and got a hamburger, fries and a drink. I thought it would be like McDonald's and I recognized the name from an ad I'd heard in the taxi earlier that day. I sat down to eat my food and it didn't taste at all like McDonald's, it was worse.

My food from Supermac's. It looks benign enough, right?

When I left Supermac's, it started raining. It's not a long walk, but alone, in a foreign country, when it is dark, very very cold and now wet, it was kind of miserable. I went in Dunnes and wandered around, trying to find sheets and a pillow that I liked. I picked out a fluffy white towel (they didn't have a blue bath towel, only white or yellow), a good pillow, a duvet (because they don't really do comforters or quilts so much here apparently), a duvet cover that came with a pillow case (they're blue and white striped) and blue sheets. I also picked up a Mickey Mouse pajama shirt, which even though I didn't need it, still made me feel a little better.

My Mickey pajama shirt. I'm wearing it right now. : D

I walked back to the apartment and started putting my bed together. I put on my Mickey Mouse t-shirt and pajama pants and then a sweatshirt and my panda hat too because it was really cold. It was about 8:30 when I laid down just to try out my bed...