Sunday, June 15

June 15 Today we didn’t really do much. We went and did some grocery shopping. We hosted a dinner for all the girls that joined us in Belfast and Roger. We made Dublin Coddle- it was a sausage/bacon/potato dish. We have an Irish cookbook that we used to make the dish. It was pretty good. The potatoes had the best taste. Later we went for an ice cream walk.

Weekend in Belfast

June 12-14 Weekend in Belfast Thursday we (a group of 6 of us) left for the long bus ride to Belfast. It was a 7 hour bus ride. We switched buses 2 times in order to get there. Since Belfast is in Northern Irleand, we thought we would need our passports to get into the country. However, we did not need them and we didn’t get a stamp. We got to Belfast in the early afternoon and checked into our hostel. After checking in we decided to get something to eat and ate at a local pub and then walked around town taking pictures. We found an art opening and spent several hours looking at the artwork. It was the end of the year art show for the art college. The work was very interesting and the college was very neat. On our walk home, a local Belfast man, gave us a walking tour of history to our hostel. He was headed to a pub. On Friday we did a hop on/hop off city bus tour. This was very neat. We got to see a lot of Belfast that we wouldn’t have otherwise scene. We even got to see areas where the fighting had occurred and were shown walls and gates that are still in place to keep communities safe. It was pretty crazy. But they had some really neat peace murals on all of the walls. The tour guide said that some of the walls have started to come down. On Sunday, we tried to see other areas that we hadn’t seen yet, but didn’t have as much time and we had our bags from checking out of the hostel. After our long bus ride back to Galway, we got back about 9:30 pm.

June 11 Aran Islands Field Trip

June 11 Trip to the Aran Islands. The weather sucked. It rained pretty much the entire time we were out on the island. When we got there we went to a restaurant that Ben had eaten at the last time he was here. He was really looking forward to cheesy garlic chips, but they did not have them any more. So we tried their chili cheese chips instead. After lunch, I checked out the sweater market and then we rented bikes and biked around the island. We biked around about half of the island before venturing back to town. I bought a sweater at the market and then we headed back to the boat. We got back late and just relaxed as the weather was still crappy out.

Tuesday, June 10

June 10 Today was low key. I think everyone was pretty tired. Ben and I spent the afternoon sitting on the dock.  While we were sitting there we decided to build some boats out of sticks.  We spent a long time putting our boats together and then sent them off to sail.  Ben's boat cruised across the river way faster than my boat.  We wanted to see Irish dancing so went to a pub to watch. We got their pretty early to make sure that we had a seat. The Irish dancing was the traditional Irish couple dance. They all danced to a local band that played. It was fun to watch, but we didn’t stay super long.

Monday, June 9

June 9

I met with another school today.  It was a segregated school for students with cognitive disabilities.  They call them special schools here.  The meeting went really well and I learned a lot of information.  I also had meetings with people that worked for the department of education here in Ireland.  The first was with someone that is directly involved with special education and the others were two that are more related to the regular education schooling.  During the second meeting, they asked me lots of questions about our school system in the United States.  I have gathered lots of information for my project and I am right on track.  As I met with people, Ben hung out in the park watching people.

Later we went out to a local pub.  I guess it was as local as you could get here in Galway.  We were the only people not from Galway in the pub.  We met several of the locals and hung out with the for several hours.  It was a lot of fun to learn about Galway.

June 8 Sunday-Steve drove up to Galway to visit with Ben and I. We walked around downtown enjoying the day. Ben bought a loaf of bread and we fed the swans, pigeons and seagulls. The weather was beautiful.

June 7 Saturday-I went to the local market in the morning. Most of the items were similar to our farmer's markets. Then we hung out at our apartment. We headed out around 5 pm to feed the swans downtown. While we were down there it started to rain. We hung out under a bridge and meet 2 girls from France and 1 from Spain. We started chatting and headed to a pub for a pint. We ended up going for pizza and hanging out the rest of the night.

June 6 On Friday, Ben, Roger and I took a bus to Ballyvaughan to visit Steve. We were not sure if we were going to get a chance to meet up with him and he found us walking down the street. Ballyvaughan is not that big, so I don't think it was hard for him to find us. We ate lunch and then got a tour of the University they were working at. They had a castle on the grounds that we got to explore. After our tour, Steve took us back to town for us to catch the bus.

June 5 Thursday-we hung out in town. We went to the local museum and learned about Hooker's (it's a boat). I had my first meeting with a school in town to learn about their special education program. I learned a lot in my first meeting. There education system is so different than ours. The day was pretty low key. At night, Ben and I went walking down town and ventured into a pub. There was a local band playing in the pub. While the band was playing, two of the locals sang a song. It was very neat to listen to them sing.

June 4 Wednesday was our first field trip to Connemora County. We made several road side stops to photograph. Our bus drive found many great spots to take pictures. We went to see Kylemore Abbey, a castle that a man built for his wife. On the grounds was a huge garden that had some flowers in blum, but most everything was newly planted. There was a Gothic Church on the grounds. After we left the castle, we went to the National Park. In the park was mountains and hiking paths. Ben and I were determined to get to the top. We almost made it but we ran out of time. It was a lot of work, but definitely worth the view.

June 3

Tuesday-everyone started class. Ben and I went to introduce ourselves and then walked around. We found a castle ruins about a 1/2 mile from our apartment. As we approached a sitting area across from the castle, a dog was playing in the water. We started playing with him and his owner came down to get him. Lucky, the dog, was not ready to go home yet. So we talked to the Irish man and played with Lucky. Once he was tired, we helped him get into the car and they left. That afternoon we went around photographing with Roger.

June 2

Monday was a bank holiday and a day to catch up on sleep. We slept in a long time trying to catch up from the over night flight and the time change. Once we were up, we headed into town and found some food and went to the grocery store. Monday was pretty low key.

Week one has been great!!!  Week one has been great!!! So much to explore. First of all, it doesn't get dark until at least 10:30 pm everyday. We arrived on Sunday morning and met everyone at the airport. Once all the students had arrived, we headed for Corrib Village, our home sweet home for the month. We got settled in and headed downtown to check out Galway. We ate fish and chips our first night in town.