Normalcy(?)

Full moon rising over Whitefriar Street Church

(this one's for Anne)

TGIF everyone!  This is the first week since leaving home that we have stayed in one place all week long - - no travels to UK for conferences, no Fulbright field trips, just normal day to day!  It's been lovely.

This is the week that I've gotten down to some of the things I "meant" to do while here. 

I've browsed through numerous used book stores to supply myself with reading material, and I've also gotten half-way through reading "Irish History for Dummies" which I downloaded from my Indianapolis Public Library account  . . . highly recommend!

I also started my Irish language class!  Great fun, but somewhat intimidating.  While this is a class for "absolute beginners", what I didn't think of is that MOST of the class is made up of young people for whom English is also NOT their first language, meaning that they have already shown an ability to learn a difficult foreign language and are thus MILES ahead of me on the capability curve.  The class profile included native French, Spanish and Chinese speakers, and. . . me.  It doesn't even matter that I'm OLD, I'd be just as far behind if I were still YOUNG!!

But, I didn't come here to stay inside my comfort zone!

I painted my first watercolor since arriving - - I worked from a photograph of the Connemara Coast (see "View from bus .. " in Galway post) that I took while there last week.  I'm not able to scan and share (no scanner, no printer here) - - but suffice it to say that Mark liked it!  Always an achievement.

On Thursday Mark and I finally headed to the Garda immigration office to have our passports officially stamped for  an extended stay.  All the document searching before leaving Indianapolis payed off, as we moved smoothly through the process and were in and out of the building in less than an hour.  The horror stories of long waits had convinced us to show up at opening time, and even though this is Ireland, they actually started the process promptly at 8:00 am.  Good work, Garda!

This evening we've been invited to dinner at the home of one of Mark's DIT co-workers. . . she stayed with us for a weekend last Spring and we are looking forward to meeting her family.

So, for now, tabhair aire (take care) and I'll see you on Monday!

Pat