Sooo tired!

So! I had a very busy day yesterday and I was supposed to go hiking today in Mangerton but I knew there was no way I had enough energy for that. So...my week. My week has been pretty busy. I had my first week of classes and they went pretty well. My schedule is kind of sparse, it's hard to get used to since I don't have a job. So yea, the classes I'm taking are Irish Language, Irish Folklore, Comparative Literature, and American Literature. The reason I'm taking the American Literature class is because I need it to graduate from Bridgewater. It's kind of interesting since they're talking more the beginning of America and how the writing has influenced it over time. So it's more of a history class which I'm enjoying. This week was kind of a blur. I've made it to the gym a couple of times which is awesome. It can get kind of intimidating at the gym since the only people that use the weights are guys. I was a little freaked out the first time I went there since I wasn't expecting that. I got over it pretty quickly though. Thursday night I went out with some friends. It's just really funny how the Irish around here only really go out on Thursday nights and Sunday nights. It's so different from home since the nights to go out are Friday and Saturday. And then people have class in the mornings so I don't know how they do it. Us international students are going out the normal nights so we can stay awake for our classes...or at least attempt to. I finally got to get out of Limerick yesterday. I was sooo excited. Five of us went on a bus tour to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher. It was fantastic because the one place I've wanted to go the most is the Burren and I'm finally able to say that I've been there. The country is beyond gorgeous. Pictures pale in comparison to what it really looks like. There are also an unbelievable amount of cows. The Burren is beautiful. It is so peaceful there....so quiet (minus the cows). We went to this old stone fort that was built around 1000 CE. It was ok. I just think looking at the surrounding area was the only thing that was really

worth it. I made a video of the cow noise...I hope this works.
After we went to this fort we went to the (the name is in the picture to the side.) It is an old Dolmen and it was awesome. That is one thing that I've always wanted to see since I've been here and I was quite excited that I finally got to see it. I think the tour guy said that it was built about 3000 years ago. The landscape it self was pretty barren. There were a lot of rocks all over the place. It was really quiet. It was absolutely nothing like around here. It was just completely different than anything I've ever seen before. We didn't stay in the Burren for too long. We went to this small little Irish village in Doolin. It looked like a movie set. It was quite interesting. We went to this great small Irish pub. I had some beef and Guinness stew. I had been craving it all day and when I saw that on the menu I got wicked excited. The girl from Holland, the guy from Slovacia (I'm probably spelling that word wrong), and the guy from Austria had never heard of a stew before. They thought it tasted fantastic. So after we went to this small village to have a lunch break we went to the ocean. I had completely forgotten how much I missed the ocean until we went there. It looked a lot more dramatic than the ocean at home. There were lots of cliffs and huge waves. It was gorgeous. We stopped at this cliff edge and took lots of pictures. So after we left this cliff we finally went to the Cliffs of Moher. It wasn't that expensive at all.

You would think that since it's such a tourist destination they would charge an unbelievable amount of money to get there. But thankfully they didn't. My brother had told me that it wasn't worth it to go near the castle that they have there and that you should go where everyone else is away from. So we decided to do that. But of course the way that is not designated for people to walk on it quite muddy and slippery and dangerous. But by being a tourist you have to do silly and muddy things. So my originally pretty decent shoes are now caked in mud. But it's totally worth it. We stayed at the Cliffs for about an hour and a half. I've finally seen the Cliffs! Now the pictures that I see online all the time will pale in comparison to what I've seen in real life.