Hello all!

well, this is a new venue for me, but it seems like fun, thanks seanny for the idea! To start with, Ireland is fantastic. The language, accents, little homey shops that all close promptly at six, it's a place that's none to hard to call home, as much as I miss everyone. I have a little apartment that i share with one other person who is nice, a little quiet, but when our paths manage to cross in our busy scheduals we have a grand time. My apartment looks out over the river lee (the photo of the view from my apartment at sunset is on the other side there, i'm still figureing out how to use this site...) i have some fantastic friends, some of whom live in my apartment building, two floors down, some of whom are about a fifteen minute walk away in another apartment complex called brookefield. I actually just went over there last night for tacos after soccer practice( I just joined the club team, it's fun so far, but might get a little intense...and playing on astroturf KILLS!!! bollux...) and styed there for a girly night of dirty dancing..oh good times. I missed movie parties. tonight will either be a curl up and sleep early night, or (more realistically) another disco night where a group of aboout 10 of us go and dance untill about 2:30 when the discos shut down. The music here cracks me up, they're obsessed with bad 80's music, and the stuff thatw as on the radio in about 8th grade, the amount of times I heared "eye of the tiger" and "backstreet boys" it was beyond funny. And an interesting cultural phenomena on these nights out. See, Irish people in general, and men in particular are very shy. they can bullshit with the best of them, but they won't just come and talk to you directly in geenral, and they really don't flirt, they beg, it's really very funny, and suprisingly affective. Or maybe that's just the accents, all I know is a number of my friends are quite taken. Bakc to the shynes though...you, get about 7 pints in them and all of a sudden they have charm up to the eyeballs (or at least they seem to think so ) and will dance with or ask out anything that moves! it's so funny, i got asked out to dinner after the disco (it was 2:30 am, NOTHING was open) to which i laughed out loud patted the poor lad on the cheek and moved deeper into my group of friend. Ah the Irish. Next up is a week of classes, tonight I'm going to go and look at the choral group and see abut joining the choir, probvabnly go dancing, and try to make it untill the weekend, when I'm going to get on a plane to London!! WOOO!, Anyways, I'll update more after that, hope this finds all of you well. Love,

~Jean~

oh, and on the way i'll update about my first two weeks in the country, where i got to sighsee some really pretty places and all, but for now, more class!
Peace!