Saturday, July 23, 2011

the honeymoon stage

After a hop to Chicago and a giant leap to Dublin, I arrived safely with no problems and all my bags at 8am.

One of my housemates, Andrea picked me up. When we first started talking, I thought in my head "hey... they told me she was American, but she's Irish. cool!" But after telling her I was sorry that I couldn't think in Celsius yet, she said "I'm from Atlanta, so I'm okay with that." What? She's been here a year. I would love if in a years time I have that much of an accent.

My house is really nice. Downstairs is a living room, dining room, and nice-sized kitchen. Although, the walls are still pretty bare and doesn't seem to have much "personality" I decided the less overwhelming thing for me to do is just decorate my room like crazy.

My room: is upstairs. Upstairs we have three bedrooms, a guest room, and a bathroom. My room is in the back of the house, overlooking our small fenced in yard and all the other houses. They're quite close together.  Here are some pictures to illustrate:


Sounds from my window include two children playing in their back yard, a baby crying, the neighbor's piano wafting in from their house, and what I think is an ice cream truck. An ice cream truck that visits the neighborhood at least three times a day. It blasts the loudest carnival music. If it's not an ice cream truck, then I must live next door to a giant carousel.

After getting unpacked and making my room look more like my room, I settled down for a nap. A solid 5 hour nap. I haven't slept that well in weeks.


It's hard to think about how quickly my life changed in an instant. It was like I was traveling fast down a river, grabbed ahold of the bank, pulled myself up, and toppled headfirst into another river going the opposite way. I can't comprehend that I'll be here for two years, it's just something I can't put my head around.


But as my housemate said, right now I'm in that honeymoon stage where everything is new and exciting. Which it is. I love that in Evansville it "feels like 101" and here it's 59 degrees and everyone is wearing shorts because it's a warm day. I love that it's overcast. I love that the furthest point away from me in Ireland is 4 hours away. I love that on my drive from the airport I saw castle ruins, sheep, and the river Shannon.

1 comment:

Lindsay Schmitt said...

I'm so glad you made it safely! I'll be praying for you and hoping that the honeymoon stage lasts the next two years. :)