Day Five

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

Speeding along the road to Galway, located on the opposite coast of Ireland from Dublin, I was glad that we finally had a chartered bus and didn’t have to actually walk there (believe me, I bet USAC was tempted to make us). Along the way, we stopped at a stately home (I don’t even remember the name of it) and toured the Famine Museum. By that point, all of us pretty much just wanted to get to Galway so we didn’t really take that much of an interest in it.

It was at least another hour spent in the bus, me trying to update this blog and eventually giving up to stare out the window, and all of us occasionally having sing along to the oldies (yeah, American) music the driver had put on. When we finally arrived in Galway, it was raining, putting a damper on our moods since we had been enjoying good weather for the past few days (Yeah, it rains in Ireland. A LOT. Who knew? Apparently not me who left rainboots/umbrellas at home).

We got our rooms and roommate assignments. I’m living with Abbie and a girl named Valerie, a theatre major from U. Maryland. Gee…I wonder why we were put together? Anyway, I was kind of mad because we had thought that Abbie and I were going to be sharing a room…but apparently the director worked it out so we all have our own rooms. So Abbie’s in a single while I’m occupying one lonely half of a two-person room. Well, the part I’m actually mad about is that there’s another single in the apartment…so I don’t exactly know why I’m getting the small bed in a 2 person room.

But anyway, a couple of us decided to go explore the town, in the rain, by ourselves instead of waiting for our leader to give us the tour. Well, we got a little lost, and eventually found the town center, but not before getting soaked. Then some people wanted to go to a fancy, expensive restaurant, so we split and those that wanted to conserve our Euro went to get pizza and eventually went back to the dorms.

…..whereupon we discovered that our neighbors had been attacked by BEDBUGS during a nap and were now being moved to a new room. This set off mass panic as Valerie and I (Abbie was out) tried to figure out what to do. Neither of us wanted to sleep in our beds, convinced we had the bugs too. We called Mark, the trip RA and asked him what to do, but he sleepily answered that he’d deal with it in the morning. We eventually stripped our beds completely to inspect for bugs. Let me tell you, I think those mattresses have been here since these crappy dorms were built…apparently Ireland hasn’t heard of the vinyl mattresses that are the norm across college campuses now.

I was the one who found the bug in Valerie’s bed. An hour later, after tearful and frantic calls to both our parents, who called USAC, Mark showed up and told us (and Abbie who had just got back and had just been informed of the situation) that we were moving. So, in the middle of the night, we packed up all our thinks and moved over to the next building, far away from anyone in our group.

We finally settled in, thinking our problems were over….

(Garden at Strokestown, Ricky doesn't like Prawn Cocktail crisps)