Saturday= hurricane like winds

Friday night recap: the people I was with are silly. We met at a pub called the Skeff, good central location. After walking around town, in and out of pubs, where did we wind up, the Skeff! I returned home sort of early, wasn't tired and so I tried my first surfthechannel viewing. Apparently one cannot watch tv shows for free online when outside of the US, thus surfthechannel. But you can only watch 72 mins at a time... I definitely hadn't reached my 72 minutes before it kicked me off of my NCIS viewing, so I stayed up another 54 mins to wait to finish my show... it was worth it though.

Saturday
After a 15 min battle against wind and rain, I gave up on my walk to the square for an exploration of the Claddagh region of the city. I just couldn't do it. Later on, around 3 we tried again and I managed to make it to the centre before hail started to fall. What the heck?! I left tornado alley back in the states, what's with the winds and the hail? Anyways, Mandy, Chelsea and I braved the winds and checked out the Claddagh 'museum' and then crossed the river to see the, now more modern, Claddagh region.

The wind was so bad it was comical! We seriously couldn't walk forwards at times. We took a path towards the beach area. We discovered that if you jump, the wind would move you. A dog we'd seen at the centre was in the field and he came over and sort of worked as our guide along the beach area. It was so pretty and the view of the mts in the distance was beautiful too, but I could barely steady my camera in order to take a picture, the wind was so bad!

Although the wind is against me on my way to the center, it pushed me home... almost into the street at one point, but home nonetheless. Back at home i didn't do much until Caitlyn invited me over. We just hung out, ate dinner, and surfed the tv. Kind of boring but good company.

Then, highlight of the day (not that the exploration and wind battle wasn't awesome) was my first talk home! Yes, I'd only made one previous phone call home in the 11 days since being here. My parents, with Kayla's help, finally got Skype and I got to talk to all three! I even 'heard' the dogs bark.. and then Mom actually got them to bark. It was fantastic!

Sunday
Went grocery shopping and am doing my first round of laundry; I stuffed that little machine... it reminded me of the one in Paris, but it's not a washer and dryer all-in-one so I have a little more faith in it. I'm headed to mass at 6 at the cathedral and I'm pre-praying that the wind and rain will stop between 5:20 and 6 while I walk there and then please be calm on my way back!