Great Craic

So I've been here two weeks and it has been amazing! I feel like I'm running out of new words to say it's great, it's wonderful, it's so much fun. (which it is all of those things to a huge degree). This is ok, because I can steal their "grand" Irish phrases; my favorite of which is "great craic" It means great fun or great craziness (therefore fits this trip perfectly).
Craic apparently comes from a Gaelic word, which basically means crazy.  But now it generally means fun, a very Irish sort of fun. As well as being used for "what's the craic?" = "what's up?/what's new?/what are you up to?" and as a description for people who are craic = fun/crazy.
So the past two weeks have been really great craic. Here are the highlights:

3rd, Tues - We landed here and got here, it was jet lagged day of wonderful that I have posted a bit about already.

4th, Wed - Also a day that I have managed to post about already, with the walk home in the crazy wind and all.

5th Thurs - Star, her roommates, their fellow study abroader Sydney and I went out for our first pint of Guinness at Foxes Pub, we asked our bartender about accents on girls and he said Northern Irish and Cork are annoying, but a good British accent is grand.

6th Fri - My Irish housemates are for all intents and purposes nocturnal, espically since they had friends visiting for the week; so around 2am we all ordered from Super Macs.  Which is pretty much an Irish version of McDonalds, but it also has Papa John's Pizza and Quiznos as well - plus they deliver until 3am. Then later (once we got up), my american roomie and I unpacked, moved in and got our phones and internet and all bought/set up.

7th Sat -  I did more exploring and figuring out my way around. We all went out to a couple of pubs that we found with live music and we meet a group of Irish boys, one of who shared my last name so that was cool. They also sang Hannah Montana which was also ...cool? nah not really, but it was hilarious.

8th Sun - Star and I joined Sydney for Mass at St. Patrick's (because where else do you go your first Sunday in Ireland?) Then we walked out to the coast and enjoyed the beautiful view (and a few little bits of blue sky and sunshine) we finished up by getting our first fish and chips at McDonagh's. Soooo good and perfect for warming you up after walking in the wind.

9th Mon - I cleaned up my resume/"CV" and dropped it off at places around here, finished reading Lola (Stephine Perkin's new book), and went out with my housemates and their friends (seriously these girls take hours to get ready to leave and 11pm is really early for them to be actually leaving the house. Really early. But somehow we managed to leave before 11:30)

10th Tues - I wandered more and did the whole look-for-a-job-thing and then I went to the Victoria Hotel for swing dancing! It was a fun lesson and there were tons of people there. It'll definitely the withdraw from going to swing dance with Nemo and everyone back at Mobtown.

11th Weds - My roommate Andi and I discovered that in addition to seemingly-round-the-clock-reruns-of-Friends Irish/UK TV has some amazingly grand telly. Such as "Playing it Straight" which is just like the Bachelorette, except there are a bunch of gay guys mixed in and she has to try to not end up with one of them. And one where they take people that look like snooki and make them look nice. (And they have Gordie Shore over here instead of -but just like- Jersey Shore.) After being amazing by crazy shows about guys planning a wedding without being able to ask the bride about anything and such Andi, Star and I went out and found some awesome traditional Irish music at Tig Coili.

12th Thurs -  Star and her roommates and I met up with one of the Irish friends we had made Monday and he introduced us to a bunch of his friends, it was great. They spent a good deal of time explaining Irish football vs rugby and what in the world Hurling is. (It is a Gaelic sport that looks like field-hockey-meets-soccer-meets-baseball-with-a-couple-of-basketball-rules-thrown-in-as-well.)

13th Fri - Andi, Star, and I didn't risk going out on such an unlucky day (that or we were just wanted a break from going out almost every night) so we had an epic girls night, complete with wine, icecream, chick flicks and chocolate. Star straightened my hair and it took an entire movie and a half to do (although to her hair-skills credit, it was a super cheap flat iron, not her nice one). Turns out my hair is really long.

14th Sat - Sleeping in is wonderful, as is Nutella, and the Incredibles, and the live band we found at the King's Head. So named because the man who cut off King Charles I's head lived there, at least according to legend which the stone building has plenty of since it is more than 800 years old at it's oldest parts o.0

15th Sun - Star and I went to evening Mass at the Galway Cathedral which was beautiful. There was a choir that sang Amazing Grace during the service and all and then at the end they sang Wade in the Water. (which has the same effect on my as when they play Lady Gaga at the pub, I wanna swing dance, which is a slightly more acceptable thing to do at a pub than a cathedral)

16th Mon - Star and her roommate and I went to shop street and checked out the Claddagh museum at the jewelry shop of the original makers of the Claddagh rings.  We stopped by a couple of other shops and then a wonderful book store that has shelves of used books literally spilling out the doors. On our way back we got to die for hot coco from The Chocolate Box (it has real chocolate in the bottom and both marshmallows and whip cream on top- what more could you ask for?) And despite the fact the only syrup we could find was crazy weird, we had a great dinner of french toast, sausage and what-passes-for-bacon-over-here.

So I apologize for the ridiculously long post.  I'm honestly impressed if you read this far. Good job! I hope to post more regularly so they should also be shorter and will honestly include pictures...in theory. hehe.
It's been great craic ^_^