Arriving In Listowel

Well, I'm officially in Ireland! :) 

After a long (and kind of restless) 8 hour flight to London Heathrow Airport, I was able to navigate quite successfully throughout Heathrow to find the terminal for my connecting flight to Shannon Airport. I got to relax for a little bit and listened to my ipod for a while before boarding my second flight. A short plane ride to Ireland later and my host family picked me up from the airport and we drove back to their home in Listowel. My host family is very, very nice and have really made me feel at home here. They have given me some information about the school I will be teaching at and I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. Dromclough is a country school which is about 20 minutes away from where my host family lives so I will be carpooling with another teacher at the school every day which is nice. 

This morning, we all went to a Christian fellowship service where JP, my host dad, led the service. It was such an interesting experience, much different than the kind of mass I am used to attending back home. I really enjoyed it. It was a very small gathering of people from the town and they were all very friendly and welcoming. People offered prayers for one another and there was a lot of music, which was much better than the music they play at my church back home haha. After the service, everyone gathered for lunch and conversation. We headed back to my host family's house a little while later and prepared to go for a walk in Ballybunion. 

We drove just a short distance to Ballybunion and hiked around the hills overlooking the beach. It was very windy, but beautiful. I'm slightly jealous of the people who get to live on the hill overlooking the Atlantic! In the middle of the town is a statue of Bill Clinton. JP explained that they put his statue there because he has gone to Ballybunion a couple of times to golf. The statue shows Clinton golfing, but Lisa, my host sister, said that the golf ball has gotten stolen a few times lol. 

So tomorrow is the big day! I get to meet my junior infants class, or kindergarten as we call it. Looking forward to it :) 

Ballybunion Castle: Only one wall left standing 

I was so amazed by the expansive beach, you don't see anything like that near Lake Michigan :p