Hey everyone!

Well as you probably know I LOVE Ireland a lot! There are 7 students from Loras including myself here. They're names are Jordan, Leah, Emily, Mikey, Melissa and Aimee. We have been here for over a week already, but it seems like We've been here so much longer than that. Our flight left at 6pm on January 9th and we landed at 7:30am the next day. The flight over here was six hours long, but it wasn't that bad. I can't remember the last time I had a meal on a plane and we got dinner and breakfast, and it wasn't that bad. The flight attendents were really nice. After being on the plane for six hours we finally landed at the Dublin airport and we had no problems going through customs, there was a letter that we got from the school we're going to, that we needed to show to the people in customs that said we were studying here until May we had to show them that so that we got the right stamp on our passport. Then we went to get our luggage and we met our professor that came over with us from Loras. Her name is Liz Raschke and we just call her Liz. We also met a Lecturer (it's what they call professors here) from IADT (the school we're going to), his name is Michael Murphy and he is in the music business over here, so then we got onto a bus that took us to our apartments in Sandymount. It's a really nice area, the houses are so small here. When we got to the apartments, we met Audrey who is the lady who owns the apartments, and told us the basic things we needed to know. We are living in two apartments across the street from each other. Jordan, Emily, Leah and I are living in a 3 bedroom apartment. Me and Emily have our own rooms and Jordan and Emily are sharing. Mikey, Melissa and Aimee are in a 2 bedroom apartment. Obviously Mikey got his own room. The apartments are really nice.

After we got all settled in we needed to go get groceries and the store that's by us is called Tesco and it was about a 10 minute walk to get there from our apartments, we used Mikey's GPS system, and we got lost a little bit, but we found it and it wasn't too hard to find. Michael Murphy told us to take a left and a left. We went back to the apartments and then at 5:30 Michael wanted to take us out for dinner, and we really wanted to see Dublin, so we took the DART train into Dublin with Michael. That was a lot of fun. We went to this cafe and I forgot the name of it, but I had pizza and it was really good. Michael is really funny and really nice. One thing I love about Ireland is everyone is so nice here.

Two days after that we went to the school to get registered and get our student ID cards, and we got a schedule of the classes that we're allowed to take. We'll be taking two classes with our Loras professor, Irish Gothic which is a literature class and City As Text. Then I will be taking Scriptwriting and Popular Culture Studies. We've met a lot of the staff at the school and they are all really nice and we've met some of the students there already. We have to take the DART and then get on a bus to to go school.

Last night we went out to celebrate my birthday, but before we went into Dublin we went over to Mikey, Aimee and Melissa's apartment. Everyone signed a card for me and the front of it says "Happy birthday to a girl who can really hold her drink..." on the front and "yes, the problems begin when you start to DRINK it!" on the inside, then they also got me a present. Mikey said "We couldn't find any wrapping paper so this is the best we could do." They wrapped it up in Leah's coat, which I thought was very funny. So I unwrapped it and they got me shot glasses. Then we went into Dublin on the DART and we went to a small pub called "The Celt" and it was crowded and there was a band playing! It was so awesome. So some of us found stools to sit on and the rest just stood around enjoying drinks and the music. Mikey bought me my drinks, he's such a sweet guy. Then at midnight we did cheers and they wished me happy birthday and then, shortly after that I think Mikey told the band that it was my birthday because I was just sitting there talking to some of the girls and then I heard "Where's Sara?" and they wanted me to go up to where the band was set up and they got me a stool for me to sit on, and the band sang happy birthday to me. Then the band got 21 men to kiss me on the cheek and of course Mikey was one of them. I definately wasn't expecting any of that, but I enjoyed it very much. Then today we went out for my birthday dinner, and we went to the same place we ate at the first night we were in Dublin.

Love,
Sara