It's Friday!!! I'm now 5 weeks into the semester (this Wednesday will be the halfway point in the semester). School is great. It is very, very busy now as this week yet another course was added to our schedule. I now have class until 5:00 every day. Aside from biochem, it's all very enjoyable. I also have started to make some really good friends in my class. On the homefront, this continue to be challenging. Our hot water tank has been broken for the past 8 days so it has been ice cold showers and boiling water to do dishes. The lady in the office here is not overly helpful so I'm not optimistic that it will be fixed anytime soon. We have been told every day since Monday that it would be fixed "today for sure". On a more positive note, sleeping has been much better thanks to my dream catcher and the security guard hired to patrol at night. The weather here has been really beautiful lately. It has rained overnight but we've had about 5 straight days of blue sky and sunshine with more predicted for the foreseeable future. It was about 18 degrees today. The warm weather makes it more tempting to go swimming but the water temperature has dropped a few degrees this week so my swims are getting shorter all the time. I went on my first hiking trip with the mountaineering club last weekend. It was really, really great to be out in the mountains with like minded people. The mountaineering club does weekly trips where you pay €8 for a bus ride to and from the trailhead. About 60 people went but only 10 of us on the long walk. We hiked about 16km and summited 5 mountains ranging from 450m to 730m (the tallest of the 12 Bens and tallest in county Galway). I was really surprised by the terrain. Much of the distance we covered was bog. I always thought that bog was only in flat low-lying areas but in reality, it covers the entire mountainside and at times, the summit. It made for wet hiking and felt like walking on sponge. At other times, I was surprised with how steep and jagged the scrambling was. I always imagined Irish mountains to be quite soft and gentle. They're not. There are hardly any trees on the mountains here because of the winds. They were the strongest winds I have ever felt! At times, it was blowing so hard that you had to crouch to not be blown over. We had a clear view to the ocean from the top of the first peak but after that point we were in very dense mist. Those conditions bring about a big safety concern; it is very important to stay together as a group because visibility is so poor. All of the land we were hiking on was communal sheep pasture owned by a group of local farmers. There are no cleared or marked trails so navigation is by map and compass and you chooose whatever path looks good. Here are some pictures of my day.

On the way up

View from the first summit (if you look carefully you can see the ocean in the distance)

Summit view

Mist

At the summit of 'Ben Baun'

Almost at the top

The way down - descending out of the clouds

Back at treeline

After about 8 hours of hiking, we were back at the bus and on our way to a small town pub for a pint of beer. I have yet to be converted to Irish beer but the Carlsberg was yummy!

Anyway, that's all my news for now. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! I celebrated by making myself a vegetarian thanksgiving dinner complete with brussel sprouts.

Sorry that I haven't been very quick at replying to e-mails lately. I'm still trying to get the hang of being back in school and juggling studying with everything else. Love Kell