Here, At Last

Greetings from Cork, finally! It's hard to believe I'm actually here. This trip has been in the making for so very long and now that I'm actually starting to live it, it's just plain weird. And it's not at all what I thought it would be. At least not yet.

I arrived in Ireland early this morning to find it frosted over. As our motorcoach took us through Shannon from the airport to the city of Cork, the rolling verdant fields I had expected to see were covered by a thin glimmering layer of white frost. Something somewhat unheard of for Ireland, or so I have been told today. Though part of me wishes my first sight of Ireland had been the green hills and pastures I had been dreaming of for so long, another part of me is very glad to have seen it frosted over like that. I will get to see this country's green fields but I may never get to see its grass and trees sprinkled with a soft, shimmering, silvery frosting like I saw this morning. No, it was not what I expected. But it was beautiful.

What I saw this morning is also probably a good reminder for myself that things don't always come as they seem. This doesn't necessarily color them bad, just different than we expected. Everyone's heard it before but it's a simple lesson I need to remind myself at times like this.

So far I like Cork. It is a sweet little city with many things that I am eager to explore and become familiar with. Ireland, or what I have seen of it so far, is beautiful. The people here all seem very nice as well. But still, once I put my bags down in what will be my apartment for the next five months today, I felt like I had been slapped in the face. My rooming arrangements had not worked out as I had been planning. Instead of living with a friend of mine, I am living with two girls from Minnesota who although seem very nice, don't particularly seem like the kind of people whom I will be close with. And even in my own group, I feel as though cliques have already been made and though I have gotten to know people a little better traveling with them these past twenty-four hours (feels like so much longer... sleep deprivation will do it to ya...)I'm not sure that I will make the connections I was expecting to make with any of these people. Maybe I am underestimating them, or even myself, and I will become great friends with some of them. Or maybe I just need to look elsewhere for those strong connections I was hoping to delevop abroad. We'll see.

I spent most of my first day here in Ireland wishing I was home, honestly. And though I am still adjusting and think that it might take me a while to fully do so, my own metaphor of the thick frost on Ireland's famous sea of green, shows me that not all expectations are met. But at the same time, maybe those expectations are lofty anyway. Everyone knows about green pastures. But who ever heard of a Irish field of frost? And more so, who ever would have thought it could be breathtaking... or would want to change it?