As I am writing this post, my plane is about to take off For China! I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am. I have already met up with many of my classmates from Loyola & we are eagerly awaiting our future adventure in Beijing. Now I have to post this before we take off, so best wishes & more to fellow.

Matt Kugler

After arriving a day later than planned, with a sore back from my backpack and completely exhausted, I am glad to finally report that I am safe and sound in a cute little apartment in Cork, Ireland. My first night in Cork was spent how I am sure many study abroad-ers find themselves once they arrive in their new home country– dazed and confused. Armed with three new friends I had met in the airport, we decided to head out on the town to find something to eat. This all seemed easy enough seeing as it was only 8 o’clock and we were all starving, but as soon as we walked down the road from our apartment, it became clear that we were completely clueless with no real plan on where to go. After walking into two different pubs and being told that they didn’t serve food, 45 minutes of walking later, we finally found a restaurant where we could have a meal. While it had taken us much longer than planned to arrive at a destination, it did give us the opportunity to see some of Cork at night. All of the row houses packed tightly together, leading us down narrow cobblestone streets, to a river near the city center, was the first sample of picturesque Ireland that we were now living in.

University College of Cork is home to over 400 international students this semester alone. This morning, we all sat in a giant auditorium to listen to a number of speakers explain both the academic aspect of school as well as all of the clubs and different opportunities that will be available in the coming semester. All of this information, while extremely overwhelming, was also extremely exciting and I look forward to all of the adventures that this semester will bring to me. But for now, I am in desperate need of a nap and a Guinness.

Cultural side notes:

~Everyone here speaks extremely fast, and a variety of different accents, which is making me feel a lot less alone in the fast talking category.

~If you want to quit smoking, Ireland is the place to go. There is a €3,000 fine if you are caught smoking in a place that is not designated as a smoking area.

~The pub to restaurant to barber shop ratio in Cork is very bizarre. On our night trip to a restaurant, we could barely find one compared to the large number of pubs that did not serve food. As for the barber shops, on our 15 minute walk to the grocery store in the city center, we spotted at least 8 barber shops, we couldn’t even find that many restaurants the night before.

That’s all for now, so as the Irish (used to) say, slán!