Blogging?

Hey hey to my many readers! As you know, or should know if you're reading this, I'm going to Ireland in 83 days! To prepare myself, every post will be timestamped as if I were in Dublin. I think it's cool. I also think it's visual tour time! I'll be attending the National University of Ireland in Maynooth.

(I google searched Maynooth, Ireland and this came up. I'm pretty pumped.)

Maynooth is located in the county Kildare.














I'm pretty sure this is a picture of where I'll be staying on campus; The River Apartments














Now that you're all visually stimulated, how about some Q&A?!

Q: Why a blog?
A: The main reason for this is so I can keep my family and friends in the US and abroad (Hey Italy/Spain girls!) up to date with what I'm doing. I figure I'll be able to upload some awesome pictures (see above) and periodically let my family know I'm still alive and well if I can't get in touch with them through other means. I will be keeping an actual journal while in Ireland, but that is for my eyes so I also want to keep one I can share with others.

Q: Why so early?
A: I decided to start my blog now so I can look back and read about my anticipation, questions, concerns, etc. and see how all those feelings match up with my actual experience.

S(tatement): Your title confuses me.
A: The title, for those of you who don't know, is a line from a John Mayer song called "3x5," which makes a cameo in my "About Me" section. It is my favorite John Mayer song and I can really relate to it since: 1) I go to school in Indiana, thus am away from home a good majority of the year. 2) I work down the shore all summer and again, am away from home. Plus, this past summer I sent postcards (3x5's!!!!!) to a bunch of friends from school 3) I'M GOING TO IRELAND which means, you guessed it, I am away from home.

Now that's done let's get to the meat and potatoes:

My good friend Kelly, who will be with me in Ireland, and I went to talk to the head of the Ireland Program about my classes while abroad. After leaving her office we were overcome with excitement. We talked and skipped (I'm serious. We skipped.) all the way to the student center where we hijacked a computer, wrote down all the European countries, and talked about where we were going to visit. I think now is as good a time as any to publish this list so I can look back in June and see if I was able to visit all of these places!

The places I want to visit before I leave Europe (in no particular order):
Norway
Russia
Lithuania (My people!)
England
Netherlands
Belgium (Waffles? Yes please!)
Germany (My People!)
France
Italy
Greece
Spain
Poland
Austria
Romania
Scotland
Switzerland
Portugal
Turkey

Just so we're all on the same page, I would be more than fine to travel ANYWHERE in Europe, but this is my "A-Team."

B-Team:
Denmark
Crete
Czech Republic

So that's a lot of countries but I'm optimistic and will be in Europe from January 27th-June 6th. Who knows what can happen!? You'll know when I do.