Introductions

Today started out pretty well. I got up with the other roommates and we all walked to the Microbiology Department together. There were tea, coffee, and biscuits (cookies) waiting for us when we got there. We got to meet everyone in our program, plus the director Aoife (pronounced EE-FAH) Boyd and other faculty members. I'm going to be working with Sarah, my roommate, in Dr. Martin Cormican's and Dr. Dearbhaile (pronounced DER-BHIL-UH) Morris's lab studying antibiotic resistance genes in E. coli. I'm looking forward to it.

We headed upstairs to a seminar room for more detailed information and introductions. The group looks like a really good one - very diverse. We have six Irish students, 3 of which are from NUIG (Melissa, Conor, and Nicky), 2 from Cork (Ruth and Sarah), and 1 from Trinity in Dublin (Niamh - pronounced NEEVE). There are 4 non-Irish kids too - 2 Americans (Josh and me), 1 Polish girl (Ala), and 1 Estonian girl (Marit). I'm looking forward to getting to know all of them over the next few months. We also made a trip around campus to take pictures for the website, which should be updated soon. (By the way, the link to the program's website is here). From there, we went to the University store to try on lab coats, got bank accounts set up, and registered for the university.

On our lunch break, Josh and I went to buy bikes at a shop near the Cathedral. They cost 120 Euro each, but we get half of it back at the end of the summer when we return the bikes - an excellent deal, especially considering the usefulness of a bike since we are both without vehicles. For lunch we went to the school's canteen. The price wasn't bad, and we got some good food too. I'm sure we'll stop there again.


In the afternoon, we went on a tour of the University and the city with three grad students from NUIG. They showed us the important on-campus sites, as well as the bacteriology building where I'll be spending the summer working - it's a bit off campus, on the hospital's grounds. Sarah and I will have to get up early to find it tomorrow! We walked by the Cathedral and down the banks of the River Corrib to the Spanish Arch. Galway is a really pretty city, actually. And it's very full of life. We headed down into shop street next, where we stopped at a pub and I had my first pint of Guinness - c/o the University. Stuff like that would never happen in the states...but it's pretty cool. The tour ended in Eyre Square, in the center of Galway, and we headed back to Corrib Village. I cooked some pasta for dinner, and pretty much took it easy the rest of the night. It's an early morning tomorrow - first day at work!