Some observations

Just a few things about Ireland I feel like talking about: walking, fashion, and commercials. I really do love it here, and there are many cultural differences that I find really cool and interesting. Some, of course, are weird, but that comes with the territory. I've only been here for three weeks - I certainly haven't seen much yet, but there are some trends I've been picking up on, and I like you all to feel connected, so I'm going to share.

Coming to Ireland, I knew they drove on the left side of the road, all strange-like. What I didn't realize was that this translates to them walking on the left as well. We do the same thing at home: drive on the right, walk on the right - down the sidewalk, up the stairs, etc. It's a very strange sensation, and even though I try to walk on the left, in solidarity, I always eventually drift back to the right. It feels counterintuitive, especially when on stairwells. Of course, just like in America, you get plenty of people walking wherever the heck they feel like all over the sidewalk, but the general trend is to walk to the left side.

Fashion here looks similar to what you see on American college campuses, albeit with far fewer people wearing sweats (and almost no one in pajamas). One of the biggest looks for girls is a dress or skirt with colored leggings or black tights and boots or flats. You see this look at home too, but most girls here seem to dress like this. For both girls and guys their clothes fit a little closer, or the fit is a little better. They told us this in our preparatory packets, and I shrugged it off, but it really is true! They just look nicer, on the whole. Many of the boys also coif a little more here, with the spiky look being popular. Mike and Ethan find this amusing.

Finally, commercials. Commercials here are weird. They are often rather horrific, or really obnoxious, or mystifying because the commercial had nothing to do with the product (like the commercial for Qatar Airlines, which features the right side of a woman's face smiling enticingly at you as a soothing British male voice says the name of the airline). Commercial breaks occur usually only once or twice during a show, but they're longer, so we have more of them to sit through. I'll give you a few examples of some of our favorite horrifying commercials: in the mouthwash commercial, we are looking down into a sink, and several consecutive spits ask you, in red letters, if you're spitting blood (spit), because that's a sign of gum disease (spit, tooth falls in with a clatter), as is losing teeth. Therefore, you should use their awesome mouthwash. Then, in a commercial about fire safety, a little girl tells you how her daddy loves his car (shows dad locking his car securely in the garage) and her mommy loves her jewelry (mommy locks away her valuables), but she doesn't think they love her (girl in bed, asphyxiating from smoke as a fire burns her house down). Good times.