Day 1- Arrival

I was aware, and expecting change from the norm when I landed in Ireland, but I wasn't expecting it right away, at the airport. The first thing I noticed that was different was we were landing at Dublin, the capital, and main city in Ireland, with a population of nearly 2 million. That is half the population of Ireland, in one city. The thing that was weird, as we were landing, there was nothing, no sky scrapers, no offices, no arenas, nothing. When you fly out of JFK, you see all of New York, the lights, buildings, and things we have come to expect out of a city. Then we jumped over to Shannon airport, which was very small compared to what I was used to, but when I found the leader of the group that was leading us to Limerick, we went out of the main door, and when I turned around, it looked like a garage. There was no fancy sign, doorways, revolving/automatic door, nothing.
The bus finally gets there, and we enter from the driver's side, its not really the driver's side, but to me, and most of you, it will always be the driver's side, the left. That was really weird, then as we drove we went on one street from seeing castles, livestock, barns, and office buildings, all connected by a numerous amount of traffic circles. In my brief experience, there is no division between city, and rural, except for Dublin, I am told.
I got to the house, which is an 8 bedroom house, and was disappointed to find out all of my house mates are American. They are great, interesting people, but I wanted to be surrounded by different people.
After I unpacked I went to sleep because it had been a long day, it is now 7pm local time, and this whole journey started at 3pm, local time, the previous day.
My first trip to a pub was nothing special, yet all I had hoped. I was slightly afraid to branch out this early, so I ordered fried chicken, french fries, and a pint of Budweiser. So I came almost 2500 miles to order an American beer, as an import.
All in all, a great day, and very excited for the next four months.