Getting Settled

So on January 16th, (yesterday), my mom and I arrived at the Dublin airport at 8:00 am exactly and were greeted by my Aunt Carol and cousin Lillianna shortly after. Then we headed back to New Ross, which is 2 hours away, so it was quite a long journey. It felt so good to be back, everything looked and even smelled the way I remembered it. Once we got back to New Ross, we headed straight to my aunt's house, the same house my grandmother lived in for the last few months until her passing. Then we headed to my new school, Our Lady of Lourdes to meet with the principle. The school has about 365 girls and is very small, with about 15 girls per classroom. The principle talked extremely fast and with her irish accent, it was almost impossible for me to understand her! However I did make out that I will have a certain number of classes each day, and not the same each day. We normal stay in the same room and the teacher comes in to teach us. On Tuesdays we have the day off to work in a field we'd like to pursue and on Fridays we go to a primary school (like elementary school in America) and help out the little ones. Now, I'm going to take a minute to describe a bit about my family and the town I will be staying in. New Ross is a small town with about 8,000 residents. My mom has 5 siblings, which all have children, and then even some of those children have children. My grandmother and grandfather also come from a big family, so you can just imagine the amount of cousins I have. Also, everybody knows everybody. After the school visit, we left to go downtown, where about 10 different people recognized my mother as a Stacey (her maiden name) or just from growing up with her! Can you imagine not knowing some one, and them recognizing you just because they know what the rest of your family looks like? Anyways, we went to a shop where we bought my uniform and p.e. clothes  (see picture). Then headed to a shoe shop to grab some navy AV8s for my uniform, which are like Sperrys topsiders, and a book store called Nolan's for some school supplies. Finally we went to my favorite chipper (or burger joint) called the Penguin, for some chips (fries) with salt and vinegar. Lastly I wrapped up the day by decorating my side of the room, and putting away all of my things, and finally going straight to bed.
Aoife