County Waterford

Just got back last night from our homestay weekend in Waterford. Took about 3 hours to get there. Waterford is down south, right on the water, close to Cork. We got there around 8pm on Friday night and Tricia, our host-mom met us at the bus stop. There were two of us per host family, I was with Anni, who is from Ann Arbor, MI and studying child psychology. The host family, the Summerlys live close to town, so it was only about a 5-7 min ride to their house. They live in a little neighborhood; looks just like London suburbs! The houses are so cute and close together, honestly looked like Privet Drive in Harry Potter. Haha. 

When we got to the house, we meet Patty, Tricia's spouse, and their two kids, Chris, who is 17 and CJ who is 12. They also have an American high school student who has been living with them since September, Maeryn. It was cool to get to hang out with Maeryn and see her perspective of Irish high school and how she liked it here. We had pizza and pancakes for dinner, yummm! Then we had some tea and chatted for a bit. Waterford is apparently the oldest city in Ireland. Anni and I tried to play this game CJ got for Christmas, "Are You Smarter Than a 10 yr Old," same as the American tv show. 

The Summerlys are originally from England, they moved to Waterford about 2 years ago. Patty is a native of Waterford but the kids have mainly lived in England. 

The next morning we woke up late and had a wonderful traditional Irish breakfast; eggs, beans, sausage, hash browns and black and white pudding. It was amazing! Around 1:15 Maeryn walked us downtown to meet the whole group for some sightseeing around Waterford. Waterford was a walled city so we went to Reginald's Tower, one of the remaining towers of the city. It was definitely interesting to learn the history of Waterford but it was really cold and windy. After that tour, we went into town and did some shopping. They had a merry-go-round for Christmas so some of the girls went on that. 

At 4:30 we walked home and had a wonderful wonderful dinner of lamb, yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes and squash. It was delicious! Anni then went out to the pubs with the group and I went to the cinema, as they call it, with CJ. It was fun hanging out with her; I really like spending time with kids. We went and saw the disney movie, "Bedtime Stories" with Adam Sandler and it was actually pretty funny. Patty got chocolate for us to bring to the cinema, which I thought was so sweet of him. 

When we got back from the cinema we just hung out a bit, had a cup of tea and went to bed. Sunday morning we had another traditional Irish breakfast as well as pancakes, bread and nutella. It was so nice to have home cooked meals for the weekend. Ahhh I miss that. CJ did some Irish step dancing for us, she even showed us her wig and beautiful costumes. I really want to find a place in Dublin to learn to Irish dance! It was so sad leaving in the afternoon. I had such a good time hanging out and meeting the family. It was nice to get away from a big city as well. We didn't get a chance to go to the Waterford Crystal factory but Patty gave each Anni and I a beautiful gift of Waterford Crystal! It was so sweet of him! I can't imagine how much it cost....

All in all, it was a lovely weekend, very relaxing. Now back in Dublin, we have to get back to school. I don't have any Monday classes so it was nice to sleep in late today, watch tv and hang out. We still don't really get hot water during the middle of the day so we've been taking really quick very cold showers.