
This week was the final week of classes for my first quarter in Drexel. My first term has flown here and I look forward to getting a week off classes. The terms over here are a lot longer than in my home institution. As Drexel is a quarterly university, college goes all year round consisting of 10 week quarters each time. In Trinity, it goes by 2 semesters a year, where each term is 12 weeks long.
This weekend I travelled to Chicago for St. Patrick’s Day, which is our national patriotic holiday in Ireland. I travelled there with a group of friends, to meet up with some other friends from back home in Ireland. Chicago is an unbelievable city. The weather there was freezing. It was -10 degrees our first day and it was quite a different experience to our usual St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland, where the weather tends to be a bit warmer. The yearly tradition in Chicago for years has been to dye the river green every year for St. Patrick’s Day. This was a tradition done by the city’s plumbers and one they’ve kept up for years. It really adds to the celebrations and feeling of brotherhood for such a big day celebrating our national heritage. It was nice to experience it in a different city as I already got some of the celebrations for St. Patrick’s weekend in Philly the week before as they celebrate it usually the Saturday before Paddy’s day falls.

I’ve a few exams and assignments coming up over the next few days and after that I will be going to Puerto Rico for my spring break holiday with some of my friends. I’ve travelled to a couple of cities now within the US and I’m really looking forward to going to a different “territory” which Puerto Rico is officially recognised, as it forms part of the Caribbean Islands. I’m really looking forward to getting some warm weather and a few of us plan on doing a skydive and seeing the rainforest outside San Juan. It’s been an unbelievable time in Philly so far and I can’t wait to see what the next term of classes has in store.