It didn't take long for Ireland to prove a wholly different country for Gretchen Elder.

The 16-year-old Edgecomb native, daughter of Monica and Rick Elder and Boothbay Region High School sophomore, only had to be asked “What's up?” to know she wasn't on the peninsula anymore.

“A funny (experience) that sticks out to me is the first time I heard someone ask “What’s the craic?” Elder wrote in an email. “Craic is pronounced like ‘crack,’ so you probably know where my mind went immediately. I was just sitting there, thinking ‘What?’ I had to ask what it meant.

“Over here that means ‘What’s up, what have you been doing?’ and ‘craic’ itself means fun. So you could do something for the craic.”

Elder has been living in Mullagh in County Clare, Ireland with a host family, and attending St. Joseph's Secondary School in Miltown Malbay for the past semester. Elder has been studying and blogging through Council on International Educational Exchange, and discovering and growing in a new country.

Before she set out almost 3,000 miles away, Gretchen said she wasn't exactly sure what to expect. She would be in a place where English was the main language, unlike some other students participating in CIEE trips in Spain and Japan.

“I was trying my best to keep an open mind to everything. I knew, or at least I realized, that if I tried to control how things were going it wouldn’t be real, wouldn’t be a real life,” she said. “So I just tried to let things happen as they did and make the best of every situation.”

As part of her leasing out control, Elder said she wanted to become more outgoing; to meet new people and push herself socially, in addition to academically.

“I have definitely become a more confident person, and stopped caring as much about what people think of me,” she said. “I am trying to focus on making myself and the people closest to me happy, because that's what really matters. I feel like I have become a stronger person in general. And I have made some friends and met a ton of new people.”

But, that's not to say her trip hasn't been without its own unique challenges. For instance, foods common in the United States aren't so easily found across the Atlantic ocean.

“Currently I am really noticing how much the U.S. really is a ‘melting pot’,” Elder said. “We get influence from so many different cultures, while Ireland doesn’t have as much.”

That difference has lead to several observations, Elder said; one being how Americans tend to pronounce foreign words and embrace foreign food.

“Some examples of this are how we say fillet, with a silent 't' like the French word, while in Ireland they pronounce the 't',” she said. “Then the influence of Spanish culture is huge, I now realize. I said I was wanting some chips and salsa to someone the other day and they asked seriously what salsa was.

“And common foods like tacos or quesadillas aren’t really a thing here.”

In addition to differences in language and food, the Irish school system is a bit different as well, Elder said.

While some courses don't offer up the challenge her classes at BRHS do, others classes, such as math, are taught differently and can prove difficult. Not only that, but school books and the use of her locker, which are free stateside, come with a price tag on the Emerald Isle. She also had to pay for her school uniform from money saved from her summer job as a clerk at Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library.

While she said she misses her family, her friends and her dog the most, Elder said she expected to miss them all. It was several small things she didn't expect to miss that have stood out the most.

“The food is another big thing I miss ... Some things they have over here, but others not,” she said. “And then randomly, the prices of things. We (especially teenagers) grumble when we have to shell out more than $20 for something, and so often I have found that things are 20 euros (making it around $27ish) for the same thing.”

When Elder returns June 7, she said she will again go through the pangs of missing friends and family, albeit from the other side of the ocean. But, it won't just be the people she will miss, Elder said.

“Smaller things I will miss are seeing the cows and fields, walking down to the bus in the mornings, seeing the beach directly out the window at school,” she said. “And, most surprisingly, my school uniform, which I have actually grown to really like.”

But, she said she will take a great deal more with her.

“I think the biggest thing is that where you live really does shape who you are,” she said. “I have now lived the life of a teen in the U.S. and a teen in Ireland, and since coming over I have adapted myself a bit, to fit the culture.”