Wednesday
So it was my first weekend in Dublin and it was amazing! When I first got here, it was a bit difficult to get through the airport because everything is in Gaelic with really tiny, hard to see English underneath. But we managed. After getting in the wrong line for passport stamps, of course ha. There were five other kids on our flight with us, but we didn't even see them till we all met up outside baggage claim.
Speaking of the flight. It didn't seem long at all. It ended up only being five and a half hours, instead of the original seven that I thought it would be. The in-flight entertain was nice too. I watched Scream 4. Luckily I didn't jump too much on the plane. We got free dinner. I had meat ravioli and Liz had some weird chicken and rice thing. It wasn't half bad. Then I listened to all the Glee soundtracks and slept for a bit. Talked to the flight attendant about living here for the next four months and then played Who Wants To Be A Millionaire for the rest of the flight. I didn't feel tired at all surprisingly.
Thursday
Then all seven of us got on a coach bus and were taken to Blackhall, where we're living. Originally Liz and I were in a three-bedroom with a European roommate, but when we got here, we were told we're in a five-bedroom with two Americans and a European. Luckily I got the double bedroom, which means I get two desks, two beds, two shelves, and two dressers. I pushed the beds together to make somewhere between a king and queen :) Princess bed? Maybe. They mattresses are actually really comfortable. Shout out to Alyssa Taylor, they're the same kind of mattresses that you got when I went shopping with you.
Later that day, we had housing orientation and a nice little tour of the immediate surrounding area. And things that we might need to get to that day, like food and paper products. Pubs. They have Aldi here, which apparently that have back in the States, and it's super cheap. I got enough food for a week there and it was only twenty euro. And then we went to a pedestrianized market street called Henry Street and I got a cell phone. It was a rip off, but it was the cheapest thing they had and it's the same phone all the other American students have, so that'll be a fun game of who's phone is this? Then we all went back to our flats and crashed. I think I slept for thirteen hours.
Friday
What was not included in our housing orientation tour was how to get to school. They did give us a nice, big tourist map of Dublin and show us on it where school was, but that was about it. We needed to be there for registration by 10am and they said it was only a twenty-five minute walk. Liz and I left at 9am and got there at 10am -_- I'm sure it is a twenty-five minute walk when you know where you're going though. Oh, also, all our roommate are in a different program then us, so we couldn't walk with them because they needed to be there at 9am and we weren't getting up that early. But anyway, so we finally got to the school and did the whole orientation thing, got our ID's and free lunch and another tour of where the other school building are. It's not a campus. The buildings (five of them) are kind of stuck in random spots in center city. It's not so bad though.
After that, FIE (the other program) kids had another couple hours of orientation, so Liz, Melissa (a new friend) and I went exploring. We went to Trinity College and St. Peter's Green and pretty much just got really lost. But getting lost here isn't bad at all. There's a river that separates the city into North Side and South Side. I live on North Side and school's on South Side. Along with Temple Bar area and everything else. So when you get lost, just find the river and it's easy to find home from there.
Saturday
Somehow, I didn't wake up till about 3pm. I didn't even go out the night before haha. I'd blame it on jet lag, but we traveled East sooooo yah. When I woke up, Liz and I went to Aldi's, which I mentioned earlier, and got food. Then when we got back, everyone came up to our flat and had spaghetti dinner. It was a good time. And then everyone came up and started drinking. It's weird playing pong with people from all across the States. So many different rules haha. No one from out west knows "Island" and if they do, it's called "Lone Ranger" .. Yeah. So even with just the American students, I'm learning culture :P After a while, we went to one of the pubs across the street called Mulligans. I had a pint of Bulmers, which is the Woodchuck of Ireland. So good. A few people here actually know what Woodchuck is, which is exciting haha. Around midnight, it was last call there, so we left there and started heading towards Temple Bar area. On the way we stopped in some pub with a live band. They were pretty fun, but then some weird, old Irish guy started singing to me and I left. We went to a pub called The Quay's (pronounced keys) which was jammed. But there was also a live band, which was pretty good. All the bands just play covers of American songs though. After The Quay's, we went to The Temple Bar, which was creeper central. I had my first pint of Guinness there though. Much thicker here than in the States. I don't know how I feel about it. And I don't know how people drink more than one of those. They're so filling. Two of my friends, Jack and Zach, are seeing who can take the most pub glasses, and I may join in. Mom would hate that. But I did take my Guinness glass though. Well, Jack took it for me. I don't know if it's like this back home, because I'm not bar-able back home, but each drink has it's own glass with it's name and logo on it. So this ought to be a fun game. But after they closed and kicked us out, there was a Papa John's conveniently located next door. Of course I had to get Papa John's. They didn't give us garlic sauce though. They gave us Ranch. Which wasn't bad, only because well.. yeah. But normally I don't like Ranch at all. But after that, we just found the river and found home. It was a good night.
So for the long post haha. But, if you'd like, here's a tour of my flat.
-Sara
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