Causey Farm and the first full weekend in Dublin!

Thursday was the first day that I was able to sleep in! Yayyy! We had individual meetings set up with Martin to discuss our schedule and the classes that we were signed up for. My meeting was at 1 o’clock, so I slept until about 11. I did a bunch of cleaning that morning, and went to catch up with Martin around 12:45 or so. Unfortunately, his meetings had been running late all morning so I had to wait until about 11:35 to be seen. My schedule was relatively set in stone though, so I didn’t need to move much around! Here it is:

Mondays:

From 1-3, I have Contemporary Politics of Latin America, which is fulfilling my upper level Spanish course

From 4-6, I have Cultural performance and Popular Entertainment, which is taking the place of a Communicaitons major elective

Tuesdays:

From 10-12, I have Media Art and Graphic Design, which is fulfilling my Arts Core requirement

From 2-4, I have Intercultural Communicative Competence, which is filling another CMN elective

Wednesdays:

From 2-5 I have The History and Culture of Modern Ireland/Living & Learning Seminars with Martin and Don.

No class on Thursdays or Fridays and we only have each of these classes once a week! A big change from what I’m used to back at Northeastern. The whole group of us are also not taking any exams at the end of the semester. Here, the exams take place in January, so we have all been signed up for courses that offer a final paper as a final project.

After I was finished sorting out my classes, I went on a Dublin City Bus tour to get a feel for my new home. This was about 2 hours long, and I got some great shots of the city and the places we were visiting! Here are some of them:

St. Patrick's Cathedral!

Now, some of you may have seen my facebook status, but Thursday was also Arthur’s Day, a tribute to the anniversary of the establishment of the Guinness factory and man behind the magic that is Guinness. This was celebrated with a ‘worldwide toast’ at 17:59 (5:59 back home), which was also the year that the factor was established. For this momentous occasion, a bunch of us went into the city to celebrate! The bus ride took a lot longer than expected so we barely made it to a pub on time, but we actually went back to Gogarty’s (where we went the first night here) and each ordered a Guinness to cheers at 17:59. Unfortunately, we didn’t all have our beers at that time, but once we did get our Guinnesses (not sure if that’s the proper plural), we drank to Arthur Guinness and his delicious brew. We stayed at Gogarty’s for a while and then headed to Trinity college, where they have an on campus bar too. It’s called the pavilion and is actually relatively cheap! 4 pint size beer cans for 8 euro! It’s usually 5 euro a beer! We stayed there for a while and met some really cool Irish guys who had graduated that year. They gave us a whole laundry list of places to go and things to see so hopefully we can get to all of them!

We called it a relatively early night. Friday was culture night all across Ireland. We headed into the city to try to catch some street performances down in Temple Bar but we missed most of them by the time we got there! We went to a small, kind of upscale pub on the way into the city center and met a few people there who told us what was up for the night. From there, we headed to Flannery’s a popular place for the college crowd. They had an alcohol promotion going on where if you hula hooped, you got a free Malibu and Cranberry! We stayed there until about 1 or so and took a cab home (since the buses don’t run after 11:30 or so).

Saturday morning, we traveled to Causey Farm, about an hour away from DCU in Kells. It was so so much fun! The day started out by us making traditional Irish soda bread. The bread was cooked for us so that we could have it later in the day, but we mixed all of the ingredients in! From there, we went into a dance hall and learned how to do a traditional Irish step dance kind of thing to music. It was so much fun, and a great way to meet the other International kids who are at DCU! I don’t know how successful I was at perfecting the dance, but it’s the attempt that matters!

Our bread before it went in the oven!

We hopped on a tractor and drove out to the boglands located on the farm. The bogs were really cool and have a lot of importance. A lot of the plants/animals/insects can only survive in a bog environment so you find a lot of species unique to this area. We had an opportunity to walk around in the bog if we wanted to, so naturally, I took of my socks and shoes right away and jumped in! Alex and I were the only two in our group who did it, but it was really fun and I’m glad that I did. Here’s some photos of the two of us ‘bog jumping’:

After the bog, we went back to the dance hall and learned how to play the Bodhran, a traditional Irish drum. It was a pretty successful jam session, I’d say! We took a lunch break at this point and ate the soda bread we had made, which was fresh from the oven! They gave us Irish cheese, preserves and chutney to put on it with a nice steaming cup of tea. It was delicious! Alex and I didn’t eat our whole loaf, so we brought the rest of it home.

Alex and her Bodhram!

Once we were done eating, we headed outside to the field to learn how to play hurling. Mind you, I still have a fractured elbow but I didn’t want to miss out, so I put on my helmet, grabbed a hurler, and just took it easy when it came to learning the ropes. We had relay races, hit the ball back and forth, and even shot on goal! When it was my turn, I scored a point! It seems like an interesting game, similar to lacrosse rules I think but with no net/basket at the end of the stick. After this, we milked a cow! One of my friends tried the milk straight from the udder- not the best tasting thing in the world!

Finally, we went into the area that the sheep were grazing on and watched as one of the staff showed us how his dog herded the animals. We became the pen for the sheep and the dog did all of the work! It’s a really interesting thing to watch in action. After the sheep, we hopped back on the bus for the hour ride home (which I slept through!). Here are some other photos from the farm:

Saturday night was another fun night in Dublin- a few of us took a cab to a local nightclub that we’d been advised to try out, Barcode. The club that we went to was amazing- so so huge and so highly decorated/painted, especially when you're comparing them to the clubs in Boston or Providence. It didn’t' really get too busy until about midnight, but we ended up having a good time overall!

When I got home, I went on Skype and talked to my friend Matt who’s studying in Australia right now. He’s having a great time- I’m jealous of the 80 degree weather! After that, I finally got a chance to Skype with Nick, which I was very very happy about J We talked for about 2 hours or so and then I went to sleep (at around 5 am-yikes!). I slept in Sunday morning and deemed that a relaxing day- went food shopping with a few kids, made dinner, and watched some good ol’ American football on the computer.

I came home around 11:30 or so and sat in the kitchen with my roommate and a few of her friends just chatting about the differences between here and home. It was an interesting conversation overall- really cool to get a look from a different perspective!

Monday was the first day of lectures which went pretty well overall. Kind of intimidating, but not too too bad. We’ll see how it goes, I guess! Monday night we just stayed on campus and met up with Alli’s roommates and went to nuBAR for a bit.

Today I had class at 10 am which was kind of rough, but it’s a graphic design course so it seems really interesting! I really need to start updating this more often and in shorter posts- I’ll work on it!

Cheers!

Welcome to DCU! :-)

Ah! So I’m finally finally hereeee! After waiting months and months, I have finally touched down in Dublin, Ireland.

The past few days have been really busy and disorienting- getting used to jet lag, getting used to campus, getting used to Guinness ( J) and going through Orientations has really filled up my schedule. I’m just gonna give you a brief rundown of the things that have happened so far since I’ve been here:

On Sunday, the 19^th, my mom, sister and I drove to Boston’s Logan Airport. We got there around 4:30 or so, and after checking my bag, waiting in an absurdly long line for security, and saying a tearful goodbye to my mom and Michaela, I was able to meet up with the 2 girls that are travelling with me from Northeastern. I didn’t know either of them beforehand, but we’ve grown closer with a 6 hour plane ride and 3 full days in Dublin. Alex is a middler (3^rd year for those not familiar with NU’s 5 year plan) studying International Affairs. Tricia is a senior who has never been anywhere other than the East coast! What a change for her! We waited just a little while before the plane began to board and passed the time by talking about our backgrounds at school, what we’re looking forward to in Dublin, etc. When we boarded, the three of us were in row 19 (close to the front on a 45+ row plane!) and began to pass the time by playing the games in the headset in front of us. After my unsuccessful attempts at winning a million dollars on “Who wants to be a Millionaire,” I switched to watching some random TV shows from the selection that the plane had. We got served a meal of chicken, veggies, and rice with a small side salad about halfway through the flight and it was surprisingly good.

We landed a little ahead of schedule, at about 5:00am Irish time, and went to get our bags. Walking through the airport with 2 bags, a camera bag and a sling was an ordeal in and of itself, but I made it work J We had to wait until about 7am for Don and Martin (the University officials for the program) to come pick us up in a coach bus. While we were waiting, we met 3 kids from Siena College in NY- Katie, Maggie and TJ. We all loaded our bags, boarded the bus and went to our new home for the next 3 months. After getting settled into our rooms, we went on a short walking tour of the campus with Martin- just something to get ourselves oriented. We didn’t have to do anything until about 1:30 that day, so we were all able to go back to our rooms and take a short nap to make up for the lack of sleep and time change we’d all experienced. Funny enough, when I got to my room, I realized that I had absolutely no way to set myself an alarm clock. My American cellphone wasn’t receiving a satellite signal so the time was not displayed, hence me not being able to set an alarm. My iPod and computer were both dead and not salvageable at that point because I didn’t bring a European converter with me to plug them in to charge. I walked around my new apartment for a little while, exhausted and just wanting to go to sleep, looking for everything and anything that could wake me up in 3 hours time. Riona to the rescue! Riona is one of my roommates- originally from about 40 minutes outside of Dublin, she had gotten up to get herself a waterbottle and ran into me (very Zombie-like) in the hallway. After introducing myself and chatting for a moment, I asked her if she had any kind of alarm that I could borrow. Thankfully, she did and all was well. When that alarm clock went off, all I wanted to do was throw it across the room and go back to sleep. I got up though, got myself ready and went to meet the rest of the group.

With everyone there, Martin took us for a more comprehensive walking tour of the campus, and then lead us about 10 minutes off campus to the local mall. It’s called the OMNI center and it’s much like the Emerald Square mall, just with a grocery store. First thing was first, I needed to buy sheets, towels and other basic necessities to make it through the first few days in my new apartment.  I was also able to purchase a phone here- we all know how technologically reliant I am J I feel like I reverted back to my 7^th grade cellphone/brick. It’s really not that bad though, and the prepaid plan and mobile to mobile package that was included is perfect for the purpose this phone is going to serve. We left the Omni center after about an hour or so and headed back to campus to chill for a little while.

In this time, instead of napping again, I decided to set up my room so that I would be all set that night. Here are some pictures of my room/apartment before and after:

My own bathroom!

hallway of the apartment

And here's my bedroom post-decorating!

That night, I also met my other roommate, a 4^th year boy named Shawn who is originally from about 2 hours west of Dublin. We talked for a bit and then he had to run!

A couple of us had talked earlier in the day about getting dinner together or going out to the city, so around 6 o’clock (1:00pm at home), we ventured to the nearest bus stop and hopped on, paying exact change of 1.60 euro to ride the bus to the city center. We started talking to 2 girls who were on the bus with us and got the low down on some of the city’s hot spots. When we got off of the bus, there was a large crowd gathered outside. Naturally curious, we stopped and joined the throngs of people, wondering what it was all about. Fast forward 3 minutes and an announcer booms “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome star of ‘The Town,’ Ben Affleck!” ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! What are the chances of that even happening? Off of the city bus onto the red carpet?! He walked through the crowd lined, red-carpeted walkway, into the nearest building for the European premiere of The Town- which was released about a week ago in the US.

We stayed for a few minutes, snapped some photos, marveled at our luck and then made our way down the street. Ryan, a kid that I was with, was asking random people what was good, where we should go, what was fun, etc. After a few interviews, we wandered into Temple Bar- the most touristy/young-people-targeted/drunk section of Dublin. We ended up settling on a place called Gogarty’s Irish pub- a three story stucco building vibrating with music. On the bottom floor was a regular bar- full of people drinking and dancing to a local performer’s rendition of Ireland’s most traditional music. We were in the mood for some food too, so we went up to the second floor, where we found a less crowded version of the first floor. Two men were singing and playing traditional Irish music and there were tables to sit down and order bar food. First stop: the bar. I must admit that my first beer in Ireland was not a Guinness (even though my second and third were!), it was actually a Smithwick’s. It was still delicious though! After a few minutes of idling at the bar, we were sat at a table in the corner and ordered some food. I ordered an Irish soup of the day- which actually turned out to be a delicious steaming bowl of White Asparagus soup. Some of the others in the group got the Seafood chowder and Fish and chips- a lovely first meal in Ireland. We stayed there for a little while listening to the Irish music, singing along when we could, and having a good time. We left the city around 9 or so to head back to campus, as we had been invited to nuBAR (one of the on campus bars) by an Irish student we had run into earlier in the day. NuBAR was so much fun! There was a DJ playing music and tons of people in the bar area, on the dance floor, and outside. We stayed there until it closed around midnight and headed back to our rooms to try to catch up on some sleep that we were severely lacking.

The next morning at 9:30, we were to meet for our first official day of Orientation with Martin and Don. We talked about a lot of the logistics of the program, adjusting, the way the week would be set up, etc. and then were free for lunch. Alex and I went to a 7/11-esque type of store that is on campus and got a wrap for lunch. Delicious and relatively cheap too! We met back up with the rest of the group at 1:30 when we all got on the city bus together and travelled to the city center. We met at Trinity College, where Martin and Don split the group and took us on walking tours of the main roads in the city. I’ve got some pictures of this walk for you too!

Trinity college

First leprechaun!

River Liffey

Millenium monument (or something like that)

The city really reminds me of Boston, surprisingly. While no buildings exceed 4 or 5 stories, there is a similar atmosphere here. We walked around with Martin for about an hour on the walking tour, and then split off on our own to grab a few things, get some coffee/a milkshake, and explore at our own pace. At around 5:30, we hopped back on the bus to campus. We also had decided to make food as a group that night, and about 10-15 people were going to come over to my apartment to cook. So, a group of us went to Omni again and picked up some pasta, sauce, salad, frozen pizza, and alcohol. The pasta and sauce was simple, but delicious! In the mix of things, my other roommate who had already moved in joined the party and brought some of his friends. His name is Kosuke and he is from Japan. He’s really fun and actually ended up coming out with us later!

From some new acquaintances on campus, we heard that there was a toga/paint party being held at nuBAR that night. Well- we were all for it! Instead of togas though, we just dressed in white Ts and headed to nuBAR for the party. Outside, a student group had set up cups of different colored paint, and Alex and I joined the line to wait for our turn to stick our hands in the cups and get messy. By the end of the night, we both looked like a mural of Green, Orange, Red and Purple paint. NuBAR closed at 12, so all paint covered; we headed to a friend’s place off campus to keep on goin’. The off campus apartments are much like the ones we live in at DCU, but are not owned by the University. There were quads in the middle of big apartment complexes though and we were able to meet a lot of different people throughout the night by walking through the quads and into apartments that were having parties. We actually met a few really cool kids from Ireland, who we agreed to cook an American dinner for (in exchange for an Irish breakfast!).

I got home around 2am or so, took a shower to get the paint off, and went to bed. Orientation at 9:30 AM again! Today we talked mostly about our classes and timetables, but that will be finalized tomorrow & we’ll see what I’m officially taking.

We’re having another dinner party here tonight with a bunch of people so I’m looking forward to it. We’re going to go into the city center tonight too- you’ll hear about that another time! J

Cheers!