Adventures in Dublin, including Alcohol and the Epic Scavenger Hunt

There is an inn, a merry old inn

beneath an old grey hill,

And there they brew a beer so brown

That the Man in the Moon himself came down

one night to drink his fill.

The Man in the Moon was drinking deep,

and the cat began to wail;

A dish and a spoon on the table danced,

The cow in the garden madly pranced,

and the little dog chased his tail.

Then the ostler said to his tipsy cat:

"The white horses of the Moon,

They neigh and champ their silver bits;

But their master's been and drowned his wits,

and the Sun'll be rising soon!"

So the cat on his fiddle played hey-diddle-diddle,

a jig that would wake the dead:

He squeaked and sawed and quickened the tune,

While the landlord shook the Man in the Moon:

"It's after three!" he said.

With a ping and a pong the fiddle-strings broke!

the cow jumped over the Moon,

And the little dog laughed to see such fun,

And the Saturday dish went off at a run

with the silver Sunday spoon.

The round Moon rolled behind the hill

as the Sun raised up her head.

She hardly believed her fiery eyes;

For though it was day, to her surprise

they all went back to bed!

Selected stanzas from The Fellowship of the Ring Book 1, Chapter 'At the Sign of the Prancing Pony'.

Hello everyone!  Since this may be one of the few times I talk about alcohol, I thought I would include one of my favorite drinking songs, sung by Frodo and made up by Bilbo.  I haven't found an opportunity to sing it yet, but I'm keeping my eye out.  Just kidding.  I don't have it memorized (but maybe I should, so I can bust it out if I ever have the opportunity!).  Go online or pick up the book and read the whole thing if you have time: this is just 6 of the 13 stanzas.

So, I have a lot of things that I want to wright about, but I've been getting backed up.  This post will include a few things that are more or less unconnected, but all very amazing and/or relevant, in my opinion.  If you want to read it in chunks, there are three parts: two long parts sandwiching a short part.

First, I will address the subject most connected to the opening poem: alcohol.  I am in Dublin.  There is a lot of alcohol.  And this is how I feel about it.

I recognize that alcohol can be used in a very pleasant and appropriate manner, and that people can enjoy themselves in a good way while drinking.  I recognize that it is an important part of many cultures (especially the one here), and that this is not necessarily a bad thing.  I don't think it's wrong for people to drink, and in the right context I'm sure drinking is lovely.  However, I have made it my policy not to drink while I'm over here.  I don't mind tasting other people's drinks: in fact, I'm happy to do so, and want to do so, as part of an "educational process" of sorts.  Nevertheless, I'm not going to be buying, or letting anyone else buy for me, whole drinks.  I don't like drinking myself, partly because of the taste, and partly because I don't see any point in compromising my judgement or my sanity in any way, even if just a little bit, by drinking.  I like to be able to act in an appropriate manner and make smart decisions, thank you.  And drinks also cost money, and if I don't like it in the first place, why spend the money?

The drinking culture here is pretty interesting.  The college kids are perhaps even crazier than they are in the states, but in a different way.  For American students, a lot of the point of drinking is to get yourself waisted (apparently, according to other American students).  Here, the point seems to be to keep drinking for as long as you possibly can.  Both seem very silly to me.  Pubs are of course a big thing in Ireland, and they are completely different than the drinking atmosphere that I'm used to.  I much prefer pubs to college drinking parties.  I went to a pub a while back, the first week we came to Dublin.  It was really a pretty neat experience.  It was called O'Donehughes, I think, and it consisted of a main building and bar, a covered alleyway, and a little room across the alley from the main building.  The place was full of mature, adult people, not crazy college kids trying to get wasted and making a scene.  People were just talking, having a good time, enjoying the craic (which is pronounced "crack" but has nothing to do with drugs, it just means basically having fun and enjoying conversation, kind of hitting a sweet spot of social interaction).  People aren't allowed to smoke inside buildings in Ireland, but people were smoking in the covered alley, and the smoke floated into the rooms, creating that classic hazy atmosphere.  We hung out in the little room across the alley, where there was a small bar, some tables, a toasty fireplace, and a TV.  On the TV was... rugby!  

I had never seen rugby before, and I have to say:  I feel like American football is pretty boring and kind of wimpy compared to rugby.  Not that I like watching people playing violent games, but... I mean, these rugby people are getting in groups and slamming headfirst into each other, lifting their teammates into the air in attempts to try to catch the ball before the other team, tackling each other mercilessly, and all without any protection from pads!  Bloody noses left and right!  Not that I think people should get hurt in sports, but I mean, if you're comparing toughness, come on, seriously.  There's not much of a comparison between football and rugby, in my opinion.  And in rugby, there's none of this "let's stop every 20 seconds and have an ickle rest and talk to our special coaches and have them pick some little strategies for our next 20 seconds of doing something."  No, these guys not only need strength, they need endurance too!  And they think for themselves, making decisions as they play.  Not that football players don't, but if you play for ten minutes at a time without any coaching advice, you just have so much more opportunity to make personal decisions.  I give a special shout-out to Meredith, you tough rugby-player you.  I do think it would be hard to watch someone I know play rugby though, because of how easy it is to get hurt.  Which is not good, don't get me wrong.  Still, I really enjoyed watching that game. 

Not only that, the most awesome Irish thing happened while we were in the pub: spontaneous music playing!  It was so amazing, so truly Irish.  These two guys start playing instruments, one singing and playing the guitar, and one switching between a tiny pipe-thing and what looked like a banjo, but it wasn't played at all like they play them in the states.  It was beautiful, and with such great Irish style.  Just an amazing experience.  I had been hoping to see it happen while I was here, and, there you go, happen it did.  And they weren't asking for money, weren't paid by the pub or anything.  Just sitting at their table, sipping their pints between songs, playing for the craic.  I'm sad that the pictures aren't better, but this is what I could get in the dark.

The alleyway outside our little room:

Friends!  Me and Kaitlyn:

Kaitlyn, Melissa, Allison, and Stacey:

Andrew, Ryan, and Ashley:

My personal experience with alcohol is such:  At the urging of my mother (hi Mom, I love you!) I tried red wine sometime last fall.  Absolutely the most disgusting thing I've ever tasted.  Positively gross.  It tastes like something from the chemistry lab that you should not ever drink, lest it will consume you in an evil chemical reaction from your intestines outward.  How could anyone even stomach the stuff?  It was a little disappointing, I guess:  I felt like I didn't have very "mature" tastes.  However, I have since had a sip of white wine.  This was much better. It tasted like something you were supposed to drink that had been mixed with something from the chemistry lab, instead of just straight chem lab.  Still, not very... delicious.  I understood how it was possible to drink it, though.  On the night we went to this pub, I tried a sip of Allison's cider, and also Kaitlyn's cider, which were apparently different.  These were much better.  They tasted like someone had accidently filled a glass with a drink that had been previously used to hold something from chem lab.  I still didn't particularly like it, but the taste was much more redeeming, and I could kind of understand why people might be able enjoy drinking it.  I have yet to try Guinness, but I'm planning on doing so before I leave.

Okay, on to subject two:  my general health, which is a bit of a drama.  So, we've been doing a lot of walking here.  A lot.  Makes sense.  We have no cars.  There's nowhere to park them even if we did, and you don't need a car, you have busses!  But there's still a lot of walking, and my left knee has been rather upset with me.  I've always had bad knees, and my left knee has bothered me before, in high school when I was still dancing.  Here, it's been especially unhappy.  It really hurts when I go down stairs, unless I do a little skip-hop that doesn't bend it.  So, rather sad.  I got a stretchy slip-on brace that helps, but I haven't been able to wear it for a week because...

I got scabies!  At least I think it's scabies.  It's very similar to the scabies I had after I went to the Dominican Republic two summers ago.  Little itchy bumps that pop up in random places all over your body, caused by an allergic reaction to a mite that lives by burrowing under your skin.  Not very pleasant.  They can really itch.  I had them especially badly on my wrists and hands, on the top of my feet, my right shin, my elbows, and other places on my arms.  I also got them under my eyebrows (not in my eyebrows, but below them, like near my eyelid).  Those little buggers.  Luckily, the cream used to treat it is over the counter here (it's prescription in the states, but hey, you've gotta love Ireland), and so I tried to perform an extermination last Sunday.  Saturday night, I washed all my sheets, including my duvet and mattress pad, then put the cream on, then went to sleep.  Sunday morning I got up, took a shower, washed all my sheets again, and also washed my clothes, my purse, wallet, backpack, slippers, camera case, and anything cloth that could be washed, I washed.  The cloth things that couldn't be washed (including my brace, which is rubbery and would melt in the dryer, which is the part that kills the scabies; and my wool coat, and all my scarves) in a plastic bag to be quarantined for two weeks.  I put plastic wrap over my computer keyboard and Bible, and cleaned my phone and my pens with disinfectant.

It didn't work.

I'm still getting spots here and there, though I don't have a total infestation like I did before.  I spot-treat the spots with the cream, but that doesn't guarantee you kill the little mites, because you could just be having a reaction to their droppings, and the mite could have moved on.  So, the plan is to buy more cream and try again when I'm motivated enough to go through the effort.  In the mean time, I'm developing a little love-hate relationship with the things.  The mites are kind of like my buddies, hanging out with me all the time.  I've just accepted it.  For now at least.  So no feeling bad or being worried (Mom); it's really not that bad, and I'm sure I'll get rid of it at some point.

Okay, topic three: epic scavenger hunt!!!

So, two weeks ago on Sunday, all the Notre Dame students gathered at our base here in Dublin, the O'Connell House, for a very special mission:  race throughout Dublin for two hours, and take pictures of, or collect, as many things as you can from a provided list.  The winning team would receive a mystery prize, which we were told was very good.  We figured it would be something kind of lame, but whatever, the point is to have fun.  We were split up into teams of seven, and I think there were five teams total.  The list was daunting.  It was long.  Here is a sample of some of the 40 or so items, which were worth between 10 and 50 points, with one 600 point item:

A picture of:

A giraffe, more points for each person imitating the giraffe

Someone holding a python (50 points)

A rabbit

A person with a mohawk or mullet

A picture of someone in your group wearing a yellow high visibility vest.  More points for each worker also wearing a vest in the picture.

A picture of your gruop with a priest

A picture of your group with a rabbi (50 points)

A picture of someone eating a shwarma

Also: by spire of Dublin, on train, at #10 bus stops (10 points for each stop), someone wearing something from Abercrombie, someone wearing Notre Dame stuff, someone wearing something Notre Dame, the team doing a pyramid under Traitor's Arch, standing by various statues, etc.

Bring Back:

Mein Kampf in German

An international stamp

A $2 bill, and a 100 euro bill

The cheapest thing you can buy

The devil man from Grafton Street (600 points)

A bag from (some fancy store that I can't remember)

So, suddenly we were off, and the epic hunt began!

Some groups were really serious.  Like my group.  We were really into it.  Someone on our team even wore jogging clothes.  Some groups were not into it at all:  they spent the time hanging out in a pub, although we didn't know this at the time.  Near the beginning of our journey, Patrick (the person wearing the jogging clothes) mentioned that it was the feast day of St. Anthony, the patron saint of finding things.      He said a quick prayer to the saint out loud.  At the time we were looking for a rabbit in a park.  We didn't end up seeing a rabbit, but Patrick assured me that we would, even if we didn't find it right away.

I was the designated camera person, since I was the one who brought my camera.  Luckily someone had a friend who was visiting her and tagging along named Emily, so Emily could take all the pictures of us when we needed the whole team in the picture.  Some things, we had no idea what they were (like the shwarma and the devil man), and no one else seemed to know what they were either.  I started to think that our organizers had made up the shwarma and the devil man, just to make us look like stupid Americans, asking people for all these nonsense things.  We had better luck with other things, though:  we found the fancy store, and we also found some candy for 25 euro cent.  I spotted toy giraffes in a shop window and shouted "Giraffe!  Giraffe!  Giraffe!" really loud, and jumped up and down and pointed.  We saw a little toddler wearing a Notre Dame jacket, but a guy in our group who asked to take a picture of the little boy freaked out the little boy's dad, and they ran away.  The guy then declared the policy that from that point on, the girls were going to have to ask for things, not the guys.  It worked for the worker wearing the high-visibility vest:  he seemed more than happy to talk to the pretty American girl who asked if she could wear his vest for a moment.  (creeeeeper, eew)  We found a girl who was wearing an Abercrombie shirt, who had already been harassed by at least two other groups for her picture (poor girl, she seemed pretty peeved.  Wrong day to wear that shirt).  Here's some highlights of what I've talked about so far.   Unfortunately, partly because we were in such a rush, partly because I don't think Emily knew how to use my camera, a lot of the pictures are blurry.

At one of many #10 bus stops: Me, Molly, Kayla, Anna-Patrice, Tim, Patrick (note the Adidas pants, though it's hard to see), and John

Picture with creepy worker:

Poor girl wearing Abercrombie shirt:

Picture with "The Hags with the Bags" as they are commonly called.  I have no idea who they are.  We got extra points for everyone in the picture who was imitating the women:

Giraffes!  Giraffes!  Giraffes!

Everywhere we went, we asked were to find a pet store.  We really wanted a picture with a python, because it was worth so many points.  And then, finally, near the end of our journey:

We walked into this little pet store, and there was a lady who worked there, standing right at the front, holding this snake!  We asked her if it was a python, and it was!  John got the honor of holding it.  Unfortunately, I took the picture while he was talking.  We were in a rush.  Like I said.

Then at the back of the pet store:

Rabbits!  Had Patrick's prayer to St. Anthony paid off?

As we were walking back down O'Connell Street, back to the house, we passed a statue of a priest.

Then, we passed a little statue of Jesus in a clear plastic box.  And I had an idea...

What is Jesus called in the Bible sometimes?

Rabbi.

I told everyone my idea, and they were all in:

I thought to myself: "They can't say no.  It's in the Bible!"  Everyone agreed.  Still, I was nervous that they wouldn't accept it.  50 points is a lot of points to lose.

We made it back to the O'Connell house, a backpack full of random things, and a camera full of random, mostly blurry pictures.  We waited our turn, then walked into a very fancy and serious-looking room, and presented our collection to the judges, the staff of the O'Connell House.

After the other team members had left the room, I went up to our program coordinator, Joe, who would be giving us points for our pictures.  I told him,

"Okay.  Our picture of a rabbi... is Jesus."

He gave me a skeptical look.  "I don't know about that one..."

"It's in the Bible!" I cried.  "You can't say no to the Bible!"

"I'll consider it, I'll consider it," he said.  But he did not sound convinced.  I decided that more convincing was needed.

While another group was meeting with the judges, I borrowed Patrick's Bible and looked under the index for Rabbi.  Not only did I find a verse of a man calling Jesus Rabbi:  Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, "What do you want?" They said, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?" (John 1:38).  But I also found this verse, said by Jesus himself:  "But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Teacher and you are all brothers" (Matt 23:8).  So I went back in to our coordinator, Bible in hand, verses marked with sticky notes, heart pounding, and said,

"Here's a verse where Jesus is called Rabbi."  I pointed to the verse in John.

Then I flipped to the Matthew verse.  "Look at this one,"  I said.  After reading it out loud, I said,  "So, according to the Bible, as Christians we aren't allowed to call anyone else Rabbi except Jesus!  It wouldn't be right to get a picture with a real Rabbi!"

"We'll see," Joe replied, seeming impatient.  I left quickly, hoping I hadn't annoyed him and made our case worse.

That evening, we went to a dinner at our main professor's house, Kevin Whelan.  He had a delicious meal catered for us, and we had mass crowded into his living room, at which I did a reading from Corinthians about how we all have different gifts.  After dinner (and dessert, mmm) was over, Joe asked for quiet from everyone, and began to read the results from our scavenger hunt.

The two groups in last place had both gone to pubs to hang out, and hadn't tried very hard.  Still, they both got over 100 points.  There were only three places left.  I began to hold my breath.

The next group had over 500 points.  I was impressed.  Joe read the group's name, and I held my breath: He hadn't called our group!  That meant we had a chance!

"Runner up," said Joe, and read how many points they had.  Their total was only five points more than the last one.  Was it us?  Joe read the name...  No!  And that meant...

"In first place, with (something around the order of 580 points) is Anna-Patrice's group!"  Joe cried.

We had won!  We had won!  And only by a margin of 20 points.  I couldn't believe it.  It turns out Joe had given us the points for the Rabbi/Jesus picture, which took us from third to first place.  I was so excited!  Was it all due to Patrick's prayer to St. Anthony?  I don't believe in the power of praying to saints, but it was pretty hard to say that it hadn't helped: the win certainly seemed pretty miraculous.  I at least admitted to Patrick that our win was certainly providential and a blessing from God.  It was a great feeling, winning something like that.  It doesn't happen every day.

And the prize?

120 euro to spend at Milano, a nice pizza restaurant.  Perfect for Americans craving food from home.  The next week, when we went out, I ordered a beautiful cheese pizza (the cheapest one on the menu) and got a Chocolate Glory dessert, which consisted of vanilla ice cream drizzled heavily with chocolate syrup, with brownie bits sprinkled on top.  And they take chocolate syrup seriously over here, let me tell you.  Richest chocolate syrup I've ever tasted.  Sooooo good...  now I'm hungry.

That is my epic story.  Thanks for hanging in there for so long.  I had a lot of catching up to do.  Next time:  my trip from last weekend, to the town of Howth.

Room, Roommates, and School

Unless the LORD builds the house,
       its builders labor in vain.
       Unless the LORD watches over the city,
       the watchmen stand guard in vain.
                    Psalms 127:1

Over the next few days after arriving, I got settled into my new room, met my roommates, and went through University College Dublin orientation.  This is really a pretty nice place, especially when it’s sunny and the sky is blue, which does occur every few days.  See, I took a picture to prove it!

The accommodations are extremely nice.  I have my own room and bathroom, and I share a kitchen/living room area with five other girls.  The dorms are co-ed by suite (gasp!  Notre Dame would be horrified).  Here are some pictures of my room…
The bathroom is rather strange.  It technically has a shower, but it’s really just a shower head sticking out of the ceiling, a mildewy curtain, and a drain in the bathroom floor.  It’s not sectioned off at all, and the water pressure is fairly non-existent.  Taking a shower is quite a skill.  Pictures below are of my room, my dorm building, and the view out my window of some quite beautiful and noisy construction.

My roommates are: Allison, who is one of my good friends from Notre Dame; De and Kelsey from Australia, and Anne-Ceceil and Marie-Meige from France.  We all get along pretty well so far.  Kelsey and De are fairly horrified by the weather, find it amusing when we eat things involving peanut butter, and use shortened words, like “uni” for “university.”  Allison and I feel fairly out-matched when it comes to cooking (though mostly we cook for ourselves).  The other girls cook more at home, since they don’t live in dorms and eat in a dining hall for all their meals.  Here’s a picture of most of us at a pub (Marie-Meige hadn’t arrived yet).

University College Dublin is a campus with a lot of concrete, but also a lot of very nice plants.  They have plants growing in their pots even in the midst of January, and they grow whole gardens, complete with trees, in patches of dirt inside the buildings.  The sculptures, such as the mysterious egg, are also pretty neat, much better than Notre Dame's odd piles of "modern art" scrap metal that they pile around the quads.  The picture below looks like a little zen garden, but it’s not little at all: that big rock is probably longer than I am!  I took the picture from a ways above the garden.

There’s also a “lake” (really just a big fountain) in the middle of campus.  It has lots of seagulls and ducks, and a family of swans.  It’s a very bird-friendly place, as there’s a little island in the middle of the lake, just so the birds can have a place to hang out.  The swans are my new friends.  They like me a lot, and even followed me as I walked along the lake’s edge.  The mother swan will eat grass out of your hand.




My classes are fairly normal.  The lecture halls here are steep: it takes a little getting used to.  The professors don’t necessarily encourage you to buy books, but you can check them out from the library.  They also sometimes don’t encourage you to take notes, but provide the notes online and just ask you to “listen.”  There is also a lot of students who smoke here, much more than I am used to.  People aren’t allowed to smoke indoors, but they can smoke as close to the door as they want, so smoke still gets in sometimes.  Also, they have little colored lines on the floors to tell you how to get to your classroom.  They're very useful, if you start at the main entrance where the labels are.

One odd consequence about cars driving on the left side of the road is that I’m never sure which side of the sidewalk I’m supposed to be walking on.  I’ve been trying to train my body to dart left every time I’m confronted with a passing person, and it’s been quite difficult, especially since Irish people sometimes aren’t consistent about which side they will pass you on.  I had one frightening encounter with a bike as I was walking to class.  I looked up, and the bike was streaming towards me at full speed.  I quickly darted to the left, and the bike made a slight turn and flew past on my right.  If I hadn’t gone to the left, though, I would have been toast.  It was a good thing I had been thinking about it so much.

That is the story of my basic living situation.  Maybe next time I’ll write about some more adventurous things.

First Impressions of the City

I know it’s been a while since I posted, but we’ve been kept busy!  I’ll start from where I left off last time.  Bear with me, this post will be long, but there’s a lot of catching up to do, so here we go!

The road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

So, there we were in Ireland, our journey just beginning, sitting on a plane with instrumental Christmas music playing in the background.  It was very exciting.

When we arrived at our gate, we didn’t pull up to a terminal like you would in the states.  Instead, the plane just pulled up close to a building, some stairs were pushed up to the plane's door, and we were let off onto the tarmac.  It made me think of those news videos of presidents and world leaders getting off the plane for a visit to a foreign nation, with the press surrounding the stairs and a red carpet laid out in front of them, being greeted by guards and dignitaries.   We were only greeted by the wind, but I still felt kind of special.  When I felt the weather, I actually stopped at the top of the stairs, spread my arms a little, and said, “Oh, this is nice!”  My hands and face weren’t in immediate pain from the cold!  The wind was strong, but definitely warmer than in Ohio.  It was great.

As soon as we got in the airport, we went through immigration, and met our program coordinators, Joe, a Notre Dame grad and former study abroad student in Dublin, and Kevin Whelan, an Irish professor employed by Notre Dame.  We were all exhausted.  I discovered that despite what I thought was rather inefficient packing (packing eight sweaters instead of the five that my fiancé suggested :) ), many people had much more stuff than me, and many people had a much harder time dragging their bags through the airport.  I was personally pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.

We all piled onto a bus, and we drove through Dublin on our way to our university: University College Dublin.  I was sitting with Allison and Ryan, as well as Ashley, who I had just met.  Ashley goes to Notre Dame, but is from Trinidad and Tobago.  She's on the left, and Allison's on the right.  Me and Ryan are below.

 

Can you see what's wrong with the picture on the left?  (Other than it's out of focus?)  Well I noticed it right away. The cars are driving on the wrong side of the road!  It was so crazy that I had to take a really bad picture out the bus window, just to show you all.

Kevin, our professor, narrated as we went.  He introduced us to many of the sights, including a bridge built by a famous Spanish architect, made to look like a harp,

O’Connell Bridge and O'Connell Street, the street going through the center of Dublin, with a statue of O'Connell on the front (right above the bus),

and the only “skyscraper” in the entire city, which is apparently hated by all of Dublin because it’s ugly and too tall.  They are supposed to be tearing it down soon.

I like the fact that there are no real skyscrapers.  I’m not a city person.  I’ve never lived in a city, never figured out a bus system, never had to walk by beggars on a daily basis, never had to watch my purse and pockets.  I have definitely lived in a bubble, and part of the purpose of this trip is to pop the bubble, or at least expand it a bit.  The lack of tall buildings makes the city much more friendly, much less intimidating.  It also allows what little light there is to reach the ground more effectively.

At first I found the city dirty, but I have come to realize that for a city, Dublin is probably extremely clean.  I have also gained a new appreciation for pigeons, which clean the crumbs from the streets and make the world a better, cleaner place.  They look just like American pigeons, too.

After we dropped our things off at the dorms, we were taken by the real, city bus to the O’Connell House, a building in Merrion Square where our program is centered and where we have classes twice a week.  It is the historic home of Daniel O’Connell (after which O’Connell Street is named), who helped with Ireland's independence from Britain.  The house a cute building nestled in a row of similar houses (now mostly offices and the like), which together create one big wall of brick.  Apparently, it is located on one of the most elegant Gregorian squares in Dublin.  You can't see it, but there's a handle in the middle of the door that is reminiscent of a hobbit hole. (I'll be sure to get a better picture soon.)

Kevin, our professor, is a very cool person.  His Irish accent is very heavy, which is awesome:  TH turns into T, and D turns into J.  Some year-long study abroad students told us a story: they were all telling Kevin about their plans to hike through the countryside, sleeping in plastic tarps out in the wilderness.  Kevin told them, “Okay, but watch out fer te Jew.”  “The Jew?” they replied, thinking of some crazy Jewish person hiding in the woods.  “Yeah,” Kevin said, “Te Jew can get ya.”  (Of course he meant “dew,” but “Jew” does make for a more exciting threat.)

Later, some of the other staff members took us on a tour, and we bought some basic groceries at a store in a shopping center.  Then, it was back to the dorms for some skyping with Kyle and some much-needed sleep.

Next time: my room and roommates, and UCD campus.  Yay!  I hope everyone is doing well in the states, and that you aren't too cold.  We've had highs in the 40's all week, and one day with a high of 52.

Flight to Dublin

Yay, my first post!  I hope you're as excited as I am.  This is the story of my flight:



I had a pretty good time spending Monday traveling.  I flew to Chicago in the morning.  I packed my carryon with my laptop, my ipod, and a few travel books about Ireland, hoping to have a lot of free time to read and write on the plane. Well, the flight to Chicago was so short that I didn’t have time to do any of those things.  I sat next to a high school senior who was going on a short trip to Ireland with his school, and at the end of our row was a pregnant woman who works for the military.  Both of these people got pretty freaked out when we took off.  The woman went into a legitimate panic attack.  I tried to say comforting things.  I felt bad: apparently, she has to fly for her job about every two months.  Once we were in the air, they were both fine.  We spent the time chatting and laughing at the SkyMall magazine.  A zombie-crawling-out-of-the-ground statue for your garden?  Really?  (It did make me think of Tasia in the zombie parade.)  And my favorite item: your very own voice-activated R2D2.

Once we got to Chicago, I hung out with other students from Notre Dame who were also coming to Ireland.  My friend Allison was there, and I met a number of other people in the program.  Our flight didn’t leave until 6:50, so over our eight hour layover, other people from our program began trickling into the airport.  Eventually we all congregated at the gate.  A girl named Nicki brought her guitar, and she and my friend Patrick had a little jam session right there in the terminal, which was very awesome.  Just as it was getting dark, we got on the plane.

All of the flight attendants were Irish.  It was quite exciting.  They served us tea after dinner and after breakfast, and they asked for our “rubbish” instead of our trash.  I've discovered that my reaction to interacting with people of different cultures is to be extremely polite, I think in an attempt to not offend them by accident.  I turned off my ipod and took my earbuds out whenever the attendants came by, and I said very distinct pleases and thank-yous.  We also had little TV’s on the back of every seat, which played 15 different movies, showed episodes from about 30 TV shows, played different albums of music, and contained simple videogames, including an inter-flight golf tournament.  It was pretty intense.  I quit the golf tournament after getting 7 points in the first three holes.  As you may imagine, not so much reading or writing got done.

Unfortunately, between dinner, breakfast, and the loss of six hours because of the time zone difference, we only got about four hours of quiet time on the plane.  I was exhausted, but sleeping on a plane isn’t very easy, even with those nifty neck-pillows and May It Be from Lord of the Rings playing on my ipod.  When we began approaching Ireland, I was hoping to look over the person next to me (I sat one seat away from the window, on the isle) and see the countryside as we passed over.  No such luck.  It was cloudy.  Big surprise, right?  So, as we slowly descended through the clouds, I kept my eyes on the window, waiting for my first sight of Ireland.  I had no more hope of seeing the countryside, but at least I could see the city for a little bit.

Finally, we broke under the clouds.  It was still twilight, and little yellow lights spotted the range of buildings below us.  Europe has been getting a lot of cold weather, and it had snowed only days before, a rare occurrence in Ireland.  The snow still clung to the corners of the patches of grass that lay among the buildings.  At first they looked like farms, or small pastures walled by trees, but as we got closer to the center of the city, they became smaller and decreased in number.  But even half-buried in snow, in the dim early morning light, in the middle of the Irish winter, they looked green.



I’ll post more about what recently happened later.  Over here it’s 12:45 (or 24:45, is that right?) and I should go to sleep!

Welcome!

Welcome to my Ireland blog!  I hope you enjoy it.  A few things about this blog:

I’m going to try to post a new post at least once a week.
Please leave comments!  It’s no fun if I do all the talking.
If there are any problems or anything you would like/not like me to write about, let me know!

I hope you enjoy!