Week One
I never thought the last place I would see in America for four months would be New Jersey. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened.
My flight left Newark at 6:50 (if I remember correctly) on January 13th. This meant a relatively early morning and a 3.5 hour drive to the worst place in the world, in my opinion. It wasn’t too bad though—we got there in plenty of time.
I’ve never flown by myself before, and only flown once at all, and it was when I was like six. So the experience was pretty stressful. Fortunately, security wasn’t a problem and the flight itself wasn’t too bad.
There was a pre-flght gathering of the people in my program who were on the flight, so I got to meet a few people then which was good. Looking back, I didn’t end up being close with any of the people I met then, it’s just one of those times when no one knows anyone so you become fake friends with people. I sort of hate that, but especially at a time when I just said goodbye to my family for four months and have no idea what to do in an airport, it was necessary.
So the flight took about…six hours and fifty minutes or so. We arrived in Dublin at 6:50 Dublin time, and it was still dark. It stayed dark til at least 9:30, it was so weird. But now it seems to be lighter earlier, even though the earliest I’m ever up is 9:00 or so.
The first day everyone was really tired, but we had orientation to get through. That was pretty basic stuff, the room we were in was wicked cold though, that was rough. I ended up not feeling too tired, which was weird, so I ended up unpacking all of my stuff right then. I put up my 12 pictures and my awesome calendar, even though we aren’t allowed to have stuff on the walls, which is just ridiculous to me. At home my room is plastered with posters and pictures.
So after we got settled in, I went into town for my first Irish Pub experience. I went with Amy, who I had known from BU from 2 random classes we had together. Her roommate, Amanda, also came, and this girl Elizabeth who lives in my suite. We went to St. Oliver and John Gogherty’s in Temple Bar. Very touristy, but a good place for our first pub. I got a Jameson and coke, I just had to for the first drink. It was delicious of course. They had live music which was great, it was just a few guys, they ended up singing a lot of American songs which was pretty silly I thought.
The next day we did a scavengar hunt as a way of getting to know the city. Amanda was in my group, so we became friends pretty fast. We also kicked ass in the scavengar hunt and led our team to sweet, sweet victory—literally, as our prize was a giant tub of candy. On a sidenote, the candy here is absolutely AMAZING. I love it. Too much. I’m trying to give it all up for Lent. Except Cadbury Eggs, which I am still going to try to cut back on.
Anyways, the scavengar hunt was really fun and it was good to get to see the city. That night (friday) Amy, Amanda and I ventured out on our own. We’ve basically been going out on our own the whole time because everyone else gets so drunk pregaming and goes out in huge groups and are basically very obnoxious. They’re all really nice seperately, but the whole group thing really isn’t for us. So we went to this one placecalled Doyle’s, which we’ve been back to a lot. The first floor (it’s the ground floor here, our second floor is their first floor) is like a traditional pub, nice, small and dark. The second floor is younger and more like a club, but still really laid back and they play amazing music. The first time we were there we had no idea about the second floor, so we stayed downstairs with the oldies but goodies and attempted to order long island iced teas. That was interesting. The lady was kind of offended at first, but she ended up making them for us. I now know not to order long islands in traditional pubs, lesson learned. I also learned that I LOVE long island’s! So good.
We went to a few other places, including the Porterhouse, which is expensive but cool. We ended up at Fitzsimon’s in Temple Bar which is very touristy and has like 5 floors and is more club-like. The whole group was there and we were feeling pretty good by that time so we met up with them. I ended up dancing with this really creepy guy, so I ended up leaving early with some other people to get out of that situation. Amy and Amanda stayed, resulting in some amusing stories regarding sweatpants.
The next day we went to the Guinness Factory, pretty much a must if you go to Dublin. It wasn’t too interesting to me, to be honest, and I didn;t like the beer. But it was still cool, got some good souvenirs for people.
That night we ate at the Gin Palace with my roommate Kate and this kid Patrick. Got fish and chips, it was AMAZING. That night we went out again, just to a bunch of random places. We did end up back at Doyle’s though, where we discovered the magical second floor! They placed MGMT, The Killers and LOVE SHACK. So good. Love that place.
Thata sunday Amy, Amanda and I went to Howth, which is a small fishign village to the North of Dublin. We took the DART (train) there and it was a great day. Saw a bunch of seals, climbed a mountain, paid a million euros for a tiny bottle of water—it was a good day for sure.
That monday classes started. We have history of Ireland with Caroline monday wednesday and thursday 2-4, and contemporary Irish society with Frank every tuesday, wednesday and thursday 10-12. They are both awesome! Especially Caroline, she’s wicked young and so funny. We also have electives tuesday from 2-5, I have Mass Media in Ireland with Declan. Amy’s in my class which is great, but the class itself is pretty boring so far.
That wraps up the first week…I’ll pick it up in a seperate post with our adventures in the West.
