Allie in Spain (and Ireland): DUBLIN!

Alright, this is long overdue, but I'm finally going to do my first update for Ireland. Since I'm only here for 8 weeks, I will probably only update a few times, but I figure that that's better than nothing.

I arrived in Dublin from Madrid last Thursday and (fortunately) I missed the first orientation session since the group flight from the states got in earlier. Bummer. The next few days were basically just hours of being fed useless information - ie. stuff that is either common sense or stuff that I already knew from being abroad. I swear, sometimes they treat us like we are in middle school, not college. Although, there are some people who probably benefit from that. Hmph.

I spent the first weekend exploring Dublin. We bought 2-day tourist bus passes and were able to get around and see lots of the sights - St Patrick's Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral, The Guinness Storehouse (big jump there), the Museum of Natural History and Dublin Castle. There's plenty more to do, but we wanted to spend enough time in each one. I got a little fed up with the cathedrals, which is no surprise considering how many cathedrals I've seen in the past 5 months, but since it's early we're still all sticking together as a group and seeing how things are going to unfold. I particularly enjoyed Dublin Castle, which was where the Viceroys, or representatives of the English monarchy used to live and it was originally the viking headquarters of the town in Medieval times. We also had a group scavenger hunt (lol, like I said, middle school) to get us aquainted with the city center, and one of the professors organized a walking tour for us. We saw all the major sites on O'Connell street, the River Liffey, St. Stephen's Green, Trinity College and much, much more. Dublin is actually a pretty small city, if you're talking strictly about the historic part of it. Unfortunately, DCU campus, where I am living, is about a half hour bus ride away, so there's not a whole lot going on out here. Dublin is beautiful though. It actually reminds me a lot of Boston, but more historical and with cuter accents.

It is certainly a completely different world than Madrid. I would definitely say that it's much more similar to America than Spain was, which I suppose is to be expected. It's more a pub/bar culture than clubs which I much prefer. People aren't as laid back as the Spaniards, but they're more relaxed than Americans (I'm generalizing, obviously). The language helps of course too. Things here are definitely different though. It's been interesting for me, hearing students complain about how different it is and then comparing it with my experience in Madrid. There's definitely a lot less culture shock happening now - I feel like it's kind of a happy medium. More on this topic will come later as I continue with classes and start my internship.

We had a long weekend due to a bank holiday and classes started on Tuesday. I am taking a class on Irish History and I am LOVING it so far. The professor is amazing - she keeps things very interesting and I haven't been bored at all. I had forgotten how much I love history, since I haven't actually taken a history class since high school. We started around 1800 and have worked our way through the potato famine in the 3 days that we had class. I also had my interview for my internship on Wednesday and it went really well. It was very informal and I got to meet everyone in the office - I'm so excited to start! It's a very small firm - 3 partners and then they already have 3 interns. I think that I'll be getting lot of contact with the partners and we'll all be working closely so hopefully I will learn a lot. The office is also in a really nice part of town, near St. Stephen's Green and is on the top floor of the building with amazing views! I start on Monday.

Friday, we went on a trip with the program to Glendalough, which is about an hour south of Dublin. It's nested in the Wicklow mountains and is known for it's early medieval monastery, founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century. After a short guided tour of the monastery area, we took a hike up into the mountains for some of the most gorgeous views I have ever seen. Glendalough translates from Irish to mean Valley (glen) of 2 (da) Lakes (lough), so not surprisingly there are 2 lakes there. The views from the top of the mountain were spectacular and it was great to get out in to nature and have some fresh air. The weather was even nice for us.

Saturday, we decided to do some more site seeing in Dublin, so we went first to the National Leperchaun Museum (yes, it is as silly as it sounds) and then to the Jameson Distillery. The Leperchaun Museum was a total tourist trap, not surprisingly, but you go just for the cool pictures you can take in the giant room, in which everything is enlarged so that you look small. The Jameson Distillery was really nice - you have a tour guide who explains everything about making whiskey to you and then you get a drink at the end. Win-win. We went to dinner at this pretty well known restaurant called The Church, which used to be a church in the 18th century (Arthur Guinness war married there) and was converted in to a restaurant in 2005 after being out of use since 1964. I had some really amazing Seafood Chowder and brown bread. We decided to turn it in after dinner on Saturday, since the last couple night had been pretty exhausting. I've really been enjoying the pub scene, with some favorite places including the Old Storehouse, Kearney's and Porterhouse. We've tried a bunch of other places and they all have their own unique feel. Most of them also have live-music which is awesome. The night-life here is great.

Today was a bit of a fail. We decided to try and take a day trip to Dún Laogharie, (pronounced Dun-Leary), but the weather was absolutely abysmal. It was rainy and windy and disgusting all day, so we ended up not being able to see much in the town. It's a port town, about 5 miles south of Dublin and it was very cute.

So, just some other general things...the weather sucks. That shouldn't be surprising. The first couple days it was warm, sunny and beautiful, but since then it's been pretty cold with lots of rain. We were told today that the current weather is unseasonably cold, so hopefully it will warm up a little bit.

Dublin is very, very expensive. I pay more than twice for public transportation here what I paid for my metro pass in Madrid, and the Madrid metro is way superior to the Dublin City bus system. Eating out is also way more expensive. At least we have kitchens so we'll be cooking for ourselves and I can grocery shop pretty efficiently.

The living situation is pretty good. I'm in a double room with a shared bathroom and 7 other girls are in our suite -we have a shared common room and kitchen. Although living with 8 girls isn't really my cup of tea, it's only for 8 weeks and I much prefer it to the home-stay situation, which was very socially isolating at times. As per usual, there are people in the group who won't be getting along, and it's always a little tricky at first figuring out who you're going to be friends with. People can be so cliquey sometimes. I think that when we all get into our routines with work and classes, some of that awkwardness will subside.

For now, I am really liking it here. It's a completely different experience and I'm glad that I'm going to have the chance to travel around Ireland and get to know Dublin really well. Here are some pictures of what I've been up to:

The Spire...also knows as the spike, the needle, the stiffy by the liffey, the rod to god, the skewer the the sewer, the stilleto in the ghetto...take your pick really