Howth

Today, about half the group got together to take a bus to Howth, which is a small town on the East Coast. It was a picturesque little fishing village about an hour away, complete with sea lions and fish and chips. I have classes starting tomorrow, so this post is light on text, but enjoy the pictures of the sunset. I did have a video of the sea lion acting quite indifferent to our presence, but it won't load onto my computer for some reason. You probably would have been as bored as he was anyways. I kept waiting for him to do a flip or something. We even through bits of a scone at him to eat, but he rejected us flat out. We'll remember this the next time we invite him over for a mid afternoon snack.

These are a bit chronologically jumbled. Ireland is awesome, but even it can't make the sun set, then rise, then set, then rise again.

My feet are ready to break up with me

Today was a touristy day. A few of us donned our sneakers, backpacks and camera bags and decided to walk the 3-ish miles from our campus in Glasnevin to the center of Dublin. There are busses that run through this route, but we wanted to explore and save the 1.60 Euros it costs for a one way ride. Glasnevin is very much a suburb, but it's charming.

Armed with useless directions, since the Irish seem to be morally opposed to street signs, I pretty successfully navigated us to our destination, though it was definitely a group effort. The walk took longer than expected because we made several welcome detours, like stopping to test our our self-timer modes on our cameras.

We happened upon the National Botanical Gardens, a park open free for the public. Talk about green, the entire place was filled with all different kinds of plants and trees. It even just smelled green.

After much walking, we were all in need of an energy boost, so we popped in a little bakery for some cupcakes. I could not manage to snap a picture before I literally inhaled the thing, it was delicious. It was the most dense cake I have ever eaten, but it was beyond yummy, and the icing was so wonderfully sweet. Then we found another park, home to an intimate relationship between a bench and a tree.

By the time we got into the city, the sun had set and we didn't get to walk around as much as we intended, though we were proud of our expedition through the suburbs. I got a few nice pictures.

These are of the River Liffey:

This is the Bank of Ireland. The sky was so blue.

One of the girls in my group, Tara, had been to Dublin before and knew of Avoca, a Urban Outfitters/Anthropologie type store, with slightly overpriced knick-knacks and clothes. I found this adorable tea pot that I thought Eileen would love.

We took the bus back and Colleen and I cooked, or attempted to cook, a good dinner. The breaded chicken breasts with cheese ended up tasting fine, but the process was less than simple. We found bread crumbs and beat them into the chicken, then put the chicken on the stove. The problem arose when the bread crumbs started burning before the chicken had cooked through, so we decided to microwave the chicken instead, adding slices of Irish cheese on top. Considering our sub par methods, dinner ended up tasting pretty good, but we'll have to work out the kinks for next time.

Then tonight, we went out to the Temple Bar area and pub-hopped a bit. One had a live band that played song mashups like "Twist and Shout" with "La Bamba." The second pub had a live band that played some "Dancing in the Dark." None of them seem to play Irish songs, but an entire pub singing along to the American ones is really fun.

Tomorrow, a few of us are heading to the coast, so there will be plenty of pictures coming soon!

Longest day of my life

So it's 4 a.m., we're back from our night out and I'm still not adjusted to the time difference. Perfect time to blog.

Today started out with me getting 16 and a half hours of sleep. I went to bed at 7 p.m. and slept until 11:30 a.m. Aside from me waking up at 10 p.m., thinking it was morning and being confused beyond belief as to why it was dark out, I slept like a baby.

A bunch of us got up, I got tea, and we went to the city to get Vodaphone cell phones. We bombarded the store, cleaning them out of all the cheapest pay-as-you-go phones.

Then everyone met at the Irish Writing Center for the start of our scavenger hunt for major monuments around the city. Here's some of my group, trying to figure out the maps.

The first stop was the Garden of Remembrance, which honors fallen Irish soldiers. It was quite breathtaking, but I can imagine that it's even more so in the spring when the plants are blooming.

I think the point of the scavenger hunt was go get us lost, and therefore acquainted, with the city. We certainly did get lost as there are very few street signs and the locals weren't much help with directions. Obviously they all have a heavy accent (which I'm in love with, by the way) and their directions went along the lines of: "Take a left, then a right, then two lefts until you see a red door, then a right, then a left, then it's right there. Pretty easy to get to." Here's a collection of pictures I was able to get along the way. I admit, I don't know the significance behind all of them yet, but we were asked to find them, so I'm assuming they are important.

The entrance to Stephen's Green, a park.

This is a statue of Molly Mallone, who has a song about her selling food on the streets. I'm not sure how that gets someone a bronze statue, but I'm sure I'll find out.

We walked through Temple Bar, which is actually a section of the city. The program director says this is home to many fights as the bars close at night and a decent amount of crime. Except most of the crime is petty, like stealing money and phones. No one is allowed to carry guns here, not even the police, so most of the crime is not as serious as it is back home.

We came upon a row of statues in the city center, and I found my brother's name on one of them.

Again, I'm not really sure who Jim Larkin is (I hope none of these are common knowledge), but I just loved his statue.

And we even had a leprechaun sighting!

Right after this picture was taken, he had to answer his cell phone, which provided for an interesting picture. It just goes to show that even leprechauns aren't immune to modern technology.

After the scavenger hunt, we all went our separate ways for the evening. A bunch of us went to Dunnes Store, which is kind of like a Target, to get some towels and groceries. We also stopped for some delicious hot chocolate.

My friend Colleen and I made whole wheat pasta with red sauce for dinner. She coached me through it, but now I know how to make it. Small victories! Then we went out with I'd say about a fourth of the group to Messrs Maguire, a pub with four floors and a bar on each. I tried my first Guiness, and I don't mean to disappoint anyone, but I wasn't crazy about it. It has this hint of coffee taste, and I can't stand coffee. Maybe it's an acquired taste. We spent the night talking to Irish guys (there were many more men in this pub than women, I don't know if that's the norm) and they made fun of our accents and talked about what to do in Dublin. I may have zoned out listening to what they were actually saying as I was just focused on the accent. Sorry Corey, but unless you can pick up an Irish accent by the time I come home, we may have to reevaluate this whole relationship thing. Haha kidding! Sort of.

Then we headed out to Club Twenty One for some dancing. It was strobe light central, playing all American music (along with the rest of Dublin). It was fun, but definitely not some place I could go all the time. We took a cab home, I sat in the passenger seat, which is our driver's seat, and had mini heart attacks every time the driver took a turn and went to the opposite side of the road. It's so hard to get used to!

That seems to be all for now, and it's about 4:3o a.m. so I should probably get to bed. To end, here are a bunch of pictures I took today of the city.

First, two of the best stores I've seen. My G Superstore--Cosmetics, Afro/Caribbean & Asian Foodstore--Salon/ Braids, Dreads, Weave On-Hair Extensions, Etc.

And Booze 2 Go.

The rest are all various shots of Dublin and the River Liffey. Enjoy!

Day 2!

I've got about 10 minutes before I head out to a pub tonight with the group, so I don't have time for a full update of the scavenger hunt we had around the city today, but tomorrow morning I plan on updating for real.

My address here is:

Meghan Kavanaugh

Room W517A

College Park Apartments,

Campus Residences Ltd.

Ballymun Road

Dublin 9.

Yes, 9 is the zipcode. In Ireland, there are only about 24.

I also have a cell phone now. The number is 0871481998 and I believe it's about 15 cents per minute to call home and per text home. Here, it's free for everyone who got the plan. I'm still only planning to use it for emergencies, as Skype will be the best way to communicate, but maybe it will work out best to text or call each other to say to go on Skype. I don't know yet, but it's nice to know that I can contact the states if I need to.

The biggest adjustment thus far has been the heating system. The heat in our rooms is on from 7 to 10 a.m., 12 to 2 p.m., and 4 to 11 p.m. Meaning, it is completely and totally off the rest of the times. Now, it's not as cold as Boston here, but it definitely gets chilly. It is January. The guides didn't tell us about the heat at first, so we all thought we were getting sick since we were all having shivering fits. Mary, the program leader, said it's quite a luxury to get heat for 12 hours out of the day. She was also jealous that we didn't have to boil our water to take hot showers.

I slept from 7 p.m. to 11:30 a.m. last night, so I feel much more myself. I'm off for the night but I'll be putting up pictures soon from my excursion around the city!

The 28th hour

Hello from Dublin! I've finally made it and currently going on my 28th hour without sleep. Go adrenaline!

The international flight was great, I had a window with an empty seat next to me! The woman the seat over from that did have a bit of a foot odor issue, but it's a small price to pay for getting the elbow rests all to myself. Each person had their own television, too, so I was able to catch up on some movies and shows I had been meaning to see, and not catch up on sleep. I might have fallen asleep for all of 45 minutes, I was so anxious to get to Ireland.

We landed at Dublin in the dark of the morning, around 7 a.m. Just like any other city, you could see the tiny lights from the plane. We got closer and closer and they just seemed off. I finally realized it was because they were all the same height. Dublin's highest points are streetlights!

The anxiety was palpable as I waited for the inevitable loss of my luggage on an international flight once again, but the luck of the Irish must have been with me as both of my bags arrived on time.

Then we took a coach bus to campus, where the bus driver put on the radio so we could hear the Irish music and culture. The song that came next: Kanye West's "Stronger." Fail.

The next part of today was orientation, tours of the campus, figuring out the impossible internet connection, all while functioning with no sleep. The couple hours we got to unpack consisted of just that as everyone assumed we'd be fed at the noontime orientation. Wrong. The poor woman felt terrible.

"Well certainly you've found milk and tea, maybe a loaf of bread by now."

"No, we haven't had a chance."

"You mean you haven't eaten since the flight?!"

[Delirious laughter] "Haha, guess not."

"Oh, Lord."

I honestly can't think right now of how long this part of the day took. A few hours? My brain is a mess with jet lag, but I'm strangely not tired. I just finished a fresh baguette with turkey, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and about half my weight in mayo from a campus convenience store. I even said to go light, I'd hate to see what they usually put on.

I'm off now with some friends to do a little grocery shopping. My goal is to stay up until bedtime tonight. It's currently 3:30, so I've got a ways to go. Wish me luck. Tomorrow is a scavenger hunt through the city, so I've got to be well rested.

I can't wait to write all about it. Until then, here's the view from my room.