Last blog entry from Dublin

This marks my last blog entry from Dublin. I'm leaving campus tomorrow at 6:30am, and I'll be in New York at 1pm. My experience abroad has been incredible and saying goodbye is definitely bittersweet. While I can't wait to see my family and friends and eat American food, Dublin and Ireland will always hold a special place in my heart, and I am truly sad to say goodbye. I can't believe all of the amazing places I've been able to travel to both in Ireland and throughout Europe. I'm grateful for the amazing friendships formed with Notre Dame and international students. I am also very grateful for Notre Dame's O'Connell House and all of the trips and events that they sponsored. Finally, thank you for reading my blog and caring about my experiences! I hope the entries weren't too lengthy - I wanted to make sure I remember everything from this semester. I'll probably blog again next week about adjusting to America. Until then, slán! Go raibh maith agat!!

Irish Philosophy

I saw this when souvenir shopping and thought it was hilarious:

In life, there are only two things to worry about,
either you are well, or you are sick.

If you are well, there is nothing to worry about,
but if you are sick, you have two things to worry about;
either you will live, or you will die.

If you live, there is nothing to worry about,
if you die, you have two things to worry about;
either you will go to heaven or to hell.

If you go to heaven, there is nothing to worry about,
but if you go to hell,
you'll be so busy shaking hands with your friends,
you won't have time to worry!

Trim Trip

Today Kelly and I took a trip to Trim, County Meath. That was the last place that I really wanted to visit in Ireland since it is where my dad was born. I didn't think it would be possible to visit since no tours really go there and I feel better on tours then winging it myself. I ended up figuring out the bus schedule from Dublin, and we decided to try and see what happened. It worked out really well because the bus dropped us off very close to the castle. We had a nice day there - lunch at a nice little restaurant, a tour of the castle, sightseeing around the ruins, and walking around town. The castle is one of my favorites that I've seen. It's the biggest Anglo-Norman castle in Ireland, and it's very impressive. It's also very pretty since it's on the River Boyne. It has the claim to fame of being where Braveheart was filmed in 1994. It's cool because they have pictures of the castle dressed up as the set with people on it. They also point out the key places in the tour: it was used for the castle of York in the battle, the window where Longshanks threw the son's friend out, and the outside area was used for London when Mel was tortured. I took way too many pictures as usual, but it was my last trip in Ireland! :(

Irish Exams

The exam process in Ireland is very different from America. First, there is a lot more down time. At ND, we get a few study days then a week of exams. Here there is a week off before exams start, and the exams are over a two week period. That leaves a lot of extra time. Another difference is that at ND we take our exams on campus. At UCD, we take them at RDS, which is a good 40 minute walk from campus. I actually enjoyed the walk to RDS since the weather here has been gorgeous. It's really relaxing to just put on some music and walk before an exam. Exams are in a giant room that literally has 3,500 people taking different exams at the same time. It's a bit difficult to find your assigned seat since there are so many. For my first exam, I was seat number 712. A lot of ND kids complained that it's more stressful being in that testing situation since it seems like the SATs only a lot worse. It didn't really bother me that much. They are also very strict about not bringing anything into the exam room, which I guess is good. I have three more exams left, then I'm home.

Saying goodbye to Dublin

It's really sad that my last two weeks in Dublin are mostly spent stuck in my room trying to study. I'm getting really excited to come home because I miss my family and friends and I'm really excited for American food. At the same time, I know I am going to miss Dublin a lot. I love this city, and it's finally hitting me that I'm leaving it so soon. It's definitely going to be a bittersweet goodbye. I'm just glad I have an awesome summer lined up so it's not like I'll have time to be missing Ireland too much.

Yesterday Kelly and I went into the city for a Starbucks break. It was the first time I've had Starbucks since I've been here. There's something strangely comforting about going to a place that's the same as it would be at home. My java chip frappuccino tasted more like a milkshake than an American frappuccino, but it was still nice to have. After that we went to Carroll's and I started my souvenir shopping. It was so nice to get out and hang around the city instead of sitting in my room writing papers. I'm going to miss being able to hop on a bus and be in the city in 15 minutes.

This morning I went to mass at UCD, and I realized how much I'm going to miss Irish masses. The priest explained the parts of the mass as he always does, and he asked which "Our Father" to sing and started singing a couple different versions for people to choose. He kept saying he had a "long sermon" today... mass was still over in less than 45 minutes. The masses here are so entertaining that it's going to be strange going to mass back home.

While I'm counting down the days until my finals are over and I can see my family and go to all of my favorite restaurants, it's definitely going to be difficult to leave Dublin.

Revision Week

2 weeks from now I'll be on a plane to America. :)
3 weeks from now I'll be turning 21. :)
Right now I'm studying for an Econ final. :(

On the bright side, yesterday I finished my second really long paper, so now all I have left is 5 finals, and I'm an expert in the Celtic Tiger and the development of the papacy in the early Church.

Wild Wicklow

Kelly and I went on the Wild Wicklow tour today. We went to Dun Laoghaire, Lough Tay, and Glendalough. We ate in Lyman's pub which is in the Elders' "St. Kevin" song. It was a beautiful trip. The only really "wild" part was when they gave us a shot of Jameson on the way back into the bus. I added pictures here. The album includes pictures of margarita night at Fridays where we went on Thursday for 12 euro drinks to celebrate the end of classes.

Procrastinating

I'm writing a paper right now, so obviously I need to procrastinate. I can't believe I'm coming home so soon! May 16th 10:30am I'm flying back! This has gone so fast, and yet I'm amazed at everything I was able to do in the months that I was here.

This summer looks like it's going to be amazing. I have a sweet internship in New York City working for KPMG, and I just found out that our week of training is in Anaheim, CA. An all expense paid week in California sounds great to me. I'm also excited about seeing the Swell Season from Once in concert as soon as I get back, and there's a Celtic Fesitval in NY that I want to go to at the end of the summer. Hopefully I'll also be able to visit Marisa in Martha's Vineyard at the end of summer again. And also, I'll be turning 21 a week after I get home (1 month from today!), which I'm sure will be fun, even though the whole "being able to drink" thing won't be as exciting for me.

On another note if you want to know anything about the Celtic Tiger ask me. I'm all about the Irish economy. And NO, it is not sustainable. Back to work...

A Sad Day

A sad day has come - the day that I finally have to start doing work after being on a 4 month vacation. Finals are right around the corner, and tomorrow is my last day of UCD classes. I have a 15 page paper due next week, another due May 6, and 5 final exams, all of which make up 95% of my grade since I've done nothing thus far. It's a little bit scary, but also sad that I have to find motivation that I've lost since leaving Notre Dame.

Kevin and Anthony's Visit

Kevin and Anthony came to Dublin early Saturday morning. Saturday was rough for them adjusting to the time difference, since they essentially missed a night’s sleep. I took them into the city and showed them the Grafton Street area. Then we went to Temple Bar and had lunch in Fitzsimon’s, my favorite place to get Beef and Guinness Pie. Then we took the bus to the Guinness Storehouse. That had a ridiculous line since it was a cold rainy Saturday afternoon, so we decided to do it another day. We took the bus back to campus and just hung around and I kept yelling at Kevin for sleeping.

The next day we went back to the Guinness Storehouse and bought our tickets ahead of time to cut the line. Before we went I showed them the circle thing with the drop of Guinness in it that was my ticket the last time I went, and I told them they would get one. Apparently a couple of weeks ago they switched to a regular paper ticket, so that was disappointing. The storehouse was cool as always and the gravity bar was fun. I think we had lunch at the Bank that day. That was their favorite bar in Dublin. It’s an old Victorian bank that was converted to a bar but left exactly the same. They really enjoyed the food there. We walked around O’Connell Street after that. That night we went to Temple Bar for drinks, and I liked the guy who was singing there since he did all my favorite pub songs plus Johnny Cash randomly.

On Monday we went out to Kilmainham Gaol, a famous jail in west Dublin. That is where the 1916 uprisers were executed and many other historical events happened there. It was also a location for many movies. It was cool to see, especially after all the Irish history I’ve learned. It was weird that our guide was the same guide I had at Dublin Castle when I went with Caity. After that we got fish and chips at Burdocks which is supposed to be the best in Dublin. Then went to the O’Connell house because I needed to register for Fall classes. That took much longer than I anticipated because I ended up on the phone with the registrar’s office for a long time because of a mistake in a class listing. After that we went to St. Stephens’ Green, which looked so beautiful with all of the flowers in bloom. We had dinner at a pub on Dame Street.

On Tuesday the boys went into the city by themselves while I studied for a quiz and packed. I met them at 5:00 to check into our hostel in Dublin. We were taking two train tours where we had to be at Heuston Station at 6:40am, and since buses don’t run until 6:30am, I decided to stay in the city rather then take a taxi all the way from campus. Next I went to Theology class. Afterwards Kelly and I met up with Kevin and Anthony and we went to Porterhouse.

The next morning we woke up at 5:30am for our tour. We walked to the train station, which took a solid 20 minutes since it is really west of the city centre. Then we had a 3 hour train ride to Cork. The train was very nice and new. When we got to Cork we transferred to a minibus and rode to Blarney. There we climbed to the top of Blarney Castle and kissed the Blarney stone. Blarney castle was very cool – the stairs were very windy and the stairwells narrow, and you could go in any of the rooms you found. I felt badly for the older people on our tour and a man who was heavy because it was not easy to climb and some parts were extremely narrow.

At the top we laid down as an older man helped us slide back, grab the rails, lean down, and kiss the stone. It was pretty cool, and we got some great pictures. After that we went to a pub in Blarney for lunch and shopped at Blarney Woolen Mills. I got a Belleek claddagh frame for my parents for their anniversary, which was kind of a bad idea in hindsight since I had to travel the rest of the time with it.

Next we got back on the bus and headed to Cobh, going through the Cork city centre. Cork was a nice city. We randomly stopped at a graveyard because Bob wanted to show us where the people from the Lusitania were buried. Bob was our tour guide who was an old man completely full of blarney. I loved him and he was highly entertaining, but he didn’t add any information of value to the tour. It was funny at one point when he asked if people knew what blarney was and some man yelled out “Yeah, you’re full of it!”

We stopped in Cobh (pronounced Cove), which is a nice village on the east coast of Ireland. We went to a beautiful cathedral there, then a museum about the Queenstown story. It was basically about how Cobh was the major area of emigration, and that is where most people left for America. They talked about an American wake, which is also a great song by the Elders so I liked it. We wandered around Cobh for a little while before catching the train back to Dublin.

On the train back Anthony made friends with a couple sitting near us who were from New Zealand. I now know everything there is to know about New Zealand and about being a butcher. Strangely they had never heard of Flight of the Conchords.

When we got back to Dublin, our dad’s cousins Phyl and Tom met us at the train station. Tom owns Harry Byrnes Pub in Dublin. They look us out to a great dinner at Le Bistro, and it was really fun talking to them. I had only met them briefly in the past at a funeral. They enjoyed talking to Anthony about Chicago. I hope to meet up with them again some time before I leave. Afterwards we went back to the hostel to sleep since we had to get up at 5:15the next morning.

The next day started out the same getting to the train station and taking the train. This time we went to Limerick where we met a bus. We took the bus to Bunratty castle. Bunratty was a pretty cool area, but the boys thought it was too touristy. My favorite part was having tea in the Tea Room.

Next we went to the Cliffs of Moher, which were beautiful. I had a picture of them as my background when I was waiting to come to Ireland, so it was cool to finally see them in real life. I have to say our cliffs on the Aran Islands are still my favorites though.

After that we stopped at the Burren, which was also cool. We then continued a gorgeous bus ride around Galway Bay to Galway. When we got to Galway we checked into our hotel, which was really nice, and explored the city on our own. Then Anthony decided to have a cheese party and bought fancy cheeses and made us eat them. Next we chilled for a while then went to the pub across the street, An Pucan. That was a cool pub, and they had a traditional music session complete with two Irish dancers. Anthony was very impressed by that.

The next day we met the next bus, which took us to Connemara. We had our best tour guide that day because what he said was valuable and he didn’t talk nonstop. Our guide the second day, Peter, was the worst. We saw the bridge from “The Quiet Man”. We stopped at a village at a pub where “The Field” was shot. We went to Kylemore Abbey, which was gorgeous. That day wasn’t as filled with things to do and see, but the landscapes were definitely beautiful.

On the train back to Dublin we sat with an Irish girl named Sarah. Anthony bombarded her with questions the entire way back. A guy sitting next to us across the aisle moved because he was annoyed by us. It made the ride go fast though. Then we traveled back to campus by LUAS and bus.

On Saturday we had lunch at Cassidy’s and then went around souvenir shopping. That night we went pub crawling, starting off at O’Neill’s with all the ND kids, then going to the Bank, Blarney Inn, and O’Donoghues. It was a good last night in Dublin for them.

They left early this morning, and I’m exhausted from the week! I think they had a good time, and we got to see a lot of Ireland, which was awesome.

Pictures of Kevin's Visit

The boys left this morning after a great week. I put up pictures here. I'll write an entry about the week later today!

More Visitors!

Kevin and Anthony are visiting for a week and they'll be here early tomorrow morning. I am not looking forward to meeting Kevin at the bus at 7am or earlier, but I am looking forward to the week! We have some great trips planned including Cork and Trim, and a 2 day tour of Limerick, Bunratty Castle, the Cliffs of Moher, Galway Bay, and Connemara. It's going to be another vacation week for me!

France Day 4: Paris Part Deux

The first Sunday of the month all of the museums in Paris are free, so we were lucky to be there the first Sunday in April. We went straight to the Louvre in the morning, after stopping for crepes of course. The Louvre is such a big museum, and it’s hard to navigate. We started off at the Napoleon apartments, which were very cool, then we headed to the Mona Lisa and looked at all of the paintings on the way. It was very strange the way they allow you to take pictures in the Louvre. The Mona Lisa was surrounded by a hoard of people flashing away. You would have thought Britney Spears was standing there or something. It was a strange dynamic for a museum.

After the Louvre we got lunch by Notre Dame and then went on a hop on/hop off boat tour of the Seine. It loops around the Eiffel Tower, Musée d'Orsay, Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Notre Dame, Jardin des Plantes, Hôtel de Ville, Louvre, and Champs-Elysées. We hopped off again at Notre Dame to get crepes from the best crepe man.

We planned to go to Musée d'Orsay at 5 so that we could be there until it closed at 6:45, then we could have dinner. We got there a little before 5, and right when we did they said they were closing because they were at capacity because of free museum day. That was sad because we could have gone earlier had we known.

Next we went to the Opera house that The Phantom of the Opera was based upon. After that we headed to the Champs-Elysées. By that point it was getting very cold, had started to rain a lot, and we were tired from our day. We passed a few movie theaters and decided to go into one. The plan was to see The Other Boleyn Girl, but due to the language barrier we ended up seeing Be Kind Rewind with Jack Black. That was a surprise when the movie started! It was really funny and it was in English with French subtitles, which was nice.

Next we walked to L’Arc du Triomphe and took pictures. By that point it was freezing, so we went back to the hostel and got fromage crepes for dinner.

At 11:00, we climbed up many, many stairs to the Sacre Couer so we could see the sparkling Eiffel tower. We had a really nice view of the city, and the lights on the Eiffel Tower were amazing.

Apparently it snowed that night because when we woke up the next day all of the cars were covered. We woke up early to go inside the Sacre Coeur before we left. This time we were smart and took the funicular up the hill. It really is a gorgeous church. It was weird because we walked around and looked at the side chapels, and three in a row were for St. Rita, St. Mary, and St. Joseph, which are 3 of my grandparents’ names.

Then I took two trains, a bus, a plane, and another bus, and I was back in Dublin in time for class at night.

France Day 3: Paris

We took the train from Torcy to Anvers the next day after getting more beignets. Sophie told me about all day passes for students that you can get on weekends, so we got that. It was so convenient and we didn’t get stuck in any more turnstiles. We went to Le Village hostel in Montemartre and dropped our things off. The hostel was nice. The man working at the desk in the morning was very nice, but the man in the afternoon was very rude and unhelpful.

After that we did what any good tourist would do and headed straight to the Eiffel tower. It was so amazing coming out of the metro station and looking up and seeing it. We got on line to get tickets to go up, which took forever. It was much longer than any line we waited in at Disneyland. While we waited men were climbing down the tower on a rope. That was good entertainment. It was cool going up the tower, but I liked the views from other places better. It’s better to have the Eiffel Tower in your pictures than views from it.

After that we got baguettes for lunch and ate them on the Seine right across from the Eiffel tower. Then we took the metro to Notre Dame. It was strange how many street performers there were outside the church, but I guess it makes sense since it’s such a tourist area. Inside Notre Dame was very nice. It’s much bigger than the cathedrals in Dublin. I lit a candle for my grandfather and walked around in there for a while.

Then we went outside and decided to climb up the bell tower. While we waited we ate crepes that we got from the man across from the cathedral. They were the best crepes in Paris – made right from batter in front of you (a lot of places just heat up the crepe and put toppings on). We got banana nutella, and it was wonderful. The line took forever and it got cold and rained while we waited (that seems to be a theme of all my travels). There were 2 girls in front of us from the US Army who were great entertainment. I can’t really explain it, but they were very… interesting.

When we finally got in we began our climb of 400 steps to the top. The first part was easy, and then you end up in a gift shop where they trap you for 15 minutes. And who did we run into but my flatmate and 3 other Dublin girls. It’s a small world. After that we climbed to the first part. They let you out and you can walk around and take pictures. The view was amazing and it was well worth the climb. It was fun getting pictures with the gargoyles. Then you can go into the south tower belfry and see a bell. Then you keep climbing to the top - that part was the worst. It’s annoying because with spiral steps you never know how much is ahead of you. Actually the climb down was the worst because it’s the same grey spiral stairs forever, it’s not very well lit, and your eyes start to go crazy by the bottom. It was actually hard to walk straight after going down the 400 spiral stairs.

Then we headed back to Montmartre for a free tour. The company New City does free tours of a bunch of major cities. We had taken one in Edinburgh, so I knew it was good. We had a cute guy tour guide and we went to Moulin Rouge, saw the last remaining windmill, Van Gogh’s house where the blue room is, a restaurant where Picasso traded paintings for food, Paris’ last vineyard, and the Sacre Coeur. There was also an Amelie theme to the tour, and he showed us lots of places from that movie, but I only saw it once so I didn’t really care about that part.

At around 8:30 we had a nice dinner near our hostel. I had caprese and spaghetti (there is a lot of Italian food in Paris). The weird part was that it was a nice French restaurant, but they had a TV playing a Phil Collins concert. I loved it, but it was definitely strange. After that we did some late night souvenir shopping and headed back to the hostel.

France Day 2: Disneyland

On Friday we went to Disneyland. We got breakfast in Torcy because there was a Patisserie by the metro station. It was funny because I tried to order in French, but it came out “trois beignets and a bottle of water”. They were delicious, and we ate them on the train.

When we got into Disneyland it was great because it felt just like the Magic Kingdom. Main Street USA was exactly the same. The music was the same, the buildings were the same, it felt like we were in Disney World. Their castle is much nicer than the California one, which was great. The park is also laid out the same, except Tomorrowland is called Discoveryland, and the Lion King show is there, which is weird because everything else is futuristic.

I’m going to do the same format where I review the attractions but there are a lot more this time:

- Space Mountain: way better than ours – or at least completely different. It’s called Space Mountain: Mission 2. It’s 2 people sitting next to each other rather than ours which is one person across. It starts off with a blastoff going up, complete with smoke. Then you’re in space going around planets and things. It goes upside down and corkscrews, and it's really great. We went on it 3 times.
-Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast: the same as our Space Ranger Spin except the laser blasters come out so you can hold them better. I suck at this ride no matter what country I am in.
- Pirates of the Caribbean: better than ours. The outside looks like a fortress so it’s cooler. The inside is longer and has more drops. It also had a sword fighting sequence that you go through. It doesn’t have any of the movie characters that were recently added to ours. The best part was that the men are still chasing the women in this one – that was changed a long time ago in ours due to political correctness.
- Thunder Mountain: better than ours. Much longer than ours. It also has a part in a tunnel under the lake which is cool. They still say “the wildest ride in the wilderness” at the beginning in a Western accent.
- Phantom Manor: their version of the Haunted Mansion. It starts off the same as ours – you go in the first room, then the room where the walls stretch. The actual ride looks the same as ours, but there is no narration and it makes no sense. I was sad that “I’ll lower it for you” wasn’t there and the attendant just lowers the safety bar. You follow a bride who comes to the house. I think the ballroom dancing part is her reception (that part is cooler than ours – the holograms actually look incredibly real). The lady’s head in the ball is the same. When you go out to the cemetery it makes no sense at all. That part is scarier than our version, but there’s a Wild West part in it that I’m not sure where it comes from. Overall it’s good, but we went on it twice and didn’t understand it.
- Sleeping Beauty Castle: you can go up to the second floor of the castle and walk around. There is cool stained glass windows that tell the story of Sleeping Beauty. There are nice views of the park from there. There’s also a dragon that lives under the castle which is pretty cool.
- Alice in Wonderland Labyrinth: a maze that was surprisingly hard and takes you to a castle in the middle. Not like anything that we have.
- It’s a Small World: much bigger than ours but basically the same. The only notable part was the America section, since we don’t really have one. It starts off with kids in the Wild West, then there’s the Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge, and Hollywood sign. At the end there is a kid in a football uniform and a baseball uniform.
- Le Pays des Contes de Fees: a boat ride like It’s a Small World, but outside. It takes you through miniature storybooks including Beauty and the Beast and others.
- Le Petit Train du Cirque: A little rollercoaster for kids really. Kind of like Goofy’s Barnstormer except less of a rollercoaster. It was cute.
- Peter Pan/Pinocchio: Peter Pan is pretty much exactly the same as ours. Pinocchio is like our Snow White and former Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.
- Indiana Jones et le Temple du Peril: disappointing. It's just like any other rollercoaster. It also goes upside down. There's nothing special about it.
- Star Tours: the same exact as ours but in French. Everything the robot says is French, but what the men say in the movie part (like when they say “clear for launch” or “follow me”) it’s in English. It’s newer than ours so it’s nicer looking, but it’s exactly the same.
- Once Upon a Dream Parade: really good parade. Cool floats that are two different movies: one on the front and one on the back. It had all the major characters, good music, and it was really enjoyable.
- Honey I Shrunk the Audience: same as ours and in English. It even had a weird Kodak preshow like ours.
- Candleabration: the end of the day show. Doesn’t compare at all to ours since the end of the day is 2 hours before it’s dark. In lieu of fireworks they shoot off streamers.

The only other thing that was different was the food. The lunch we had was very small. The drink they give you would be kid’s size in America. The meal cost 9 euro, which is $14. They didn’t have much ice cream – only pints of Ben and Jerry’s. No Mickey shaped popsicles, and we searched far and wide for them. The only Mickey shaped food was a pizza. They did have crepes though that were delicious. Not quite as good as the ones we would have later in Paris, but still excellent.

It was really an awesome day in Disneyland. I love Disney World so much that I am usually very critical (which is why I didn’t care for Disneyland in California at all), but this was surprisingly wonderful. It’s a lot newer than ours - they are celebrating their 15th anniversary - so all of the rides were updated and everything was very new. It was amazing.

After Disney we went back to Torcy and got a pizza and brought it up to our room. We left the next morning for Paris and moved to our hostel in Montmartre.

France Day 1: Disney Studios

I got into France at 9:30am and met Angela in the airport. We took the RER to Torcy to drop our stuff off at our hotel. Unfortunately we apparently bought our ticket wrong out of the machine, and our ticket wouldn’t let us exit the station at Torcy. There wasn’t a place inside to buy tickets to correct this, so we climbed under the turnstile. We were lucky no one was there to say anything because that’s probably really bad, but we weren’t going to ride another hour back to the airport, especially since we were going to Disney that day.

It took us a little while to find our hotel even though it was 5 minutes from the metro station. The only directions they gave us were “100m from the station”. We were able to check in early, and it was nice to stay in a hotel rather than a hostel. It was a cheap hotel, but it was nice to have a private room and not have to worry about leaving your stuff there.

After that we went straight to Disney which is a 10 minute train ride from Torcy. The station at Disney was right in front of the gates, which was so convenient. We went to Disney Studios the first day since it was smaller and we didn’t get there until 12:30 and the parks close at 7:00. We had no idea how small the park actually was. You could walk across the entire park in about 5 minutes, and it only took us a couple hours to do everything. It helped that almost all of the rides were walk-ons. It was great because we were able to do everything in the limited time, plus all of the main things twice. They had a Fast Pass system there, but it was useless. It just took you to a point in the line to cut in. Since the lines were short to begin with, it got you nowhere.

It was really nice how American Disney was. When we got there we had hot dogs for lunch. Everything seemed so Disney-ish that you felt like you were in Florida even though it was colder. It was really nice to have a taste of home, and it’s cool that Disney has the same feel about it no matter where you are.

I think the best way to describe Disney Studios is to review the attractions in comparison to Disney World.

- Cinemagique: a cute movie show that represents our Great Movie Ride. The movie features Martin Short who gets pulled into the movie when he is talking loudly on a cell phone at the movies. He goes through all of the different genres and most of the classic movies. It was half in French and half in English. We were laughing out loud at Martin Short, but none of the French people got his jokes.
- Tower of Terror: very similar to ours. The inside lobby area is not very scary looking. The beginning part with the Twilight Zone is the same – the first time we were there is was dubbed in French with English subtitles. The second time it was the same English one with French subtitles. The ride was better because it was different. It drops at different times from ours which made it unexpected.
- Rock ‘n Rollercoaster: worse than ours. Same beginning in the studio but they cut out the story about getting stretch limos to rush us to the show, so there was no overall theme to the ride. The beginning blastoff was the same, but the ride was much worse than ours since it didn’t have the street theme.
- Animagique: a mixture between Philharmagic and The Voyage of the Little Mermaid. Like Mermaid because there are puppet people in black light. Like Philharmagic because Donald steals something from Mickey and enters into the world of Disney animated classics. It was good, but very strange. Most was in English but some random parts (like Under the Sea) were in French. The finale with the Animagique song was very memorable.
- Crush’s coaster: awesome. Hands down the best thing at Disney Studios, which is why it had a 35 minute wait while everything else was 5-10 minutes. A coaster where 2 people are facing the front and 2 the back on a turtle shell. The ride made you feel like you were swimming through the ocean. It was very cool – I’m hoping they make something like it for Disney World. It was the only thing that was really different from ours.
- Backlot tour: the same. They had the same exact Catastrophe Canyon where the same exact things happened. It displayed lots of things from Pearl Harbor, which was weird since its so old.
- Armageddon special effects: A special effects show with fire, smoke, etc. I think we used to have something like it, it seemed very familiar.
- Stitch Live!: The same thing as Turtle Talk with Crush except with Stitch. He interacts with the audience and talks to everyone. I still don’t understand how they get these to work. It was interesting because we went to the English show, but the people there had bizarre names, so Stitch was very confused.
- Art of Disney Animation: A movie featuring clips from Disney animated movies followed by Mushu from Mulan and the creators talking about how they made him. The show was in French, and you listened to the English version through headphones. The French was way too loud, so it was hard to concentrate on the English version. It was a really good show though. I was annoyed at the beginning when they dubbed Walt in French. I like Walt’s voice and didn’t want to hear a random French voice.

We left Disney Studios as it closed, and it was really nice that we were able to do everything in such a short time. It was a really great day, even though we were exhausted from only getting 3 hours of sleep the night before. We went back to Torcy to eat since everything was cheaper. We ate at Chicken Spot, which was good. Back at the hotel I was really excited to have a tv since I haven’t seen one in 3 months. I watched Secret Window in French, which was actually good since I knew what was happening anyway. We went to sleep early and woke up the next day early to go to Disneyland.

Paris Pictures

Pictures are up from Disneyland and from Paris! Stories to come in the next couple of days.

We'll always have Paris

I'm leaving at 3:45am to go to Paris! I'm taking a long weekend there, so I'll be in Disneyland Paris tomorrow and Friday, and the city of Paris on Saturday and Sunday. I'll be back in Dublin on Monday afternoon. I'm really excited! It's the last major trip I have planned - everything still on the schedule is travel around Ireland. I'll take lots of pictures as always. :)

St. Patrick's Day Dance

Click here to watch the video of our St. Patrick's Day dance.

New London Pictures

I added an album of London pictures that I stole from Danielle and Caity's albums. I'm planning on writing entries about the Aran Islands, England, and St. Patrick's Day in the next few days, so check below the really long Rome post.

Roman Holiday

I LOVED Rome. I had the best week there, and it was so much fun. Marisa has been studying there all year, so it was great to see her again, and it was also great to be with people who know the city well. I was able to stay with her at the hotel where she lives. The week felt like an actual vacation. It was relaxing for the most part, the food was incredible, and I got to do a lot of sightseeing. I’m so glad I went for the entire week instead of traveling in other parts of Italy first like a lot of people did. I felt really settled by the time everyone else arrived, and I was able to see things in beautiful weather. The entire weekend was colder and very rainy.

The food in Italy is incredible. I heard that American Italian food is different from Italian food, and many Americans don’t like it as much. I loved everything I had. There’s a great restaurant right by their hotel called L’Insalata Ricca. I got Ravioli Butter and Sage, Gnocchi Sardi, and Bruschetta Bianca there, all of which were wonderful. I also got lots of pizza in different places which tasted like the pizza at Olive Garden or Cheesecake Factory. Also the gelato everywhere was sooo good. I already miss the gelato!

The only thing that I didn’t like about Rome was the creepy men everywhere trying to sell you things. They are very persistent and I heard stories that they try to pickpocket you also. It’s just annoying to see them everywhere and say “no grazie, no grazie”. I also learned a lot of Italian words, and it was interesting to be in a non English-speaking country since I never had before.

The second day that I was there Marisa had a presentation so Anthony and Ying took me sightseeing. We went to the Forum, Colosseum, Mouth of Truth, and the Key Hole. They were great tour guides - Anthony knows about everything and Ying makes up stuff about places being blown up in World War II. We accidentally tried to sneak into the Forum - apparently they charge for it only during Easter week. This Italian lady followed us in and yelled at us. You haven't been yelled at until you've been yelled at in Italian. I really liked the key hole – you walk up a hill and there is this door that has a key hole in it. When you look through it there is a gorgeous view of the Vatican framed by shrubbery. It was really cool and something I never would have seen on my own.

On Thursday, Kelly, Charlotte, and I went on the Archeobus tour. It was a hop on-hop off tour on one of those open roof buses. We got off at the catacombs stop and took a tour of the Catacombs of San Callisto. It was really cool. There are so many tombs in there. One of the rooms used to have the remains of 9 popes from the 3rd century. That was pretty amazing. We were also in a room that had the remains of St. Cecilia. It was funny because our tour guide was telling us how much of a maze the catacombs are. He said, “If you follow me the tour is 15 minutes, but if you get lost it can be for eternity.” After the tour we were trying to catch the last Archeobus back, and we ended up waiting on the wrong side of the road and running to the bus when it passed us. We were lucky to get back on that bus.

There were a ton of Notre Dame kids in Rome for the weekend because our Campus Minister, Andrew Hoyt, arranged a pilgrimage. We had lots of holy events to do starting on Friday. The first thing was going to Saint John Lateran. We went to see the Passion Relics – a piece of the cross, nails, thorns, and the inscription from the cross. It was pretty amazing to see. I felt bad though because we were waiting on line to go in, and this sweet Spanish-speaking monk was letting people in. These Italian people came and cut in front of all the ND people waiting in line, and they were pulling each other in. The monk was so flustered and felt so bad that we got cut. We didn’t really care, but I felt really bad for him. That’s one thing that I really learned this week – Italian people cut lines. I was cut many times in the short time I was there.

After the Passion Relics, we went to the Sancta Scala. The Holy Stairs is the staircase that lead to the praetorium of Pilate at Jerusalem, which were sanctified by the footsteps of Jesus during his Passion. It is tradition to climb it on your knees, and that’s what we did. It was much more painful than I expected, because they are covered in wood, and the wood is very uneven. I’m sure it’s purposefully supposed to hurt, but still, it was really hard to walk when we reached the top and my knees were bruised the next day. It was an awesome experience, though, because you pray on each step and there’s a beautiful fresco of Jesus on the cross at the top that you can see as you climb.

That night we went to Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum. It would have been amazing had it not started raining as soon as we got there. We waited for 2.5 hours in the cold rain, then you could hardly see the Pope through all the umbrellas, and it was hard to follow along since it wasn’t in English and you couldn’t really read the booklet in the rain. It was a really cool experience, but it wasn’t really fun at the time. Afterwards Marisa, Anthony, Kelly, Charlotte, Angela, Caitlin, and I went out for hot chocolate, which was delicious (hot chocolate in Italy is like brownie mix).

The next day we had an early morning at the Vatican. I set my cell phone alarm for 6:20, but when my phone died the date got messed up, so I woke up on my own at 7:06 and we needed to leave by 7:30. Marisa and I got ready incredibly quickly, and we were only a couple of minutes late. We waited for probably 3 hours to get into the Vatican Museum, and it was raining again. Those creepy men that I mentioned were all selling umbrellas, and we really needed one. I asked Kelly to haggle for me since she has a New York edge about her. I told her to go for 2 euro, and they were asking 5. It was so funny because she was yelling “NO! 2 EURO!” to the guy. I finally got it for 3, which was well worth it.

Once we got inside the tour was great. We didn’t really like our tour guide and felt like we ran through a lot of the museum, but the stuff we saw was incredible. There are amazing paintings and sculptures in there, and we were in the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. The tour was over 3 hours long. It’s amazing how much art the Catholic Church owns.

The best story of the trip was Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square with Pope Benedict XVI. I brought a skirt for the mass because I think that if you’re not wearing a skirt it doesn’t feel like Easter, and I stand by that decision. I was surprised at the amount of people wearing jeans at the mass – I would never think to wear jeans to see the Pope. When we got there it was a little cold and cloudy, but it was a pretty nice day. We got there 2.5 hours early for mass, but it wasn’t bad waiting since we were sitting in our seats. We were 11th row center, which was pretty incredible. Unfortunately, right before mass was about to begin it started raining. And the rain just got worse and worse and worse. I kept thinking it couldn’t get any worse, but it always seemed to.

So, we got really, really wet. Marisa and I were under my 3-euro umbrella which began to leak (I’m proud of it for lasting as long as it did). Every time we stood for a mass part we tipped our chairs down on the ground so they wouldn’t get too wet before we had to sit back on them. Our skirts got soaked. Our shoes were completely soaked. I went to put my hood up in the middle of mass, which apparently had collected a pool of cold water, which immediately went down my neck. It was just a miserable, miserable time. And through all of the commotion, and due to the fact that there was no English and we couldn’t read our booklets, we got pretty much nothing out of the mass. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t even a homily, not that I would have known if there was. Kelly was sitting huddled in a poncho, and at communion time she didn’t notice that we were all going. She yelled, “It’s communion?! Why didn’t anyone tell me?!!!” Then on the way to communion when people were cutting Marisa, she turned to me and said “I can’t believe I just got cut on the confession line!” She didn’t even realize she said confession until I was talking about it later.

We took the bus back from the Vatican, and an old Italian man was laughing at us and tugging on his pants, making fun of the fact that we were wearing skirts. Then we went to the restaurant to get take out food to eat in our nice warm beds, and all of the waiters were making fun of us. We got back and changed, climbed into bed and ate our food while watching Love Actually. Then we fell asleep for about 2 hours and didn’t even realize it. We went out later with Anthony and Kelly for Easter dinner, which was great, then we went for our last gelato.

I was surprised at how sad I was to leave Rome. I’m usually ready to come back to Dublin - and it was definitely nice to come home - but I had such a great time in Italy. It was so much fun hanging out with Marisa, and it was cool that my ND friends and Dublin friends became friends. I would love to go back to Rome again some day.

Ciao Bella!

I just got back from Rome today which means that Spring Break is officially over. I absoultely loved the time I spent in Rome, even though a lot of the important parts were cold and rainy. I just added two albums, one of general tourist pictures, and the other of the Holy Week events that we did. I also added St. Patrick's Day pictures before I left, but I never put a link here. I'll add stories from break tomorrow!

St. Patrick's Day

In the middle of Spring Break, I came back to Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day. At first I was annoyed that it was right in the middle of break, but it was nice to come back and be able to do some laundry and repack before the next leg of break. Angela and her friend Caitlin stayed in my flat for the weekend as well as the majority of the ND London Programme. Our program had a lot of events planned for us, which was nice.

On Saturday we had St. Patrick’s Day mass in the city. Andrew Hoyt said the homily about McDonald’s shamrock shakes and children throwing nuts at him. Next was the main event of the weekend: our Irish dance performance. We had a much bigger audience than I expected, but it went fairly well. After that we had brunch. We were a little angry at the way they handed out tickets for the next events. It wasn’t organized and the people at my end of the table ended up not getting parade passes.

After that, I had a really fun day with Kelly, Kelly, and Karla from my dorm at ND. We went to the O’Connell House where Lisa was giving tours. Next we went to Trinity to see the Book of Kells, which I hadn’t seen yet. Then we went to St Patrick's Cathedral. It was cold and rainy the entire day, which seems to be a theme of my Spring Break. We stopped along the way for some Baileys Hot Chocolates. Next we had dinner at a restaurant across from the Brazen Head. We then took a cab to Parnell Park where we were supposed to go for a GAA game, but when we got there we were told it was cancelled because the weather was so bad. So we paid for the cab there and back for nothing. I went back to my flat after that because all I wanted was a hot shower and warm bed after our day out in the rain.

On Sunday Angela, Caitlin, and I went to mass at a church north of the Liffey, and it was cool because the bishop was presiding. When I was going up for communion, the priest dropped a bunch of hosts a few people in front of me, and he got incredibly flustered. I think it was partly because the bishop was there. I found it interesting that the palms they give here for Palm Sunday look like evergreen trees rather than palm trees like ours.

After mass we all went for shamrock shakes with Andrew, and then we went to Merrion Square for the St. Patrick’s Festival. They had carnival rides, food, and entertainment, but I found it very strange that it wasn’t very Irish. There were Indian music performers most of the time we were there.

That night I went to see The Poet and the Piper at the National Concert Hall, featuring Seamus Dean, arguably the greatest living poet. It was a little bit boring to me to hear poetry read for that long, but I definitely appreciated the experience. After that Karla, Kelly, and I went to the carnival right before it closed and rode the Freak Out. It was one of the best rides I’ve been on, and it was weird to be swinging over the tops of Georgian Buildings in Dublin. Then we went back to Kelly’s room and hung out and had hot chocolate and digestives.

The next day we got up early for St. Patrick’s Day. When we got into the city the first street vendor we saw was selling scarves that had the ND leprechaun on it. Kelly and I had to get them as souvenirs. They’re not the prettiest scarves, but it’s cool to say we got an ND scarf on the streets of Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day. We ended up getting a really good spot for the parade – right on the bridge over the Liffey. We had to wait a long time for the parade, but we decorated ourselves and had a good time. The parade itself was very, very strange – very different from American parades. The things they had didn’t make much sense. I took lots of pictures there because I thought it was bizarre.

After the parade we went to a pub for lunch. I got Beef and Guinness Pie, my favorite pub food. It was delicious. The pub had green water for St. Patrick’s Day, which was a little strange. After lunch, Angela, Caitlin, and I went to Ceil Mohr, an Irish music celebration.

At 3:45am I left for Rome.

Spring Break Pictures

I'm back home in Dublin for St. Patrick's weekend! I just put up my pictures from England. Here are pics from London, Stonehenge, and Bath. Much more to come, plus I'll be adding to the Aran album soon.

London Baby!

Traveling to London was the first time I traveled outside of the US by myself. I was very happy to get to the airport, check in, get through security, and get to my gate with plenty of time to spare. Just as I was thinking that, they announced that there was bad weather at Heathrow and my flight was going to have a 5 hour delay. The best part was they were boarding the plane and we’d have to sit there for the 5 hours, in hopes that being on the plane would speed up the time from air control. Since I only had 3.5 days in London, I was not happy about this delay. I walked around the airport and bought a book and snacks, preparing for the wait. When I got back they announced they would take the first 5 people who didn’t check luggage to get on an earlier flight that was leaving at the time ours was supposed to. I ran to the desk and was the second person to get on the earlier flight. It was actually exciting because they took us on a little bus to the other plane and rushed us on. I ended up landing at Heathrow at the exact time I was supposed to – just on a different flight.

I met Caity and Danielle at the Underground station at Hyde Park, and we immediately started sightseeing. It was cold and rainy so we were the only people at most of the places we went. We saw Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Harrod’s. We took pictures next to all of the guards, which was a little bit awkward. One actually laughed at us when we switched places to get Caity in the picture. I was carrying my backpack around the whole day, which kind of sucked after a while. We stopped for lunch at a good Italian place, and they had the most delicious dessert ever. It was a mixture between cinnamon toast crunch and a waffle with vanilla ice cream on top. Later we went to Queen Mary, where Caity is studying. Then we had a fried chicken dinner near her campus.

The next morning we woke up very early because we had to be at London Bridge at 7:30am. Danielle and I went on a tour of Stonehenge and Bath since Caity had classes all day. It was a really great tour and it was cool to see things outside of the city. I really liked Bath a lot. It’s a beautiful city, and the Roman Baths were very cool. My favorite part of the day was when Danielle and I got baguettes for lunch and we were sitting on a bench people watching. There was an adorable little boy that I noticed because he was on a leash. His mother was jewelry shopping and not watching him at all. There was a dog near him, and he expanded the leash so the dog could run far away. The dog was jumping on a woman who was eating and the leash blocked the entire sidewalk so no one could pass. The mother didn’t notice anything. Then the woman yelled at her, so the clueless mother got the brilliant idea of giving the boy the dog. The dog went running away, dragging the boy with him, who fell on the ground. It was great lunch entertainment.

When we got back to London, we decided to hang out in the central part rather than go back to Queen Mary. First we went back to Harrod’s to explore some more. Then we tried to find a place for dinner. Who would have guessed that would be so difficult? We wandered around for a long time and could not find any food places open, and it was only 8pm. In New York we would have passed lots of pizza places and McDonald’s. We ended up eating at a Friday’s, which was ridiculously overpriced, but very good.

The next day Danielle and I rode on the London Eye, which was very cool. Then the three of us went to Greenwich and saw the Prime Meridian line and the museum with the time ball on it. Then we went to Canary Wharf, and did our own movie tour. We saw places where The Bourne Supremacy and Love Actually were shot. Then we went to the Millennium Dome, then back to Caity’s for pizza. After that we went to a giant toy store, then got Cadbury Creme egg McFlurries at McDonald’s, which were good.

The next day was my last day in London. Danielle and I went to the Fashion and Textile museum. If you’re thinking about going there don’t go! They only have about 5 dresses there. The rest was pictures of pinstripes. When we saw that was a bust, we took the tube to the Victoria and Albert museum, which was much better. It had a fashion section that was 20 times bigger than the Fashion museum.

After that I took the Underground to Heathrow, which took a long time and I had to stand with my bag. When I got there the security was crazy because there was a terrorism scare there earlier in the day. When I finally got to my terminal I was shocked at how small and crowded it was and how few seats there were. I was expecting Heathrow to be much nicer. My flight was delayed because of the terrorism, and there were annoying American girls there singing loudly the whole time. I was very happy to get back to Dublin that night.

Trip Out West

Our trip out west to the Aran Islands seems like a long time ago, but I remember being on the bus ride back thinking about how much it enforced my love of the Dublin Programme.

The first thing we did was drive to Coole Park, where we learned about Lady Gregory and WB Yeats. Then we went to Yeats’ house and saw his home and tower. After that we continued to Galway where we had free time to get lunch. Kelly and I went to the McDonald’s there, and it was the first time I got McDonald’s in Europe. It was strangely comforting to eat McDonald’s French fries. I loved how there was a “Failte McDonald’s” sign when we walked in. After that we did a little shopping, and I bought Celtic cross earrings from a cute little market that we found. I also bought postcards because I’m collecting postcards from everywhere I visit to make a collage.

After Galway, we went on a ferry to the Aran Islands, which are just off the west coast of Ireland. The ferry was crazy – the water was extremely choppy. The entire boat was rocking from side to side. It was like one of those pirate ship rides at an amusement park. You’d look out one window and see only water and the other side only sky and then it would switch. A few people got seasick. When we got there, the locals said that a storm was coming and it was unlikely that the ferry would run the next day. That made us all worried since we had flights booked for Monday morning.

When we got there we checked into our hostel , then walked to the restaurant where we were having dinner. Of course, it was cold and raining. It was actually a long walk there too. We had a great fancy dinner then went to the pub that was attached. Kevin Whelan wanted us to perform at the pub so he made Joe play the fiddle and some girls sing. It was funny because he was trying to hush the people there when the girls were singing, but that’s not how pubs work.

When we got back to the hostel it was one of my favorite moments. We looked up at the sky and there were millions of stars. We were so far away from any cities that you could see every star in the sky. It was absolutely beautiful.

The next morning we got up early for an Irish speaking mass. It was cool, but I have definitely decided since there and Rome that I like my masses in English. There’s not much of a point to them if you don’t understand anything. After mass was the part I had been dreading for weeks, the 5 hour hike/cliff walk.

We were told ahead of time that it would be an “intense physical hike” and since I thought the hikes that Kevin said were easy were difficult, I was worried. The hike was actually amazing and I loved it. The part I hate about hiking is climbing straight up a mountain, but this was a relatively flat hike. The challenge was more the uneven surfaces – climbing over rocks, streams, stone fences. I found that much easier and more fun. Our tour guide Mickey was amazing, and we saw the most beautiful sights. We hiked pretty much all over the island, and he kept saying that we saw things that 99% of the people who go there never see, which is really cool. The cliffs were absolutely amazing. We stopped in the middle for tea and sandwiches, and it was really one of my favorite days after I had been dreading it for so long.

The ferry ended up leaving on time which was great, and we got back at 11pm when I had to leave for London at 6am.

Aran Pictures

Pictures are up from my AMAZING trip to the West this weekend. I don't have time to write about it now because I have a 6am bus to the airport for London tomorrow. I'll just say that today I saw the most beautiful sights I have ever seen, and I loved every minute of it (even the 5 hour hike lol). Today made me feel so blessed to be experiencing all of these things, and I can't believe that I'll be in London in hours, here for St. Patrick's Day festivities, and in Rome for Holy Week. Just thinking of that on the bus made me so thankful for this time here.
I hope you enjoy my pictures, even though they don't give the views justice in the slightest.

City Day/Crepe Night

Today I went shopping in the city centre with Kelly. I bought two new bags for 11 euro total! It was Daffodil Day for the Irish Cancer Society, and people were selling daffodils everywhere. One man was dressed completely in daffodils, so we got a picture with him. We also went to Ray's New York Pizza for dinner, which was surprisingly good. I added all of the pictures from today here.

At night our friend Sophie from Paris invited us over for crepes because her friend, Helen, from France was visiting. The crepes were really good, and she even taught us how to make some. They were much better than the ones we get at North Dining Hall. It was cool to have a French experience here.

We're off to Aran Island tomorrow morning, so I better get some sleep! Hope you like the pictures!

I'm on Spring Break!

I'm now officially on Spring Break! Let the traveling begin! I just came from Marketing class where we did a presentation on Australian wine companies. It somehow seems fitting that the one bit of work I've done here is about a wine company.

I've been busy this week with Irish dance lessons. We're performing on St. Patrick's weekend, so we've had practices for an hour and a half every day this week. Hopefully it will come together. I think everyone will like it - at least the songs we're doing are good. We start off with Lord of the Dance, then Low, Sexyback, Cecilia, and finish with the beginning of Siamsa, a cool Irish song.

Tonight Peggy Weber, the ND lady who does our orientations, is taking us to the Gaiety Theatre to see Blood Brothers. I'm excited for that.

On Saturday morning we leave for our trip to the West. We're going to Coole Park and staying overnight on Aran Islands. We get back late Sunday night, and I'm leaving for London early Monday morning,

Doing an Irish dance... hey!

The Elders came to Dublin, and I saw them!!! Last Fall, this Irish group called the Elders came to Notre Dame and performed at the DPAC. It was a Friday night before a football game, and I went with Rob, Gary, and Angela. Rob and I bought two of their cds there, and I've been listening to them ever since. I shared them with my parents, who now also love them, and my mom informed me that they were touring in Ireland this month. I looked it up and got tickets to see them at Whelan's. I had heard Whelan's is great (they even mention it in PS I Love You) so I had wanted to go there at some point anyway.

So Kelly and I just got back from the concert, and it was AMAZING! I liked them even more now that I know all of the words to their songs. I took a ton of videos - they're not the best since I was singing/screaming/jumping/trying to hide the fact that I was taking videos at the time. I just uploaded the pictures and videos.

After the show Kelly and I got our pictures taken with our two favorite guys. They were really nice. I told the fiddler I saw him at Notre Dame, and he said that was one of his favorite gigs. I hope they come back next year!

OMG! You Killed Kenny!

Thanks to the influence of my brother, everytime I heard Kilkenny, I thought of South Park.

Today I went on the Junior Year Abroad Quinn School of Business trip to Kilkenny - the Marble City. This sweet old lady, Dorothy, runs trips on the weekends for American business students, and this was the first time I've been able to go on one. It was a 2 hour bus ride to Kilkenny. When we got there we took a tour of Kilkenny Castle, had a delicious lunch at a pub (coffee with Baileys included!), then took a tour of the city. It was a lot of fun and it was all free, which makes it even better. Eight of us from ND went and we all hung out together. I added pictures here. Spring break starts next weekend, so lots of traveling will begin soon!

First Irish Test

Thursday night we had an econ "quiz". I say that because they call it a quiz, but it's worth 30% of our grade and it's really a midterm. First of all, it was in Blackrock Exam Centre - Blackrock is a town far away from campus. That was a little annoying and odd. I took a bus there really early because the bus line that runs there is unreliable, so I was worried about getting there and back. I got there really early and went to the library for some last-minute studying with a Canadian girl that I met on the bus. We went back to the exam hall at 6:15, it was wall-to-wall people, and they wouldn't open the door to the test room. It was insane. They opened the doors at about 6:29 for a 6:30 test. The test itself was a lot harder than I anticipated. The class is a joke, and I know all of the material that we've learned so far. The test questions came completely out of nowhere. I hear the grading system is ridiculous here, so I hope that helps.

The really stupid part was my plan getting back. I went to the bus stop and saw that the next bus wasn't for another 30 minutes, and they are supposed to be late all the time on top of that. I figured, why not just walk back? The ND kids who live at Blackrock walk back and forth every day when they come to campus. Extremely bad plan! It was dark, and I wasn't sure where I was going exactly. I was walking around residential areas for about 30 minutes. Then I finally got onto the main road and walked for 10 minutes, and I still had far to go. I looked at a bus stop and it made me confused as to where I was - the 10 stop was definitely not supposed to be listed on there, so I gave up and got a taxi back. That was the best idea I had that night. It cost 7 euro to get back from where I was, which was kind of bad, but it saved me walking for another 30-45 minutes. My lesson of the day was don't try to walk anywhere at night and be extremely thankful you don't live in Blackrock.

Bray Trip and Crazy Schedule

So much for my last post about resting today because I'm sick... today I took a day trip to Bray with Claire, Simone, Erin, and Erin. Bray is a cute little sea town in County Wicklow. We can take the Dublin bus there "free" on our bus passes. We just walked around for the day, did some shopping, and had lunch. I added a few of my pictures, but I'll add the ones Erin took once she puts them up. The highlight of the day was a store that I found there called Nolan's. My goal is to get my picture in front of everything in Ireland that says "Nolan".

I just added a bunch of things to my calendar, and I noticed that I am busy every weekend from now until I come home at the end of May. The only weekend I don't have travel planned is the weekend I get back from Spring Break. Next weekend I'm doing a day trip to Kilkenny, the week after is our West of Ireland trip (to Aran Island), then my London-Dublin-Rome Spring break, then a long weekend in Paris, then traveling with Kevin and Anthony around Ireland (hopefully Cork and Trim), then our Glendalough retreat, then exams, then 10 Year Anniversary Festivities in Dublin, then traveling home probably May 26. I'm getting tired just looking at my calendar, but it's going to be amazing!!

May the wind be always at your back

I finally understand the old Irish blessing "May the wind be always at your back..." When it's windy here, it's really windy. I thought nothing could be worse than the South Quad wind tunnel, but I was wrong. The force of the wind is staggering; it can literally blow so hard you can't walk straight. When the wind is at your back, it actually makes your journey shorter. There aren't many windy days here, but they are ridiculous.

On another note, today must have been kilt day in Dublin. I saw about 10 men walking around the city wearing kilts.

I haven't updated much this week because it's been a normal week with classes during the day and pubbing at night. I went to the Porterhouse last Sunday. They brew their own strawberry beer, which is a lot better than it sounds. Yesterday and today I was a bit sick, so I'm trying to rest up this weekend. I think being busy since I got here is finally catching up with me.

Christine and Robbie - I hope you have amazing 21st birthdays this weekend!! Wish I could be there!

Northen Ireland

We began our trip North at 9am on Friday morning. We got on our bus, which was the nicest bus I’ve ever been on. There were leather seats, televisions that showed the view from the front of the bus, and our bus driver Tommy was great. We drove for about two hours through beautiful Irish countryside. It felt like we were in a movie or one of those Ireland calendars.

We pulled off the road at the Cooley peninsula to see the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Kevin suggested we get off the bus to “stretch our legs” then he proceeded to climb straight up a mountain. It was a worse hike than Arthur’s Seat in Scotland, and we were told we were not hiking that day so all of the girls were wearing cute flats. The view from the top was breathtaking, but the hike up and down was awful. Kevin mentioned that we were standing in a place where the IRA sat watching below and detonated bombs, which was creepy.

After that we drove for a little while longer, and then stopped at the Carrickdale Hotel for tea and scones. It was delicious and made us all feel more Irish.

Next we drove to Stormont, the big Parliament building in Northern Ireland. The first thing we did there was have lunch, which was amazing. They said we could get whatever we want and keep going back, and our bill was ridiculous.

Next we had a presentation on the political history and current constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland, followed by a Q&A with Democratic Unionist Party member Mervyn Storey. That was an interesting experience to say the least. He is a unionist, so he is for Northern Ireland being a part of the United Kingdom. When we asked him about it, he said that he considers himself to be British, not Irish. That was really strange to hear.

After Stormont we drove to Portrush for dinner at the Ramore Wine Bar. It was a really swanky place and the food was delicious. Then we drove to Sheep Island View Hostel in Ballintoy where we spent the night. Across from the hostel was literally a field full of sheep and an island. We walked down to the harbor that night and had a little moment on the beach where we sang the Alma Mater and Victory March as well as Happy Birthday to Courtney. Then we went to a Nationalist pub in the town.

The next morning we went to Giant’s Causeway, which was amazing. It’s an area of about 40,000 interlocking hexagonal columns. It was declared a World Heritage Site and the fourth greatest natural wonder in the United Kingdom. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. When we were there Kevin gave a really moving speech about our heritages and connection to history that almost made us cry. After that we tried to spell “Ireland” out of rocks with a monogram ND for the 10th anniversary book that they’re making.

After that we drove to Belfast, where we were given a tour by a man named Peter who grew up there during the troubles. He took us to Falls Road, Shankill Road, and concentrated on the murals on the sides of the houses in the different neighborhoods. He told us stories about his grandfather and uncle being killed, and how he was beaten several times. The whole experience was very moving. I couldn’t believe that there are still “peace walls” dividing the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods to this day. One quote on a Protestant mural really stuck out to me, it said “Catholicism is more than a religion it is a political power. Therefore I’m led to believe there will be no peace in Ireland until the Catholic Church is crushed.” When kids in Protestant neighborhoods grow up reading this, it’s understandable why things are still not right.

I really loved the trip. It seems that we aren’t learning a lot in our UCD classes, but all of the experiences and hands on learning we have been doing is absolutely amazing.

Marisa and Ying's Visit

Marisa and Ying got here last Monday and visited for the week. We had lots of fun. The highlights were our trip to Enniskerry, dinner at Fitzsimmons, the tour of the Guinness Storehouse.

On Monday we ate lunch in UCD, then I took them to the city centre to show them around. We did a little shopping and I showed them the Grafton Street/O'Connell Street areas. We got some famous Butler's hot chocolate which was delicious as always. Then we went back to the O'Connell House because I was supposed to have Kevin's class, but it got cancelled which was the best timing ever. We came back here and watched a movie because they were really tired.

We went to Enniskerry on Tuesday since I had no class until 6pm, and the bus ride was supposed to be an hour. I wanted to take them somewhere that isn't just the city because when you're in Dublin you don't really get the full Irish experience. The Powercourt Estate is in Enniskerry - a mansion that has beautiful gardens and is right on the Wicklow Mountains. The Powerscourt estate is where they filmed The Count of Monte Cristo, the mansion that he buys when he becomes the count, and where he has his party. That was pretty cool because I love that movie. The Wicklow Mountains is also where a part of P.S. I Love You takes place. Unfortuately the traffic made the bus ride longer than advertised, so we couldn't stay long and I barely made it back in time for class. It was a beautiful trip though. After class we did a pub crawl on Baggot Street because it was Erin's birthday.

The next day I was in class most of the day, so they explored the city on their own. That night we wanted to go out to a pub for dinner. They wanted to have an Irish culture day, and Ying really wanted some Irish stew. We were supposed to go right after touring the Guinness Storehouse, but we didn't make it there before it closed so we went back the next day. We went to the Brazen Head which is the oldest pub in Ireland, but we didn't like their menu, so we went to Temple Bar to find somewhere else. We ended up going to Fitzsimmons, and Marisa and I both got Beef & Guinness Pie. It was the most delicious thing ever - Guinness may be gross to drink, but it's great to cook beef in. After that we went to The Temple Bar and listened to some live music.

The next day we did tourist things. We went to Christ Church Cathedral, took pictures at Dublin Castle, and went to the Guinness Storehouse including the famous Gravity Bar at the end. It was all really cool, although I officially do not like Guinness at all. I'll stick to Bulmers all the time.

After that we came back here and had a taco night. Ying went shopping for the ingredients while I was in class, and they came out really good. Then we went to see UCD's production of West Side Story because I got free tickets through the Business school. It was really good, but I was hoping they would do it with Irish accents instead of putting on New York and Spanish accents. I love the music from that show.

They left early Friday morning, and I left right after for Northern Ireland. Their visit went by really quickly. I'm looking forward to visiting them in Rome next month!

New Pictures

I added pictures from the daytrip Marisa, Ying, and I took to Enniskerry, County Wicklow. The Powerscourt Estate was used for a location in The Count of Monte Cristo!

I also added some pictures from our adventures out, but I will add more to that later today. Stories will come on Sunday when I'm back from Northern Ireland.

Happy Birthday Dad! Happy Valentine's Day!

Adventures in Scotland

I just got back from Scotland today, it was so beautiful! Edinburgh is the most beautiful city I have seen. The old city is so historic and the Royal Mile is gorgeous. We stayed at Castle Rock Hostel, which I highly recommend. It was right next to Edinburgh Castle, the staff was really friendly, and it just had a really cool vibe. Our room had a Happy Days theme, and my bed was called Joanie.

The first thing we did was a free tour of the city. Our Australian tour guide was awesome. He showed us all around the city and told us historical stories such as Maggie Dickson, amusing stories such as the theft of the Stone of Destiny, and he even threw in a little Harry Potter tour (the cafe known as the birthplace of Harry Potter is in Edinburgh as well as a school resembling Hogwarts that is said to be J.K. Rowling's inspiration). The tour was great and very informative too.

After the tour we went to the Writer's Museum then took a quick break since we left Dublin at 3am. By the way, Ryanair may be cheap, but that was by far the sketchiest landing of my life.

After that we made a pasta dinner in the hostel since it was Friday and we couldn't eat meat. That was really cute to have a family dinner, and it turned out good. We were surprised by how many people actually live in the hostel and were cooking there.

After that we went out pubbing to Maggie Dickson's (£1.95 drinks for students and backpackers!) then next door for some live music. It was a good night.

The next day we started off with Edinburgh Castle. It was an awesome castle and it had a bunch of museums and memorials to see. It also featured and the crown jewels and the stone of destiny. The view from the castle was also amazing. We saw them fire a cannon at 1, which was also cool.

After that we walked down the Royal Mile and went hiking up Arthur's Seat. I hiked! lol. The climb was awful - we accidentally took the harder path. The effort was definitely worth it though because the views at the top were stunning. The climb down was also a little sketchy- I was really afraid I would fall down.

After that we went shopping up the Royal Mile. We went to a cute fudge shop which was great and then I bought two plaid scarves! We went out to eat afterwards at the Castle Arms, then we got fried Mars bars, which Scotland is apparently known for. It was so delicious!

When we got back to the hostel we watched Braveheart in the movie room. I think it's really cool that I can say I watched Braveheart in Scotland. I was sad when our tour guide telling us how historically inaccurate it is though. The big battle at Stirling should be on a bridge, Mel Gibson's too short, William Wallace's family was actually rich, and the face paint never would have happened.

All in all the trip was amazing - I highly recommend visiting Edinburgh if you ever get the opportunity!!

More Plans

This weekend I'm going to Scotland. Our flight is at 6:30am and we're leaving campus at 3:18am, so tomorrow should be fun lol. I'm so excited to see Edinburgh!

Marisa and Ying are visiting next week! They'll be here Monday through Friday morning. I'm hoping to take a day trip somewhere in the country on Tuesday since I have no classes until 6. I was thinking maybe Enniskerry, just to see somewhere that's not a city. Wicklow is close and beautiful, so that's what I was thinking. I hope they're up for it!

That next weekend is our first class trip. We're going to Northern Ireland, which should be fun too.

The past week went by so quickly! I can't believe a week ago I was waiting for Caity to get here. With everything going on the next few weeks time is going to fly.

Oh I also booked my Paris trip today!! I'm doing two days at Disneyland and two days in Paris with Angela and her friend in the beginning of April. :-)

Happy 21st Jen!!

Differences

Here are some differences between Ireland and America that I noticed today:

- In Ireland, professors either don't show up for class or they show up 15 minutes late.
- When an Irish professor tells you to take a 15 minute break, he means 35 minutes.
- The don't sell liquid laundry detergent here.
- Laundry costs 4.5 euro (~$6.75) for one small load.
- If you hold the door open for someone, they say "cheers!"
- Orange soda tastes like American orange juice.
- In early February it is warm enough to wear a t-shirt and flip flops (I hope the weather stays this beautiful!).

As you can tell, I'm doing laundry right now.

Caity's Visit

Caity, my friend from high school who is studying in London this semester, came to visit for the weekend. She got here late Thursday night and stayed until Monday afternoon. On Friday we went to that St. Brigid's day mass in Trinity that I talked about in the last post. It was cool to go to a mass in Irish, and I actually recognized a few of the words. My favorite part was the homily when the priest said something like "Today is St. Brigid's day. She was important," and then he sat down. The masses here are so different from America.

After mass we walked around the city centre. We went in a few shops on Grafton Street and O'Connell Street and were looking to buy some cute boots so we wouldn't look so American. I bought a backpack for my trips, and the backpack salesman was pretty hilarious. After that we went to Number 29 at Merrion Square. That is a Georgian home that is decorated with the original furnishings, and they give house tours every day. I thought it was cool since the house had the same layout as our O'Connell house, so it was interesting to see what it would have looked like in the past.

That night we went out with Kelly, Livia, and Vic. We went to see P.S. I Love You, since parts of that movie are in Ireland. It made me really want to go to the Wicklow Mountains. I loved the part when she mispronounced Dun Laoghaire since I also had no idea when I got here. The movie was so sad, I seriously cried through half of it. It cost 9 euro ($13.50), so that was a little crazy.

After the movie we did a Temple Bar pub crawl. We started off at a pub right next to the Ha'Penny bridge. They had live Irish music there which was really fun. I also found a good beer there which is great since beer is a lot cheaper than real drinks. It's called Bulmer's Vintage Cider, and it's really sweet and good. After that place we went to a bunch of pubs in the Temple Bar area. The actual Temple Bar was packed, and we had trouble just walking through it. Another pub had live music, but they were playing American music like "Sweet Home Alabama". We met a guy from Amsterdam there who we talked to for a bit. After that we went to Mssrs Maguire which is a fun pub since it has dancing. We ended up in our old favorite, Doyle's, which was also extremely crowded.

The next day we went to Dublinia Medieval Viking World, which was on Caity's list of places of interest. It was a fun little museum, and we took a ton of pictures looking like idiots posing with the various props and figures.

After that we took a tour of Dublin Castle, which I really loved. The one part of it is just a mansion, and the connecting part is an actual castle. I didn't realize that government meetings and the inauguration of the President happened there. They also have a throne room with a throne that King George IV and Queen Victoria sat on. After the tour of the mansion part, you go undergound and see a castle wall built by the Vikings. You can't go in the castle part because that's where they film The Tudors. Once I found that out, I realized I need to go back and try to find Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

That night we did another pub crawl with all of the ND people. My favorite part was when two guys from Northern Ireland were hitting on us. Their strategy was impressive - they said they were betting on whether we were from Ireland or America. They actually exchanged 5 euro to make it look more authentic. They were cute, but really chatty. We left them when the group was leaving to go to the next pub.

The next day we were going to go to the National Botanical Gardens, but it was really rainy, cold, and windy (Caity came on the coldest weekend since I've been here), so we just went into the city. We went to the National Gallery and looked at all of the art, then we had lunch.

That night we went to the O'Connell House for the Super Bowl gamewatch. The free pizza was good and it was nice to see an American event with the game and commercials and music. I was really excited that Tom Petty did the halftime show, but I thought he looked a little creepy. I'm usually disappointed by the commercials, but I liked the one with the horse training and the ones with the baby. The game itself was disappointing until the end. I was rooting for the Patriots (even though I'm a new Giants fan) because they've been amazing all year so I thought they deserved it, but by the end of the game I didn't think they deserved it anymore. The end was amazing - very exciting even though it was on at 3am here. Yay Giants!

The plan was to sleep at the O'Connell house that night since the game was over around 3:30am and the buses stop running at 11:30pm. It was really cold in the house though, I think because it is usually closed on weekends. Caity and I woke up at 6:30 and were freezing, so we took a bus back at 6:45am. As we got to the bus stop the bus was dropping someone off, so Caity ran up to the bus and banged on the door. It was hilarious but great since it was cold and we would have had to wait another 20 minutes if we missed it. We got back to my room, put the heat all the way up, and slept past noon.

The next day we just hung around UCD, and Caity left around 4. It was a fun weekend, and I'm really looking forward to visiting her in London in March.

Sorry this is the longest post ever, I'm writing it in Ethics class right now which is incredibly boring. :-)

Weekend Plans

Caity is coming tonight to visit for the weekend! I'm so excited, I'm sure we'll have a great time. We're going to hang around Dublin and try to do a lot of the touristy things. I'll have lots of pictures soon, and there are always good stories when Caity is involved lol. Tomorrow there is a St. Brigid's day mass in Trinity that's said in Irish. Hopefully we'll have time to go to that.

We're also going to the Super Bowl party at the O'Connell house on Sunday. Of course the game starts at 11:18pm here, which kind of sucks. Who would have guessed that the year I decide to become a Giants fan they go to the Super Bowl? I've liked the Patriots for a while now, so this is the first year that I'm actually excited for the Super Bowl and not just the halftime show.

I'm off to Centra now to get a couple groceries and a new bus pass. I'll update again soon!

Craic agus Ceol

On Monday nights we have our Intro to Ireland class at the O'Connell House. Kevin Whelan teaches it, and he's great. Yesterday's class was especially cool because we learned about Daniel O'Connell, the Liberator. He fought politically against England for Catholic Emancipation. It was amazing because Notre Dame's O'Connell house is the house that he lived in. So when Kevin was telling us about the speeches he made to Merrion Square from the balcony, the balcony was literally 3 feet from me. It was a really interesting class and extra amazing since it was in the O'Connell house.

After class we all went to O'Neills, a pub off Grafton Street. On Monday nights they have live Irish music. We all really loved it, and we want to make it a Monday tradition. In Ireland, they call good times craic (pronounced crack), and ceol is the Irish word for music. So we're all hoping to enjoy craic and ceol every week while we're here.

New Pictures

I added pictures to the Adventures in Dublin album, including me with my first pint of Guinness! I also added a couple of pictures to the Howth album, just some pictures with people actually in them.

An Irish Mass

Today was the first time we attended mass at an actual Irish church. Last week we had mass at Kevin's house and in the O'Connell House chapel, so this was the first time we actually ventured into a church. We were all wondering what it was going to be like after the things we've heard. In our theology class, the professor was talking about how the Church is dying here. The Trinity kids said mass is depressing: there's no music, there's usually not many people there (especially under age 30), and it's really quick. We were interested to see if these things were true.

We went to mass in Donnybrook, and the church was really nice. The architecture of it reminded me a lot of the basilica at ND, but it was less ornate. There were a lot more people there than we expected. It wasn't packed, but there were certainly a lot of people there. The quickness of the mass was definitely true. I had a hard time keeping up with the Creed, and we only had time to say peace to two people. The mass was over in less than 45 minutes.

Unfortunately the homily was an appeal (some things never change no matter where you are lol), so I didn't really get to hear a real homily, which I was looking forward to. An interesting thing though was communion. It was a free for all, with everyone just rushing toward the altar. People have told me that Americans are known for their line skills - we automatically form an orderly line for things while elsewhere in the world people don't do that. This certainly seemed true at mass.

Trip to Howth

Today I took a daytrip to the beautiful peninsula, Howth (rhymes with both). It's only a 30 minute train ride away, and it is such a beautiful town. The views there are spectacular! There was a harbor, a little shopping village, and a castle. I took a ton of pictures that I just added to the photo page (http://picasaweb.google.com/Megan.Nolan1/Howth).

Some highlights of the day were the seal feeding and lunch at the Bloody Stream. On the West Pier they feed fish to the seals every day, and it was pretty cool. There were 5 large seals that came right up to the pier. After we saw that we went to the pub for lunch. That was an interesting experience - the service was incredibly bad, but I think the waitress was just way over her head. It was really quaint and beautiful in the pub though. Kelly and I were going to get fish and chips because Howth seems like the perfect place to do it, but we ended up just getting soup and salad. It was really fun though - my first experience eating in a pub.

Another fun thing was seeing Howth castle. You couldn't walk inside it or anything, but it was really cool to look at. I'm fascinated by how old the stuff here is. When I was looking in the National Gallery the other day I was looking at art from the 1400s. Even just walking around Dublin, the buildings are so historic. You don't see really old things in America, so I especially loved the castle and the ruins by it.

The trip was really fun! Even though we've been here for two weeks this was the first time we really felt like we were in Ireland. Being in Dublin is amazing and it's definitely an Irish experience, but seeing the beautiful landscapes and the castle made it all the more real.

New Pictures!

I just added pictures of my room:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Megan.Nolan1/UCD

And I added pictures from today. I was walking around the city and it was sunny! That doesn't happen much so I figured I better document it.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Megan.Nolan1/ASunnyDayInDublin

Dia duit!

I thought it might be a good idea to set up a blog to share my stories from Dublin and my travels. This way I won't have to do mass emails, and everyone can hear what's been happening. So if you feel like procrastinating for a little bit, or you just want to see what I'm up to, check here. I'm post-dating the the stuff that's happened in the past couple of weeks, so that will be below this.

I'll also be updating pictures through google. My picture page is http://picasaweb.google.com/Megan.Nolan1. I'll update here when I add new pictures.

I miss you all!

First day of classes Dublin style

So how does University College Dublin handle the first week of classes? "Monday: DJ and drinking games all day in the college pub."

The Irish approach to socializing is very different from Notre Dame's. At ND people go out on weekend nights; here people go out every single night. People also start a lot earlier, probably because most pubs close at 11:30. First day of classes, 3pm, there is a line of about 200 people outside of the college pub. Yeah, things are a bit different.

Travel Plans

One of the best reasons to study abroad is all of the traveling you get to do. When you're home base is in Europe it is so much cheaper and easier to travel. We've all been making plans like crazy to book trips while it's cheap. I'm really excited about my plans!!

First, I'm going to Scotland with about 10 people here from February 8-10. We're staying in Edinburgh, so it should be really fun.

My Spring Break plans are amazing!!
March 8-9: West of Ireland - we have a field trip there as part of our Intro to Ireland class
March 10-13: London - visiting Caity while Danielle is also visiting! :)
March 14-17: St. Patrick's Day weekend in Dublin: we're performing our Irish dance that weekend which should be interesting. If any of you saw Marisa and me after that class at ND you'd know why.
March 18-24: Rome! Visiting Marisa for the week and doing all of the Holy Week events through ND including Stations of the Cross and Easter mass!

I'm also in the process of planning a trip to Austria with a few girls. We want to do the Sound of Music Tour there.

The only other place I really want to go is Paris. Angela and I are trying to plan a trip to Disneyland, so I hope that works out. I was supposed to go for a weekend with Marisa and Ying after they visit here in February, but I can't because our trip to Northern Ireland got moved to then.

Yeah, so I'm really excited about all of the plans I made. It should be an awesome semester!

Don't Get Hit by a Bus!

The main thing we are worried about here is getting hit by buses. I don’t understand why they drive on the wrong side of the road here. If anyone knows why the English people started that please let me know. I love how it's painted on the sidewalk "<-- Look Left" or "Look Right -->" so you don't get killed. The bus drivers would seriously run you over too. Traffic is crazy here and people aren't too concerned about hitting people.

The other day I was riding in a taxi and I was sitting in the front seat. It was so weird to be in the driver's seat without a steering wheel.

"I am so proud of my Irish roots. To show it, when I go back to the States, I will continue to drive on the left side of the road. Dangerous? Yes. Illegal? Highly. But that's just how dedicated I am." -Will Ferrell

The City of Dublin

The city of Dublin is beautiful. The River Liffey runs through the center of the city. I mostly stay to the south of the Liffey; Kevin Whelan said the north side can get a little sketchy. So far Grafton Street is my favorite part of the city. That is where my favorite movie, Once, was filmed. It's a big pedestrian street with all shops and restaurants. They have a beautiful little mall there. There are always people performing on the street, so it’s always a good time. It’s also very close to Merrion Square, where I spend half of my time.

At the bottom of Grafton Street is St. Stephen’s Green, a beautiful park in the city. That’s also featured in the first few minutes of Once for anyone who’s seen it. It’s really a gorgeous part of the city. At the top of Grafton Street is Trinity College, and then O’Connell Street. All the pictures in my albums are from these areas that I just mentioned, so check them out.

Getting to Dublin

Traveling to Ireland was more intense than I expected. I haven’t done any international traveling, so the adjustment to the time difference was a new experience for me. The flight itself was really good though. They have those individual tvs so I watched Across the Universe, Hairspray, Sex and the City, Everybody Loves Raymond, Biography of Russell Crowe, and this show that was like the Amazing Race around Dublin. That was all I did the whole flight, so it kept me pretty entertained. The only bad thing was that we landed at 4 something in the morning and had to wait until 7:00 for them to pick us up because of the flight coming from Chicago.

The day we got here is kind of a blur. They wanted us to stay up until at least 8:00pm when we got here so we adjust to the time quicker. We all pretty much missed a night's sleep and were very tired all day. They dropped us off at our dorms and we took a bus into the city to the O’Connell House. That’s the house on Merrion Square that Notre Dame owns, where we take two of our classes. The house is really beautiful and in a great location in the city. UCD is about a 15 minute bus ride away from the city centre. We did a quick orientation and walking tour of Dublin that day.

My dorm is a lot nicer than I expected. I live in Belgrove at UCD, so there are three singles with a common kitchen, living room, and bathroom. My room and closet are bigger than the other two in the flat for some reason. The living room and kitchen areas are really big. My two flat-mates are Claire from Minnesota and Colleen from Vermont. I didn’t know either of them before this, but they are both really nice.
(See pictures of Belgrove: http://picasaweb.google.com/Megan.Nolan1/UCD)