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)