First Weekend in Dublin!

Dublin is fantastic. This to the left is my dream house I found in Howth!

I have been incredibly busy with orientation meetings, trips to the city centre, multiple pub crawls, and class.

Here is a run down of my adventures this past weekend:

Thursday- After a very smooth plane ride, we arrived in Dublin and were transported to Dublin City University. I am living on campus, in an apartment with 9 other people. The living arrangements are very convenient and well maintained. I have a lovely view of the public park across the road. After meetings and a couple of naps, a few of us ventured out into the city centre to explore, eat and drink. We stumbled into Maddigans, an old pub where we ate fish and chips and drank our first pint. I wasn't brave enough to order a Guinness, so I settled with a Smithwicks. We hit another pub afterwards called Fitzgeralds. It's an old pub, with a cozy booth in the corner where the 8 of us hung out, had another pint, shared many stories and laughs. It was a fantastic way to get to know one another, and very Irish.

Friday- Part of our orientation involved a treasure hunt throughout the city. It was a great exercise to get acquainted and explore the city. After our treasure hunt we shopped around the city and decided to try out some more pubs! We asked a local to suggest us a few of his favorite pubs and we hit Hairy Lemon where I did have my first Guinness! It was smooth and delicious!! This pub had a couple levels, many nooks and crannies to sit in and many young Irish locals. From there we moved onto O'Neills, the 300 year old pub (give or take a couple years) and from there we headed into the famous temple bar area. We stumbled upon Fitzsimons a 5 story pub/bar/night club. It is a great place full of young people and live music! Here we met Susan, a graduate of DCU! She gave us great advice about Dublin and where we should and should not go.

Saturday- A group of us traveled outside of Dublin to Howth (to pronounce, rhyme with boat and add an "h"). It was about a 30 minute bus ride to this lovely little village. It is rather touristy but nevertheless beautiful. It was my first time seeing the Irish Sea and my first time seeing another area of Ireland. We ventured around, went through this beautiful cemetery,

trekked up steep path, found an old radio museum, walked down a pier, and ate smoked cod fish and chips at the Bloody Stream. It was a delicious meal in a cozy, candle lit, corner of the pub. The inside walls were painted stone, there was a fireplace, and many locals. Saturday evening nearly every student in the program (40 people) went out! It was great to be with so many people as we are all still getting to know each other. We all ended up at Fitzsimons again and danced the night away!

Sunday- The day of rest!!!! Sunday Colleen and I intended to rest and get settled into our apartment and go grocery shopping. This soon became a very long and tiring excursion. Most of the students in our apartment decided to come with us and we started off to the grocery market in the wrong direction. After asking for directions we soon realized we took a 1/2 hour detour in the wrong direction! We finally made it to the Omni Shopping Park where we shopped at Tesko! A large grocery market! I filled my large backpack with groceries and trekked home! It was one of our fellow apartment mates 21st birthday, so we had a birthday party and again went out into the city to celebrate. Once again we met more locals and danced the night away!

Monday- Today we had our first class: History of Ireland with Caroline! It was fantastic! Caroline is a Ph.D student here at DCU. She is originally from Galway and she is young, energetic, and a wonderful lecturer.

Tomorrow we have Contempory Irish Society and Art History: Music. There is some talk about learning how to actually play traditional Irish instruments! Grand!

So far, so good. I'm thoroughly enjoying myself here in Ireland. It is a great place!

Here are some photos of the events from above!

Church ruins in the Howth Cemetery.

View of the harbor in Howth