Walking Tour of City Centre Dublin

I went on a walking tour of city centre Dublin today, along with a few of my friends from Blackrock. We walked through St. Stephen's Green, through the Georgian neighborhood a little, through the main campus of Trinity, and up to the gates of Dublin Castle. The tour guide did a good job explaining the historic elements of what we were seeing, along with some cultural information.

The first couple of pictures are of sculptures in St. Stephen's Park. The first one was done as a memorial to all of the Irish who died during the famine of the mid-eighteen hundreds, caused mostly by the potato blight. The second sculpture is of a Protestant Irish hero parliamentarian Wolfe Tone, who believed Ireland had the right to be independent and spear-headed the Irish rebellion of 1798. He is credited with being the major figure behind the Irish republicanism movement.

The first picture of buildings is from the Georgian district, and is actually the childhood home of Oscar Wilde. The second picture of buildings is a shot from the main entrance of Trinity College.

The last picture is of Libby, Ingrid, and myself at the obligatory tourist destination, the bronze sculpture of Molly Malone with her cart of cockles and mussles.

This tour was right down my alley, as i'm such a history nerd. With two Irish history classes, i'll probably be fed up with this kind of stuff by the end of the semester!

p.s. the pictures are in the opposite order that i thought they were, but i'm too lazy to fix it.

OMG CULTURE SHOCK!!!

One of the orientation presentations from the first few days when we were here was about "culture shock". Apparently, some of the symptoms can include: depression, tiredness, compulsive handwashing, emotional swings, etc., etc.

Well, I luckliy haven't experienced any of these symptoms (except maybe the tiredness, but c'mon, i'm a college student), but there have been a few cultural differences i've noticed since i arrived here.

I think that the main "shock" that i've noticed is the general pace of life. Even though Dublin is a big modern city that is completely identical to any U.S. city in most respects, the people in general have somehow retained the slower, more relaxed pace of life that we in the United States seem to have discarded several generations ago. As one of my friends professors said, a lot of people in Ireland operate on "ish"-time. As in, if a class is scheduled for 11, it's totally fine for the professor to come in a little late, especially if it's a friday or a monday, or if there was any kind of holiday special event on the previous day that might make a trip to the pub necessary.
This is not a bad thing at all, it's just a little interesting to adjust from the American schedule of everything starting more or less on time, immediate results, and fast or express versions of just about everything, to a more relaxed schedule. I guess i'm just going to have to learn how to "chill out", even though i've always thought of myself as pretty laid back in general. I don't know if a high-strung type-A person would be able to handle Ireland.

President Obama!!

On my second day here, i attended a study abroad orientation, where an "Obama Inauguration" gathering was offered. Well, today i, along with a couple hundred and some other American students and faculty members attended that event, and it was exciting, fun, and at the very least, interesting.

It was scheduled to be held in the Student Services Center, which is kind of like MSU's student union, at 4:30, but as we were watching before the coverage on some tv's in the food court area, we could tell that it was getting close to the actual swearing in, so when they finally did let us into the room, it was kind of a bum rush. It did end up being worth the wait though. The had couches and rows of chairs set up, American foods like onion rings, sandwiches, small fried chicked wings, and of course oriental dipping sauce, as well as American beverages like Coke and everyone's favorite American-brewed Belgian-owned beer, Budweiser. The Study Abroad advisor for UCD, who is definitely Irish, organized the event and was wearing a button that said "G0 Obama OK". She's a funny lady....at the end of the event when everyone was leaving she asked a few of us "What are you all doing later?" when i said "I don't think much of anything, i have a 9 am class tomorrow." she seemed dissapointed that we weren't going to some sort of American party or out to a pub to celebrate; the Irish seem willing to use any excuse to go have a pint, even the inauguration of a foreign president.

Anyway, once we were admitted to the reception room, there did end up being a few minutes before President Obama (I love being able to say that!!!) was sworn in, in which we were coached by one of the faculty members to shout "Yes we can!" in unison for the tv camera of a local news station.

Everyone did quiet down when the swearing in began, and it remained that way until the end of President Obama's (oh my gosh that's not going to get old) speech, with the exception of a few outbursts of applause at the appropriate moments, a few jeers whenever the camera panned to former (YESSS!!!) President Bush, and a few laughs at the awkward "SSashaah" of Pastor Rick Warren's otherwise eloquent blessing.
I found President Obama's speech very powerful, even from thousands of miles away. Our small crowd's reaction mirrored the reactions of the crowd in Washington D.C. Parts of the speech rang even truer than i think they ever could have at home, like when Obama talked about the immigrants from a multitude of other countries and their difficult journeys, but ultimate successes in making the United States into one of the strongest countries in the world. Oh, i could go on, but i'll try to not make this post too long.....

Although i envied all those at home, and especially those in D.C., i do value the experience of watching such a uniquely "American" event in another country, and then being able to hear the reactions of people from other countries. When i did ask a few people from my dorm that are from various parts of the world what they thought of the transition, they uniformly agreed that Obama would be a definite improvement over Bush, especially in areas of foreign policy, but i have also heard people bring up issues like how ideas that Obama has developed in order to improve OUR economy might not necessarily help other countries or even hurt other countries, as we turn to more protectionist policies in order to recover from such a great economic collapse. Ugh, again i could babble on, but i think i'll end on a happy note.....YES WE DID!!!

Almost a week in

I can't believe that i've almost been here a week already! It's been fairly fast-paced over the last five days; i've moved into my dorm, unpacked, been to two orientations, met people and even stocked up on groceries.
I don't know how into detail to go, but i guess i can start with my trip here. The plane left at about 7:45 p.m. from Chicago, lasted about 6 hours, and arrived in Dublin at 8:30 a.m. I managed to meet some students from the University of Minnesota on the flight, who were also staying where i was, so we all took a cab from the airport to Blackrock, a small seaside suburban village a few miles south of the Dublin city center. Blackrock is the second campus for UCD; the main one is 2 miles away (a 35 minute walk), in an area called Bellfield. I, as well as the rest of the students living in Blackrock, don't really mind the distance, because Blackrock is a cute town, and there are places to buy food or necesseties, as well as some nice pubs to go to on the weekends.
I have a single room, which is actually bigger than my single room last year at state. I lucked out, and ended up with one of the largest rooms on the floor :) My hall is almost completely made up of international students, so there are people on my floor from the U.S., Australia, France, Germany, and Holland, and then even more throughout the rest of the building.
I can't wait for classes to start so i can get into some kind of rhythm, and for the university-guided excursions to different places in ireland. I'm going into the Dublin city center today with some people from my floor to check out the different sights, and hopefully some shopping. I'll report back soon!

I'm in Ireland!

I guess this is an easy way to keep both Facebook and non-facebook users updated on my life during my semester, if they wish to be updated. I'll try to keep it updated fairly regularly, or at least whenever something major happens.