It's about 15minutes after 7pm local time, and it feels so much later than that. beware of jet lag:it does exists, no matter how much water and sleep you think you get. We arrived at the hostel about 11am local time yesterday morning, and Dublin was (surprisingly) not rainy. It wasn't too rainy today either, though one could argue it was "misty". Awoke around 9am this morning after falling asleep around 6pm last night -- I haven't slept that much in recent memory . . . to be fair though, my roommates (my sister and two other girls who are part of the same program) also slept way too much. Our room, on the 4th floor (called floor 3 in Ireland), holds six people: it has one bathroom with a toilet, sink, and shower that is perhaps 8ft x 4ft. That is, the ENTIRE room is 8ft x 4ft, and located at the end of our hall-like room, making our living space 8ft x 35-ish feet total. Very European.
The 2 remaining girls showed up this morning before our orientation, which began at 12:30 at the hotel to the west of the hostel. I'm still working out location: we are situated on the north side of the river, which I picture in my head as the south side, so I'm trying to condition myself as much as possible to think of our building as to the north. Anyway. Lunch was exciting (and good), we had a choice of lamb stew or salmon, and those who know me know what I chose ;)
After lunch, which included apple crisp and coffee to follow, we walked into an adjoining room for phase one of orientation, the "safety talk". As far as I'm concerned, Officer Moran can talk to us all day long. Love the accent, love the face, love the personality. the "emergency" phone numbers in Ireland are 112 and 999, though they are commonly used for any kind of contact, such as old women calling up on Christmas day for a chat because they have no one else to talk to. Sad, and I'm not all together convinced true, but you get the point. He asked for any questions and I confided to my sister and another student that the first questioned that popped into my head was, "So . . . if we called 999, could we ask for you specifically?" I admit, I have a crush on the lad.
That was the only meeting for the day, so around 3pm we were able to hop on the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tour that took us around Ireland. We only had a limited amount of time, so bypassed getting off at most of the sites in favor of going to the Guinness "factory" Tour. It was pretty sweet, and we got a free pint at the top of the 360 degree tower. Totally worth it, if you're lucky enough to visit Dublin. Most of the other sites such as St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Castle, and a number of museums and other stops, we hope to check out tomorrow. The tour guides on the bus were excellent. They were engaging, amusing and didn't kill us all in the crazy traffic of Dublin. Props to them for driving those double-decker buses with skill and good humor. And thank goodness it didn't rain!
The city has its own flavor, for sure. There are unique pubs (of course) and delightful little restaurants and shops, but it also has store fronts found in the US, and the same movies. One of the fist "American" things I saw was a poster for "The Hobbit" in the airport. G pointed it out to me before we were even through customs, I think.
Favorite thing about Dublin, Ireland to date? The fact that I'm here experiencing it. Oh, and Stephen's park that we (G, R, and myself) randomly discovered our first night here, and the accents.
♥ C
Oh Christie, when I was in Prague, I was in an apartment with four other girls - it had no couch, it had one mini fridge, no dishwasher or stove or oven, all it had was a hotplate and a rice cooker. We also had one 1/2 washing machine for clothes and one drying rack for all four of us AND the four girls in the apartment below us. Very Slav.
ReplyDeleteAnd trust me, you will love every second of you European hole. <3 Cori