Spending two and a half days in Dublin shouldn’t be allowed - there is FAR too much to see to manage in that short a time! My semester here was arranged through the Institute for Study Abroad at Butler University (BEFORE Butler beat Pitt basketball), and my first few days in Ireland were an orientation to Irish culture with the IFSA staff in Dublin. It turned out to be a really great introduction, because it allowed me time to ease into a new country before being thrown into a new university as well. The staff planned roughly equal amounts of meeting time and free time, giving us the opportunity to explore Dublin a bit on our own.
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| Trinity College |
Upon arriving in Dublin on Monday morning, we were immediately whisked off to our hotel, the O’Callaghan Mont Clare. I’d been awake for roughly 24 hours by this time so I was dragging quite a bit, but fortunately breakfast was the first order of business. Geoff and Maria explained a little of our orientation schedule over breakfast, including that it had changed quite a bit because of the hurricane and the scattered arrivals of our schoolmates over the next few days, and then turned us loose from 10am until we had to meet back at the hotel lobby at 5:45pm for a bus tour of the city. We all looked at each other and went “okay….what now?” Only one of the kids in the group had ever been to Dublin before, we were all severely jet-lagged, and we had no clue in what direction to even begin. A shower and walking around sounded good to me, so a few of us set a meeting time, took our bags upstairs,
and tried not to fall asleep in the shower (or maybe that last part was just me). With the basics taken care of, I set off for a jaunt with my new friends: Katie, a fifth year senior (YES!) from Purdue; Jack and Brian, both juniors at “Fordham in the Bronx” from Connecticut; Peter, a junior from DePaul; and several other students.
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| Jack and Brian, two of the NUI Galway students |
The hotel ended up being located only a few blocks from Trinity College, making our first stop a tour through the architecture of the buildings – they’re crazy old! The college houses the Book of Kells, which Jack explained to me is an extremely old copy of the New Testament Gospels, one of the earliest/in best condition written copies of anything in the world and one of Ireland’s national treasures. Nine euro seemed a bit pricey for a tour of a library just to see one book (even if it IS really interesting and old and famous), so we opted out of the tour and continued along our way. We ended up wandering around Dublin admiring the multicolored doors and the sheer number of Guinness signs, and pointing out differences and similarities between the States and what we’d seen of Ireland so far – there’s always a McDonald’s to be found, but you have to find an internet café to get any sort of wireless internet. That’s one of the biggest overall differences I’ve noticed so far, that you have to pay for EVERYTHING. It’s not quite as much as France where I had to pay to use a public restroom, but it’s not far off. Even in the hotel where we’d paid to be staying, we had to purchase wireless access by the hour. Very weird.
Our tour of the city turned out to be on ducky boats! The company was called “Viking River Splash Tours,” and you guessed it – we had to wear Viking horns and roar at the “Celts” on the sidewalks as we passed. Our guide was wonderful, and he had a sense of humor very similar to my grandpa’s which made for some interesting jokes; right before we went under a stone bridge connecting two sides of one cathedral, he told us we couldn’t yell at any Celts because there was a dentist’s office on the other side, and the dentist had
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| Oscar Wilde's birthplace |
complained that the yelling was scaring his patients and creating uncomfortable situations! He showed us the house where Oscar Wilde was born, an old garage covered in graffiti that is actually U2’s recording studio (the graffiti is left by fans – some of it was really amazing artwork), and much, much more. Geoff and Maria took us to an apparently famous restaurant chain for dinner called Wagamama’s – who knew the Irish eat Chinese food? I was a little surprised because I figured they’d want to introduce us to” traditional Irish food,” but Maria explained we’d have plenty of time for that once we got to our respective schools. I had some sort of chicken and dumpling soup, and Brian and Peter and I split a tray of duck dumplings…yum! It was almost like being in Beijing again. The desserts were very strange-sounding, but since I’m in a new country and should try new foods, I ordered lemongrass sherbet and tried a bit of Brian’s white chocolate and ginger cheesecake. The entire time we were at dinner, Peter and I kept saying, “I’m SO excited…for BED!!!” so while some of the group hit the pubs after dinner, the rest of us (the jet-lagged half) immediately headed for the hotel and bed.
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| Shamrock in the Guinness foam! |
Day Two in Dublin started our actual IFSA orientation. We trekked through Merrion Square Park to the office for a morning of introductions, academic advice, and a visit from a Garda officer. The Garda is the Irish police force, a fairly small organization but they handle all of the law enforcement issues, including our immigration appointments that would take place once we arrived in Limerick. We had lunch at a restaurant called The Exchequer, which was much more along the lines of typical Irish food than the night before: I had a corned beef, cheese, and gherkin sandwich along with potato and leek soup. It was delicious, but definitely a little strange. The highlight of the day came after lunch, when we got to tour the Guinness Storehouse! The Storehouse is the original location of the Guinness brewery, known as St. James’ Gate Brewery. Arthur Guinness picked the location because of its easy access to water and signed a 9,000-year lease on the property – you read that right, NINE THOUSAND YEARS! Guinness is only a little over 250 years into that time, so they assured us that the future of Guinness is safe. A copy of that lease is framed and displayed in the floor of the Storehouse for all to see. The inside of the storehouse is open and glassed in all the way to the top in the shape of a Guinness pint glass – very cool. The tour part goes through the ingredients involved in and process of making Guinness, followed by a trip to the bar at the top with a 360° view of Dublin and a free pint of Guinness! My first pint of Guinness in Ireland was at the Storehouse and it was FREE! Pretty great start to the trip, I’d say. We followed our Brewery trip with a pub crawl back to the hotel, dinner from the “Euro Saver” menu at Mickey D’s, and bed – what better way to see a city like Dublin?!
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| University of Limerick! From left: Marion, Liz, and Katie |
The hotel ended up being located only a few blocks from Trinity College, making our first stop a tour through the architecture of the buildings – they’re crazy old! The college houses the Book of Kells, which Jack explained to me is an extremely old copy of the New Testament Gospels, one of the earliest/in best condition written copies of anything in the world and one of Ireland’s national treasures. Nine euro seemed a bit pricey for a tour of a library just to see one book (even if it IS really interesting and old and famous), so we opted out of the tour and continued along our way. We ended up wandering around Dublin admiring the multicolored doors and the sheer number of Guinness signs, and pointing out differences and similarities between the States and what we’d seen of Ireland so far – there’s always a McDonald’s to be found, but you have to find an internet café to get any sort of wireless internet. That’s one of the biggest overall differences I’ve noticed so far, that you have to pay for EVERYTHING. It’s not quite as much as France where I had to pay to use a public restroom, but it’s not far off. Even in the hotel where we’d paid to be staying, we had to purchase wireless access by the hour. Very weird. 
Day Two in Dublin started our actual IFSA orientation. We trekked through Merrion Square Park to the office for a morning of introductions, academic advice, and a visit from a Garda officer. The Garda is the Irish police force, a fairly small organization but they handle all of the law enforcement issues, including our immigration appointments that would take place once we arrived in Limerick. We had lunch at a restaurant called The Exchequer, which was much more along the lines of typical Irish food than the night before: I had a corned beef, cheese, and gherkin sandwich along with potato and leek soup. It was delicious, but definitely a little strange. The highlight of the day came after lunch, when we got to tour the Guinness Storehouse! The Storehouse is the original location of the Guinness brewery, known as St. James’ Gate Brewery. Arthur Guinness picked the location because of its easy access to water and signed a 9,000-year lease on the property – you read that right, NINE THOUSAND YEARS! Guinness is only a little over 250 years into that time, so they assured us that the future of Guinness is safe. A copy of that lease is framed and displayed in the floor of the Storehouse for all to see. The inside of the storehouse is open and glassed in all the way to the top in the shape of a Guinness pint glass – very cool. The tour part goes through the ingredients involved in and process of making Guinness, followed by a trip to the bar at the top with a 360° view of Dublin and a free pint of Guinness! My first pint of Guinness in Ireland was at the Storehouse and it was FREE! Pretty great start to the trip, I’d say. We followed our Brewery trip with a pub crawl back to the hotel, dinner from the “Euro Saver” menu at Mickey D’s, and bed – what better way to see a city like Dublin?!
1 comment:
Thanks for the cool tour of Dublin. I saw the Guinness building but never went inside. Like you I went to see The Book Of Kells but the lines were insane and also did not want to spent the money. I did look at a lot of pictures. Had I know I could have gotten a free beer I might have changed my mind on that tour. The doors are really cool. Did you see the sculpture of the girl, cart and dog? That is very famous.
Hope you are adjusting to a new way of life and not letting all the changes get to you. Await word on if the classes seem different than Pitt. Kisses!!
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