My Favorite Responses to "I'm from the US"

"Cool...like Harlem?"

"I did a report on Idaho once...ever been there?"

"Do you know the Fallons? They're my cousins"

Roommate: I'm from California

Every Irish person that hears that: duuuuuuuuuude....Duuuuuuuude....*sings OC theme song*

Me: I'm from New Jersey

Guy: Cool, I love the Sopranos

Me: I've never seen it

Guy: I've actually only seen half an episode.....

Tutor (like a TA): Alright, who's International

*raise my hand*

Tutor really slowly: Alright....hmmm, how to explain this.....there are TWO Irelands, ones NORTH Ireland and ones just IRELAND, thats where WE are

(btw, this was for a class titled "North and South Ireland")

Useful Information I Learned Today

In France, "Cool Runnings" is called "Rasta Rocket"

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE! OI OI OI!

Oh USA, you are really missing out by not celebrating Australia day.

So my friend Kurt announced the other night that he was planning on going to Galway this weekend and anyone who wanted to join him could. I quickly joined the trip and the next day we set out for Galway, which is on the west coast of Ireland. We all had to marvel at the fact that it only took a three hour bus ride to go cross country, pretty mindboggling. 

So we got there and walked down Shop Street, which is basically Galways version of Grafton Street here in Dublin. That brought us straight down to Long Walk (which rumor has it is where my great (great?) grandfather lived) and Galway Bay. It was on the cloudy side of things our first day, but it was still very beautiful. 

We decided to try and find a hostel after going out to the bay because it was starting to get dark out. Heres where we're failures.

So before we left we didn't make reservations at a hostel because "who the heck goes to Galway in the middle of January?" A lot of people do. A lot. As we found out. We went to a hostel and the lady flat out told us that there were no rooms in that hostel and there are no rooms in any other hostel in the city. whoops. We tried a few B&B's and economy hotels but still nothing. 

By the luck of the irish my roommate in Dublin's friend goes to NUI Galway this semester, and had visited our apartment last weekend. While my roommate wasn't on this trip we decided our only other option was to give her friend a call. This friend, Hannah, is now my hero and is welcome at our apartment any time because she graciously let six strangers crash on her floor. 

She also suggested that we head to the "Kings Head" pub, as they were celebrating Australia Day and it was guaranteed to be a good time.

Oh it was.

I met two Irish guys with family in Boston, they were excited to hear I had family there too and we talked about the Red Sox and Patriots and how the rest of my group who are all New York fans are failures. Everyone here is surprisingly up on American Football, many pubs are even staying open late next week to show the Superbowl.

The next morning we woke up to the most gorgeous weather we've had here. After grabbing some crepes we went straight for the bay. Blue sky, sun and sparkling water, it was absolutely fantastic. 

We had to catch the bus back by 5 so after shopping a bit on Shop Street we went back to the bus station. The sun was just beginning to set over Galway Bay as the bus pulled away, adding a nice exclamation point to a very nice mini vacation.

Galway Bay in late afternoon
Galway Bay

This kid was poking this swan with a stick. We watched for about 5- 10 minutes. We then realized that we were all hoping the swan would attack back and left feeling like horrible people

This building had the facade of a church, but when you looked behind it it was just houses. Touche
The Beach
Kurt has a new friend
Long Walk
Swans were EVERYWHERE!

My Goodness, My Rip-Off!

Today my friend Jeremy and I took part in the most over hyped of Dublin rituals, the visit to the Guinness storehouse. Now I had been here before about 5 years ago, but honestly could not remember anything about it. I thought this was odd, considering its a seven story wonderland about beer, but yet there was a blank spot in my head when I tried to remember it. I now realize, that its because the place really isn't that memorable. 

To enter you buy your ticket then head behind a wall into a dark room...nothing too big there. Then random facts about barley, hops and what not are thrown at you from all angles. There are arrows on the floor leading you around various directions that really don't seem to make sense. At one point Jeremy and I walked into a giant barrel and no explanation was given as to why we were there. So we stood in pitch darkness in a giant barrel. Ridiculousness. 

All explanations began with "as the ancient Greeks taught us.." or "The Egyptians are the true founders of..." making me feel like I was reading my sixth grade history textbook rather than being at the mecca of American tourists in Dublin. 

Perhaps my favorite stop was on the 4th floor where they had the "choice" room. Now i know this is a new addition since I was last here as I surely would have remembered something as hokey as this. There they have you sit down and answer questions about your drinking habits and alcohol facts. Meanwhile messages flash on the walls saying things like "you always have a choice" and "no is an option". This is your last stop before they hand you the free beer.

 

The "free" beer (included with the 10 euro entrance fee) comes in the Gravity Bar which is on the seventh floor. It boasts of panoramic views of Dublin where you can bask in its glory. I was kinda excited for this part, I will go see the city that will be my home for four months, my domain, my kingdom. When I arrived, however, the windows were all taken over by senior citizen travel tours. Once I elbowed my way in I realized that the area the storehouse is in is an absolute dump. We were starring out at industry and construction. Off in the distance we could see the Wicklow Mountains and other areas of Dublin that are more photographable. The true views, however, were pretty lame. 

Holy bitter blog entry Batman! 

It wasn't a wash of a day. It was nice explore Dublin on our walk there. We got a little lost

 at first and then decided to just walk behind a tour bus....led us right to the front door. Afterwards we met some other friends for a pint and traditional music at a pub downtown, so that was nice. Temple Bar, which is a district in town, is hosting a music festival this weekend so many of the pubs had live traditional music. Usually the "live music" is a guy with a guitar covering Oasis. 

We decided to come back here early. I'm going to be going to Galway with some people tomorrow morning, spur of the moment decision, but it should be fun! Look for an entry on that early next week!

The water exhibit was just a waterfall
Jeremy and his celebratory beer

Now thats something you don't see at everyday!

In between the past blog entry and this one I have managed to catch some sort of a cold. Gee, I wonder how I got that, perhaps the 5 straight days I spent in drenching wet clothes because it rains all the time.....irony is today it was sunny and warm!

Anyway, the past few days have been filled with classes and such. Remember when I said I had all of my classes figured out? That was a lie. I now have 4 classes, which is closer to the required 5 than 0 was, but still annoying. Hopefully tomorrow I will be finished registering.

I just got back from hearing Will Ferrell talk, which was pretty awesome. There had been signs up all week and everyone had been wondering whether or not this was a mean fool the Americans trick. The society that was bringing him to campus seemed legit, so I shelled out the 2 euros to become a member and decided that was a cheap enough risk to take. So now I am a (literal) card carrying member of the Literary and Historical Society.

Before I talk about Will, I want to talk about the brilliance of the Literary and Historical Society. First, they get an outside vendor to sponsor their guest. Then, they get the entire school to pay them 2 euros, not to see Will, but to join their club. So their club now literally has thousands of members on its docket (plus a lot of cash!). Then once they get the saps into the room where they are anxiously awaiting Will Ferrell, they announce that this is an official meeting of the Literary and Historical society, so they can honestly say they have an active membership of roughly 2500 people who were in the room. Lets just say I took some notes for how the BMC Squash Club will be run when I return!

Anyway, onto the actual event. I arrived and was immediately impressed with the excellence of the UCD Conference and Events team. Given the giant vortex of crazy that the rest of the school is, I was pretty sure this event was going to be run by frat boys. Not so, the team easily managed to get 2500 people into a room within 30 minutes, got them seated and quiet. Things didn't start promptly, but everyone behaved. Not gonna lie, I was impressed....Princeton CES has some competition if they ever go to the Olympics of conferences.....or so I thought, more on that later

Now, Mr. Ferrell. First came two warm up acts, members of the society themselves who had written humorous speeches. First a girl went up and my inner chauvinist sighed "damn...women are never funny...". Much to my surprise, she was actually really funny, much funnier than the next guy who wrote a few songs about things too obscene to be mentioned on this family friendly blog. Will then came out decked out in Ireland gear, good times. Truthfully he didn't have much to say, he honestly just talked about his trip to Ireland while casually placing in Anchorman references. At first I felt kinda used, but then I realized "did I really want to hear anything other than Anchorman references? Honestly, isn't that the real reason I came here tonight?" so I was happy. He opened the floor up to questions and some people asked some really dumb things, such as "are you sure you're Irish, you look like a Jew".....?!?!?!? He sort of just stared at them looking confused. Someone did get him to sing Afternoon Delight though, and Dust in the Wind. All in all, good times were had by all.

Now I mentioned earlier that UCD CES was fantastic, they then lost all credibility at the end of the performance. Will was going to sign some autographs and shake hands, a team member went to the microphone and said, "Uhhh, if you want an autograph, just come forward" cue thousands of people throwing chairs aside and crushing towards the front. I stood in line for a few minutes and then when I realized I was actually moving backwards I called it quits and headed back to my apartment.

One Week In

Good morning!

I've officially been here a week, can't decide if that week went super fast or super slow...

Anyway, had a nice weekend exploring the city a bit. On Saturday we went to O'Connell Street, which is a main road in town, and did some window shopping. The rain was ridiculous though, so we stopped in a pub for some traditional food and a soccer (excuse me, football) game. I had Irish Stew which was fantastic and really filling, I didn't need to eat for the rest of the day! By the time we got back to school my jeans and shoes were so 

soaked, they're still drying out. Someone told me about some cheap water-proof boots in town, so I need to pick some of those up. 

Then yesterday we walked down Grafton St, which is a pedestrian mall type street with lots of european shops and great architecture.

 Someone had a book that listed the top 10 pubs in Dublin so we decided to check them out. I was worried they were going to be really touristy and full of Americans with the same guidebook, but the two we went to were really small and cozy with a lot of locals. They had names that reminded me of Harry Potter, such as the "Stags Head". One of the pubs had been built in the late 18th century and still had the original bar. The ceiling looked like tin but was actually paper mache...awesome.

We came back last night to find that all of the Irish students had finally come back to the University. Needless to say its very different than my school back home. As I turned the corner into my dorm's quad I heard a group of people chanting "CHUG CHUG CHUG" then a lot of screaming. I located the source when a window flew open and then contents of the chugging flew out the window. I stopped and thought "ah....so THIS is college". Something tells me they don't hold "hall teas" here. 

Classes begin today. I woke up at 7:30 for my 9 am class (lets not get started on how I am NOT looking forward to a 9 am class on Mondays) to discover that it was still pitch black outside and the wind was so strong I was afraid my window was going to break. So I went back to bed....I woke up at 8:30 realizing that yes, I did have to go to class today and no, unlike back at home my buildings are not right outside my window so I should factor in some travel time. By travel time i mean 5-10 minutes....but still, not used to factoring that in. 

Pretty Irish Building

Dublin is home to the elite Foot Locker School of English

AHHHHHHHH!

Good lord today was confusing.

So last night a few people came over and I was introduced to perhaps the greatest party game in history, spot got (I think?). Now I'm going to warn all of you that you are about to judge me. Go ahead. Basically you have to recite a poem and if someone catches you messing it up they get to draw a spot on your face with a burnt (but cooled) wine cork. 

 Exhibit A

Good fun.

Anyway, today was not quite as fun. Woke up and tried to organize classes. Then ran over to get my student ID. This was without a doubt the most disorganized set up I've ever seen. I entered a classroom where every other international student was basically standing in a pack, gradually shifting forward towards two guys with laptops. These guys were having a grand time cracking jokes about everyones pictures, talking everyone up and taking forever with each card. I got my card with no problem, but one guy that I was with fell victim to the ever present Irish wit that I've seen here so often. Just as he sat down for his picture to be taken the ID card guys asked him a question about something. When he looked away from the camera to answer they snapped his picture and started cracking up. They refused to take another and now his ID card has a picture of him looking up at the ceiling with a confused look on his face. Fantastic.

I then began my journey to settle my classes. I went over to meet with the international advisor and waited in line for about a half hour. When I finally reached the front of the line she closed the door in my face and said "Closed for lunch, come back later!". COME ON!

So after coming back she sent me to the geography department to figure courses out, they sent me to the programme office who sent me back to the international advisor. She then told me to go home. COME ON!

I think I finally figured out my schedule on my third try. Lets hope considering classes start on Monday. On the bright side I met a lot of new friends waiting in the neverending line for the advisor.

I don't have  many pictures yet, but here are a few to give you an idea of the people I'm meeting