I just felt that the blog should begin with that since this trip feels like some sort of fairy tale. Traveling abroad for the first time--something I didn't think I would have a chance to do until I was a little older. But here I am in Europe, in Ireland, in Dublin.
While the plane was landing, I couldn't help but notice all the greenery. For some reason, I had imagined Ireland to look medieval, but instead it looked extremely similar to Tennessee (green).
I found Matt (the other Vanderbilt student working in the research program with me, he was on my flight) and we got in a cab together to ride to our apartment. (I totally forgot Europe drives on the other side of the road and didn't understand for a minute why the cab driver got in on the "passenger side".)
Matt and I were both surprised to see how modern the National College of Ireland looked (again we must have expected something medieval). I don't have a picture of the outside, but I do have pictures of my room : )))
Notice the shower is not in a tub. Its just out in the open. There is room for a shower curtain that would touch the toilet, but who needs that?
And here is the rest of the apartment..
Even though I was running on about 2 hours of sleep, Matt and I decided to go exploring. As we began to cross the street, we noticed that the pavement has "look left" and "look right" printed out to help pedestrians look before they cross. Apparently too many Americans forget to look the "European way".
We grabbed lunch at a bagel shop. I ordered a chicken caesar bagel, but the waitress accidentally delivered it to the wrong table and brought me a chicken club. I couldn't remember which one I had actually ordered at the time so I accepted the chicken club as my own.
After, we walked around Dublin as well as down Grafton Street. I took pictures of some of my scenery but I can't tell you what most of the buildings are. Once I do some thorough touring, I'll lay down some facts; until then... PICTURES !!
Tour buses are everywhere.
I got two maps from this tourist office. I lost both of them and then found one of them.
Trinity College
Fantastic Door
Grafton Street
Matt and I ran into a magician (not really, more like a guy who does tricks). His tricks weren't out of this world, but he had a bad mouth on him and told really shocking jokes.
Matt got asked to help out in the act
I'm telling you this guy was a character...
Matt tossing machetes to the trickster.
(those are machetes he is juggling)
Park we passed through
Example of some of the things people do on the sidewalks for tips.
We later had pizza at a cafe on Grafton and tried to catch an outside show at 7:30 pm of Romeo & Juliet. Unfortunately tickets were all sold out, but my feet hurt so badly I didn't mind. Instead, we went grocery shopping. Well, Matt did. My attention span for the day disappeared and I couldn't focus on anything but returning to my room to sit.
I feel like I've accomplished so much today, but really I think I just walked a lot. No worries though, plenty of time to get things done.
Fun Fact: Its 9:19 pm and its still as light outside as if it were 5 or 6 in the evening. They say it doesn't get dark until after 10. Safe, right Mom?
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