Thursday, arrival day: Although most of the group arrived together, my flight from France made it into Dublin 3 or 4 hours later. Which was fine as this first day would be a day of familiarizing ourselves with our accommodations and introducing us to our neighborhood. Well, our neighborhood was the center of Dublin, which was a fairly small town. The city center is very quaint, its the inclusion of the suburbs and surrounding ares that makes Dublin big. I think we were all comfortable with the size of the city center of Dublin and the ease in navigating it.
By the late afternoon we had all crossed paths and were happy to see each other. We have all created some what of a bond during our weekly class time the previous semester in preparation for our Dublin semester. Some of us were excited to organize our rooms and others were ready to go walk about. I believe by the end of the day we had all done a little of each.
The next morning we all met for our first day of introduction to the program and to Dublin. Each of us were a little disoriented from the travels but were also very excited. The first half of the day we met in a class room in one of our college buildings going over what was ahead of us and the facilities that we would be using. While the second half of the day we went on a bus tour of the Dublin area. Our guide was Dónal Casey who would also be our Life and Culture Course professor. He was great. A genuine Irish lad who gave us
our first introduction to Irish wit.
We got out of the bus at Popes Cross and were almost blown away. The wind in Dublin, at least this first week, is mighty. We drove past the Guinness Plant, O’Connell Street, through Phoenix Park, by the Presidents house (Áras an Uachtatáin), the Millennium Spire, and so much more. The bus tour exacerbated our excitement for the city, everyone wore smiles.
In the late afternoon we all continued our personal missions in small groups: phone cards, unpacking, getting a bite to eat, shopping, etc. So much….all good.
