Oriented

Today was the bulk of our orientation. We heard about health and safety from one of our program coordinators. That was boring. We heard more health and safety from a police officer. That was less boring, specifically because I learned a lot about the Garda Síochána, which is the police force here. There’s only one police force for the entire country, unlike in the US where we have everything from local police departments to state troopers to the FBI. The gardai are also unarmed.

We learned about Irish culture and what to expect in the coming weeks and months. Tipping isn’t commonly practiced in Ireland, which is awesome. Cab fare seems to be quite a bit cheaper than in the US. Classes are different here in that virtually 100% of your grade is based on your final exam. It’s not unusual for Dubliners to walk thirty or forty minutes to class or work instead of driving or taking public transportation. The University of Texas does not pay your bus fare here.

I was happy to find out that there are Super Bowl parties here. I became less excited when it was explained that no one actually watches the game, they just use it as an excuse to drink. There are no awesome commercials during the Irish broadcast because it would be too expensive to advertise to such a small group of people. Ireland is only about the size of Maine and has a population of about 4.5 million. Dublin has a population of around 1.2 million.

We also got more information about our homestay weekend. At the end of the month, we’ll spend two nights with an Irish family, as a way of getting to see what day-to-day life is like in Ireland. We’ll be in County Wexford, in the southern part of the island.

A couple people have asked me what the food here is like. For the most part, it’s pretty bland and carb-heavy. Besides a couple dishes, “Irish food” is sort of like “American food”: a mixture of cuisines from other countries and cultures. Upon ordering delivery tonight, my roommate and I found out the Irish definition of Chinese food is different from the American one (granted, both are very different from actual Chinese definition). I’ve seen a couple Mexican joints and found an “authentic Texan BBQ” place on Yelp (which I will most certainly be vetting, probably while wearing cowboy boots). At orientation today, during our grand introduction to Irish culture, our lunch was a choice of either chicken curry or chili con carne. I thought that was hilarious.

We did, however, get a pretty awesome introduction to a very important aspect of Irish culture: sports. After the presentations on health and safety and everything else, we went to a Gaelic Athletic Association complex and got a crash course in Gaelic football and hurling, which are two of the coolest sports I think I’ve ever watched. Gaelic football is a sort of a combination of soccer, American football, basketball, and volleyball. Hurling is sort of a combination of Gaelic football, hockey, baseball, and that carnival game where you carry an egg on a spoon. If you’re interested in learning more about the actual rules, you can read about them here, on the GAA website.

Tomorrow, we finish up orientation and then get a half day to ourselves. I think we’ll be finding out more about our classes and internship placements during the meetings in the morning.

On a very American note, I woke up this morning to find out Alabama lost to Oklahoma. My heart wept. So did my pick set.

 

Flat 2

It was a beautiful day in Dublin, an occurrence which every local I spoke to said was rare.

I was to arrive at the program office in town by 11 AM, so I took a cab from my hotel on the north side of the city. It ended up being quite informative. My driver was more like a tour guide, giving me all sorts of historical tidbits about the places we passed. I learned that there was a Viking settlement on the River Liffey and that artifacts were found during the construction of a government building. I learned that a music hall on Fishamble Street was the first place that Handel’s Messiah was performed. I learned that Dublin taxi drivers follow traffic laws even less than Austin taxi drivers.

From the program office, we took a coach to our apartments. Mine is an older place, but charming. You walk in to a living room, with a bay window looking out to the street on your right, a hall and kitchen area on the left. The living room is actually pretty large, though the kitchen is teeny-tiny. The washing machine is in the kitchen. The refrigerator and microwave are in the living room. There’s no dishwasher or clothes dryer.

My roommate’s room is the first one in the hall. The hall takes a turn and goes down two steps to a bathroom on the right and my room straight ahead. The bathroom is smaller than what I’m used to, but not uncomfortably so. It has a stall shower. Water heating apparently works differently here than in the US. The kitchen sink has an immersion system that has to be turned on and takes twenty minutes to heat up. The shower is an electric shower, which, from what I can tell, means that there’s some sort of electric contraption on the shower wall that heats the water. The program coordinator who brought us to the apartment said that we’re really lucky to have an electric shower.

Everything has a switch. Power outlets have to be switched on. A master switch must be flipped before any of the other light switches will work. You have to turn on a switch before the oven and stove can be turned on.

The heating system is really different as well. The apartment (and most other homes in Dublin) has a storage heater, which collects and stores heat during the day and then releases it at a specified time. At least I think so. It’s truly confusing. Even Kate (the aforementioned program coordinator) said she didn’t completely understand the system, and she’s from here.

My bedroom is small, about seven feet by nine feet. The closet isn’t built-in like the ones in the States, but is a free-standing piece of furniture. By some miracle of God, all my clothes fit in the bureau and dresser, though I’m sure by the end of my term, I’ll have found something to fill up the extra space. The view from my window is of this fabulous oxidized copper dome on a church down the road.

After getting all my things put away, the few mementos I brought situated, and some bedding purchased (the program provides pillows and duvets, but not sheets or duvet covers), the room feels more like home. Tomorrow, I’ll tackle groceries and a few other odd and end things I need.

My roommate is also Lauren (though she spells it correctly)! She’s from Wisconsin. Between unpacking, having a group lunch with other students and the program coordinators, and trying to get over jetlag, we’ve only had a small opportunity to talk, but she seems really sweet, and I think we’ll get along.

Tomorrow morning, we begin orientation, where I’ll hopefully find out some more specific information on what we’ll be doing during the course of the program. I think my internal clock is relatively adjusted to the time change now, though it’s still crazy to me that as I write this at almost 21:00, it’s only 3 PM in Texas (and OU still sucks). I promise to take and post some pictures of my apartment soon.

Finally, here’s my mailing address in case anyone wants to send me something while I’m here:

Loren Galloway
Flat 2
101 Grove Park
Dublin 6
Ireland

I’m loving the city so far, and I can’t wait to see more tomorrow.

New Year

While most of my friends were at parties for New Year’s Eve, I was on a series of planes. The flight to Philly was pleasant, the layover wasn’t bad, and except for one coarse stewardess and miserable sleeping arrangements, the plane ride from the States to Ireland was as alright as a seven hour flight can be. Today I started a new year in a new country.

I got in early this morning, around 8:30 Dublin time (2:30 AM for all you Texas folks). It was raining, but not too cold. Finding the shuttle to my hotel was a trick, but everyone was incredibly friendly and helpful. The driver said I was his first guest of 2014 and told me a lot about the city and the island. I didn’t realize quite how small the country is; the driver told me you can get from Dublin to just about anywhere in Ireland in around three hours. 

The hotel is pretty similar to American ones, with a few differences that initially struck me as strange. There is, for example, a telephone in the bathroom next to the toilet. When you walk into the room, you essentially walk into a closet and then have to go through another door to get to the bedroom area. There is no host to seat you at the restaurant on the ground floor of the building. The hairdryer is mounted to the inside of the desk drawer. As a student of sociology, it’s fascinating to see the difference of norms like these between the US and Ireland. 

I turned on an Irish news station while I was getting settled in and a surprising amount of the stories were about the US and American popular culture. The stories about Ireland and the UK, however, mostly concerned people and issues about which I’d never heard in the States. It’s interesting to see the overlap of cultures, as well as the seeming inequity of cultural exchange between the United States and Ireland.

I haven’t left the hotel since I got here, mostly because upon arrival I immediately took a shower and a nap, so my experiences here may prove to be an inaccurate representation of Dublin and Ireland as a whole. Everyone I’ve talked to so far, however, has been very nice. My biggest fear is coming off as rude or a “stupid American”, but all the people I’ve encountered today have been understanding and eager to help me.

Tomorrow I start orientation for my program, move into my flat, and get to see the city centre. 

It’s 10:22 PM in Dublin, Ireland, and OU still sucks.

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go…

This afternoon, I leave for Ireland. I’ll fly out of Intercontinental to Philadelphia and then overnight to Dublin. I’ll be ringing in the new year from 30,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, though I’m not sure I’ll ever actually see midnight because of the time changes. The transatlantic portion of my trip will take about seven hours, though the time change will end up being about twelve. I’ll land in Dublin early New Year’s Day.

Packing was miserable. It’s really difficult to fit your life for the next four months in a couple suitcases. After reevaluating what I was taking three or four times, changing my carry-on bag twice, and weighing and measuring all my bags to make sure they’d fly for free, I finally have everything packed. I tried (as every study abroad advisor, travel blog, and college website urged me) not to pack things I wasn’t sure I’d use, but I did end up with a few things that will serve no purpose other than to remind me of home: my cowboy boots, a picture of the Hellraisers clipped from the Daily Texan, a bumper sticker branded with the final score of the 2011 UT-A&M game.. I know I’ll miss Texas while I’m away, but I also know that the coming months are going to be filled with wonderful new experiences.

I have a list as long as my arm of things I want to see while I’m abroad, on which are things like the Giant’s Causeway, the Blarney Stone, and the Guinness Storehouse, just to name a few. The thing for which I’m most excited, however, is getting to learn about a foreign culture and government through hands-on experiences and being able to see the theories I’ve learned in class applied in a totally new setting. That’s probably because I’m a sociology and government geek. I’m also pretty excited that I’ll be of legal drinking age in Ireland. That’s probably because I’m an undergraduate.

It’s so appropriate to me that I’m embarking on this adventure on a holiday about renewal and fresh starts. This will be my first time to travel alone, my first time to fly over an ocean, my first time to leave the States. So I’m making a new year resolution I’ll actually keep: I’m going to try new things. I’m going to do things that scare me and go places I’ve never been and talk to people I’ve never met. And it all starts tomorrow, when my plane touches down in Dublin.

Happy New Year to you all, and I’ll see you in April.

Slán go fóill!