Meetings, Meetings, and a Whole Lot of Meetings

Finally home from a day of orientation meetings! It's crazy how fast time flies here. I feel like it should be early afternoon and we are in early evening. But time flies when you're having fun right? I finally had a peaceful night's sleep, and thankfully woke up to my roommates talking in the hallway otherwise I might have overslept. Hopefully this continues! Last night was really fun. Paige, Abby, Evan (Paige's boyfriend) and I went to a training session at the UCD fitness center. It is HUGE and really nice. They even offer fitness classes for free, so I have NO excuses. It's just a short walk from Belgrove (our apartment building), and conveniently located right next to the school pub. We stopped in for a beer afterwards to see what it looked like. Following in my family's footsteps, I ordered a Guinness. I'm obviously a Gleason because I quite enjoyed it. It was really good! Can't wait to tour the factory one of these days. We went out last night to a house in the city where a bunch of UW Madison students live. It was a fun time! I've been meeting such wonderful people here! Here's some pictures of us at the campus pub!

I definitely need to buy a bus pass because the busing system here is pretty expensive depending on where you're going. You also can only pay with coins. The nice thing though is that if you overpay, you get a slip that you can take somewhere in the city to get that refund. A lot of little things add up to be a lot. We finally have a majority of our necessities for the apartment and our phones figured out, but we still need to register at the guarda within 30 days and pay a 300 euro fee. Not looking forward to that, but I have to make due. Crazy how fast money can disappear... 

Today was the second part of orientation. We first met as a big group to go over general topics. We heard about events around campus, typical customs, campus security, IT services, and how to go about registering at the guarda. Definitely informative! From there, we had a reception with coffee and finger sandwiches. Fun meeting more people and learning their stories. Ellie, Claire, and I also bought tickets to a bus tour of Dublin for tomorrow evening. It's an open roof double decker bus, so I'm thrilled. Cross your fingers it doesn't rain! 

After that, I had three more meetings for the day. My first was with all other students who are Arts & Celtic Studies majors. We talked about registering for courses, what to do if we need to change our schedules, and what we might be able to expect in a typical classroom. My next meeting I had to attend because I am taking a Literature course while I'm here. It was comprised of English majors who needed to register for a seminar. Since I'm not an English major, but only taking a Marquette required lit class, I didn't need to worry about that. That meeting got out early, so I waited around until my next meeting. This was a History meeting for those of us taking a history course. They just wanted to say a quick hello, and asked us to fill out a simple form about our basic information. 

The meetings were finally over, and I successfully found my way home. Wasn't sure how much I would be able to navigate, but thankfully there are maps around campus and I could do it. So now I'm home, sitting in my bed, scented candle lit, and listening to my favorite songs. I'm going to have some dinner at home, and then possibly go out into the city again tonight. So that was my day! Pretty informative and partially reminded me that I still have to actually go to school here... Oh well ;].  AW MAN. I apparently just missed a dance party! I wish I would have known about it! Guess that explains why no one else was here when I came back. But you can't dwell, they will be plenty more where that came from, I'm sure of it. 

Thank you for all of the positive responses to the blog! It means so much that people are reading this and that it not only brings comfort to me, but comfort to you as well. I love writing them and hope to continue to write A LOT this semester. 

Love and hugs from Dublin!