Day 4 (9/5)

Today we met at 10 am for our walk to the train station.  Along the way, we walked down O'Connell Street, where there was a parade happening!

After a long walk, we arrived at the train station where we had about 30 minutes to wait for our train to arrive.

A little dog was going to go on the train!

We rode on the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit, basically the commuter rail).  After a short ride, we arrived in Howth, a seaside town just outside of Dublin city.  We did a cliff walk there.

After walking along the cliffs for a while, we came back down on the road side, which was a much easier walk than the way up.  We had some time to walk around Howth and eat lunch.  I went to the Howth market where I got an Irish sausage.

In typical fashion, I forgot to take the picture before I started to eat.

Unfortunately I couldn't eat the whole thing.  It wasn't that I was full, it was just too much of the same flavor. So I got a crepe! It had Nutella and strawberries and was very delicious!

Again, I forgot to take a picture before I ate.

For comparison, here is my crepe picture from France in March 2013.  Some things never change, I guess. (At least the Howth one is in focus!)

After lunch, it was sadly time to get back on the train and go home.

We passed Croke Park on the way back!

Once we were back in Dublin, I went to the store to buy an extra pillow and a blanket, then went back home.

I forgot to show pictures of my room before, but here is one.

The room is actually very big! Besides the bed on the right side, there's also two large wardrobes. We also have our living room/kitchen which is big as well.  We are lucky to have what might be the biggest apartment out of the group.

Day 3 (9/4)

Today was another early start.  We met up at 9 am again to walk to school for a mini orientation. We were registered in the system and given ID cards, which we use to sign in to class.  After that, there was a gap of about an hour where we were allowed to leave before we had to be back at school for an orientation presentation.

R2D2 Box thing

During the break, I decided to go to Grafton Street again.  I wanted a snack, so I went into Brown Thomas, a very fancy store, to find La Durée, a French store which sells macarons.

I saw this store on the way!

Coffee Macaron

I took my macaron back to the school to eat it. It was very delicious!  After that, we had our orientation.  We were then given our lunch, which was some wraps.  We then had some free time to explore until 2 pm.

At 2 pm, we started on a bus tour of the city.  The "guide" was the teacher of our Irish Life and Cultures class, who pointed out notable places along the way.  He also taught us two traditional Irish songs.

Palm trees in Dublin?

Statue of Daniel O'Connell on O'Connell Street

Millennium Spire

Pretty Hotel

Dublin General Post Office

Luas (Trams in Dublin)

Georgian Door

About halfway through the bus ride, we stopped in Phoenix Park for a break.

We finished the bus tour by driving past the Guinness Storehouse, then we were dropped off back at school.  After that, I went home to eat dinner and rest up for the next day. 

Day 2 (9/3)

Day 2 started bright and early with a walk to our school, Dublin Business School, at 9 am.  When we arrived, we had our orientation for Foundation for International Education (FIE), the study abroad company that coordinated the program.  This mostly reiterated a lot of information that we'd already heard, but put it in context with the areas of Dublin that we'd seen.  After the orientation, we went to the school "cafeteria" (more like a cafe) to get lunch provided by FIE.  After waiting for a few minutes, we found out that our lunch had mistakenly been booked for the next day, so we were sent to find lunch on our own.  I went with some friends to itsa, a quick-service restaurant that sells bagel sandwiches.  I got the "Italian Job," which is "Home cooked chicken, roasted red peppers, mozzarella, basil & rocket pesto, lettuce, & butter."  It was pretty good, especially because I was so hungry.

After lunch, we went on a scavenger hunt throughout Dublin.  We didn't win any prizes, but we did see a lot of Dublin!

Trinity College

Trinity College

Ha'Penny Bridge over the River Liffey

River Liffey

Temple Bar

Bottlecaps in the Ground in Temple Bar (bad picture while walking)

Cows Lane?

Christ Church Cathedral (right) and Adjacent Building

Christ Church Cathedral (Another bad picture while walking)

No Name Bar

The meeting place at the end of our scavenger hunt was the No Name Bar.  Our (very early) dinner was at a restaurant across the street called Market Bar, where we were served many many dishes family style.  Some of the things we got were bread, Italian antipasto-style platter, meatballs, fries, salad with chicken, calamari, seafood skewers with rice, sausage and chicken skewers, nachos, and other dishes I can't remember.  We were served a ton of food, and then at the end of the meal we were given boxes to take it home!  We finished eating very early (around 5), so I went with my friends to Grafton Street to get an Irish phone number and also just browse in the stores a bit.

The Disney store on Grafton street is huge and has three floors! The top floor was Disney Princess, the ground floor was general Disney merchandise, and the basement was Marvel and Star Wars. They had some cool life-size sculptures!

Anna and Sven (Sven was fluffy! :D)

The Hulk

Captain America.

Stormtrooper

Outside of the store, there were some people trying to raise money for an animal shelter.  They had some adorable doggies with them!

After we saw some real dogs, we saw this man with a dog mask in the MAC store. We aren't really sure why he was there...

After that, we went home to rest up as the next day was another early start!