Day One in Dublin

After that full Friday of packing, nerves, and excitement it was finally time to leave for Dublin! Our group flight was scheduled to leave with Air Francehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif from Houston to Paris late Saturday afternoon. The flight went decently well. I always enjoy flying with Air France because I think they provide pretty good amenities (drinks, headphones, blankets, eye masks, etc.) and the food is better than most airplane food. This flight wasn’t as great as my last flight to Charles de Gaulle Airport, but other than it being relatively warm on the plane, it was an okay 9 hours- minus the fact that I could not sleep at all! I maybe got in a total of an hour tops.

Between not sleeping on the plane and the jetlag, all 12 of us in our flight group were exhausted at Charles de Gaulle. Eventually we became that group of obnoxious American kids- and half of us sprawled out on the carpet in the airport terminal floor to sleep. Gross? Probably. But it was well worth the extra hour or two of sleep during our 4 hour layover.

We had a short flight from Paris to Dublin, but the second that plane took off I was out in a deep sleep for the next 2 hours! It was just the power nap I needed because we still had to take a bus from the airport to our campus- University College of Dublin, where we’ll be living and studying. Our professor, Dr. Jansen met us at the airport and once we got to campus it was a long walk with heavy suitcases and tired bodies up and down hills to our dorm rooms.

Our dorms are really more like apartments. Each person has their own bedroom and bathroom/shower, but for every 6 bedrooms, you share a common area with a living space, dining room, and kitchen (pictures of the common area later).



bed and desk area



desk space



entryway and closet area



bathroom (that’s the little shower on the left)

The rooms and apartments are really pretty nice accommodations and every morning we get breakfast on campus.



view from my window

The campus is really lush and pretty and the weather here is pretty chilly (at least compared to the 95+ degree F weather in south Texas), but the air is crisp and the humidity is low.

After everyone freshened up and got a little bit settled in to our rooms, we started the long journey to try and get back in to the center of the city.



There is a convenience store here near our residence halls called Centra. They have produce, food, drinks, toiletries, wine, and other necessities including bus passes. We bought our passes and hopped on a bus in to town for dinner. It took a few tries but we finally settled on a restaurant.





Afterwards we stopped for a drink or two to celebrate Ashley’s (one of the girls on the trip) 20th birthday.

Most of the group stayed out a little while longer, but I was exhausted from getting no sleep the past 36 hours and made the trek back to campus.

What a looooong day! I’m off to bed and to get ready for our first day of classes tomorrow!

love, Pristine