Day 2 in Dublin - 1st Day of Orientation

In only one evening, the eight of us had managed to form a group. When Geoff met us in the dining room as we had breakfast the next day, he found us all eating at the same table, talking nonstop. We rode the bus downtown to Merrion Square where the new IFSA offices are. Dublin has a series of squares in them, the centers of which are occupied by beautiful park spaces, albeit ones that are considerably wilder-looking than parks at home. The IFSA offices are located in the basement of an old Georgian house, so we actually went down the stairs to the entrance from the sidewalk, into a lovely building, freshly painted, with comfortable seats for us to sit in while we were oriented about Life in Ireland, our first topic. To be honest, I don't remember a whole lot of what the body of this discussion was about - presumably things like the differences between tipping in the US and Ireland, the importance of sport, and other equally useful topics. As far as I'm concerned, the most interesting thing was that I didn't fall asleep during this, or any of the other lectures that day.

After Tim finished his spiel, we had some free time so the group of us went on a walk through the square. Parts of it are really heavily wooded - it's all this dark, rich green and the air was moist and cool, really lovely - and then all of a sudden it would open up into this totally hidden, perfectly manicured expanse of lawn, with gorgeous flowers everywhere. As we walked through, we came across three monuments which two of my friends and I went to investigate. The first was a statue of a woman donated by Brewbaker's Bakery to the City of Dublin and for all Dubliners to enjoy. It was so interesting - the bakery was so old (from the 1800s I think) and yet later that day we passed Brewbaker's Bakery! It was right there! Sometimes I forget that things - places, buildings, businesses - can survive that long, because so little in the US seems to last. In Ireland, even if something doesn't survive, the memory of it does.

The second monument I practically stumbled over. It was placed between the other two larger monuments or I wouldn't have seen it all. A small marker stone on the ground bore a simple inscription that honored victims of every and any form of abuse. It was so unobtrusive and hidden, so unassuming, and yet such a powerful symbol. Sometimes less is more - although I could still understand how someone could say that such a small monument, so camouflaged is disrespectful to victims, that this is an issue that should get more attention, but I think the monument as it was had dignity and was lovely.

After the first two monuments, we had no idea what to expect for the third, which turned out to be a beautiful poem about children. It turns out that one of the foremost natal hospitals in Ireland was only a block away, so it was very geographically-appropriate. By then, it was time to go back for our next lecture, on Nutrition. Sum up: Don't eat white bread. Make sure to get lots of fruits, veggies (or veg here), and protein. Try to prevent blood sugar from getting either too low or too high. Yay for health food! Plus we got all kinds of recipes for stuff we can make in our apartment kitchens, so that was nice.

After lunch, Karen, a representative from UCC (University College Cork, where I'll be going to school), came and spoke to us about courses and campus life and then it was off to our first real activity of the day: a tour of the Georgian and Medieval/Viking parts of Dublin!!

What I learned about Georgian architecture: Very geometric. Georgian architecture looked for symmetry and straight lines.Traditionally Georgian houses have 5 levels: the basement, housing the kitchen, furnace and laundry rooms; the ground floor with the waiting rooms and coat closets, presumably; the 1st floor with dining room, parlour, sitting room, drawing room, etc., 2nd floor with family living quarters and; 3rd floor with the servants living quarters. There really wasn't a whole lot to see besides that, although there's a house near the office that is restored and people can walk through - I wanted to do this, but didn't get a chance while in Dublin. Maybe next time - I'm sure I'll be back at some point. Dublin experienced a time of great affluence during the Georgian period, which lasted until the aristocracy stopped going to Dublin, at which point the Georgian houses were converted to tenements.

From the Georgian section of town we headed over to Trinity College, which is beautiful and MUCH bigger than St. Peter's, the college I stayed at in Oxford. Trinity was originally intended to be one college of a university like Oxford or Cambridge, but the money ran out. This was the mantra repeated LOTS of places we went, but in this case, it doesn't seem to have worked out too badly. From Trinity, we went to Dublin Castle, which no longer exists in it's original form or in many of it's subsequent parts. Today the oldest part I think dates to the 11th or 12th centuries, and the moat was filled in. The castle is used for government inquiries now and when we were there, there were 4 impressive sand sculptures in the courtyard. Dublin was a Viking settlement so Dublin has three names, technically - 1. Viking, from which we got 2. Dublin, the English version and 3. the Irish version. We wandered around Temple Bar, to look at the remnants of the Viking city and our tour guide (a history lecturer at university here) complained about Ireland's disinterest in preserving archaeological sites and then we were turned loose - on our own until our evening entertainment: Riverdance!

Kathryn, Sophie and I decided to go to the National Gallery, where I discovered that a man named Harry Clarke has a lot on common with Erte. He's a BIG deal in Ireland and actually did the stained glass in the chapel at UCC. Besides his regularly displayed work, they were featuring an exhibit of his illustrations of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales which we all loved. Very creepy and colorful, but the detail was insane. We were entranced, enraptured and totally into it, to say the least... and then it was time to meet up with the other girls, because we had arranged to all have dinner together in Temple Bar before meeting the adults at the theater. (Yes, we're all technically adults, but come on.)

Riverdance was great fun, though I did fall asleep during the first act. Not sure if that was jet lag or that part of the show - I definitely wasn't the only one and Provigil can only do so much for an 8 hour time-shift!