Orientation Day 2 - Let loose in Dublin!

Our day began the same as the previous day. Geoff picked the 8 of us up from breakfast and took us on the bus to the office for our next series of discussions. Our first topic was Academics - the differences between the American and Irish education systems. We talked about grading scales, teaching styles and had a rather intense discussion on the use of "I" in essays and different styles of citations. Yes, it was lots of fun. Yes, I got a little too excited during the Great "I" Debate, but really, it's an important and fairly controversial issue and I have strong opinions about it which I won't go into here because, frankly, I don't think anyone really cares what I think about this particular topic. ANYWAYS, we talked about school stuff for a while and then had a break during which part of the group went for coffee and I and most of the group went on a walk and ended up buying postcards. Don't get overly excited - I did not buy any since I left my purse in the office and therefore you won't be getting a postcard quite yet. Sorry - I promise I will work on that.

We reconvened and began our second session entitled Ireland Today, but really it was a free-for-all that continued until we left to go for lunch. At this point, I went up to Tim to talk to him about my sleep disorder and what I need to do to work with professors and make them aware of my situation. This made both Tim and Geoff excited because it was a legitimate excuse for them to do stuff - I think Geoff has visions of getting paged on the emergency beeper because someone got lost in Cork or something. This was a legitimate concern and something they could actually help with, so they were both rather pleased with me, although I don't think Tim knows my name - I'm probably just Sleep Disorder Girl, but that's fine - I don't think Tim knows anyone's name, so at least I have an identifying feature!

Lunch was delicious. If you're ever in Dublin near Merrion Square, I highly recommend stopping by Angel Park Eatery for a bite.

After lunch, we had a guest speaker come and talk to us about the consequences of a poor decision he made while drunk. Very cheery lecture - part of the requisite scaring us all into good behavior. (Since I'm writing this over a week later, I can tell you that the tale didn't discourage the people that probably needed discouraging and therefore was fairly ineffectual since the rest of us don't need scaring.) Following that, we discussed with Tim and Geoff our collective need for cell phones, which they were going to procure for the 6 of us who wanted to get them as a group and then we were free to do as we wished!

Collectively, we had decided to go to to Kilmainham (pronounced kill-MEN-um) Jail and then to the Guinness Storehouse for dinner and then to split up, as we chose. Geoff and Chris, our guest speaker, took us on the bus to the right neighborhood. It was in a part of Dublin we hadn't been to yet and we were told not to linger too long there. Apparently it's not the best part of Dublin, but we had no problems. While we waited in line for admittance, a man who was with the group ahead of us turned around and asked if we were American. He too was from the US and had been traveling with a group of students from Russia. He was really interesting - he had been in the army and had then learned a half-dozen languages (among them, Russian and German, if I remember correctly) and had actually studied for a while at IU - along with a bunch of other places. In the course of talking to him we learned that he taught at West Point, though he hadn't "been smart enough to study there." He was really interesting, but once his group went in, we lost track of him entirely, which was fine because we were busy learning about Irish politics in the museum before our tour of Kilmainham began.

Kilmainham was fascinating and I cannot recommend it enough. It's a wonderful example of Victorian-era reforms and we learned a lot about the political history of Ireland while we were there, since Kilmainham became famous as a prison for political prisoners. Really interesting, but very scary. I understand that they truly intended the inmates to repent their crimes, but the idea of the panopticon seem more likely to induce feelings of paranoia then repentance - or at least I felt that would be my own reaction. (The panopticon was constructed around the idea that someone (in theory, G-d/Justice and government/jailers) was always watching your every move, so any transgression would be seen. It was supposed to dissuade criminals from acting.)

From there, we decided we definitely needed something lighter - and a drink! - so the Guinness Storehouse seemed the perfect next stop. Our group broke up with half of us going through quickly to get to the free beer at the end, while the rest of us learned in great detail all about the stout-brewing process. From that, I learned the following fascinating facts:

• A pure water supply is super important in the brewing process and to malign the purity of a brewer's water supply is a major insult.
• Guinness employs master brewers who taste test all the beer.
• Guinness claims to have created the first stout. I later learned that Beamish (or was it Murphy's?) supposedly was brewing its stout several decades earlier, so go figure.
  
• The yeast that is used today is the descendents of the yeast that Mr. Guinness first used.
• A supply of yeast is kept locked up in a safe in the event that something happens and this yeast would be used to rapidly build up the stock again. Wouldn't want Guinness to have to use non-regulation yeast, would you?
  
• Roasted barley tastes similar to a coffee bean. Not my favorite flavor, but not horrible.
• Hops plants grow really tall. I forget quite how tall, but I think it was easily over 6'.

The Guinness storehouse was, in everyone's opinions, vastly overrated, but we were all glad we went. Now we don't have to go back. And for anyone who cares - I drank my taste (about the size of 2 shots) but declined the pint I technically could have had and tasted someone else's pint. The "taste" we got was of some variety that was darker than any other type of Guinness I've ever seen. Whatever it was, no one liked it much and the experienced beer drinkers told us that it was harsh even for Guinness. The pint at the end was of a different kind of Guinness and not as bad, but still not anything I wanted to drink.

After hanging out in the Observatory Bar for awhile, we were exhausted and starving so we took the bus back to the Temple Bar/Grafton St. area and walked around looking for a place where the 8 of us could all have dinner together. By the time we found a restaurant, we were so excited I think we nearly started crying. This is what happens when you don't feed people for hours and then give them beer. Not recommended. After dinner, we split up. 3 girls went pub-hopping, two girls went back to the hotel, and two other girls and I wandered around for awhile, just people-watching and sight-seeing. The Grafton St. area is pretty happening, so there was lots going on, but after an hour or so of that, we were wiped and hopped on the bus to get back.

We'd been doing really well. No one had gotten lost yet, no calamities, nothing had been broken.... clearly something had to give. (**Nobody needs to worry, this is more humorous than scary. Everyone stay calm! :) ) We got off the bus and crossed the street towards the hotel. Two guys were following us further back, but they weren't bothering us, so I assumed they were guests too. We went into the hotel and past the key card part and they followed after us. We got in the elevator and they did too. One of the girls noticed they were carrying beer cans and appeared to be drunk. I had walked in the elevator first and pushed our floor button, but when the guys walked in, they just pressed the already-lit button. We arrived at our floor and they got out. We stayed in the elevator and pushed the 4th floor button and got out on the next floor. After a quick discussion where we basically decided to go hang out in the basement bar for awhile until they left (we were slightly concerned they were waiting for us on the third floor), we rode the elevator down and hung out for awhile. After some time had passed, we decided it would be safe to go back upstairs. No one was hanging around the floor, although we hadn't seen the guys leave. We knocked on the door of the girls who had headed back first, but they hadn't seen anything which cracked us up, for some reason. After saying goodnight, we all went to our respective rooms. We were taking the train to Cork tomorrow - finally we could unpack and really settle in!!