Beginning My Journey Abroad in Ireland.
One day from today will be my one-month mark since arriving in Ireland. It feels like I have been here for so long, yet also feel like I just got to Dublin yesterday! However, I am already starting to feel a bit homesick. I miss my home, my friends, my family, and my normalcy. This journey has been so exciting thus far and continues to be. The excitement of my every day is what distracts me from missing normalcy. Additionally, the first month might have been the hardest due to adjusting to a new culture, society, city, and school. I finally have an organized schedule, which makes it easier to keep in touch with people from home.
So far in my time here, I have noticed great societal and cultural differences between the city of Dublin and the city of Columbus. In Dublin, they are more environmentally conscious. Restaurants give out paper straws, require you to ask for a napkin if needed, grocery stores require that you bring your own reusable bags, and there are street cleaners that collect trash off the streets and sidewalks. This is something that required some adjusting, but also is something that I will miss and I hope that Columbus eventually adopts.
My living situation here required the most adjustment. I am used to living with just my best friend for two and a half years in Columbus. She is clean, quiet, and I am completely comfortable around her and our home. The student accommodation here is a large apartment-like building. I live in a flat with six other girls. I have my own room and bathroom but share a living room and kitchen area. Unfortunately, I was challenged with the rooms being small compared to all of my other friends who live in the building. The day I arrived our kitchen area was dirty. After meeting all of my roommates I communicated with them that keeping a clean kitchen is extremely important to me. Since then, it hasn't been too much of an issue. Two of my roommates are from Ireland, one is from France, and the rest are from the States, also on an exchange program. It has been great having some locals and some girls from the US who are experiencing similar emotions.
Classes started at Trinity on January 24th and I am finally feeling acquainted with them now. Trinity College has such a beautiful campus and is a large tourist attraction for people visiting Dublin. Additionally, Trinity's business school is amazing. It is a more modern building, with hundreds of good study spots, a cafe, and classrooms (pictured above). I am so lucky to walk around the campus during the week!
One thing I recently learned about the students here is that many of them like to go out to events during the week, as many of them travel home and relax/do school work on the weekends. This is something that is completely the opposite at Ohio State. I am always focused on school, organizations, and work during the weekdays. I go to bed early and am productive because this gives me the ability to hang out with my friends on the weekends. I have been trying to stick to this regimen while in Dublin, but it is a bit tough when everyone I'm meeting asks to get together on weeknights.
These first few weeks of class have been very light on coursework, so my friends and I have taken advantage of Ryanair. Ryanair is an airline company based out of Ireland. They offer insanely cheap flights to other countries. For example, we flew to London for around forty dollars round trip. We also just visited Brussels, Belgium, and we have a few more weekend and spring break trips planned. Since this is the first and only time I have been abroad in my life, I am trying to take advantage of all of the places around Ireland that I can visit. This is also exposing me to even more cultures and languages. I am lucky that Ireland is mainly an English-speaking country, even though some Irish accents are very thick and hard to understand. Being in Belgium was the first time I was somewhere where the main language was not English. I had to adapt to communicate with people that didn't understand everything I was saying, and I didn't understand them fully.
My friends and I have also taken advantage of the beauties of Ireland whilst here, and we still have many more places/hikes to visit within the country. We traveled to the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast, where we had a failed attempt of an O-H-I-O photo (instead we made O-H-H-O). This weekend we are going hiking on the east coast at Howth. Howth is located on the Dublin Bay, and this was the first hike I found in my research of Ireland.
Overall, this first month has been exciting and a great learning experience and I cannot wait to get even more acclimated to this country over the rest of the semester!
