Such a fun night!! This is for every girl who is looking for her Gerard Butler (;

Some of my roommates! 

After a week I can honestly say that I love Dublin! I have been in the city many times now and it is very exciting to say that I sometimes know where I am! I actually took the city bus from campus by myself the other day and found my way to the Jameson Distillery without getting lost ( I did have to ask several Dubliners for directions though). I am also finally learning the tricks to not being a "dumb American," but I will always be a tourist because I cant help but take pictures haha. One trick that I learned from someone here is that I need to trick the cab drivers. My school is located outside of the city so when we go into town we must take a bus for 2 euros, but usually by the time we come back from the pubs the buses are no longer running. For the first week what my friends and I did was ask the cab driver how much it would be back to UCD and usually we would pay around 4 euros each. However, I am no longer a rookie with the cabs and now what we do is tell the cab driver we only have 3 euros a person because we spent all our money on food and drinks and most of the time they say they will bring us back!  The irish cab drivers are definitely the nice ones and they usually just laugh at us and take us back for our negotiated price. I think the weirdest thing about Dublin so far is that it is really hard to adjust to the life of an Irish student. The Irish students here usually go out Monday-Thursday and then they go home on the weekends to work with their families. They even travel 3-4 hours to go home every single weekend!!! What this means for the study abroad kids thought is that we also go out Mon-Thur and then on the weekends nothing is really open... opposite of what I am used to back home. My classes start later in the day which is good, but I can never keep up and always end up staying in to sleep at least one of the nights #americanproblems. As far as my classes and roommates go I have absolutely no complaints! My roommates are awesome and I am so happy that I get to spend these months with such energetic and fun people! I love talking with my Irish roommates and meeting their Irish friends! My classes are not as easy as everyone said they would be, but I have only had one week so I will see how things go!! It's Sunday night though and I need to sleep since I will be going out tomorrow night to the pub where P.S I Love You was filmed (Whelan's)  Fingers crossed I find my Gerard Butler (; Goodnight!!! xoxo

The Porter House Pub!

O'neills Pub (They have great live Irish music!!)

The Temple Bar

My first irish coffee!

Hi everyone! Hope everyone is doing well back home! Today was my first day of classes! Usually before the first day I try to sleep and pick out a cute outfit, but the Patriots were playing so I found myself in a pub in the temple bar area til about 3am last night since kickoff was at 11:30pm here. Im tired today, but it was fun even though we lost! Things here have been going great! Trips are starting to be planned and tonight I am buying my weekend trip for Galway in February. It feels like I have been here for a long time already and it has not even been a week haha Im excited to finally be around Irish people because up until now I have been with all the study abroad american students. Two of my roommates are actually irish boys, but I have not met them yet. Im sure they are excited to meet a crazy american! I met a few irish people at the pubs the other night and one very intoxicated irish man actually gave me 30 euros...I felt bad so I gave it to his sober friend. Karma would have got me if I took it haha Other than that my weekend was pretty chill and I spent most of my time walking around the city...Trinity College is beautiful! Here are some pictures!

My First Guinness! 

I have finally arrived in Dublin!! Honestly this beautiful city reminds me a lot of Boston! My flight to Dublin ended up being only 5 hours and 10 minutes due to the wind so technically it took me less time to get to Dublin than it does for me to get to Syracuse. I immediately witnessed the change in culture in the airport when I asked the airport lady where I could get a carriage for my bags because everyone else seemed to have one. She then looked at me confused and asked if I needed it for my baby. I must have looked even more confused than her and after describing what I was talking about she informed me that it is a trolley haha rookie mistake...but still funny! My apartment is clean and nice so I cannot complain. I have only met one roommate thus far and she is actually from Holland and very friendly! Last night was my first night in Dublin and while most people sleep and try to overcome jet lag....I instead went on the “Orientation” pub crawl. Only in Dublin is this part of orientation haha but it was a lot of fun and I had my first Guinness which I actually enjoyed! We went to 4 pubs total (O’Neill’s, the port house, the garbage bar, and I can’t remember the other ones name).  My favorite was definitely O’Neill’s because they had great live Irish music! What American doesn’t love singing/yelling the dropkick murphys with people they just met?!  And of course I was selected to Irish step dance in front of all the other international students in the pub with a red haired man who does it professionally and believe it or not.... I WAS AWFUL! I had no clue what to do, but it was definitely an experience haha I will put up some pictures from the bars, but unfortunately I only had my phone camera. Better pictures to come soon. Well that’s it for now (:

Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is finally the day that I will be leaving for Dublin! I have received some great advice from family and friends and I am so excited to start on this journey! Packing is not quite as bad as I thought it would be, but I kinda cheated and I am checking two bags instead of one... perks of being the youngest child (; Thanks dad! My roommates from Syracuse left for London tonight and I am so excited for them and cannot wait until we reunite in Dublin for my birthday!! Keep your fingers crossed that I don't get lost getting to my school haha Pictures will be posted soon! Goodbye America, Hello Ireland (:

First Post!

Ahh I can not believe I am leaving on Tuesday! I have yet to pack, but luckily I have taken over my sister's room with everything I want to bring. I have one large suitcase and one medium to check and then I will have a carry on and a backpack with my laptop in it. I am sure I will look like the ultimate tourist at the Dublin airport, but that's ok! I think the one universal question that friends and family keep asking me is if I am excited.  I know the answer to this question, but it is hard to describe my excitement when honestly I have never done anything like this in my entire life. I have left the United States once when I went to Canada when I was little and the last time I was on an airplane was sophomore year of high school for a family vacation to San Diego and Sea World. So to answer this question...yes I am excited, but it is such a foreign concept for me that I can't even picture what it will be like! All I know is that it will fly by and hopefully be the best 4 months of my life (:

I will be studying at the Quinn School of Business at Ireland's largest University, the University College Dublin. It looks beautiful from what I have seen online… they even have an Olympic size pool! As far as the living situation goes, I think it is kind of strange, but also intriguing. UCD has a policy where they inform you of the gender of your roommates, but that is it! All I know is that I will be living in the nicest college apt that I probably have ever seen and my roommates are 2 female UCD undergrads (one of which I am friends with from Syracuse) and 3 male UCD undergrads. My friends like to tease me that I am going on the Real World Ireland.  Hopefully I actually keep up with this blog because it will be cool to look back on someday! As I am getting ready to leave obviously I am getting nervous.  However, one of my friends gave me some valuable advice…he told me to have an open heart and an open mind and that is just what I plan to do (: