Wednesday October 24, 2007
2:04 p.m.
UCD Study Lounge, Dublin
I’m sitting in the study lounge at school waiting for my Globalization group meeting to start. We’re doing an examination of the effects of globalization in Sierra Leone and Liberia from 1990 to the present day which led to civil war. Should be pretty cool once we get it more focused and researched. Anyways.
Thirteen BC students studying in Dublin (including myself) went to Cork this weekend on a trip sponsored by the school. They covered our train ticket and hotel and meals and everything, so it was nice to have a relatively inexpensive couple of days, just to start. On Saturday morning Liam (the only other Eagle in my house) and I woke up early, packed a backpack each, and walked the hour-or-so to Heuston Station up by Phoenix Park to meet up with the others and catch an 11:30 train to Cork. The ride out wasn’t so bad, as I caught up on some sleep, took in the countryside, puzzled over the woman sitting across from me who ate her tic-tacs by biting them in three pieces, and prayed for my iPod battery to last just a little longer. When we got there, the thirteen of us, plus Leann from the BC house in Dublin, met up with the other two BC leaders in Cork and hopped in cabs to the hotel. I caught up on some more sleep for an hour or so, and then Liam, myself, and three A&S girls who are studying at Trinity ventured into the city to poke around and find a pub. We ran into Chris, Dave, Pete, and Morgan in the first pub we stepped into, had a beer, and headed over to the famous English Market, which was kind of like a supersized, less-commercialized, well-organized Faneuil Hall. After that we went out to a very nice dinner. I had a salad (hi, mom), a very good steak, and the best ice cream I’ve had since hopping the pond. We left dinner around 8:30 and walked across town to a pub and watched the uneventful second-half of the Rugby World Cup championship game. Most people in the place, and apparently the country, were rooting for and overmatched England team against South Africa due to northern-hemisphere pride. I’m not kidding.
Some people stayed out after the game, but I had more sleeping to do before the Red Sox came on at 1:30 a.m. (I was extremely fortunate with my room assignment, as I was on the second floor, directly above the lobby which had WiFi. The network had Youtube, ESPN.com, and other streaming sites blocked out (I was trying to download the latest Office episode), however mlb.tv worked wonderfully. Apparently the Quality Inn in Cork doesn’t have a long history of problems with guests getting rooms near the lobby and watching Major League Baseball games in the middle of the night.
I realized how very far away from home I was as I watched J.D. Drew’s grand slam sail into the camera stand and found myself sitting there dumbstruck with no one there to so much as pinch my arm. Needless to say, the game was amazing.
The next morning we all got up and went to Blarney Castle. I kissed the stone with no misadventures and thought about how cool it would be to have a moat around my house. We left there for Kinsale and walked around the Charles Fort for a little while before heading back to the train station and heading home. All in all, a successful trip.
Ashley, Liam and I all watched game seven back at the house. We celebrated with Fosters, which is about the worst way you can possibly celebrate anything, but was the best we could do at 5:15 on a Monday morning. (Note: I am containing my excitement about these games for sake of brevity. Most of you who are reading this probably know me well enough to accurately assess my level of excitement regarding the Red Sox success over the past week, so I’ll leave it at that.)
I’m done with another brutal week of class, and prepping for a 5 day weekend (we have Monday off for a national Bank Holiday). Most of the kids in the program are traveling this weekend because of the extra day off, but back in August and September I made sure I left this week free in the event that the Sox actually made it to the World Series, just to be sure that I wouldn’t find myself in some strange city in some strange country unable to gain internet access to watch the games. Needless to say, I’m feeling pretty good about myself.
Tonight is the first night of Flag (American) Football, so that should be great fun. Yesterday the air had that cool crispness that just makes you want to go outside and play pick-up football with your friends, so I guess this is a pretty decent substitute considering the circumstances. After that we have the “Irish House Party” night sponsored by the program where I guess we’re going to fill up on soda bread and do a little Irish step-dancing. Should be interesting. Then it’s probably out for a beer and then back to the house by 1:30 to watch the sox. I’m still trying to find someone to play golf with tomorrow (which is proving quite a challenge since so many people are going away). Oh well. Anyways, pretty busy night, here’s hoping for great success all around.
Later.
2:51
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