Life in Dublin, Ireland: End of Orientation Week

In the game of life, it's amazing how quickly time tends to pass by when there is seemingly not enough time to accomplish those things of which you intend. For instance, I knew I was overdue at writing a blog post, but it never occurred to me until I just signed on that it had been practically 2 WEEKS! Wow. Apologies to those who kept waiting for more pictures to pop up =) Since plenty has happened since I last wrote, I will break up the events into multiple blogs for easier reading.

Ok, so things are starting to fly by already. I can't say I'm surprised, but time always seems to catch us slightly off guard at times. In the time since I last wrote, we finished our orientation week in grand form (note the use of the word "grand" - a very Irish thing to say) by going "out for a drink" on both Thursday night and Friday night. Now, Thursday night being the first of my "nights out" with folks in my program, I wasn't about to be the first to go home. One has to ensure one's social status is properly acknowledged (i.e. I don't want to be the boring one). So that ended with a group of us out until 1:30am dancing at a bar called Whelan's. Someone even had to let another guy crash on his couch since too much alcohol had been consumed (hey, at least our class looks out for one another!). Now, come Friday morning, we had to be back in the classroom at 9am for a library and campus tour. Let's just say a few didn't make it in for the tour (in their defense, the ones who skipped the morning session had gone to Trinity for undergrad work, so the tour was pointless), and those of us who did carried a large cup of coffee along...

All week folks talked about going out on Friday night. By Friday morning, a good group of us decided we were a little tired, but we might go out "for a drink" with the other folks but then call it an early night. We ventured to the Pav (short for Pavilion - the on-campus pub serving cheaper beer than places around town) for our drink, ensuring that we ate some food this time (we somehow left that essential part out of Thurs. night's adventures). I would love to say I was responsible enough to only have "a drink or two." It's amazing how quickly one forgets one's promises of a few hours earlier.......

At this point I figure it is necessary to describe the Pav in more detail. From the outside, it is a great building, with outside decks overlooking College Park (which allows for enjoying a drink outside in the lovely weather....er...the couple times of year it's not raining at least...). Enter inside the pub, and suddenly it's packed with students, some of which I feel like I could babysit (note: drinking age is technically 18 here, but NO ONE cards). The Pav serves a selection of drinks (and thankfully food), including 6-packs of Heineken and 6 packs of Bavarian. The key is that it is cheap, so most people are not drinking the beers on tap so much as the cheap canned beer. On this particular Friday night, it was the end of "Freshers Week" - the week before classes start and all the clubs/organizations are getting people to join up (those Davis grads, think tabling on a massive scale). Friday night, a Toga Party was sponsored by the student union, taking place at the Pav. So our night out involved the group of us grad students trying to stand in a circle talking (with our backpacks tossed in a pile in the center) while constantly getting bumped by drunk people in togas. I do believe the movie Animal House was mentioned at one point, and the scene inside this pub definitely fit the movie. The other fun side affect of being here: the bathroom. And by the bathroom (or toilet as they say here), I mean the LONG line to get there. At least I had a lovely chat with another grad student from Africa while waiting. Of course, as I get to the front of the line, some other Americans emerge from the stalls, hear me talk, and ask me where I'm from. They then asked (in a drunken state I might add) if I was a fresher. Thank goodness I could say no! It was also about this time I was thankful I remember all of college....without any blackouts. The fun part about watching everyone going crazy in their togas is that it provided us with several laughs, along with a rather cheap top hat that somehow we ended up with - most likely dropped by some fresher. Our group adopted the top hat, and I now have several funny pictures of virtually everyone in the group wearing the hat (a selection of the pictures are attached).

Ok, so now that the scene at the Pav is painted, a rather large group of us were still out at 11pm when the Pav closes, it was only logical that we would move the party to another location. Those of us living on campus took the opportunity to drop our bags off in our rooms before heading back out. I honestly can't tell you the name of the place we went to (hey, I'm bad at names), but I know I can find it again. At this point, there were a good 6-8 of us left, 4 of us having been ones out the night before as well (resulting in the label of the "core 4"). We grabbed a booth here at least and spent the next coupla hours talking, learning how to flip the top hat onto our head in a suave way, and eating cheap takeaway pizza (note: in Ireland, "takeaway" means "to go") to supplement our pizza from the Pav earlier in the night. By 3am, the pub was closing, and the group of us made our way home. Thank goodness, as I was about to fall asleep in the booth I was so tired!

And you think the story ends there.

Three of us in the MBA program live in the same campus building, and since all three of us were out Friday night, we walked home together (Trinity is in the center of the city, coincidently where all the restaurants/bars are, so everything is within easy walking distance). At such a late hour, we figured it would be better to walk through campus to our building (which happens to be just outside campus, but connected through a walkway above the street) than through the streets of Dublin. However, to get onto campus (which is surrounded by stone walls/buildings) we had to enter through the main gate which is closed at midnight to all but those who live on campus. Since the main gate is closed, we had to walk up to the gate (wooden gate in the middle of the stone wall), which at night like that resembles walking up to a castle wall. Having never needed to enter this late before, the three of us (who were entirely sober I might add at this point) are laughing at the situation. A small knocker is on the door, so we rap the knocker a few times. Nothing happens. We are giggling at this point because we are literally rapping a knocker on a wooden door to be let into campus - it all feels very Harry Potter-ish. So we rap the knocker louder this time, and a security guard answers and promptly asks if it's our first year living on campus. Wow. Well, the answer was yes, so he proceeds to give us instructions on only knocking once as someone is always there, but all we can do is try to stifle our laughs since we are getting lectured like 18 year-olds, and to be honest, we sure felt like it at the moment! After producing our ID to prove we lived there, we finally were admitted and got to walk through a very quite and peaceful campus (finally, no tourists wandering around!) to our rooms, where finally, I passed out.

Oh beautiful sleep!