First Thursday

First off, if you want to see more pix (if you dont scroll down quickly) here they are. I thought you should get a good idea of my bathroom!! Do you notice that the shower floor is the bathroom floor?? The shower is on the left. you can see the drain on the floor. This is the entire bathroom, from left to right! So when I take a shower, the entire floor gets wet. Crazy huh??
Also I've got a pix of me and my mom outside on the street in front of my apartment. I'm on the 3rd floor (the 2nd main window above my head is my kitchen and living room, and it has a light blue blanket over the couch) and the second double window from the left (2 double windows above the wall) is my room.


So today started late. I'm feeling like I'm on an extended 'holiday'. That will all change when classes start!! So today I slept til just before 11am (which means I was probably waking up when some of you were getting up at 6am!!) and I had a lazy morning. Read a little (Isle of Palms, thank you Aunt Barb), took a shower at 1:30 then made lunch! Talk about slow start!!

Just before 4 my flat mates Caroline (England) and Monique (Canada) and I left for campus. This time we decided to WALK!! We went at a nice breezy pace since Monique had just bought 160 euro leather boots this morning and had to take it easy. It took us an hour to walk to campus. It's not that we just walked slow, but remember, it is a good 2 1/2 mile treak to campus.

The thing is - everyone walks EVERYWHERE. Or you take the public transportation. Caroline thinks it's outrageous that I didnt walk to school (Ben Lippen, that is) or to Church or to get to town and that I had a car that I drove everywhere. She also doesnt understand how I have never lived in an area that had a bus stop. But honestly, where are you gonna hop on the bus in Irmo or Chapin?? They just dont have them. If you want to get on a bus, you're gonna need to drive down town, THEN catch a bus. It's just a different world that they've never seen!! I suppose in Irmo we could have walked to the BiLo or Kroger, but with a car, you might as well drive so you can take more than 2 bags home!!
But here, you walk! I've taken the bus (one of those double deckers) once into the city centre. But mostly we ride the Luas. It's a 10 minute walk to the Luas, then you pay 1.90 euro, then you walk 10 more minutes down Grafton St to hit the campus. And as a side note, it is a SIGHT to see Grafton Street. If you google map Dublin, you can find Grafton street between St. Stephen's Green and Trinity College. It's a regular road but cars dont normally drive down this road. It's filled with all the nice shops and eateries and there are constant performers up and down this road. If you saw my Ireland video from last year I have a section at the beginning of two kids singing on the street. This is where they were. You get bands (modern and traditional), guys on guitars, people all in bronze standing like a statue, even today we passes a choir out there singing the oldies song "for the longest time" (for the record, that song was stuck in my head all afternoon!!)

But once we got to campus we headed out to the field where they were having cricket and rugby tryouts! We watched for a little bit, then walked around some.

Around 7 I headed to the Christian Union (CU) praise night. So apparently, Ireland is on MY time - 15-30 mins late for everything. The sign said they start at 7 and when I appeared a few minutes before 7, a guy told me that I was really early! LOL But it was good. I talked to a few kids that were alone (one girl told me she thought I was part of the committee cuz I came over to talk to her!! haha) and after 30 minutes of praise songs, most of which I hadnt heard, we got to hang around and talk. I found the 2 other post grad girls there tonight. They were nice. One is from Dublin and the other is from Canada (who loves Seinfeld!!) I left around 10:30 (also called 'half ten') and came home with a first year medical student who happened to live at Trinity Hall as well, so that was good to have someone to walk home with on that last walk!

Tomorrow I will probably have another slow morning, then head out to campus around half two to get to my orientation meeting. This is when all the students from my course get together and we meet the professors (and each other). It's different for each orientation, but I assume they will talk a little about the classes, maybe what to expect or what we will need, and we may end up at a pub. Every post grad student I've talked to has told me that they've ended up in the pubs with their classmates and professors. I mean, I would go to this taco place in 5 points with my film professor and pick her brain, but going to pubs is a much different experience. Honestly, I am nervous about going. First off, I have to find the drama lecture room (I know where the department is, but I dont know where they do lectures...). So I am nervous about meeting my class mates and just finding where to go. There are only 15 kids in the course so it's not like I'll be following the crowd... Here's hoping I dont miss this thing cuz I'm an idiot!!