Here At Last!

Hello from Dublin! After a whirlwind week of packing and seeing people in Long Beach, I flew to Dublin on Saturday morning and have been going strong on orientation activities ever since then. Whew!

Even before I first touched down in Ireland, I had quite an eventful day. A seat on my plane out of LAX didn't recline properly, which was apparently sufficient cause for Jetblue to delay our flight by an hour and a half as we waited for a maintenance tech. Seeing as I only had a two-hour layover at JFK airport in the first place, getting to the second leg of my journey was obviously a little stressful. After fervently praying for the entirety of my first flight that I would make my connection, I power-walked to the AirTrain station at JFK and found an Aer Lingus representative who hustled me through security so that I could make the final boarding call. By this point, I had been awake since 4 am and was a tired and red-faced mess when I arrived on the plane. Making my way back to Row 46 with my bulky backpack and apologizing profusely, I was very conscious of appearing as that American on the plane who was clueless and inadvertently rude (one woman snapped at me for repeatedly trying to put my bag into the overhead at the same time as her...whoops). After I was in the air once more, the exhaustion and emotion, combined with my apprehension about flying on September 11 after the recent bomb threats, finally hit and I handled it as any rational adult would: I clung to my stuffed rabbit for dear life and wallowed in self-pity.

Despite the travel complications, there were still a few great moments over the course of my journey. When I was waiting in line to board my first plane, for example, an adorable little girl bedecked in Disney princess apparel asked me my name; her next question was whether I had any children--you know, just your everyday basics. The Aer Lingus flights had its moments, too. One of the crew looked like Santa Claus, and a man sitting behind me was carrying a Tickle-Me Elmo! When we finally landed, it was 4:27am local time, and the view of Dublin was stunning. After a hassle-free trip through Immigration and baggage claim, I boarded the bus to the hostel with the other students. The assistant program director, Hayden, gave us some background information as the new students trundled along the streets to the city center. While he informed the grateful passengers that we would have the day to explore and recover from jetlag, he also brought some ill-received recommendations: that we avoid caffeine, alcohol, and napping for the entirety of the day.

Needless to say, I completely disregarded two of these three pieces of advice. Having been traveling for roughly 14 hours by that point and faced with the prospect of another 16 that day, I elected to nap for a a while after exploring the streets of Dublin with the other students. The city is certainly more modern and urban than I expected, but I can tell that it is going to be a place that I will grow to love over the coming months. For dinner that evening, I went out with a few friends to a pub and had a baked potato with cheese and my first drink abroad: a Sex on the Beach. Not the most traditional Irish fare, perhaps, but it tasted good nonetheless!

Yesterday we continued our orientation, attending meetings on various topics. While some of the meetings seemed nearly interminable, others were pretty fun. An officer of the Garda (the Irish police force) came to talk to us about laws and safety, and to the students' surprise we learned that the officers are unarmed because there simply aren't incidents here involving exceptional violence in the first place. The man had a great sense of humor, and if there were any question as to the fact that I'm in Ireland now, it was quickly addressed by the informal tone of our open Q and A with the officer: only in this country would one's idea of advice from a policeman be where the best pubs and places to party are!

Last night we hit the town again, but this afternoon we were back to business--well, sort of. Our orientation schedule today comprised of learning how to play Gaelic football and hurling. Anyone familiar with me knows that activities requiring physical coordination are WAY out of my comfort zone, but I had fun with it. I concluded that I may not have the skill to play them myself, but they will be fun to follow on TV. In my opinion, the matches stay pretty interesting because they are virtually a free-for-all. If you want to see what I mean, try watching this video of clips from the games.

After grabbing a hefty dinner with some friends, I'm currently spending the evening at the hostel checking emails and getting ready for tomorrow. In the morning we are moving to our new flats, and I'm so looking forward to being settled rather than just living out of my bags. All the students live relatively near one another, which should be fun as I have yet to meet a person on this program that I dislike. In keeping with the college tradition, a lot of my social life here thus far has revolved around getting food and drinks with my friends (a dangerous habit, considering the massive portion sizes here), and there are already a couple of places that I can see my group of friends frequenting throughout the semester.

As for right now, I should get to bed. I have another big day tomorrow, but I will do my best to update again soon!

Airport Reflections

Well, here I am at Sea-Tac airport, preparing to fly back to Long Beach and realizing that I am less than one full week away from my flight to Dublin. Sitting here with my Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino (the first one of the season that the Sea-Tac Starbucks has made, no less!) and quietly observing the people around me at the gate, it would be so easy to romanticize myself as a naive but hopeful young heroine, filled with hope and excitement and even a little trepidation as I contemplate my upcoming travels and the promise of self-discovery...

But let's face it: real life is a bit more messy than that. That isn't to say that I'm not feeling all the things I just mentioned, but those emotions alone paint such an incomplete picture of all I've experienced within the past few days and even the past few hours. First of all, this week was utterly insane in terms of my schedule. Despite the fact that I wasn't in class, my days were nonetheless grueling as I balanced packing, working for the Campus Visit Program, and training for my new job at the Center for Writing, Learning, and Teaching. Although I finished each day exhausted, I had a blast with it. Getting to know the CWLT staff through informal conversation and planned exercises alike, I find myself glad to realize that even after being at Puget Sound for two years I can still meet new people and forge meaningful friendships with them. Working at the CVP office, by contrast, cemented some of the bonds I've already created here. Back at the beginning of summer, there's no way I could have anticipated that some of my co-workers would wander the streets of Tacoma helping me recover my phone or spend a Monday evening shooting SIGs and eating frozen yogurt with me.

In all that was keeping me busy, though, I devoted alarmingly little time to bidding farewell to old and new friends alike. I had been looking forward to having an extra week up here to visit everyone before I left so that I wouldn't have to go without seeing them for six months (or, in the case of some, a full year). However, I didn't realize how that contact would complicate my goodbyes: the benefit of seeing my friends one last time before I departed for California came at the cost of addressing them face-to-face as I left, forcing me once again to confront the enormity of what I am doing this semester. Furthermore, owing to some flight complications late in the week, I had even less time for this than I anticipated. As such, many of my goodbyes felt disappointingly abrupt: for one friend, a three-minute speech was reduced to a quick hug before class; for another, scheduling conflicts meant cutting out our last meeting altogether.

One of the many reasons I chose to study abroad is because I knew it was time to expand my proverbial horizons and remind myself that there is more to life--and the world--than Puget Sound alone. Being here for these past few days, however, I have come to remember all over again just how much the people and community here do mean to me. Now that the parting hugs (and hopefully the accompanying tears) are done, I am once again seeing the positive side: I have not only the prospect of a great semester before me, but also a solid group of friends and opportunities waiting with open arms when I return.

My plane is about to board, so I should probably sign off soon. If this were the idealistic movie scenario I described earlier, I would stride confidently down the ramp onto the plane, slide into my seat next to an incredibly attractive man, and begin reading the latest best-seller. As it is, I'm pretty sure the film industry hasn't heard about my life, because my travel experiences run more along the lines of kicking my own shoe across the airport gate, sitting next to overly flirtatious young men while sick, and, as of yesterday, engaging in hysterical phone-tag marathons between Jetblue and my father as my friend swats a bee out of her apartment with a Swiffer mop. This time around, I'm settling for a compromise: I'm a little nervous, a little homesick, but I'll be damned if I'm not thrilled out of my mind for all that lies ahead!