Good Craic! Rugby World Cup & Chinese

This is a clip of one of the intense moments of the rugby game this morning. Just as Australia was about to score, Ireland stole the ball and made it almost all the way to the other side of the field. All with 2 minutes left in the game! You can be sure that everyone watching was on their feet and biting their nails, no matter who they were rooting for.


This morning, after a good night out with the roomies last night and not getting to sleep until much too late, I woke up for the 9:30 AM Rugby World Cup game between Ireland and Australia. UCD opened up the lounge for International students early so that we could watch it on the huge screen made of 12 monitors. I met my friend Christina there, and we were certainly not the only ones. There was a group of about 7 or 8 who were Australians, and donned not only colors and flags, but stickers on their cheeks. There were also some of the International student coordinators there, who were decked out in green. And we had a number of people wander in and out throughout the game. It was really very fun!

The only thing that I was surprised about was how subdued everyone was. I'm not sure if it's an Irish thing or the fact that it was 9:30 on a Saturday morning on a college campus, but everyone was very relaxed and calm and extremely cordial. Despite the warnings, there was very little "slagging" (rousing and teasing one another). I had a great time, and am continuing to learn the nuances of the game of rugby. I don't know American sports very well, but I will try with this one.

Here's a photo of the fan gear sported this morning and one of my friend Christina (front bottom right) and all the Irish-cheering devotees behind us. For a small lounge, there were quite a lot of people. Also, most students seem to go home on weekends, so this was an impressive and dedicated crowd.

And then tonight, I made my first call on my Irish cell phone. To whom? To the Chinese food place that was handing out menus last week, of course. I decided to eat in, but didn't feel like cooking, so I ordered Chinese- which, happily, they will deliver to the outside of the dorm building I live in! I had a nice bonding session with one of my roomies over dinner, and had a nice relaxing evening. I really have to check tipping standards here again, because the delivery man that I gave a few extra euros to seemed very genuinely surprised at receiving a tip.The food was pretty good, which sort of surprised me. I haven't exactly seen a lot of diversity so far here...

Anyway, tomorrow I plan on making a video tour of my building and some of UCD campus, so make sure to look out for it! Forgive me if I get a little bit behind on posting a link on Facebook. The site seems to have trouble letting me post or share most anything. Hopefully this will be resolved shortly! As always, thanks for reading!

Ranganna- Classes

Good evening all! After being here for more than a week, I finally had my first day of classes. I had 3 classes on today: Introduction to Folklore at 11, Beginning Irish at 1, and Early Irish Hero Tales at 2. Each class is only 50 minutes. Coming from a university that has classes that are either an hour and twenty minutes or else three hours, 50 minutes felt like cheating. All of the my classes seem very exciting. I generally sign up for a class more for the subject than the professor, so I spent less time trying to like the professors today and more time oohing and aahing over the reading list. I'm going to have to buy a whole other suitcase to ship my textbooks home! The class sizes have been pretty small compared to what I'm used- my first class, held in a stepped theatre and certain my largest class, only had about 50 or 60 kids in attendance. My smallest class so far, Beginning Irish, had only about 15. At home, I'm used to my small classes being about 40 and my large classes having around 150 students or so. Tomorrow I have one new class, called Ireland Uncovered, about the history of Ireland. I also have a fifth class, Discovering Ireland, but that's a field-trip-only class, in which I am only required to go on 3 all-day field trips and write a journal during the course of the semester. 


Tomorrow I also can't wait to stop by the bookstore on campus, and pick up my new goodies! One professor reassured us that if we do a little bit of the reading often, then it wouldn't be too much to handle. I was sitting in class thinking, can I read the whole book tonight please? We're not talking about a textbook here. It's a 9th or 10th century story called Táin Bó Cúailnge about a bull that gets run out of the Cooley peninsula area in Ireland. I also still have some last, less pressing shopping to do that might have to wait until Thursday, when my classes finish at noon. Like for instance, I still have to get a frying pan and bath mat and Band-Aids and sandwich bags. I can't believe all the little things you never think about until you don't have them when you need them. Other than the occasional item, I am beginning to feel sort of at home here. My desk is too messy, I don't make my bed, I wander into my kitchen to look for the food I want to magically appear when I'm bored, and I've now hopped a fence to get out of my dorm.

Apparently at this university, in an effort to discourage students from staying out too late or bringing a lot of people home with them at late hours, UCD has certain times when the gates to the dorms are shut and locked. While our keycards work shortly after the gate is closed, most of the night and early morning there is no way to get in or out of the dorm without hopping the fence. Which, I've found out, is quite common. I like to think of it as the school unofficial sobriety test- if you can't make it over the fence, you have to go walk it off until you can manage. This Monday was something called "Black Monday," the first day of classes. The day is used as a kind of "pre-game" for the semester, and from early afternoon on, there was a line outside of the bar to get in. Everyone was out drinking and having some "craic" (pronounced like crack, and an Irish term for good fun) and, supposedly, not going to class. I'm hoping to have a bit of craic myself this weekend, and finally see the inside of a proper Irish pub after dinner. Thankfully, my weekend starts on Thursday :)

I realized I forgot to post about my walk this weekend outside campus. Well, it was absolutely beautiful! I had great weather, as it turned out, though the wind continues to amaze me. I stumbled across a public park that was so lush and green, and because it was Saturday, so lively, I just loved it! I think it might become my personal private spot to go to relax or clear my head. I did a quick sketch from a bench I stopped to sit on for a minute, and view was amazing. I was up on some hill, looking down to some town (no idea of the names of anything yet). I also took a photo of the walking path I followed at the top of the hill. Sorry if the photos are small- all I have is my American phone to use as a camera!

Well, I think that's about it for now! I have told you most of what's been going on here for the last few days. I will be sure to report back on the new class I haven't had yet, and what I'm planning on doing this weekend. Oh, I almost forgot! I went to a great presentation by Andy Steves (Rick Steves' son) on student travel, and he got me all excited again to travel as much as possible! So I will have to make some plans quickly and let you know. Thanks for reading, and as always, I love getting comments! Write you later!