Feb 20th-21st: first weekend in dublin!

first of all i would like to point out how painfully depressing it is that it is april and i am updating my blog on events that happened in february. ummm...oops :)

this particular weekend had started off like normal. my roommates had literally sprinted out the door at about 3pm on friday anxious to get home. like i said before it is now april and this dissapearing of the roomies happens like clockwork every weekend. i still find this to be somewhat strange. back at fmu we were happy to be away from home. we missed our families and friends from home, yes, but weren't aching to get to them weekend after weekend. i can recall countless christmas breaks talking to my friends and the whining was resounding. a month at home seemed like an eternity. we were used to our parent-less freedom full of doing what we wanted without answering to anyone. its different here though. i have a couple theories (none of which are based on facts, at all) but nonetheless here they are. one is that people seem so much more family oriented here. my roommates are constantly talking about to members of their families and going to visit them. whether it be cousins, aunts, uncles, ect. and so many children still live at home after or during college. its normal and the parents actually like it. i just learned this past week that divorce wasn't legalized here till 1997 (i think). that seems crazy to me. another theory i have is that because its such a small country so many families live within a close distance of each other. regardless of what it actually is, all of this seems to empasize the importance they place on family here. and while it seems strange to me...its nice. definately a quality of the culture i find admirable.

well that was one hell of a tangent. back to the weekend of 2/20-2/21. so my roommates were gone and i still hadn't made too many close friends. i decided that i would not let this keep me in my room watching movies online! thats right! i decided to go into dublin and do something really productive and "touristy". yep, you guessed it...shopping!!!!

so i took the dart in (the train here) and got off at connally station. aofie had informed me that if i got off here i could find henry and o'connell street, two major shopping streets in the city. long story short, i fought the directionally jessica that told me to turn right, no left, ahhhh, and found these two streets. i also ended up running into a group of american girls that i some classes with (ireland is that small. it gets better though). did some shopping with them, had my first official fish and chips, and then grabbed a couple pints at a local bar. it was at this bar that we ran into another american who happened to be from ohio, who happened to know and go to highschool with one of my best friends, jackie, from fmu. yes, it really is a small world after all. her name is jordan and she is a nanny for a family here in ireland. couldnt find work after school and decided to come over here for a year. pretty amazing. we ended up staying out all night and having a blast. caught my first nightlink back to maynooth. left the city center at 4am...oh ireland how i love your nightlife.