Intro - Landing, City, and Church

A few things. First, our internet has been sketchy at best so I haven't been able to update recently. Second, I received feedback that my first real post was "too long," so I'm going to try to trim them down. And, related to that, third, I am going to combine my entries for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I'll mix in my revelations from those three days as I go forward and just list the events. I'm sorry I got behind but I don't want to let that hold me back, so I'm gonna zoom through this weekend.

Landing
Friday morning we stumbled off the plane and out of the airport. Customs were very easy to get through - "How long are you here for?" and "What are you doing here?" Out into the lobby where we grabbed some euros (which are way wider than my wallet, so they stuck out) and wandered out to find a taxi.

This experience exposed me to two of the biggest challenges we have faced so far: the accents and the roads. The fact that the cars were on the wrong side wasn't too big of a deal (yet) because we were still just in front of the airport, but seeing the drivers get out of the right-side door was off-putting. And when we tried to tell our taxi driver where we were going, he had no idea what we were saying and we had no idea what he was saying. This made me very nervous. The address of the place we were going had three seemingly arbitrary names and no numbers, but he seemed to recognize at least one of them so we agreed to head in that direction and see what would happen. Then the third biggest challenge hit us: between the two of us, we had no reception and no internet. We were completely cut off.

By the grace of God, we stumbled upon the place we were staying (or a place with the exact same name...) and walked in. The ladies at the front desk recognized my name, so I figured we were at the right place. And then we hit the fourth challenge: they only accepted cash for our rent payment. Which led to the fifth challenge: finding a freakin' ATM in a city that depends on cash. Long story short, we figured out what a "garage" was (gas station) and went there to try to use the ATM. We weren't able to get enough out to cover our entire rent payment, but we figured we had gotten enough to at least stay one night. And then we had to buy our sheets, and the ethernet cables. Oh yeah, no wireless here either. Finally, we got into our new home.

The best way to describe it: it's the dorm-iest dorm you can picture. Dirty walls, smelly fridge, cheap furniture, mattresses made out of styrofoam - the works. Even weirder was the fact that there was no one else there. Like, no one. Like, that scene from 28 Days Later no one.

Unfortunately, you can't take a picture of a smell. Yet.

And we both got our own bathrooms. My bathroom is the same one they filmed Saw in. So at least I got that going for me.

Spoiler: This is where the attractive male lead is murdered.

We went to the local supermarket-type-thing (a Eurospar, for anyone who's been out here) and bought the basics. Slowly, we were gonna make this place our home.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Our neighbourhood:

City
By pushing through and staying up "late" on Friday and going to sleep and waking up at a normal time here, we were forcing ourselves to get on local time. And it has actually worked really well. Saturday we walked to the nearby mall and bought some of the basics, as well as grabbing some more cash from the ATM (which seems to be everyone's passtime here). After scrubbing out our weird fridge and making ourselves some sandwiches, we decided to brave the public transportation and head into Dublin proper. We were able to get on pretty easily, and thanks to the warnings of the locals we made sure to have our euro coins with us. The Dublin buses are really cool, very clean, and all double-deckers. And they whip through the streets like the bus from Harry Potter, whizzing between cars and obstacles.

The city center of Dublin is a really, really cool place. It definitely reminds me of a New England town (think Boston), but the old buildings are even older. Like, churches and schools older than the United States. Which is pretty ridiculous to think about. By the time our country was being born, these places were celebrating their bicentennials. We walked through a lot of the city, not really going in anywhere but just taking in the sights and sounds and smells. And we also happened to be there during their Pride Day celebrations, which only added to the atmosphere of the city.

When we had walked until we couldn't walk anymore, we stopped at a fish-and-chip place ("authentic" Dublin food, in the same food court as food from Mexico, Turkey, and Italy). We continued our wandering through the city streets, from the REALLY old part into the very new shopping part. And we stopped in a few gift shops, where I started thinking about how many souvenirs I promised to get people. Wiped out, we got back on the bus and headed home. Another successful day of conquering this amazing, crazy city.

Church
We definitely took it a little slower on Sunday morning, still wiped out from our trek through the city. But we woke up in time to walk over to a local church for Sunday Mass. As most of my friends know, my faith is very important and I figured of all the places to be, Dublin would be the easiest place to find a nearby church. Kendra isn't Catholic but she still offered to come with, which I really appreciated. Mass is way better when you have someone to go with, and having someone who wasn't as familiar with Catholic Mass gave me more perspective on the experience.

The quick run-down on the Mass: I was very glad that America had switched to the new Mass translation 2 years ago, because otherwise I would have had no idea what was going on. But I was pleasantly surprised by how much of it was the same as American Mass. There were a couple spots where they knelt when I was going to stand, but thankfully I didn't make a fool of myself. It was really nice to reflect on the Universality of the Church. And it was comforting to have such an important part of my life stay (relatively) the same, even through this tough transition.

The rest of Sunday was spent doing our reading for our online class. In order to get class credits for this externship, Kendra and I are enrolled in an online class. The hardest part of this is the online class discussions. They are live and done with mics, with about 12 people in the "class." Just let that sink in for a sec. No, I'll wait. Really think about it. It's at noon in Seattle, which means it's at 8pm here in Dublin. So Kendra and I signed in, and it took about 30 minutes to get all the kinks worked out. But once we started, it wasn't too bad. Professor Ziff was the guest lecturer, who was me and Kendra's legal writing teacher for the whole last year and one of the best professors I've ever had. So it was really nice to hear him teach again. It was really hard to know when to talk, and when other people were going to talk, but we somehow made it through. At that point, Kendra and I started getting ready for bed. The next day was going to be our first day of real work. So we scribbled down our respective directions to work, set our alarms, and got ready for the real part of our trip to begin.