9/8/08

Today was an easy and laid back day. I slept until 2:45 pm. Yes, I slept that late because I was up late following the Phillies game on mlb.com gamecast. Since I had nothing to do today I thought it wouldn't negatively effect me that much. So I woke up and booted up my computer to check my emails, and Sarah (one of the directors in the program) said that we needed to get monthly LUAS passes because the ones they gave us originally were about to expire. I thought it would only take us five minutes to get new ones, but I was most certainly wrong. First, we took to take the LUAS to the IES center (which is a 30 minute commute) and get a paper saying that we were full-time college students. Then we had to walk to trinity college, which took about 25 minutes, to apply for a student travel card. It was a pretty cool walk, there were some pretty cool stores and it was saw some more of Dublin. I actually saw a restaurant advertising "Real Hamburgers" which makes me wonder about what kind of hamburgers the rest of Dublin sells! There also were some pubs that we eventually want to visit.
As we were about to cross the street to get to Trinity college two girls who looked like they were 12 walked up to Derrick and asked him if he was American. He said yes, and then they asked him what he thought of Dublin and he said he thought it was nice. They responded by saying it was shithole, at which point they pulled out cigarettes and started to smoke (I'm almost positive they were 12!). They asked him about the weather in the States, to which he said its about 90 degrees, and there response was "Holy Shit," (imagine that being said with a stereotypical Irish accent, so it was like "Shite"). I couldn't get over the fact that they were 12 and so nonchalantly smoking and vulgar.
Trinity college is a really cool place, we went in through this tower, that almost seemed like a fortress, into a cobblestone court yard with old style buildings circling it. It was beautiful, the only bad part was that the grass was roped off and you can't walk on it! I just wanted to lay there. We applied for the cards and got them right away which is going to get us discounts throughout Ireland! From there we started to walk back toward the LUAS because we could pick it up at Saint Stephen's Green which would be easier than walking back to the IES center. It was cool because we walked through a part of town that we went through on the bus tour, so we were familiar with it. The one street we walked down, Grafton Street, is something like the 5th richest in the world, (its all stores, so they make a ton of money). It was really cool to see especially since on a Monday afternoon it was flooded with people. While walking down we saw a McDonalds and we decided to stop for lunch, because we figured it would be cheap, for the second time today I was wrong! It was 6.20 Euro ($8.75) for a Big Mac value meal, its highway robbery!
We finished our McDonalds (it isn't any better over here!) and walked to the LUAS stop at Saint Stephen's Green and got on the LUAS which we took back to our stop (Balally). Once we got off we had to go into Vivo (a convenience store next to the tracks) to buy our monthly LUAS pass. It was 43.80 Euro, they charged Adam and I 80 Euro cents for using our Visa cards, but Derrick and Brian used Visa's and didn't get charged! So in total it cost 58.80 Euro for the card and the Luas pass, but since we needed to buy both to commute, IES is going to reimburse us for it. Needless to say I was a happy camper when I found out that little ditty. After buying the passes we walked back to the apartment, we didn't do much, but Derrick and I rearranged our room. We turned our beds which makes our closet more accessible and gives us more room then we know what to do with.
After that we decided to go to Tesco and do some shopping. I got a shopping cart and I needed to use a Euro to unlock it (don't worry I got it back later). We decided that we were going to have a family dinner, which consisted of buying chicken, bread and Uncle Ben's 2 minute microwavable rice. We came back and made it and then ate it together at the kitchen table as a family. It was cute, but awkward at first because no one was talking, Derrick said this is awkward, which drew some laughs as he put music on (It was Frank Sinatra, it went well with dinner) which broke the ice and led to a great dinner and enjoyable conversation. The rest of the night is going to be spent just hanging out in the living room. Tomorrow brings about my first day of class, I am eagerly anticipating it to see what its going to be like.
I also found out tonight that Jake, Derrick, Adam, Brian and I are going to be meeting my friends Leslie, Maha and Amy from school in Amsterdam. It should be an awesome weekend, but it also means I am going to be researching cheap flights to Amsterdam.