I realized that my blog posts about my adventures suck, because I was looking at my friend’s blog and it looks so much better than mine haha! So, let me do a recap.

I have been in Ireland for 3 weeks already, starting my 4th week today.
My first weekend arriving on June 13th, I was exhausted because I couldn’t sleep on the plane because the flight was during the afternoon “Pacific coast time”, but when I landed it was morning…again so I had to stay awake until dark to fix myself.  Met all the other interns working in the same program, and we decided to grab a bite to eat in the city center.  It was really nice because it was easy to get around the city without a car by using public transportation, unlike California, where we all have cars. I noticed that most all the roads and buildings were made of brick.  Maybe it due to the fact that it rains all the time, and other structures of buildings aren’t as strong.

I believe that this photo is an alleyway in Temple bar in the Dublin City center.  Temple Bar is one of the most oldest and popular places to visit as Wikipedia says “‘Dublin’s cultural quarter’ and has a lively nightlife that is popular with tourists.”  Heard that it preserved it’s medieval street patterns.  Dublin is a very old city, and it’s modernization is built on top of many years of history, it’s very amazing.

I’ve been working at Trinity College Dublin, University of Dublin.  It’s the oldest and the first college established in Ireland, “formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the ‘mother of a university'” (Wikipedia).  Since it is a historical place in Dublin, there are a lot of tourists that come through the campus everyday. But it is such a beautiful campus, and it gives you such a nostalgic feeling being in a place with so much history!

The first real weekend I had, was June 18-20th, and I spent most of my time visiting the city.  Buying drinks with friends, and going dancing at pubs :D.  It’s just so much fun because these things I would be able to do in America because I’m not 21 yet.  Visited the Viking museum, some other places, and I have grown quite fond of Guinness Beer.

During the middle of that week, we took a trip with the program to the St. James Hospital and the Guinness factory (right across the street from the hospital!).  I thought the hospital tour of the research facility was fun, but not as fun as the Guinness storehouse.  Haha, we arrived late to the storehouse, around 5pm and we found out we the bar at the top of the storehouse closes at 6pm! so we finished the first floor of the tour, and took a lift straight up to the 7th floor bar to get our free beer 😀
I was hungry when I had my pint, and I was definitely tipsy after I had it, I walked out with my glass, and brought a whole bunch of chocolates from the gift shop haha.  But I love Guinness now!  Lol, even I heard that normally Irish don’t drink more than 1 pint Guinness because it’s so thick.

Had some coffee, and Indian food with a friend that week as well, very expensive rates here in Dublin.  No more eating out lol.  I had some lamb chops, it was delicious!

Friday night of that week, we went night clubbing, my first experience!  Personally it wasn’t my scene I felt…4 fights broke out, there were many drunk Irish guys trying to hit on all the girls, and the drinks were expensive.

Saturday 19th of June, we went to visit the biggest park in Dublin, Phoenix park.  It was a beautiful park, and a grand, sunny day, so we ended up playing some Ultimate Frisbee.  On the right is the President of Ireland’s house, and the United States’ Ambassador’s house was right across from it. This was both in the park!  The bottom photo is the largest monument in the park dedicated to victory the battle of Waterloo.  Haha, my history isn’t very good.

The next day we we went to beautiful Dalkey Island! (Dalkey actually means thorns in Irish) Yet it was a pretty thorny island, but not as you expect.  Apparently the island served as a Viking base and has been there for over 6000 years ago.  It was amazing, and very beautiful.  There is a church, a run down house, and a Martello Tower.  I got a bit sunburned from being in the sun for too long the day before at phoenix park and at this island

I didn’t do much during the week of June 28-July 2nd, but that Friday July 3rd, I got to experience some traditional Irish Culture at a Céilí dance, lots of fun (left).  We got into some trouble taking the train back, because I forgotten to buy a ticket, and got off at a closed station, that had no connection back to civilization lol, but I took a really nice picture below, and we took the next train back. We did more Irish cultural things on Saturday and Sunday as well.  On Saturday, July 3rd, I visited the National Museum of Ireland (Archeology), and the structure of the building was what amazed me most, but of course I enjoyed seeing all the stuff inside the museum as well 

One of the main reasons why I love to visit cities are to see the architecture of human civilization, and how much they differ from one culture to the next.  I spent the rest of the day walking around Dublin City taking photos of the city.  I also found it funny that Ireland recognized that it was the American Independence day at the pubs, and there were many American Flags about. lol.  If you would like to see more photos around Dublin, check out my Picasa Photo Album under “Ireland Week 3” and you can also see more of my photos from other weeks as well.

Sunday, July 4th: Spending my American Independence Day watching an traditional Irish Hurling match. Haha, hurling is very big in Ireland, it’s the “American Football” to Irish. lol, It was fun to watch, it was a game played with a stick and ball.  The players are very skilled to be able to have enough hand-eye-balance coordination to catch, throw, hit, and aim.  Apparently there’s one team that has done very well and won every match since the beginning of it’s origin.  It was the Kilkenny team that destroyed every team every time. Nevertheless I had a great time this past weekend learning about Irish culture.  Here are some pictures from the match:

All my photos are on my Picasa albums if you like to take a look further.  I try to make my posts better quality like this one.  I’m still in the middle of customizing my blog page, but I did change the banner! 😀 Hopefully I’ll be able to finish soon.  I’ll probably post new photos a bit late next week cuz I’m gonna be out of Dublin all weekend, away from my computer.  Look forward to that! Until next time! Cheers!