Just follow the noise

I came back to Dublin on Sunday July 12 and started class that evening so it's been awhile since I've had a moment to get on here and post about Ireland...let me catch you up

When I arrived back from London, I met Emily, Kristen, and Kim at Trinity College to spend the afternoon in city centre. We enjoyed our afternoon a bit too much and loved watching gaelic football at The Temple Bar--yes we were tourists for the day.

All of last week I had policy design and analysis class...I won't bore you with details about class. On Wednesday, a group of us went to irishtown...just southeast of city centre to run a 5k race. Back in April, Emily brought up the idea of finding a race since we're training for the Chicago half in September. Well, we found a race. We emailed the race director because we couldn't find out how to sign up online. On Wednesday, we found out why. We ran the Dublin City Council 5k hosted by the BHAA. Running isn't quite the sport here in Ireland. Most runners are good runners here...The pace around 5-7:30 min/mile. So, here we are 8 of us from DePaul here for a little fun run. Running the 5k is one of my favorite memories from my trip. Charlie, the race director was so hospitable. He introduced us about 7 times to all the runners as the internationals from Chicago....I think people were just excited to see new faces. Afterwards, they gave us a little present for coming and continued to thank us. Charlie invited us to come to any races the next time we're in Ireland.

After class on Friday, we went to the Guiness Storehouse. It was a bit too commercialized for me but still really cool to see. The view from the 7th floor was awesome--it looked out at all of Dublin. Saturday morning we caught an early train to see bunratty castle, cliffs of moher, galway bay, burren bay, and galway city centre. The castle was awesome to see. I'm not sure if I could live in a castle and climb the staircases all the time...a bit to cramped for me. Seeing the Cliffs was amazing. The weather was rainy and foggy but when we arrived at the cliffs the rain quit while we were there. It was such a magnificent site. One of the most memorable parts from the trip was our drive around Galway Bay. We got to see gravesites from the famine. The famine graves are mass graves marked by blank stones. Seeing the amount of famine graves made the devastation that occurred a little more real for me and also grateful that my ancestors survived.

One of the funniest moments from the trip was waiting to leave Galway City Centre. We stocked up on food prior to leaving for the day so we wouldn't spend to much on our trip. While in Galway we bought pringles and nutella. We also had biscuits, blackberries, bananas, snap peas, and fiber one bars. The 4 of us had only been on the train about 5 minutes when our tour guide came by to say hello. No words came out of his mouth first. He stared at our table...I think in disbelief at the mess we made in 5 mintues of being on the train. The food was everywhere on the table and we were laughing so hard...probably from one of Emily's sarcastic comments....that one would think this mess occurred over a period of time. He smiled at us and asked if we were doing alright and told us that the food cart would be around shortly if we needed more food....I think at this point Kim was dipping snap peas in nutella.

We arrived back in Dublin and our bus driver dropped us off across the street from Temple Bar Area...so our night began. To sum up the night...we started at Quay's at 9:30pm, eventually made our way to Oliver St. John's where a polish guy started irish dancing...thinking he was good. We quickly made friends with the band playing and after he finished dancing they played a jig Kristen could dance too...well this led to a dance off with the polish guy...Kristen won of course but ended the night with a fractured foot...overall, it was a great end to a wonderful day.

Sunday night I began my leadership and management class. The past few nights have been easy nights. We all went out on Monday for a classmate's birthday and yesterday evening I went for a long run down by the port and worked on policy homework.

Tonight, Emily and I went to go see a gaelic football match. We walked up the street to watch the Na Finna girls play. I know the basic rules of the game...courtsey of my irish classmates...but still don't understand everything about it. It is a neat sport to watch and requires a high skill level. While standing at the pitch watching, Emily and I heard loud chanting so we decided to follow it and see where it would take us.

We stumbled upon a semi-professional soccer match between Bohemian FC- the oldest football club in Ireland and the Red Bull Slazburg. This was a qualifier match for the Uefa Champions League. Emily and I power walked it around the stadium trying to find a way in....when we asked one guy how to get in he asked us why and where were we from....eventually we found a nice guard to let us in...after being asked the same questions again...once inside we understood....you could probably count the number of girls in the stadium on two hands and I think because we were American at a local football club. Anyways, it was incredible inside the stadium...the energy, remarks from the fans, and the spirit was awesome. The Bohemians won the game which we later learned was huge because they had a draw with Salzburg last week away.

Being at the football match tonight is one of my top memories from Ireland.

You never know what you'll come upon when you just follow the noise...I have 4 days left in Ireland. I'm quite sad to be leaving on Sunday but I know I need to come home.

I'm traveling to Belfast on Saturday to meet with the executive director of DePaul Ireland for a paper I have to do for my leadership and management class. So, I hope to have some posts about seeing Belfast and the end of my travels...

keep following the noise...