Images from the park by my apartment

The main lesson I learned today was that the weather in Dublin changes at a moment's notice!

I woke up this morning around 10 to go for a walk. I looked outside and the weather was so nice! It was sunny and warm. I was so happy that it was not overcast like it had been for the past two days. I did bring a sweatshirt because I was not going to let the Irish weather fool me.

I decided to go for a walk in the park that Lisa and I got kicked out of. I wanted to see what it looked like. The park was so beautiful! It was very green and had many paths that looked like they went in every which direction. I wasn't brave enough to try any of these paths because I didn't want to get lost!

I walked along the paved path which took me in a large circle around the park. I stopped every so often to take pictures. It was such a beautiful day I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take pictures! There were many families walking around because it was a Bank Holiday. I don't know what that means, but apparently it is a holiday and many stores are closed.

After my walk I returned to my apartment to get ready for the day. Colleen, Lisa and I went to the mall to get coffee and groceries. Interesting things about groceries in Ireland:

- They don't always refrigerate milk and other dairy products

- You have to pay for plastic bags when you check out

After we got some things, we returned to our apartment to unpack and to plan our bus route to get to our internships. Planning our route was more confusing than we had thought. To use the Dublin Bus Website was confusing and most of the time our internships were not close to a bus stop, so we had to use additional maps to help us plan the rest of the journey.

With lots of planning and being more confused than before, we set out to explore the city. We found out that we could all take the 16 bus to the same stop. Now all we had to do was wait for the 16. Funny thing is that the 16 never showed up! The bus schedule was different because it was a holiday. We waited close to half an hour and still no 16 bus came. It was getting late and we were worried that we wouldn't have enough time to find our internships and make it back on the last bus. We decided to save our exploring until later.

Colleen, Lisa and I went to The Comet, a local pub, to get some food. They apologized for not serving Chinese food for another half hour. What pub serves Chinese food? We told them it was okay and ordered pizza instead. It was pretty good, but the waitress did tell us it was frozen beforehand. She shouldn't have said anything...

I noticed that whenever our group went into these local pubs, we are the only girls there. It is kind of awkward because I feel like I am intruding on guys' night. The guys who are usually there are usually older, but the guys who are our age are too busy placing bets on the sports games to pay attention as to what is going on around them. We wondered where the girls went and concluded that they must go into Dublin to the clubs.

After The Comet, we went back to our rooms to hang out. We decided that in a couple of hours we would meet up to do something. I would research what we could do in our area.

I did some research and found that there was absolutely nothing that we could do in our area. Fail. We live on the outskirts of Dublin in more of a residential area. It is a very quiet place. What was plan B? Colleen came up and together we sat for half an hour trying to think of something. Emily and Allie had gone out earlier to find their place of work and still had not returned. Hopefully they were okay.

We all went down to Colleen's apartment to meet her roommates. They are German and Colleen says they are very awkward; we wanted to see this first hand. When we entered they did see us but did not say anything at all! Eventually we kind of started to talk to them, but they didn't say anything and just went into their room. Very awkward.

The German girls did recommend that we see a movie, I wasn't keen on that suggestion, but I was willing to check it out. Colleen and I decided to go on a walk to kill some time. Katherine joined us as well and Lisa stayed inside. We walked to the movie theater and found that it was 9 Euro to see a movie and there wasn't anything really playing.

As we walked to the movie theater, we ran into Allie and Emily. They were fine and they were able to find Emily's place of work. They had explored a lot of Dublin, they felt and were excited about their day. They told us that after our walk we should get dinner at The Swiss Cottage.

When we returned from our walk, we went to see Emily and Allie to make a plan. They continued to tell us about their day. I said that I would get Lisa from upstairs so we could go to The Swiss Cottage. Lisa said that she was going to go later, after they had done eating. I said that I would go with her later, but I never went. I wasn't in the mood to eat or drink; what was the point of going anyways?

Lisa said that she was only going for an hour, but the group actually stayed for a couple of hours. I almost instantly regretted my decision to stay in. I was worried that the rest of the girls were making connections and I was going to be the odd person out. I feel like I have always been the odd person out. My first living situation at UCSC after a month of living with the girls, I decided to spend the night at my grandmas and the next day I came back to a house that was totally united and I was never able to be a part of that. In the ILC the next year I was an outside and in Hungary I was only accepted into a small group of friends. I am sick of always being the odd person out. I want this experience to be different. I should have gone with them!

Around midnight everyone came back. I asked Lisa how it was. She said it was fine and that there was loud music and a lesbian hitting on Emily. How she described it, it seemed like I didn't miss out too much. Another example of me worrying about nothing!

Tomorrow I have orientation in the morning. I am looking forward to what they will tell us about the program and Ireland in general!