Culture and such

The O'Connell staff had their orientation of the Keough-Naughton Centre today. That is the house run by Notre Dame and there to help us along in our studies. Sounds a bit extreme, right? An entire house dedicated as a resource for twenty five kids studying for a few months.

If you thought that, you would be right on target. And you would never believe how much help they are to us. I shudder to think about doing all of this without their aid.

In any case, part of orientation was a mini walking tour. We walked through Merrion Square, which is a beautiful park. At part of it there is a statue of Oscar Wilde sitting on a rock. He sits there because directly across the corner was where he lived.

No big deal. Said with sarcasm of course.

That is exactly what this entire city is like. Every building is a monument, every road a famous marker, every statue a story. One can walk along the road, turn a corner, and stand right in front of a church built before Columbus even set sail. This place is overpouring with cultural landmarks, recent happenings, and powerful memories. The people are immensely proud to tell anyone about the country's rich history. A random older man walked up to us today on O'Connell Street (really main, famous street) on the bridge and simply began telling stories about a statue that was shot, how the post office was once a fortress for a revolution, and how two other rivers actually flow underneath The Liffey river (at that point I didn't know what the heck he was saying, but I digress...).

No big deal.

This sort of thing is exactly the experience I was looking for when I decided to study abroad. Kevin summed it up quite nicely today: "This place isn't worse, it isn't better, it's different."

Different can be good. Today we walked into a pub, ordered a Guinness, and watched a soccer game. It was just neat to see that sort of thing.


I can tell that my time here won't be a tour of a foreign land. I expect it to be more like a Pilgrimage, a time of reflection on my beliefs and views on the world as a whole.

I will hopefully be supplimenting this with pictures soon. No promises as of yet though, There are quite a few tasks on my plate to figure out first. Soon though, I promise.