Claire Has Arrived!

I write to you today as a new woman; one who has not only flown thousands of mile away from her home to study for the next four months, but one who fit all the things she would need into two suitcases weighing less than 90 lbs total. It was an amazing feat.

Right now I'm writing from my new bed in Roebuck Hall waiting for my mom to get home from work so I can call. It has been an extremely long day but an exciting one! I arrived at O'Hare around 5 pm with the paparazzi in tow (actually it was my mom with a video camera and my sister with her camera). And yes, I did cry a little at the airport. Not surprising, I know. I boarded the plane and was off!

We (Brittany, Stacy and I) landed in Ireland around 9 am local time. From there we had to go through immigration and customs, board a bus to take us to the UCD campus, and haul our suitcases up to our dorm. This was no easy task. The dorms were on the opposite side of campus and it was completely uphill. Yeah, we felt the burn.

We had then planned to go to a shopping tour put on by the school at 2:00. I, of course, fell asleep while unpacking only to wake up at 1:55. I didn't have an alarm because my cell doesn't work here. I did catch the tour where Brittany and Stacy informed me that they had banged on my door for ten minutes before giving up (we were supposed to walk to the tour together).

Going into the city centre of Dublin was amazing. There are so many old buildings and the lightposts have shamrocks on them. We went down Grafton Street, which is a pedestrian street with all the shops on it. I will have to post pictures of it later (I forgot my camera in my mad dash to get to the tour).

I ended up buying some things I needed to get here at Dunne's, which is kinda like a Sears with a grocery on one of the floors. We also got Irish phones.

While on the tour we met this girl named Laura from Australia. She was super nice and turned out to be one of my roommmates! Laura, Brittany, Stacy and I then made grilled cheese because that was the only thing we could think of to make without a pot or an oven.

Tomorrow I have a lot of orientation things to do but soon I'm going to have to go back and get more groceries. Currently I only have a box of something like Honey Nut Cheerios. Being in Ireland I wanted Lucky Charms but the didn't have any.

Here are some pictures of the common room which has a sitting area and a kitchen:

Next time I post I will try and have more pictures of all the beautiful buildings in Dublin and my room as soon as it's decorated,

Claire