Powerscourt Gardens

UCD International Student Office took about 50 students to Powerscourt Gardens in February. Powerscourt Garden is a large country estate located in County Wicklow (about 45 mins from UCD) with beautiful gardens. Unfortunately we went when nothing was in bloom but the estate itself was beautiful.

London

On Friday I went with 2 of my EAP friends to London where we met up with my sister who flew in from Florence. We spent 4 wonderful days there. It was hotter than I expected and disgustingly warm...very uncharacteristic of London. On our second day it did rain for about a hour or so. We got caught in the rain unprepared but still had fun.

London has an Underground subway system known as the Tube. It's such a crazy system and 100x more complicated than LA Metro. The city was full of tourist, it being a holiday weekend and all, and everyone went Underground when it started to rain.

In our four days there, we went to most of the major attractions. A lot of the popular places you have to pay for but we chose 3 big ones that we didn't mind paying for. London is an expensive city so we had to pick and choose what we really wanted to do. We found a good deal (2 for 1) for the Tower of London online so that helped ease the cost. We almost got a the same deal for the London Eye (big ferris wheel) but it was only valid after 4 pm. We went there earlier that day because Alanna, who's already been to London in March, said to do that early.

I don't have time to go through my pictures (1000+) at the moment but I'll upload some video that I took.

Class, Finals, and London

Today is the last day for lectures and tutorials at UCD. In approximately 2 1/2 hours I will be walking into my last class, a seminar on designing a research project. Although it's the last day of lecture, school won't officially end for me until May 12th at 8pm. That is when I will have finished my last final.

Finals are spread across 2 weeks here, from May 3rd - May 14th. Some people can have a Saturday final, luckily I don't. I only have 4 exams because I have final projects for my other 2 classes.

I've been working a lot on one project that is due next Wednesday because I'm heading for London tomorrow and won't be back until Tuesday. I'm hoping to get my paper done before the end of tonight. I'm about a 1/3 done so I have hope. With this project out of the way, I will be able to relax and enjoy my time in London.

Next week is the reading/study week. The purpose of the week is to give students the time to catch up on reading and prepare for exams. My first final is one of the first exams this term (9 am on the 3rd).

Taking exams here is different then back home because most of the finals are held off campus.  I'm not sure the purpose for this. I think it's to curb cheating or maybe the university doesn't have enough room on campus. Whatever the reason, I'll have to wake up super early to catch the bus in order to take my exam.

I'm excited to have most of my finals in the first week. I have a week between my 3rd final and the last final. In between that time, I plan on going to Belfast in Northern Ireland for a day and spending another with my older sister when she comes.

I'm looking forward to my Mediterranean vacation but first I must finish my project and study for exams. Until next time!

P.S. I've been slacking on posting more trips because of school but I hope to include more pictures and write about my various trips after my finals are done.

Approximately one more month of school left

There's approximately one month of school left for me. 9 more days of lectures and tutorials and then it's time to read and study for exams. I'll be done with exams on May 12th. After that I get to go on a crazy Mediterranean adventure through Greece & Italy with two of the most amazing people that I know (my sisters. =]). I'm quite excited for our little adventure.

I'm back Stateside on May 26th. I can't wait to go home to SGV and gorge on banh mi, pho, dim sum, Alberto's burritos, etc.

Being abroad has been a great eye opening experience. Before I came here I didn't know what I was going to do after I graduated and what not. I'm still not completely sure what I want to do but I've started to think about my future.

I didn't think about going to grad school but now I'm considering coming back to UC Dublin in a year or two to get my master's in Geography here. I haven't really looked into it but the program here seems like a choice I should consider when thinking about grad school. It's a one year program and one of the tracks is in Urban Studies which is something I've always been interested in. I have to look into programs back in the States but it's an option to keep in mind.

Answering questions part 2

I received some more questions via e-mail. Below is my response.

1) Do you know any old Irish traditions or Gaelic words?

2)From your point of view what food do you think is the most popular and delicious??

3) How is your first (and probably) only St. Patricks day in Ireland? How do they celebrate there? What are some traditions and rituals, if any? Is it as big a holiday as we in America think it is over there?