Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Love is in the air… (or is it? We shall find out). Despite all that, It’s really hard to believe that it has been a month already since my arrival to Ireland! Studying abroad is definitely an experience beyond amazing and exciting for me so far. Besides a change in pedagogy and getting lost (yet again for another not once, but twice on Friday), it has just been so refreshing to be away from campus for a while and see things from a new perspective. My classes have been going well, and work is definitely starting to pile up, but it is also a fun time when trying to find study groups and get to know new people through this process!
I do miss HC from time to time though, and an outing with Holy Cross students studying in Dublin came just in time on Thursday for a good reminisce (Kudos to Fiona for organizing every outing!). We all headed to Pho Viet for dinner, and then went to see a play called “Look Back in Anger”. Although I check campus Emails pretty regularly, it feels very nice to be updated and discuss things going on with those peeps!
There has definitely been some very cool things going on in UCD, and one of the activities from the societies that I have joined is a Q&A session with the band The Script organized by the Law Society. I have listened to music sang by the Script since high school, and their songs really served to help me with a difficult time of transition. They also had a lot of inspirational words to say about making a career out of music (which is something that I personally considers and struggle with), and they were just really humble and humorous too! It was a great time, and the line for the session was also insane (it filled up half of a lecture hall).
As for the weekend, a couple of friends of mine decided to head to phoenix park on Saturday. That was really well needed after a long winded week of internship deadlines and all the work that I had. There are several attractions in Phoenix Park including Papal Cross, a deer Sanctuary, the Dublin Zoo and the Wellington Monument. Due to our time constraint and just how huge the park itself is (it’s one of the largest recreational spaces in Europe), we only got to visit Papal’s Cross and the deer Sancturary, and we passed through the US Ambassador’s Residence, and I already walked 18,000 steps that day!
We ended up having hotpot on the “Asian street” (Parnell Street – really close to the O’Connell Street area, and has great Vietnamese and Chinese food. They also have Indian, Japanese and Korean but I haven’t tried that yet) in Dublin after this long-winded day. On Sunday, three of us also planned a last minute, impromptu trip to Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun Leery and I had no idea till we planned the visit!). It was a very sunny day so the pictures are all gorgeous but it was also freezing (it was probably around 35 degrees, and with 20mph wind there that day). But then this happened…
And that would be a wrap for last week! For this week that is already well underway (#rip that I didn’t get to finish this on Monday or Tuesday), we have Chinese New Year coming up, and I am planning to see the Spring Gala in Dublin (which should be similar to the Gala that they do throughout China). There is going to be a lot of great food too. I am definitely still hoping to go to a hurling game as it didn’t happen last week. The actor Patrick J. Adams is also visiting UCD (and I am on season 4 for watching Suits, which is a show that he stars in) on this Thursday so that is something that I look forward to as well. Alright, getting back to coding!