Winter Break has arrived!

One of the most wonderful things about being back in school is that each fall and spring, I get a week-long mid-term break called Reading Week, and in between terms, get an entire *month* off. Well…the Irish system is a bit different in the sense that where I’m used to having all of my papers and exams done and submitted before the end of the term in December, my essays here aren’t due until the start of next term in January. This is a mixed blessing in the sense that while it’s nice to have the extra month to work on my final essay, it’s not the complete freedom of break that I was used to in the States. Still, that will have to wait until I return to Dublin because I am off to see the world this break!

Week 1: a little fun in the sun in Morocco
Weeks 2 – 3: a white Christmas and New Year fireworks in Switzerland
Week 4: work on that last pesky essay, with a class trip to Belfast for a few days too

Can’t wait!!!

Rombo Table Quiz

The Dublin Central Rotary Club had a table quiz fundraiser last night for the Light of Maasai charity that the club and district support in Rombo, Kenya. Elaine Bannon, a Dubliner, moved there to do community work after visiting the community during a safari about ten years and has been dedicating her life to improving the living conditions and food security for the local Maasai people ever since. You can read more about her story here – pretty inspiring and definitely giving me some ideas for a charity project at the end of my Rotary year.

It was also a fun opportunity for me to bring some friends along to see where I disappear to each Wednesday night. We had a great time at the quiz, though I realized just how much I need to brush up on my contemporary Irish knowledge:
- Who is the current Lord Mayor of Dublin? (Andrew Montague)
- What year was the Battle of the Boyne? (1690)

On the other hand, our table of international students was able to put our knowledge to use on a few questions here and there:
- What country is home to the Tamil Tigers? (Sri Lanka – we’d had a lecture on it just days earlier)
- Chicago is located on which Great Lake? (Michigan, where I vacation most summers)
- What is the currency in Mexico? (The peso – more common knowledge in the US than in Europe though).











It was a rough couple of rounds for those of us not raised in Ireland and a few years ‘less wise’ than our fellow competitors, but in the end, both the first-place and last-place teams won a bottle of wine, and while I’d rather not say which place we took, we did go home happy!

Santa "Fun" Run

A few months ago, my classmate Sarah told me about this amazing event in Dublin: the first weekend in December, you can get dressed up in a Santa suit and run a 5K along Clontarf – who wouldn’t want to do that?! As many of you know, I am not a runner, but I figured I could handle a 5K and hey, you get a “free” Santa suit with the entry fee, so why not?

Well…it turns out that the run is along the beach of Bull Run Island, which is a bit different than running on pavement. We got there nice and early since the nearest stop on public transportation was about 3 – 5K away from the starting line and we weren’t entirely sure where we were going, but it was easy enough to find and it was good to get out and breathe in some fresh (if a bit chilly) seaside air. Still, by the time we arrived to pick up and put on our suits, we were a bit chilly and less enthusiastic than we had been when we booked the adventure months before, so decided to take a few pictures jumping up and down for warmth and pre-race entertainment.

That was before the wind picked up and the rain came. The combination of splashing along through the puddles on the beach as I tried not to trip on my “one-size-fits-all” Santa pants, carrying my bags and camera on my back really wasn’t quite my cup of tea (and all along I really just wanted a hot cup of tea!), but the Santas of all shapes, ages, and sizes running along did provide some good entertainment and upon reaching the finish line, I was awarded a pretty cool Santa medal that combined with the hysterical ho-ho-ho-ing along the way made the day memorable, if not one I care to repeat anytime soon. I think for next year, I’ll leave the real Santa to do the deliveries in the future while I sit by a fire awaiting his arrival warm and dry and in clothes that fit me.

Trinity Christmas Tree

During the final week before winter break, it can be a little hard to get into the Christmas spirit with all the work that has to be done before the end of term, so it was a nice break from researching and essay-writing in the library to go watch the TCD Provost and his kids light Trinity’s first ever Christmas tree in the center square. With Christmas carolers singing and students sipping cocoa, it was a great way to kick off the Christmas season.

Mic Christopher Tribute Concert

Last night marked the ten year anniversary of the death of Mic Christopher, a beloved member of the Irish music community. He started busking (performing music for money) on Grafton Street (the main shopping street in Dublin, like Chicago’s Michigan Avenue) and around Dublin when he was 15 years old and was adopted into the music scene, playing with a number of Irish musicians and bands including the Frames and later founding the Mary Janes. After a performance in Grongingen, the Netherlands, a decade ago, he fell down a flight of stairs, hit his head, and was comatose for 11 days before he died on November 29, 2001.

It was a huge loss for the Irish music scene, so ten years later, his friends and some of his music idols got together to play a charity tribute concert. Glen Hansard, Mic’s best friend and one-time flatmate (some of you may know him from the movie Once - he's also in this photo playing a song with Mic Scott), seemed to organize the event and it was incredibly moving to see the way so many people who had looked up to Mic, called him a friend, and also those who Mic had looked up to, gathered together to sing – including at various times his daughter and father on stage as well. To give you a taste, here's a video of Mic and Glen busking on Grafton Street singing Mic's hit song "Heyday."

Not being a huge music aficionado myself, here or in the States, I’m glad my Nashville music-loving friend Christen told me about the show. We got up to the 2nd row (so I could see!), had a very Irish night, and saw one heck of a great value show!

Need Directions?

So on the way back from Fanore today, we stopped on the side of the road in town to consult the map for…if not fastest route back, then most scenic to Dublin. Within about 30 seconds, a kind man knocked on my window and asked if he could give us directions. Stuff like this is why I love Ireland.

So we set off on the scenic route that he assured us all the locals took – just 3 miles down the road, take a right at the circle with the flowerbeds, and a left after that. It’s faster than the main road, and has the best view in the country of Galway Bay. It’s not a T-intersection when you turn left though, just a left.

So we more or less followed those directions. Matt began to doubt just a bit after mile 5, but we did find the flowerbed a little further down, the correct left at a T-intersection, and one beautiful view. Lesson: ask the locals – they know!

Cliffs of Moher and Public Houses

Our little excursion of the day today was out to visit the Cliffs of Moher. I was last there exactly two years ago when I visited my friend Elyse, who was studying in Galway at the time, over Thanksgiving break.

The cliffs haven’t changed much and I have to say, neither has the weather. We got lucky today though – it was windy and overcast, but in 2009, we caught a day that was windy, overcast, and absolutely pouring down rain, so I’m calling it a win.

We stopped in Doolin on the way back for a couple of pints by the fireplace in a local pub. I’d heard the stories of pubs – ‘public houses’ – being family friendly in Ireland, but hadn’t yet had occasion to find out for myself. It was amazing to experience. We walked in from the wind to the warmth and smell of a coal fire, and found a table just next to it. The pub had a highchair for Robbie, candy for the boys, and pints for the adults. The boys sat with us for a bit to do a puzzle and have some chips (French fries), then ran around the pub playing and giggling and amusing the rest of the pub-goers – truly, everyone from the college students at the table to the old man at the bar were watching them have a good time with a smile on their faces. Not something I’m used to seeing in America by any means, and another reason I love Irish culture.

So Much to be Thankful for in Fanore

It’s hard to beat being home for the holidays. But I have to say, strolling along the roads and beaches of Fanore, discussing everything from the differences between Irish and American Christmas parties to how cows say “moo,” and pausing for the occasional photo under a rainbow comes pretty darned close. I’d definitely take it over the packed shopping malls of the American “Black Friday” phenomenon.

Yesterday was American Thanksgiving, and two of the Rotary families with American ties – Matt & MaryBeth Porter and Annie & Carter White – invited me along with them to celebrate the holiday with their 3 boys, au pair, and dog in the west coast village of Fanore.

Fanore is a one-pub town (in the States, we might call it a one-horse town, but there are in fact many cattle and horses in the immediate vicinity). But for Ireland, where even small towns seem to have at least 3 pubs, this is a small town. It’s really more of a summer vacation town near as I can tell, but we rented two houses with beautiful ocean vistas regardless of the season.

It was windy and rainy as we drove up yesterday and since we had to wait for the food delivery before getting on the road, we didn’t get in until dark, which made waking up this morning to a view out the window of the waves crashing onto the beach all the more majestic.

After unloading the cars last night we played with the boys and chatted over wine and cheese while the turkey finished cooking, and then sat down for a delicious meal of turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted vegetables, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and of course, pumpkin pie. The fire, laughter, and love that warmed the house reminded me of Thanksgiving with my dad’s side at my uncle Jim and aunt Gina’s cottage on Lake Michigan and made me so happy to be in this atmosphere of ‘home away from home.’

In reflecting on the past year, I have so very many things to be thankful for, not the least of which is the opportunity the Rotary Foundation is affording me to spend this year in Ireland, and particularly the warm reception I’ve received from all Rotarians and especially those in the Dublin Central club, in welcoming me into their club, homes, and lives over these past few months. As this calendar year draws to a close, my academic year adventure in Ireland (now two months in) has only just begun and I am so excited to soak up every moment of the journey.

The Scholar Side: International Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect

As a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, I tend to focus more on the Rotary and ambassadorial portions in this blog – as the Rotary Foundation puts it, “furthering world understanding and peace through increasing awareness of and respect for cultural differences.” But another one of the program objectives, more along the scholar lines, is “developing leaders who can address the humanitarian needs of the world community,” so I figured I’d share a bit of the scholar side on occasion as well (also because my life this week has consisted primarily of commuting to and from class, my flat, and the library, and not so much of the fun travel/cultural insights side).

There are a number of ways that scholars in Ireland are addressing the humanitarian needs of the world through programs as varied as Race, Ethnicity, and Violence; Urban Planning with an emphasis on post-conflict settings; or International Management with a focus on increasing supply chain efficiency when delivering emergency food aid (decreasing the time it takes to get to food to the victims of famine or other natural disaster). As for my program, I chose to spend the year studying International Peace Studies.

So what exactly does that entail? Well, a variety of topics. This term, I have courses on the Politics of Peace and Conflict; the United Nations and Peacekeeping; Conflict Resolution and Nonviolence; and Ethics in International Affairs. The courses are marked (graded) a bit differently here than in the US, in the sense that my entire mark (grade) is based on a single 20-page paper written on one particular topic related to the course, rather than multiple shorter essays or attendance or facilitating discussions as is more common in the US.

At the moment, I’m writing a paper on the roles that the US and China played in the UN Security Council with regard to international intervention in the conflicts in the southern and western regions of Sudan for my class on the UN and Peacekeeping. In the wake of the mass atrocities of the 1990s that occurred in such states as Rwanda, Burundi, and the former Yugoslavia, a new set of international principles emerged called the Responsibility to Protect, which dictates that the government of each nation has a responsibility to protect its own citizens against mass atrocities, and the international community has a responsibility to assist the nation in doing so, but if a the government fails to protect its own citizens, the international community has a responsibility to intervene to stop the mass atrocities. (Note: the responsibility to protect, which provides justification for military intervention, should not be confused with humanitarian intervention, which aid organizations prefer to be strictly non-military and humanitarian only, such as the recent case of providing food and medicine to victims of famine in Somalia). Where the US was interested in fostering some sort of intervention in Darfur through the UN under the international norm of the Responsibility to Protect, China was only willing to do so if the government of Sudan was willing to accept a UN peacekeeping mission (which it was not), because such intervention against the will of the government would jeopardize the international principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, and China certainly didn’t want to enable future meddling of the international community into it’s own domestic affairs.

The desire on the part of the international community to broker a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the south of Sudan during the early 2000’s lead to inaction (or severely delayed action anyway) in Darfur, western Sudan, with regard to stopping the acts of ongoing genocide committed as the peace negotiators did not want to ostracize the government of Sudan in Khartoum. While individual member nations to the UN did assist with the peace negotiations that lead to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the later creation of the independent nation of South Sudan on July 9, 2011, the UN Security Council itself did not intervene or invoke the principle of the Responsibility to Protect.

Arguing over the international principles of whether it’s legal to intervene is more of a constructivist argument, but of course, there were also the ‘realist’ arguments that the US had already committed its forces to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and couldn’t commit further troops to Sudan, and that Chinese interests own the vast majority of oil in Sudan, and international intervention would jeopardize those so of course China opposed intervention on those grounds as well. Still, these conflicting principles of whether or not to intervene in the domestic affairs of a sovereign nation when innocent people are being murdered at the hand of the state (or when the state is turning a blind eye and enabling non-state groups to commit the atrocities), and if so, at what point enough people have died to justify intervention, are (unfortunately) likely to continue arise in the international arena in the future.

One Essay Down (and that's all that matters for today)

So after several weeks of research into
- the structure of the United Nations;
- the UN Security Council;
- the mass atrocities in Darfur;
- the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that lead to the independent state of South Sudan this past summer;
- the roles of the US and China with the Security Council with respect to the ongoing mass atrocities in Darfur;
- the established international norms of non-interference and respect for state sovereignty (you don’t invade another country’s territory just because you feel like it)
- and the Responsibility to Protect (simply put, if a country isn’t protecting its own citizens, as in the case of the Rwandan genocide or the mass atrocities in Darfur, the international community has a responsibility to intervene to protect those citizens)

I have finally submitted my first essay in grad school – worth a shocking 100% of my grade in my “UN and Peacekeeping” class, analyzing the success of the UN in conflict resolution and peacekeeping in the case of Darfur.

I went out for a celebratory pint with my Burundian classmate Nestor and after about an hour, a musician showed up to provide some live entertainment. His second song of choice: You Can Call Me Al. It’s a song off Paul Simon’s Graceland CD that my Dad used to play in his car on our way to and from church when I was younger. Gotta love a little piece of home in Ireland…and globalization. And I have to say, it sounded good with an Irish accent.

Bringing American Thanksgiving to Ireland

So, have I mentioned yet that I love my program? There may be a few things I’d change about the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity, but the program does a nice job of recognizing that we are a class of mostly international students (I’d say maybe a quarter American, a quarter Irish, and the majority European, with a few students from Africa and Asia), and as such, organizes activities here and there to welcome us to Ireland. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the first event, but the second main event was a potluck held in conjunction with American Thanksgiving (ish).

The dinner was actually last night, a full week before Thanksgiving, but is likely to be the only Thanksgiving dinner I’ll be attending. The ISE provided the turkey, and the attendees signed up to bring the side dishes. We had all the traditional Thanksgiving food covered (mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc) but as an international potluck, we also some fun dishes like Chinese dessert dumplings in the shape of a rabbit! My contribution was a pumpkin dip (mix up pumpkin, whipped cream, all spice, and sugar and serve with strips of sugary pie crust or pretzels for a sweet/salty combo that tastes like pumpkin pie but takes less than half the time).

Bringing in the Irish culture, we had mince pies and ‘poppers’ which are gift-wrapped tubes (like a tootsie roll but bigger) and when you pull them apart, they make a flash-bang (surprising when you don’t know what it is and aren’t expecting it!), and inside you find a plastic crown and an incredibly corny joke like the kind you’d find on the back of a Laffy Taffy in the US.

Examples:
Q: What is white and goes up?
A: A confused snowflake!

Q: What goes “Oh, Oh, Oh”?
A: Santa when he’s going backwards!

All in all, there were about 50 of us in attendance – many of the International Peace Studies students, some from the Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies program, and most of the lecturers and support staff. Christen gave a nice toast at the end giving thanks for all that we had and were able to share. Kat, who spent the last year working on a Native American reservation in Montana, was also thankful to be sure, but helped ensure that we Americans accurately explained the holiday to our international friends less familiar with the tradition. After filling our bellies and doling out the leftovers, we continued the night at one of the local pubs in Ranelagh (conveniently close to my house!) until we could fit nothing more – food or liquid – into our stomachs and I for one retired uncomfortably satiated with a smile on my face.

Painting Pumpkins!

(placeholder for Halloween update)

The FrED Forum

(placeholder for the update on my week in London, including tours of the Churchill War Rooms & the London Eye)

Adapting to Ireland: Using Electricity

My good friend Christen and I spent the first two weeks mostly either eating out or cooking together in her apartment since it was closer to the grocery stores than mine and had a larger kitchen. So the first time I tried to use my stove and oven was about 3 weeks after I moved in. It’s not that I dislike cooking, I just rarely make the effort if I’m only cooking for myself, but without a microwave oven to make single-serving frozen dinners, I’m now learning.

Lesson 1: to use the stove, you have to turn on the electricity. In Ireland, in an effort to save energy and probably as a bit of a safety measure too, you have to flip the large red switch in the kitchen to get power flowing to the stove or oven. This fun fact took me only twenty minutes to figure out as I pondered why not one of the burner on my stove top heated up when turned on (laugh all you want).

Lesson 2: to use the oven, you not only have to turn on the electricity and set the oven to the temperature you desire, but you also have to turn on the timer. Note that when the timer expires, the oven turns itself off even if the temperature is still set. I learned this lesson when I gave my brownies 10 more minutes to cook in my head, but not on the timer, and twenty minutes later, still had brownies that were really more like brownie batter at the center. Luckily, brownie batter tastes just as good as cooked brownies in its own way.

Lesson 3: just like heating the oven requires turning on the electricity, heating the shower requires flipping a switch as well. I have taken waay too many cold showers (not so bad in the summer, less pleasant in the fall after you’ve come in from the rain and all you want is a hot shower to warm you up). Empowered with this new knowledge, I aim to change this in the near future.

Adapting to Ireland: Doing Laundry

I’m not sure that I’ve met anyone who actually likes to do laundry, myself included. But when it’s in your home or apartment, it’s not so bad, because at least you don’t have to lug it to a Laundromat or down to the bottom floor of your dorm building like you did in college, right? That’s what I thought too when I moved into an apartment on the ground floor, just a few steps away from the laundry machine. After the standard three weeks, it occurred to me that I desperately needed to do laundry and waiting until I go home to my parents’ house (in May) was out of the question.

When I moved in, my leasing agent told me that there was a washer and dryer in the shed in the courtyard (it seems to be quite common in Ireland to have a shed built in the backyard or courtyard of a building for the washer/dryer). Lovely. Yet when I first went to do laundry, I found only one unit: washer only.

Luckily, the morning that I got up bright and early at 8am, I was 15 minutes too late and one of the other tenants had beaten me to it. I say luckily, because had she not, I wouldn’t have had any idea how to operate the machine. She showed me how to go inside to the hallway, insert a 2 euro coin into a box under the cabinet, and turn the knob to turn on power/water to the machine. She also explained that we only get cold water to wash the clothes, so don’t bother setting it on anything other than 30 degrees Celsius.

No problem. What hadn’t occurred to me was that I had better start praying to the weather gods for no rain because without a drying machine, and without sufficient space in my room to put a drying rack even if I owned one, hanging my clothes on the line to dry was the only option. I’d never done this before. It’s really not common in the States – usually you either hang dry clothes in a laundry room or dry them in the machine.

After two hours and three loads of laundry, most of the clothes that I own were hanging in the courtyard on an incredibly windy day. It turns out, that’s great laundry weather so long as it doesn’t rain (luckily, it didn’t), and your clothes don’t blow away to Wales (they didn’t, though I was concerned). And so, my first laundry experience was a success.

(Note: my second was an epic failure due to torrential rain for days on end. Also, it turns out that my washer also functions as a dryer, but only in the sense that it has a spin cycle that you can run until you’re blue in the face and your clothes are damp instead of wet. I’m grateful that I don’t have to wash my clothes by hand, but I may need to find some friends with drying machines for the winter months when line drying may result in freezing my t-shirts solid.)

Homesick - but not for too long

I recall when I interviewed with the District 6000 Rotary Scholarship Selection Committee in June 2010 and they asked me what I expected my greatest challenge would be, were I selected. I responded: culture shock and homesickness. Yes, I’ve lived abroad before, but I’ve never lived in Ireland, and missing your family isn’t something you just get over, it’s something you get used to, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. It’d be something I’d have to deal with and wouldn’t be easy, but I’d make it through and certainly still enjoy the overall experience.

So here I am a year later, interrupting my 3-part blog series this week on adapting to Ireland to admit that I had a severe bout of homesickness this weekend. It’s one of those things that hits when you least expect it, and hits hard, but it’s also part of the reason I’m so glad I’m here as a Rotary Scholar.

Before I came to Ireland, I worked for two years in the field of study abroad, working with US students as they prepared to study abroad outside of the US, and international students as they came to the US. We always told them that regardless of how much they love the experience, they’ll probably have some level of culture shock and homesickness, and when they do, to be sure to get out and do something and have fun, rather than calling home and staying in – you’ll adjust faster and be happier in the long run, even if it’s not the easiest to do in practice.

My friend Christen was amazing on Friday when my homesickness really hit. We left the library and went to dinner and just had a nice cozy night in hanging out and watching movies. Exactly what the doctor ordered. The next night, we went out to dinner with her father who was in town on business (admittedly, even though I was happy for her to have her father in town, I was a bit jealous wishing my dad’s company would send him to Dublin on business – though as a real estate investor, that seems unlikely now) and we all had a great time together as expected.

But today is why Rotary is so great. Matt, a member of the Dublin Central club that’s hosting me, had e-introduced me to his wife, whose mother was originally from Ogden, Iowa, and she had welcomed me and invited me over for dinner (gotta love the Iowa connections – my friends in DC often made fun of them, but we sick together!). On Friday as I sought ways to calm myself down, I asked if I might them up on that generous offer, and today Matt picked me up with his two boys, we drove around Howth, a scenic fishing village (that's me and Sean on the dock), took the boys to the playground, and then all had dinner together at their house. It wasn’t a big production by any means, but I am so grateful for their hospitality and that small act just made me feel so at home.

And this week, another Rotarian, Melanie, has offered to take me to Ikea to get a few things to make my place a little homier and more livable since carrying it all on the bus and Luas (tram) is a bit of a hassle. Again, it’s out of her way for a few hours, but is going to make my everyday life for the next year so much nicer and I’m so excited!

In a nutshell: Rotarians are pretty amazing, and I’m one lucky gal.

Adapting to Ireland: Pharmacies

When one moves to a new place, regardless of whether it’s off to college freshman year, to a new city for a job, or to a new country to live or study abroad, there are certain elements that remind you that you live there. Things like moving into your new apartment and cooking your first meal there are obvious. But when you live in a new country, sometimes the little things take on an extra dimension. I found out (a little too late in some cases) that finding medication, doing laundry, and cooking are a lot different than what I was used to in the US. This week’s posts will focus on these revelations. First up: getting sick.

Now I didn’t get sick sick, but this past week (my second week in Ireland), I caught a cold – sneezy, runny nose, sore throat, you know the drill. But having just arrived in the country, I had no medicine in my cabinet and when I went to the pharmacy, I didn’t recognize any of the products. After just a few minutes of blankly staring at the wall marked “cold and flu,” one of the nice pharmacists came to my assistance and asked what I needed. I told her my symptoms, and just a few minutes later I was stocked with Strepsil throat lozenges, vitamin C tablets to add to my water, and daytime and nighttime cold medication. For my Irish readers, you should know that my typical visit to the pharmacy at home involves a *vast* selection of brand-name and off-brand cold and flu medicine for every different combination of symptoms that are just on the shelf for you to sort out yourself, and the pharmacist is typically behind a counter dealing primarily with prescription medications. Of course they’ll help you with over-the-counter (non-prescription) medications too if you ask, but I was happy to find the pharmacist so helpful in getting me what I needed for what turned out to be just a 5 day recovery.

I'm Legal!

So far so good with my classes this week. I’m really enjoying each and every one and can’t wait to get into discussions. But since I have Wednesdays off from class, I decided to spend today tackling my immigration status.

As an American citizen, I don’t need a visa to remain in the country for the year, but I do need to register with immigration within a month of arrival and provide documentation to show that I am officially registered as a university student, have paid my tuition and fees, have opened an Irish bank account and have sufficient funds to provide for myself, and have private health insurance.

So I started at the Bank, arriving at 9:50am – only to find out that although the bank opens at 10am on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, for some reason on Wednesdays bankers get to start at 10:30am. So I perused the fliers in the tourist office across the street and planned all kinds of places to visit in the coming year (namely, everywhere!).

The bank teller was quite helpful in updating my current address and providing documentation for immigration services, and then I was off to register. After walking only 5 blocks in the wrong direction, I rerouted and made it to the Garda by 11:05am, arriving exactly ten people before the daily cut off.

Luckily, I’d been prepared for the experience. After waiting for half an hour in line, I was given the number 241 and informed that I was 104th in line and I could take a seat until my number was called. I settled in with my book and just 90 minutes later, it was my turn to submit my documents. I handed them all to the agent, who subsequently asked for each and every document in front of him (to which I responded, “It’s in the pile – the one that says ‘tuition payment’ on it,” or “It’s in the pile – the one that says ‘bank statement’ on it,” and so forth. Then just 10 minutes and 150 euros later, I was told that I could return to my seat and wait for my name to be called.

That part was actually kind of cool, because throughout the time I was there, there were names and nationalities called, and rarely the same ones. There were a couple of groups of Americans, but other than that (since European Economic Area citizens don’t need to register), there were people from all corners of South America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Oceania – just everywhere!

I got my card about half an hour later, only to find out that rather than being granted a year’s clearance, I’d been issued clearance from exactly 28-09-2011 to 28-09-2011. Just a typo, but it took another half an hour to get a new card (now valid until 28-09-2012), and the agent just wrote over the dates in my passport, so it looks a little sketchy.

All in all, it was a long but fairly painless 3 hour process, and I’m now legal to live, work (part-time) and study in Ireland for the next year! Feeling more and more like I live here every day!

Lessons in Irish Culture: All Guests Must Know Party Tricks

Man – the Irish like to have fun! I had a blast at the District 1160 Rotary Conference this past weekend.

I arrived just in time for the Scholars Reception on Friday evening, where I met two of the other Scholars in attendance and we compared notes on our experiences so far. Kate is also at Trinity, studying Race, Ethnicity, and Conflict, a program quite similar to mine and we figured out we have at least one class together. Woody is up in Belfast at Queen’s College studying Urban Planning in post-conflict societies. He actually spent the past year as a Fulbright Research Scholar in Cyprus, studying the architecture of the city – once coherent but now divided between the ethnic Turks and ethnic Greeks. Fascinating people! I met Elaine the next day, who is doing the Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies at Magee College in Ulster (Northern Ireland), a program I’d also looked at applying for. Her summer might have been even crazier than mine – getting married on September 1 before moving to Londonderry with her husband to start the program. Shannon also arrived later that night (International Management at Trinity), so only one of the Scholars was missing (see the five of us below). Ironically, we’re all from the USA this year.

Friday night was probably my highlight of the weekend – and probably my best night in Ireland so far. In addition to my host club in Dublin, I’ve been paired with the Rotary Club of Wicklow as my satellite host club, and they invited me out to dinner with them that night.

I met up with the club – about 6 couples ranging in age from 30s to 60s – at their hotel for a drink before we went next door to the restaurant for a fancy 3 course meal, complete with kir royale starters and Bailey’s coffee to accompany dessert. Very Irish. We had great conversations throughout the night about all things Rotary and Irish culture and anything in between, and they wrote out a long list of movies I need to see to better understand Irish culture and humor while I’m here. Luckily I pass a DVD rental shop on my way to class most days, so I should be able to at least make a dent in the list over the coming year.

As the dinner wound down, they began doing their "party tricks" as they called them and singing old Irish songs around the table that everyone seemed to know and I need to learn! I was in heaven. Until they invited (insisted) that their American guest join in. You may be thinking to yourself, I didn’t know Nora could sing. And you would be correct. I tried to warn my fellow diners that this was actually not at all in their best interests, but they insisted, requesting the national anthem in particular since Duncan, the club president, didn’t know the words to it. At that point, I wasn’t convinced I did either, but I gave it the old college try and didn’t miss a word (or hit a note for that matter, but that’s beside the point). The table even joined in for the “land of the free and the home of the brave!” Thank goodness the previously packed restaurant was empty by that time, and on the that note of goodwill, we all retired to the hotel bar for some more jokes and laughs before turning in for the night.

The conference continued for the weekend with fascinating speakers from the District who had accomplished various feats from carrying the Rotary International flag to the top of Mt. Kilamanjaro to raising over $1 million for Light of Maasai, a charity in Kenya supported by the District and spearheaded by Matt Porter from the Dublin Central Rotary Club. We had a lovely black-tie ball on Saturday night, complete with candelabras and ice sculptures on the tables, dancing to a really great live band, and finally winding down with discussions of the beauty of the Dingle Peninsula (which I must visit!) and the politics of religion in modern day Ireland and Northern Ireland with various Rotarians.

Have I mentioned that I’m thrilled to be a part of Rotary? I felt so welcomed that weekend and it was the perfect opportunity to connect personally with Rotarians across the island – I’m really hoping to visit their clubs and present. Unfortunately my Monday class schedule prevents me from making it to many meetings this term (the majority of clubs meet for lunch on Mondays), but I’ll stay in contact for next semester.

Also, I may have found an Irish mum – Ursula, wife of the District Governor, Barney – has offered to take on the role, having hosted Rotary Scholars from the States (and most recently Iowa) in the past and I intend to take her up on that and return to Limerick at my next opportunity!

Peace Studies Orientation (finally!)

So I’m a week in now and very anxious to start my classes and meet my classmates and figure out my new 'normal.' Yesterday was Arthur’s Day in Ireland, a celebration of the day in 1759 when Arthur Guinness signed the 9,000 year lease on St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin, which commences at 17:59 on September 22. Word among the Irish was that the pubs were more crowded last night than they are on St. Patrick’s Day!

I spent the day shopping for bedding, then went back to the house and Herbert drove me across town to drop off my suitcases in my new apartment at 17:00. With rush hour traffic, it took about 40 minutes to get there (it’d be more like 15 or 20 minutes driving at off peak times), and finished unloading at 17:56, so we missed “kick off” time, but made it over to where Grainne was toasting Arthur at a pub near her office with her coworkers. One guy, a Spaniard, also promotes study abroad opportunities in Europe on the side – amazing what connections you can make over a pint of Guinness.

Herbert and Grainne and I went to a farewell dinner at a Malaysian restaurant nearby before they dropped me off for my first night in my new apartment. I’ve never lived alone before, so I was a little nervous, but got myself mostly unpacked and somewhat settled in until I gave up, too exhausted to continue, and slept the night through.

Then this morning, I had orientation for my grad program. Christen and I walked over to the Milltown campus together, met our classmates and lecturers, and figured out a little more of how the system works. Apparently we can take any of the courses offered in the timetable, and the first week or two is a sort of shopping period to figure out which ones you want to take for credit and which ones to audit (if any).

Based on the lecturers and syllabi, I want to take them all! We seem to have about 40 students in the program, from approximately 15 countries and various academic backgrounds, so I’m very excited for our seminar discussions – I think I’ll learn a lot. I wanted to stay and socialize more with my new classmates after orientation, but instead, I rushed back to my apartment, grabbed my bags, and hurried in to town to catch the bus to Limerick for the Rotary District 1160 (all Ireland) Conference where I’ll meet the other 5 Ambassadorial Scholars as well as Rotarians from most (if not all) other clubs in Ireland so I can start setting up presentation times with them.

On the bus now and ready for a nap – will write a report after the conference!

No longer homeless in Dublin!!

Big news today! After searching around for a week now, I found a place to live & signed the lease today!! It a studio apartment with a main livingroom/bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom in the village of Ranelagh, south of the Dublin city center. It’s still part of Dublin, but Ranelagh is the name of the neighborhood, kind of like how in DC the neighborhoods have different names. I’m very close to the Milltown Park campus where I’ll be taking most of my classes (by Dublin standards that is – about a 25 minute walk, shorter if I hurry), a 5 minute walk to the Luas train that goes into the city center to get to the main Trinity campus, and Christen’s house is right on my walk to class, so we can walk in together. It’s a quiet neighborhood, which should be good for studying, and the room isn’t large, but there is just enough room to fit a single inflatable mattress on the floor in case I have any overseas visitors in need of a place to stay. And now I can finally unpack and start to feel like I’m living here!

I do have to say, though, to any Rotarian hosts or future Scholars out there, having a local host for the first few days makes all the difference in the world. Moving to a new country where you don’t know anyone can be a scary experience (ok, I knew two people in advance but still). Having someone to talk to and ask cultural questions is amazingly helpful in those first few days and I am sooooo grateful to Grainne and Herbert for taking me in for the week while I got myself settled. Irish culture and American culture may not seem so different, but comments like, “Oh, it’s great craic!” (pronounced “crack”) can be confusing if you don’t know that craic is an Irish term for great fun or news/gossip or good time and don’t have someone to explain it to you. I’ve moved abroad before and worked for two years in the field of study abroad, so I knew what to expect in terms of culture shock to some extent, but that doesn’t necessarily make it any easier. Host families do – especially since Grainne and Herbert have both moved to other countries themselves.

I also went to my first Dublin Central Rotary Club meeting tonight and met some more club members. Ironically, there was an abnormally low turnout and high number of American visitors such that Americans actually outnumbered Irish at the meeting. Martin, the president, said it was part of his master plan to make me feel welcome and at home there. It’s quite a young club – I think Martin told me the average age is about 37. It’s a little different than the Ames Noon Club – no singing and since it’s an evening meeting, they serve wine and pop rather than a meal, but they’re very active and we had a great discussion of the effectiveness of various forms of international aid (emergency, charity, and multilateral), specifically to Africa. There was a perception in the room that Americans don’t know what’s going on with the draught in east Africa, which I would refute, but please leave a comment and let me know what you think. The US is a large country so hard to make generalizations. In any case, great conversations all night, and Martin kindly dropped me off at Herbert and Grainne’s for my last night with them before my move tomorrow.

Have I mentioned lately how wonderful Rotary and Rotarians are? I’m so thrilled to be a part of this club and the whole network!

An Irish Barbecue and Breakfast

What a great night! Sheila, another Rotarian from the Dublin Central club, my host Rotary club in Ireland, invited the Rotary Group Study Exchange team from Australia over to her home for a barbecue of burgers, potatoes (obviously), coleslaw, and plenty of wine, beer, and G&Ts. The Aussies were still in their rugby gear from watching the game at the pub (Ireland won) but were good humored and we had great conversation and a blast playing charades. One guy, Ash, was lucky enough to be hosted by the Rotarian who just happens to be the father of The Edge (from U2). Since it’s still The Edge’s childhood home, we suspect Ash might actually be sleeping in the Edge’s bed! One of my goals for this year is to meet Bono – fingers crossed!

I also got to meet Annie, who is the coordinator of all 6 Ambassadorial Scholars in District 1160 (Ireland and Northern Ireland). I presented Annie, Sheila, and Grainne (the three Rotarians) with “American Pie” scented soy candles from the Heart of Iowa store in Valley Junction (West Des Moines, IA), as a thank you for their hospitality and work behind the scenes in preparing for our arrival, which they loved. You’ll note that so far, the three Rotarians I’ve met in the country are all women – and young too. Point being: Rotary is not all white-haired old men. I’m excited to meet the rest of the club too!

We ended up spending the night at Sheila’s (the driver had a few drinks), and in the morning, she made us an Irish breakfast of bacon, beans, potatoes, tomatoes, brown bread and butter – I could definitely get used to that! Through conversations over the breakfast or dinner table, I’m slowly picking up on cultural references to the celebrities here: rugby players, members of the royal family, Sinnead O’Connor.

Next up: the Gaelic Football Championship is today, Dublin vs. Kerry. Apparently the pair haven’t played in the finals in years and it’s a major rivalry. I don’t have a clue what the rules of the game are or how to follow it, but I’m meeting up with Christen (an American) to explore the neighborhoods south of Dublin to see if I’d like to live there and we plan to catch the game a pub near her and hopefully find a nice Irishman/woman to explain it to us!

Irish Times

First off, since I've just come in from the rain, I thought I'd tell you that it's been lovely weather. Also, when you visit, dress in layers. Seriously, in the 5 hours that I've been out walking around, I've had my jacked zipped all the way up to the top and been a bit chilly, have taken it off twice because I was warm, and have been rained on three times. Oh Ireland. I'm looking very local though, just walking around anyway without an umbrella - they don't even seem to notice whether it's raining or not! The joke goes that the story of Moses must have been made up because the Bible calls 40 days and 40 nights of rain a disaster, but in Ireland, they call that the weather!

In addition, comfy shoes are a must. I'm currently staying in Dublin 3, which is 4.2 km North of Trinity College, with my Rotary hosts while I continue to look for an apartment. I have a few leads and a "back up," so feeling like it's much more manageable. I hope to visit a family tomorrow to talk about staying with them (it's much cheaper, and includes food and culture!) then make a decision. Thoughts and prayers on the topic are VERY much appreciated

I've noticed in my travels that people in different places have different conceptions of time (those of you who knew me in high school also know that I used to have my own conception of time as well - I'm better now, really!). For example, in Honduras, a meeting at noon might begin at 2pm. In Uganda, I overhead a conversation that went something to the effect of, "well I thought the meeting was scheduled for 2pm, so I didn't expect you until 2:30pm." In DC, time typically runs by the clock. In Ireland, I've been told that you can expect something between DC and Uganda.

Which brings me back to the culture and the comfy shoes: in Iowa, or in the city anyway, "walking distance" means a couple of city blocks, maybe half a mile, certainly not more than a mile - say up to 15 minutes. Heck, I used to take the car to drive to my friend's house 4 blocks away. I now find that absurd, but it was typical then. In DC, there is a little more leeway since it's more often foot traffic than driving, so a mile is certainly walking distance, sometimes a bit further too - about 20 minutes is reasonable, maybe 25 or 30 in heels. In Ireland, however, people seem to think of walking distance as 35 minutes! And they must all be very brisk walkers, because I've been walking the "35 minutes" to the city center daily and my walk takes an hour. Luckily, I'm not in much of a hurry since classes haven't started, and it’s helping me to get my bearings around the city.
All in all, I'm learning bits and pieces about Irish culture, though I haven't met many Irish yet. There seems to be a high percentage of international students among the postgrads, or maybe that has more to do with my subject and that of those I've run into (International Peace Studies, International Management, Global Health, etc). My host, Grainne, has been running here and there this week so I’ve seen more of her husband at the house than her, but he and I had quite a chat last night about everything from technology to culture to travel to politics to human nature.

Now the three of us are off to a barbecue hosted by another Rotarian for the Group Study Exchange team from Australia to Ireland. Ireland beat Australia this morning in rugby, so it should be an interesting night!

Day 2: Nerding out about Grad School

I slept in today, then walked into campus (I’d been told it was about a 30 minute walk – the Irish must be fast walkers because it definitely took me the better part of an hour), spent some time looking for accommodation and registering for my program and running around requesting documents I'll need for immigration next week, then made it to the last few minutes of postgraduate orientation, where I met up with Shannon again and her friend Christen, who turned out to be in International Peace Studies too!

We all went to a wine reception following the orientation hosted by the Grad Student’s Union (the president of which turns out to be a U of I grad from Chicago), then out to dinner. Our table had students in social work, global health, peace studies, international management, literature, and another degree or two that I’m forgetting and we had the best conversations about topics ranging from life in Dublin and Irish culture to whether depicting violence in the media desensitizes people to the impact of such violence to new immigration trends in Europe and the level of measured racism among European citizens. Yes, in a pub on a Friday night. I am definitely in grad school – and anxious to begin!

Day 1 in Dublin

I arrived at the Dublin airport at 8am, having slept the whole flight since dinner (courtesy of a sleeping pill that still hadn’t quite worn off by landing), picked up my luggage, and as I walked out into the airport, Grainne, my host Rotarian, my waiting for me holding a sign with my name on it. She and her husband, Herbert, generously welcomed me, loaded up my suitcases, and took me back to their house where there was a bed waiting with my name on it. On the way back, we compared notes on how they previously lived in Holland (Herbert is Dutch), Herbert had worked for a time in Sioux City, Iowa, and they’d both spent time volunteering in South Africa. Amazing how in this globalized world I felt like I had as many shared experiences with this new couple I’d just met than some of my neighbors in Iowa.

I got a few hours of sleep, then Grainne had arranged for me to meet Shannon, another Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar studying at Trinity, to walk around town and get my bearings for the afternoon. I asked around to people on the streets for the bus stop, caught the bus into town, found Shannon, and she took me under her wing – walking me through the campus, showing me the accommodations office so I could get started finding myself an apartment and put an add out for a roommate, giving me a card with the steps I would need to take to get my immigration documents in order, and then shopping for a cell phone, hair dryer and straightener that work in Irish electric outlets. Quite the accomplishments in just 3 hours.

At about 5pm she asked if I’d eaten (I hadn’t) and we went to a pub in Temple Bar – ironically, one I had visited with Elyse and Emily two years earlier when I’d come to visit them over Thanksgiving. I ordered a beer and Irish breakfast and we talked and listened to the Irish music, played by a live band. Shannon was an Irish dancer growing up, so when a couple of Irishmen next to us who thought everything in America was “AWESOME!” (always said in conjunction with a fist pump) tried to teach us to dance, Shannon stole the show and had all the tourists in the bar taking pictures of her.

I was about ready to turn in by that point, so pulled out my new temporary address, found the bus stop, and a very kind woman named Maureen told me she could be my aunt for the moment so I could stand with her at the front of the line to board, and she even went to the effort to get off the bus two stops early and walked me half way back to the house to make sure I found my way there ok – and I did. So very kind of her.

I let myself in, chatted with Grainne and Herbert, who got me set up on the internet, and turned in for a good night’s sleep before tackling what would become a week of apartment hunting, class registration, and lots of paperwork ahead.