Can I travel every weekend?


1/18-1/21

I have this problem with believing that what everyone posts on social media is true. A picture of you smiling on Instagram? You're obviously having a fantastic time. A caption saying that this is the best day of your life? Well, I am so beyond happy for you. This goes for study abroad too. Before leaving for Ireland, I was under the impression that people traveled every other day, never took classes, and booked flights with the snap of their fingers. Now that I'm on the other side of that, I can tell you that that is not completely accurate. 

Monday afternoon I was sitting in my climate change class with severe jealousy at the snow that was falling back home. I am a snow addict. Winter is my favorite season and I could live in the snow year round. The fact that it was snowing all over the East Coast while it's 40 degrees and raining here made me angry. So in my 1pm class, I decided that I would travel to Switzerland for the snow. 

By 9 pm that night I had it all planned. We would land in Basel Friday afternoon, take a train to Interlaken and stay in a hostel in the Swiss Alps. Perfect destination for a snow junky like me. Then I found this amazing town called Jungfraujoch and decided that that was where I was going. 

And then Switzerland fell through so we decided to go to Edinburgh. But that fell through so we decided to go to Franca. And that was actually going to happen. It really was. Then it didn't. So now we're going to Belfast! It may not be Switzerland. Or Scotland. OR France. But at least I'm traveling, right?

Studying abroad creates this idea that you need to travel every second of every day or you are not taking advantage of this amazing opportunity. Everyday I have to remind myself of everything I am doing, not what I'm not. It isn't easy to travel to a different country every other weekend.

Even though I haven't left the country yet, let's recap all of the things I did do. For starters, I'm learning the city! 

I am living on Dublin City University campus which is northish Ireland. From my understanding, Dublin is kind of like a straight line. DCU is at the top, then in the middle is the city centre, and at the bottom is University College Dublin. If you were curious, the 13 and 11 are the busses I take to class because all of my classes are on the Saint Patrick (Saint Pats as the Irish say) which is in between DCU and the city centre on my straight line diagram. Obviously there are some twists and turns, but it is generally a straight line. 

The city centre is in the middle of my line. O'Connell street is a popular street in Dublin. Before I was as experienced with the city as I am now, I thought that that was the best place to get off of the bus. But now I learned that I can ride the bus even further. On our diagram, in between O'Connell street and UCD is Trinity College. I like to use Trinity College as my check point for the pretty parts of the city. I have started taking the 155 bus to Trinity College where all of the cute coffee shops and book stores are. 

Grafton street is in between O'Connell and Trinity College. Grafton street is where all of the high end stores are. The ones that I look in but never go into. 

This blogpost is mostly so I can flex my new knowledge on the bus system and the city. I find myself taking the bust nearly everyday, and I really like this new part of me. I love how confident I am in getting myself from one place to another. I'm not afraid to get onto the bus alone or afraid of eating alone. I'm trying very hard to turn this study abroad experience into a self-growth journey. 

I got breakfast with a friend today and as we walked around Grafton street, I told her how I already feel a shift in myself. I wasn't sure how to describe it because the most important changes are the ones that can be felt through your whole body. Maybe it's the lack of anxiety when I'm walking alone or the ease I feel when I am creating plans. The comfort I feel when I explore new places and let myself wonder is new. There is no longer this fear of doing the wrong thing or having the right experiences. I am no longer comparing my daily lives to the other students from Ithaca because I am content with the idea that we are all having our own, unique experiences. 

Today is my two week anniversary as a Dublin native. I have my own bus card, I know which busses to take to my normal places, and I am starting to drink hot drinks, as the Irish do here. My hardest adjustment might have been giving up my iced drinks in favor of hot coffee because of the weird looks I receive when I ask for an iced coffee.

My London Fog and its art


The Book of Kells 





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