#piperblum

Hi this is Piper and I’m a junior studying at the University College Dublin this semester! I’ve been in Dublin for four days now and so much has already happened!

I touched down Monday afternoon/evening and I have to say that the transition to study abroad has been significantly easier than the transition to freshman year of college. This could partially be because freshman year I was coming from out of states and along with the fact that Ireland is an English speaking country this honestly just felt like freshman move-in on steroids. 

I can immediately tell that this is going to be an amazing experience but here are two of my goals for this semester:

Go on one solo trip: I’ve gotten so used to moving in groups back home, whether thats going to the grocery store with my roommates, picking classes with people from my professional fraternity, and honestly everything in between. As much as I am loving the friends I’ve made here within the first couple days I really want to develop my independence so I’m committing to going on one solo trip this semester, whether that is within Ireland or not is still tbd but I will keep you guys updated.

Join one Irish club/society: I can already tell that it would be so so easy to stay within the international community at UCD as there is such a large study abroad program here with students from all over the world. But this semester I really want to meet the locals and I’ve heard the best way to do that is to join one of their clubs! Right now I’ve got my eye on the mountaineering club but we’ll see after we have their version of club rush.

This week was my first full week in Dublin since the start of classes so I decided to spend more time exploring the city centre.

There’s a bunch of thrift shops scattered throughout the Temple Bar district so a couple of friends and I spent a day exploring them all. You’ll know when you find a good one because there will be an insane amount of guys in the shops in the best fully thrifted outfits you’ve ever seen. There are soooo many cute leather and fur jackets in most stores so if you’ve been wanting one you’ll definitely be able to find one. 

We made a quick stop at The Matcha Bar because it was recommended by my roommate and I cant recommend it enough. It’s inside the Powerscourt Centre on the third floor and there’s almost always a little line but it’s so so worth it definitely the best matcha I’ve had since leaving California.

Would also recommend walking around the different gardens in Dublin. There’s Dub Linn Gardens right next to the castle, Stephen’s Green, but my favorite is Iveagh Gardens. There’s such a cute little waterfall and a bunch of Irish people go there to eat their lunch when the weather is nice and they’ll bring their dogs and the vibes are just so good.

Lesson of the week is don’t trust the weather app AT ALL. It always says it’s going to be sunny and you’ll see blue skies with no clouds and you’ll think you don’t need to bring a jacket. Bring a jacket.

Ok hi I know it’s been a minute but here’s a week four update. This week was the first week of labs for my circuits class! 

It’s weird because unlike at Michigan you just show up to lab and there’s no instructor. There are UCD equivalents of gsis but you never get introduced to them so you kind of just enter the room and start following the video tutorial that they released on bright space. 

I don’t know how other people established who they were going to be lab partners with but I just happened to have this class with Ryan thank goodness so we just walked to a little station together.

There is literally no oversight so we basically just tried to recreate the video and asked the students around us for help when we would get stuck.

The next day I left for Hamburg bright and early! I honestly didn’t know much about Hamburg before going but the RyanAir flights were super cheap and I’ve always wanted to go to Germany but we ended up having such a great time.

If you ever end up in Hamburg I highly recommend Nord Coast Coffee for coffee and brunch and then Edmondo for lunch/dinner. Nord Coffee roasts their beans in house and it was super popular amongst locals and then Edmondo is just insanely aesthetic and sooo good and they have a cute little vintage photo booth upstairs. 

We also went to a couple different art museums on the art mile and there is currently a super interesting exhibit about AI and reflections, don’t know how long it’ll be around for though. 

Our favorite activity of the weekend was definitely the wine cruise! I know a bunch of cities with canals have them but ours happened to be on Valentine’s Day so it was just such a silly experience to be on a boat with s bunch of German couples and then just the three of us. 

Hi again! I can’t believe that it’s already been a month in Dublin! This week was another week packed full of classes but somehow I squeezed in a quick trip to Howth and a weekend in Edinburgh!

Monday was St. Brigid’s Day, which is a National Holiday in Ireland so that meant no class which was much needed. On Tuesdays I only have one class from 10-11 so after that my friends and I hopped on a bus & a train and headed out to Howth. I was temporarily put in charge of directions, a choice everyone immediately regretted when I somehow landed us in a random neighborhood in Howth instead of the cliff walk. 

We ended up finding it and it was absolutely beautiful if not a little muddy. Initially we wanted to also go to the Baily Lighthouse but we had been delayed by the bus so much that we were losing daylight. We ended up getting limoncello spritzes and fish & chips at a little restaurant on the pier and it was so good and then headed home. 

The week was so short and before I knew it, it was Thursday night and we were packing for our trip to Edinburgh. We flew out at 7am Friday morning which was so rough but somehow we ended up in a karaoke uber? (it literally had strobe lights installed but he said the mic was still in the works) so we were exclusively singing ABBA the whole 35 minute drive. 

Our uber driver told us that Scotland was colder than Ireland and he was so right about that. Beyond the weather, we found ourselves comparing Edinburgh and Dublin the whole trip. Dublin has a much younger feel than Edinburgh, I don’t know if that’s generally true, or if there was just an insane amount of middle aged men there for the rugby match so take that with a grain of salt. But Edinburgh was sooooo gorgeous. Every building was a work of art and even though I think Dublin is beautiful, I have to admit that Edinburgh’s architecture was insane. I will say that Edinburgh is a little tougher to navigate. It is a two layer city and sometimes google/apple maps would tell us to turn off a bridge with no stairs nearby so we ended up having to double the walking time for most of our trips.

If you ever go to Edinburgh, I highly recommend walking up Arthur’s Seat. Even if you haven’t watched One Day, it really is an unmatched view of the city. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter as some of my friends are, Victoria Street is allegedly the basis for Diagon Alley and there are tons of Harry Potter themed attractions. Overall, everyone we met was so friendly and some guys even took us on a mini walking tour of the city! Couldn’t recommend Edinburgh enough!

This week felt like a lifetime! I ended up switching up my schedule again so it felt like the first week all over again trying to find my new class. I’m now taking a history class called The Making of Modern Ireland, I’ll let you know how that goes as it’s my largest class in a giant lecture hall. 

Other than that, I had a pretty chill week. My friend and I explored the library and the third floor of the UCD library is giving major third floor UgLi vibes

We also stopped in at Pye, a restaurant right next to Dundrum (the mall) for dinner and drinks on Tuesday and I highly recommend the staff are so sweet and the food and drinks are so good!

On Thursday night, my friend and I took the bus to the airport for our first weekend trip to Paris! We did every touristy thing you could imagine (The Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and the Catacombs) and it far exceeded my expectations. 

Ryan and I had the best time and everyone was so sweet. It really made me reflect on the stereotype that French people are stuck up and rude to Americans because that couldn’t be further from our experience. Whether it was store clerks, waiters, or just people on the street, everyone was so engaging and accommodating and Ryan and I already decided we are going to be making another trip there at some point this semester. One note though I will say people are VERY forward about talking politics. I don’t think we had a single conversation where they didn’t ask us what we thought of Donald Trump or Elon Musk. Overall suchhhh a successful trip highly recommend!

Hi it’s Piper again! I’m back to recap my first week of classes & GAA experience & trip to Wicklow County!

Starting off with classes, the first week was pretty chill. They got into content pretty quickly just like at Michigan but they’re also super mellow about needing to switch your schedule around if your initial one doesn’t work for you. I’ve emailed my UCD advisor like five times discussing different schedule options and I think I finally got a good one figured out despite the fact that I already had an initial schedule planned before getting here.

So far all my teachers are super sweet but the teaching style seems to be way less interactive than my engineering classes back at Michigan. I’m taking one grad school level course while I’m here and that seems to be a more interactive environment so far but will definitely keep you guys posted.

I will say that our week got cut short because there was an insane amount of weather warnings for a storm on Friday, so all classes were cancelled and everyone stayed inside. It ended up being not a big deal at UCD but I think it affected the east side of Ireland way more because they closed the Cliffs of Moher and other tourist attractions for the weekend.

Other than that I’ve gone on a couple of adventures this week! We went to a GAA match on Saturday and I watched gaelic football for the first time (we were running late and missed hurling). It was the strangest combination of soccer and basketball that I’ve ever seen. The GAA is an amateur league (they all play for free) but there is no pro league for GAA sports. The teams are based by county and most players have finished school so it’s a weird in between of college and pro leagues. I’ve been told that people are usually either rugby or GAA people but I’ve gathered rugby is more largely popular as a professional sport, while GAA is what most kids grow up playing.

 Today, we went on a bus tour of Wicklow County and visited Glendalough and Kilkenny. We unfortunately booked our tour for the day with the worst weather ever, according to the tour guide, and had to buy new dry clothes in Kilkenny after a very rainy hike to a lake in Glendalough. No regrets though because the views were beautiful and I will insert many pictures.

Hi it’s Piper again! I’m back to update you on my first week (but really my first 5 days) in Dublin.

This week’s topic is going to be transportation and my manyyyy trials and tribulations with it.

Private Transportation:

Ok first things first, all rideshare apps are basically just a glorified way to call taxis here. Uber works fine and it’s what most of the people I’ve met so far use but I’ve been using FreeNow since I was advised to by my godmother who is an Irish native but I honestly don’t think there’s much of a difference. 

When you are trying to get to campus I know some people take a bus but most uber so be aware that pickup zone 18 (where you need to go to find your uber/freenow) is in fact hard to find and you aren’t crazy. 

The signage is confusing because zone 18 isn’t listed and you need to turn right where you will see a lot of people congregating outside even though there is no sign pointing there. I kept walking straight towards zone 16&17 thinking zone 18 would be past them but this was definitely flawed logic. 

Thankfully my FreeNow driver ended up being so sweet and friendly and was pointing things out to me as we drove through the city center. 

My last note on this would be to make sure you set your destination as the UCD Village Welcome Center because I met a girl who just set her destination as UCD and got dropped off on the wrong side of campus with all of her bags.

Public Transportation:

Once you get settled, go to the Centra in the Village (same place where you check in) to get a temporary leapcard. This is what gets you access to the bus and the LUAS. 

It’s €2 per ride on the temporary leapcard so apply for the young adult leapcard online asap (on the young adult leapcard it’s only €1 per ride). However, you do need an Irish phone number to get the young adult one. 

I took the bus into the city center for the first time on Wednesday night (I went to bed so early Monday night and literally slept the entire day Tuesday because I was so jetlagged) with some girls I met at orientation events and it was honestly so easy. We just used Apple Maps and it was super intuitive. If you are going into the city center at night keep in mind that the only 24 hour route is 39A (your map will def tell you this but it’s just good to know).

However, the experience was not nearly as smooth on Thursday when we were trying to catch the bus to Dundrum, which is essentially just a huge indoor mall. 

We were taking route S6 and it was over an 40 minutes late and when it came the bus was completely full and we ended up waiting for over an hour. I think it might’ve been rush hour for locals because we had no issue catching it on the way back. 

Other than that one time, the busses have been super reliable and on time so far! I’ve also heard great things about the LUAS which is a tram type system that goes into the city but it doesn’t have a stop super close to UCD though.