Jet-setting to Dublin, it's nothing...

So...you know you're in Europe when you can whiz away to an entirely different country, for only the weekend, just for fun, right before your first midterm! And that's just what we did. Last friday after finishing our second week of school, 10 of us jet-setted to Dublin, Ireland for 48 hours! We left super early on Friday morning and returned home (we all call Edinburgh home now :)) early Sunday morning, just in time for a studying frenzy.

And I must say I LOVE DUBLIN! It's a bit bigger than Edinburgh, but not anything like Rome or London. The city is completely walkable, but we were able to make great use of our 24 hour open-top bus tickets. Upon arrival we were pleasantly surprised with how nice our 3 star hotel was! And since the hotel was undergoing rennovations, we got a complimentary bottle of wine in each room! A nice start to the weekend.

Our hotel room! Notice there are three beds...so fun.

Our Dublin activities:

• Guinness Factory! Includes a tasting!


• Traditional Irish dinner at the Auld Dubliner Restaurant


• Night out on the town, in the famous Temple Bar Square area


• Dublin Castle


• Book of Kells at Trinity College


• Last but not least....Rivier Dancing Show!

All in all it was a fantastic weekend. I am so fortunate to have these experiences and opportunities.

Back on the homefront in Edinburgh: Just had our first two midterms, today and yesterday. I would say they went pretty well. Both professors are very understanding of the fact that we are 20-somethings in Europe and also attempting to learn Business Law. Tonight, as a celebration, the whole group is journeying to Mary King's Close...a old underground street that used to be part of Edinburgh, but is now buried beneath knew streets. After the Bubonic Plague, that is what European cities did: just built new areas of town right over the old, diseased parts. Today, you can take a tour down into the depths of this alley way. You can even see the how the buried homes and rooms turned into graves for all the diseased....should be interesting to say the least.

To calm our nerves, we'll all probably go out for a drink and experience a little more of Edinburgh. Come tomorrow, our program will be half way over...I am actually really saddened by this. I feel like there is so much left to do and see!! As much as I love my home in Dallas and my home in Austin, I could stay here for much longer.

Off to read a bit for tomorrow's class.

Cheers,

Evie