First Two Days of Trinity Orientation!

So it has been kind of a whirlwind couple of days! For those of you who i haven't told my whole flat seemed to get the plague on Sunday (and by plague i mean some sort of weird 24 hour stomach flu) so needless to say Sunday I stayed in and felt terrible all day! I was super worried because I had to start orientation the next day and it would be horrible to miss it! Luckily I only had to miss the Trinity welcome dinner Sunday night and by Monday I was good to go!  During the first day of orientation was all so surreal; as we were given a campus tour I couldn't believe that I was actually going to school there.  I also officially got registered as a student and I got my student ID card meaning that I can use the library and the gym and get student discounts at various places around the city...so that is pretty rockin'! Monday night we also went on a literary pub crawl of Dublin which was also super fun! We were guided by actors who would perform scenes at each pub and also explain the literary or historical significance of each pub on the trip! The actors were super funny and the history was extremely interesting (of course!) We even got to go to a put that Michael Collins frequented which was also amazing! Just to be in a place where someone who had such a grand effect on an entire countries history used to come regularly was an honor.

Day two orientation was also extremely interesting.  We spend the morning listening to lectures from various professors about Irish history, architecture, and literature.  It was all really fascinating and I learned a lot which I take to be a good sign that I am going to be learning a lot this semester :) We also took a walk across the city to the GAA stadium where we took a tour.  The GAA is the Gaelic Athletic Association which is the home of Ireland's two most popular sports....not rugby and soccer as I had guessed but rather Gaelic Football and Hurling.  We watched a video about the two sports and needless to say I was only slightly less than when I started! Perhaps when someone actually explains the rules to me and I watch a game it will make more sense! hehe! But the stadium itself was super cool! It is the fourth largest stadium in Western Europe and holds over 80,000 people! In the GAA athletes play for their county team which creates enormous county pride.  However, what is most amazing is that all of the players are volunteers.  They all have day jobs and have practice early in the morning or in the evenings and on weekends.  It is amazing to me that our most popular American Athletes get paid millions of dollars to play sports while these people do it for free! Just for the love of the game! That is so astounding to me.  As there are all of these rumors of lockouts for the NFL and the NBA are going around I can't help but wonder what our sports would be like if our players weren't paid!  I mean to be perfectly honest that would probably mean that we wouldn't have national sports teams anymore but you never know! So yeah just some food for thought!
Cheers!