Did I mention that it's cold here??

Day 3- i've held back from complaining about it so far, because we've been blessed with really good weather, but Ireland is cold. at least, every 20 min or so. the temperature changes drastically when the sun goes behind the clouds - that whole 'dress in layers' thing is Not a joke. also, it's rainy. by this i mean that almost every day there is at least a spattering of drizzle. all Irish people that we've talked to about the weather quickly follow this statement with "well we need the rain to stay so green!".

Anyway, this was the first day that it Really rained, but i'm getting ahead of myself.....Picture time!

This was a day filled with food.

Irish style French toast with maple syrup and berries?? yes please!!

we've been ridiculously spoiled with breakfast choices at this hotel. i'm not really excited about going from 4 star hotel options to nutrigrain bars, lol.





After breakfast and some MusicBox (did i talk about this already?) with Hillary, we met up with the group in the Drawing Room to head to our Official UCD Welcome Lunch.

the colors in this pic are pretty distorted, but this is my roommate Hillary and I in the Drawing Room of the hotel.

Note: dark and ugly day seen out the window is depicted accurately.




Our Welcome Lunch was held at the oldest pub in Ireland! i had a bowl of tomato soup and brown bread, stuffed chicken covered in gravy with mashed and roasted potatoes and bread pudding with tea.










DE-licious meal. Thanks, University College Dublin, i feel very welcome :)

After lunch, we walked around and did a little bit of shopping. this was not the greatest activity because 1. the weather was bad (i think i mentioned the cold and rain) 2. it was saturday and the area/stores were PACKED 3. all of my cash is reserved for alcohol, travel and food - in that order (jk, mom&dad).

What's the best activity for a rainy day? the movies!!! a bunch of us went to see SATC2. it was a little too cheesy for me, but it was def pretty.

*Spoiler Alert* the definition of awkward? 5 American girls sitting in a theater of Irish women watching an American movie that plays extremely stereotypical Irish music every time an overly written 'Irish nanny' is on screen.

The best part of the movie experience (because i'm a Huge nerd) was that before the film, the theater played a PSA from the HSE (the organization that we're going to be doing a project for while we're here. Oh! and while we're on that subject, we found out that our topic is going to be HPV awareness. more details to come on Tues!

we finished the day with some Italian food, then went to bed early in preparation for GLENDALOUGH!!

Good/relaxing day :)