First Days

Yesterday was ROUGH! I was emotional, extremely tired, and homesick. I had a roommate swap before we even checked into our rooms that was unexpected and I had been up for a total of 30 hours. After some advil om and about 9 hours of sleep though today is better. We've been to so many 'site visits' today which are basically the educational part of this trip. We spent hours with the Irish Heart Foundation, Irish Family Planning Association, Irish Cancer Society, and finally at Trinity College with a professor in global health. It's raining and cold but I got a lot of shopping done yesterday so I don't feel bad about not going shopping today. The stores are amazing and there is sooooo much to choose from! It's insanely busy everywhere you go and there's always something cool happening. I am about to go eat again at the hotel across the street that we ate at yesterday. Since our dinners are prepaid there we only had two things to choose from for all three courses. Yesterday I got what I thought was potato soup but turned out to be green and super salty, I also got chicken with mashed potatoes and stuffing which was good and dessert was great so hopefully they will have good food again tonight. I went to the National Museum of Art in Ireland earlier today and it was nice but not a lot of the stuff was interesting so we left. I'm excited to get done with our site visits in a couple of days so that we can start the fun stuff! Friday is my last day in Dublin before we start traveling and we are going to spend it at Trinity College, shopping, and at the Guinness Factory and Bar! Tonight most of the group is going to the oldest pub in Dublin, the Brazen Head, which I'm super excited about because I haven't had my first Irish beer yet! Tomorrow we have more site visits and then some free time in the afternoon that I think I'm going to use for a boat tour of Dublin on the Liffy River that cuts it in half. I'll try to keep posting tomorrow! Love and miss you all!