Merry Ploughboy

Day three = complete.

Today was the best day yet. There was so much that happened and I felt better than the past two days. For some reason the past two days I have felt a strange weight on my shoulders, but after the adventures I had today, on my own, traveling through the city, that weight was lifted and I feel fine on my own in many ways.

I spent my morning helping Sara get to her placement interview. It was quite easy. While she was in her interview I sat in this adorable coffee shop below her office just reading my book, The Best of Me, by Nicholas Sparks. Already in love with it. I can't wait to continue to read it.

Later during the day, I had my interview with Gillian Reynolds. It was extremely casual. All we did was chat about what I will be doing, which is a lot of video editing. Mind you, I am not a T-Comm major but I am wide open to new experiences. The one thing I love about this placement so far is that all the castings will be in a different area around Dublin. That way, each day I work I will most likely be visiting a different side of town.

Gillian was great. She seems very laid back but will be depending on me. I hope I can learn fast so I can do the best work possible for her. Another thing she will want me to do is social media, which I have done for other businesses before. That will probably be the most comfortable thing during my internship.

The last thing we did today was go to a EUSA reception at the Merry Ploughboy Pub on the outskirts of Dublin. This place was fantastic. We were fed a three course meal and I enjoyed two more Irish beers. During our meal the Merry Ploughboys played Irish music and got the crowd involved. Along with the Ploughboys were some Irish dancers who were FANTASTIC! Reminded me of Riverdance, which I plan to see when they are here in Dublin. I can't wait to bring my family back to the Merry Ploughboy when they come to visit at the end of this adventure.

One thing I have come to in these past three days, that I want to start implementing in my life, is the way the Irish live. They are all about "being" part of things instead of "doing" things like us Americans. I want to spend my time here being part of the culture, absorbing everything possible that I can from this culture. I'd much rather take in the memory than be distracted by what I am doing. I can't wait to follow through with this for the rest of my time here and I sure hope that I can bring it back to the states, no matter what our culture is like. I want to learn to be more than do and live in the moment with the people around me.

Okay sorry for the sappy-ness. I LOVE IRELAND SO MUCH!

PS here is a photo from today with two of the members of the Ploughboys:

Finally have some time

I have been in Dublin for two full days now and am now just getting around to blogging. I wish I blogged the past few days but I was too busy catching up on sleep, getting to know other Americans or getting to know Dublin and its City Centre.

I am still pretty exhausted from the plane ride. I got to O'Hare at 3:30 p.m. for a 6:30 p.m. flight. I then had difficulty sleeping on the seven hour plane ride and landed in Ireland at 8 a.m. this time. Ireland is a six hour time difference. I then had to stay awake the rest of the day so I didn't mess up my sleep schedule the first day, that was rough. But the roughest part of my first day here in Dublin was... wait for it... finding out that they don't know what... wait for it... RANCH is! This was incredibly shocking and I will be honest, I almost cried. I put ranch on everything and now I have to go two months without it. WHAT WILL I DO?

Later Monday night we went out to a pub close to the apartment complex. Met up with some girls from KU and experienced my first real Guinness. It was delicious. I never thought I'd like such dark beer. I can't wait to drink more of it, aside from the part that it may have the most calories of any drink I will consume during this adventure.

Today was a good day as well. Started off with orientation. Which was very informative. I got to learn about what is expected of us and our internships as well as detailed directions to my office/interview tomorrow. I can't wait to see where I will be working for the next while. It will be in a movie casting agency called Gillian Reynolds. I am very excited because during my interview I actually get to interact with Gillian Reynolds herself. I was told she has a strong personality, like mine, and I hope that means we will get along well.

After orientation we went downtown Dublin to the City Centre and I fell in love. It is a beautiful city. I can't wait to spend more time down there. There are plenty of pubs and authentic stores. I just can't wait to explore it more. We didn't get to explore too much but we did get dinner at a pub off of the main street. I seem to have forgotten what it was called... whoops, but I do remember that the beer I drank there that is made by Guinness called, Smithwicks (pronounced like "smid-icks"). I may like it more than Guinness... am I allowed to say that? It's still an Irish beer.

Since dinner, I have just been getting ready for bed and showering. I need an early night for some sleep and also to wake up earlier tomorrow to help my girl, Sara, get to her interview by 10 a.m. Seeing that this was a long blog I am planning to talk more about the culture and what I have learned in the next one, which is hopefully tomorrow, because I wont have to include two days in one blog.

Oh by the way, this is my favorite picture of the day: