T minus 10 to Lift Off

I arrived super early to the airport to quell my nervousness of missing my plane. After weighing my bag, I realized I packed 5 pounds too much. After a quick repacking of my luggage into my carry on my bag was out of my hands and headed to the plane. The 6 hour flight wasn’t too bad due to a personal touch screen located on the seat in front of me. Who ever thought that a touch screen on the head rest of the person in front of you was a good idea, I would like to talk to. Not only did the plane have movies and TV shows but also video games. The kid sitting behind my neighbor was playing some sort of fast paced “jabbing” game that kept my neighbor awake the whole trip.

To a Land Far Far Away….

After flying over mundane Atlantic Ocean, seeing land was beautiful. We flew over the entire island before touching down in Dublin and I was able to see the fields and hills that dot the landscape. I arrived in Dublin bright and early at 7 AM…Tell that to my jet lagged brain. The plane was touching done as the sun was rising and all my body was telling me was that it was 2 AM. After passing through customs and immigration, my next hurtle was finding my bag and getting on the correct coach to Enfield. Luckily, I was able to find CityLink buses and get on. CityLink buses are the public transportation that links Dublin to Galway to Cork. Half way to Enfield I dozed off, and almost missed my stop.

Home, Sweet Cottage

Mary, my landlord, came to pick me up and gave the 10 minute tour of Enfield…. That’s sadly all it needed. It’s a small village that has a post office, a market, two banks, and two pubs. Town is about 4 km (~ miles) from Ballinakill House and Mews, my home for the month. The big house and property is beautiful. Mary is an amazing gardener and a fantastic cook. I am staying at the cottage on the property. The cottage has everything that I might need. Mary and Michael have been extremely hospitable and have invited me to eat dinner with the family for my stay.

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It’s off to work I go…

My first day at work was interesting. Due to the regulations in Europe about hoof and mouth disease, I was unable to actually go into the bull barn but I was able to view the bulls through the glass. Collections come from the barn through a hatch in the window to be processed in the lab. The lab I will be working is quite small but has just enough space for everyone. Robert is the lab manager and Eamon is the technician. I will be working alongside of them and hopefully not getting in their way. I now understand why they couldn’t accommodate two interns at the same time.

3-2-1-ULTIMATE!

Eamon invited me along to go to his ultimate training in Athboy. Ultimate is very new to Ireland and the team is learning everything from the start. It started to drizzle once we started to play and didn't stop. It was the first Irish rain since I've been here. It was a great time hanging out with ultimate players and a couple of new girls showed up for the first time. It was great watching them learn the game and having a good time. I tried to help with some of the rules but was having trouble with analogies because when I was taught we used: you have a pivot foot like basketball, you score in the end zone like football... the girls had no idea what I was talking about. I still had a great time and was able to swap my Brickhouse disk for an Irish Ultimate.