KT Ireland day one

Welp, Dublin is great. Right after getting out of the airport (where I watched 20 year old American cartoons while waiting for the rest of the students to arrive) I came to Trinity and then was sent out to explore the city. Trinity is beautiful -- and 200 years older than our country. There are grass tennis courts right outside my window, vines over all the buildings, no TVs or computers (except for the computer lab that I'm in right now). it's great. I had my first class this morning where we read Yeats and had discussion, seems that there is going to be a TON of writing (yikes!), so we'll see how that goes.
Dublin reminds me a lot of every place I've ever been combined. It's a big city which gives it a kind of New York feeling, but all the buildings are hundreds of years old -- reminding me of old town. There are some hilarious street performers too. Yesterday my friend Rob and I saw a group of people doing capoera -- the dancing martial arts and right down the street from them was a guy dancing with a life-size doll. We got lost about 500 times (no surprise there) but would only take out our maps on the side streets, refusing to look like tourists even though it's pretty obvious we're Americans. Even though it's a big city there seems to be a really strong sense of community, which is a lot different then back home.
The weather is cool and there was a huge soccer game here yesterday so EVERYONE we saw was wearing blue and white jerseys. Apparently they get pretty competitive over here about their soccer and rugby. Even though rugby is huge and thousands of people go to see the games, all the players play for free which is totally different than American sports. We're planning on going to see a game on Sunday, I believe.
I'm still feeling exhausted even though I got a lot of sleep last night, soooo I think it's about nappy time! I'm going to see the book of Kells tonight (maybe?), should be really cool to see something that I've studied a lot about in art history.