#IPEIreland

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Week 0: Ireland before the Program!

Hello, hello! It is Declan McGrath here checking in before my program officially starts at UCD in Dublin this Sunday. I am so incredibly excited to begin this program and meet all of the amazing people that are going to be in this program with me as well as other people from around the world and Ireland.

First, a little bit about myself. I am a first-year mechanical engineering undergraduate. I absolutely love to cook and try new foods, read, play videogames, take pictures on my Polaroid cameras (which I will most likely be sharing with you all throughout the program!), and just all around hang out! Up until this point, I have never actually left the United States so this trip is going to be an entirely new experience for me! From trying all the new and different foods to exploring a different culture to meeting new people it is all going to be brand new. The program I am a part of is the IPE: Big 10 STEM and Irish Studies in Dublin at University College Dublin. This program has me taking Physics 2 lecture and lab as well as a History of Modern Ireland course which both meet requirements for my major.

I actually arrived in Ireland two weeks before my program started and have been exploring Ireland a lot! My family has a lot of Irish roots and so when I got confirmation that I was accepted into the program my family almost immediately began planning a family trip there before the program started. We drove from Michigan across the border to Canada to catch a flight alllll the way to Dublin. We landed in Dublin at around 9 AM (incredibly jetlagged) but began to make the most of our time in Dublin by exploring the various pubs, restaurants, and stores throughout the city while also visiting some amazing national monuments and museums. We walked through the rain to the famous Temple Bar Pub in Dublin where I got some amazing Irish fish and chips! All of the food I have had in Dublin has been amazing actually. There are so many ice cream stores in every city and some even have something called “bubble waffle” which is essentially an extra sweet waffle with bubbles in it and coated in ice cream. And the soft serve ice cream they have here is absolutely amazing, probably better than the US’s (and that’s coming from a guy who used to work at a Dairy Queen!).

After a couple days in the city we took a trip out into the Irish countryside to a small AirBnB in Terryglass. We picked up a rental car and I helped navigate my dad out of the city and into the countryside. It was so weird sitting on the left side of the car and not being the one driving and even weirder to see all the cars driving on the opposite side of the road. That is honestly the biggest thing that I do not think I will ever get used to while abroad, so it is probably a very good thing that I will not be driving at all on this trip. While out in Terryglass my family and I made a trip out to Cashel Rock to see the final resting place of Miler McGrath, an ancestor of mine with way too many great’s in front of grandpa for me to type out. It was very cool to see this amazing fort and also learn some things about my heritage. I could keep going on about all these things I did before the program even starts but I don’t want to spoil Ireland for y’all before the program even starts!

I am really, really excited for the program to start and I have been thinking a lot about all of the things I want to do during this program. So much so that I made a list!

Get to know the people on the trip with me! There are a whole bunch of people that I have never met before that are going on this same journey and I want to take the time and get to know all of them. 

Travel! Travel between European countries is supposed to be really affordable and I want to take full advantage of the free time that this program has to offer by taking weekend trips with other program members.

Get some awesome photos with my Polaroids! I brought a lot of film with me on this trip and somehow managed to burn through almost all of it before the program began :’) so I want to buy some more film and continue to take photos of all the amazing sights Ireland has to offer.

Pass my classes! This trip is not just about having a blast in Europe, it is also an opportunity to learn a lot in subjects that I am genuinely interested in. I have always been interested in physics and (from what little I was able to glean from short museum trips) Irish history is fascinating.

I am slightly nervous about adapting to the fast-paced environment of Dublin. The city is always bustling with activity and it can be a little bit hectic but I am ready and excited to face it head on. Though I am also a little nervous about getting lost in the city. I have a habit of slightly getting sidetracked (especially when there are so many cool stores all around) while walking around but hopefully I can make some friends on the program that can help me get from A to B with as few side quests as possible. 

Thank you all so much for taking the time to read my blog post! I am so excited for this program to begin, travel to new places, and meet new people. Until next time!

~Declan McGrath

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Week 5: The Mega Long Weekend Post

Hello, hello! Strap in, this is gonna be a long one. When I last posted I was on my way to Cork for the weekend. It was a very very long and fun weekend.

We arrived in Cork and got off the train to take a look around. The day was pretty gloomy and overcast but the city was absolutely beautiful. We started off by kind of just walking around with no destination in mind until we got hungry. Luckily we ended up by the English Market and we learned exactly why Cork is called the “Food Capital of Ireland”. This market was packed with stalls selling some of the best smelling food I had ever had the pleasure of walking by. There were vendors selling all kinds of different foodstuffs, from potatoes to bell peppers. The group split up in the market and we reconvened outside when we all bought our individual meals. I ended up getting some spectacular sushi from a small stand right next to an even smaller cafe. It even came with a tiny soy sauce packet in the shape of a fish (which I may or may not have taken a couple extra of to bring back with me)!

After we finished our lunch we walked to Saint Fin Barre’s Cathedral. It was pretty close by and we had heard it was pretty beautiful so we decided to make a slight detour and check it out. It was unfortunately closed when we visited it but even the outside was breathtaking. It really was amazing. The cathedral was incredibly tall and every inch of it was covered by a detailed carving, stained glass window, and statues of saints and gargoyles. 

After this, my friend, Allie, begged the group to go to a museum. Not just any museum, mind you, a very specific museum. A museum dedicated entirely to one food: butter. Yes, this is a real place I am not kidding. The rest of us were kind of skeptical about visiting this monument to butter as we had a pretty limited amount of time in the city but we eventually caved to her pleading. We actually ended up having to run to the museum (up a giant hill, in fact) because there was a demonstration that was happening very soon. All the while I was just thinking to myself “this better be the coolest butter I will ever see in my life.” We arrived at the museum just minutes before the demonstration began, panting and sweaty from running through the city with bags carrying all of our belongings for the weekend. Honestly? It was worth it, which I did not expect at all. The demonstration was led by a very good presenter that was incredibly passionate about butter and made the whole thing incredibly interesting (way more interesting than you would think butter should be) and Allie actually got to help churn the butter!

After the demonstration finished up and we explored the museum a bit, the group split up. A couple of the group members went to go see the Blarney Castle to get the ‘gift of gab’ by hanging upside down off the top of the castle to kiss the famous Blarney Stone.

My friend, Kristina, and I, however, decided to hang back and explore Cork some more. We ended up going to three different bookstores throughout the city. My favorite of all the bookstores we visited was a two-part store called Vibes and Scribes. It was one part newly released books and one part donated, thrift books. Both Kristina and I ended up buying a couple books there. The only things that I have bought more of on this trip than books has been eggs and chocolate chips (I am desperately trying to use up all of this flour and sugar I bought to make pancakes so I keep just making more and more pancakes but there is just so much that I am fighting a losing battle here y’all). 

After our trip to the bookstores, Kristina and I trekked all the way out to Lough Wildlife Sanctuary to rest a bit. It has become kind of a tradition on all the trips that the group goes on to find a patch of grass and lay down in it and that’s exactly what we did. We did a little bit of reading of our new books and a lot of resting and people watching. It was very nice and peaceful and a very much needed and deserved break. 

Next, we headed back into Cork’s city center to meet back up with the rest of our group for some pizza. After we filled up our bellies with some pretty good pizza we decided to do even more walking! We walked all the way out to a place called Fitzgerald Park (passing the high school that Cillian Murphy apparently attended on our way there which was pretty cool). This park was so pretty. It had an amazing view of a river and a pond with a fountain in it. Our favorite part however was this awesome tree that all six of us were able to climb up into and relax for a bit. 

Eventually, we hopped down from the branches and began the journey back to the city center to catch a train to Killarney. The train ride was pretty smooth and we arrived in Killarney after night had fallen so we made a beeline straight to our hostel for the night and promptly collapsed into our beds after making a plan for the next morning as we would need a lot of sleep to get all the energy we’d need in the morning.

It sure would have been nice to get that sleep we needed! Fate decided to play a cruel little trick on us by putting us in a hostel room with quite possibly the loudest snorer in existence. Listen, I have fallen asleep on airplanes, buses, and trains and even during full on parties but everything pales in comparison to the sheer power of this guy’s snores. If there was a competition for loudest snoring of all time this guy would take first, second, and third place all for himself because none could compare. Have you ever been in the same room with your dad and he starts snoring really loud but you don’t want to wake him because you don’t want to be rude but at the same time you also don't want to hear him? Okay, now quadruple the volume of the snores and also your dad has been replaced with a stranger and you’ll have an idea of what we survived. I normally try to keep these blog updates nice and upbeat but my faith in humanity was shaken that night and I don’t think I will ever be the same. Sometimes when I’m alone in my dorm room trying to sleep I swear I can still hear this guy’s unconscious lawnmower impression echoing off the walls.

The next morning we were up bright and early, both due to the snoring and our plans to visit Killarney National Park. We got some food at a grocery store and then caught a taxi to the park. We started our journey at the Torc Waterfall. The waterfall was pretty close to where we started but it was up hundreds and hundreds of stairs. The trek was well worth it however. The entire forest was so incredibly green, every single inch covered in either leaf or moss. The waterfall itself was amazing too. We spent some time just relaxing next to the waterfall, listening to the crashing of the water pouring down nearby. We climbed higher up into the mountain the waterfall was on and found a higher part of the waterfall and spent some time climbing around there and enjoying the tranquility of it all. 

We started climbing back down the mountain and headed towards the nearby Muckross Lake. The lake was absolutely gorgeous. There was no wind and the sun was just now beginning to shine so the entire lake was like a mirror, completely flat. 

We hiked around the lake until we found a part of the lake that people were swimming in. We walked around a bit more and discovered an outcropping of rocks. After hanging out a bit more here we decided to dip our feet in the water and have our lunch here. A couple of us ended up going swimming. This time at those rocks has honestly been one of my favorite moments from this entire trip. The memory of just sitting there and relaxing with my friends is gonna last a lifetime. 

After we all dried off it was time for some more hiking. We next wanted to see Ross Castle which was a couple miles away and decided that we would also stop by the Muckross House. The House was this massive manor on the shore of the lake and was stunning. The house used to belong to some family before being donated to the Irish government, along with much of the surrounding area for them to to turn it into a national park. Weatherwise, this was one of the best days of the summer so there were a lot of people at the house, playing, relaxing, and taking in the views. 

The journey continued on. This was a very long stretch of hiking and it was pretty exhausting. We kept ourselves entertained by just chatting about our experiences and taking jabs at each other’s respective universities. Being with such a fun group of people made the expedition a lot shorter than it was. Don’t get me wrong though, it was still a long hike and we were all running out of steam by the time we got to Ross Castle. 

Ross Castle sits on Lough Leane. Lough Leane translates to “Lake of Learning”. It is known as such because there used to be a monastery in the middle of the lake that the locals would send their children to learn how to read and write. The castle itself was pretty cool as well with really old stoneworking and even cannons. The thing that interested me the most after our hike however was the ice cream store. Immediately after arriving at the castle and spotting it I walked over, got myself an ice cream cone, and laid down in a patch of grass with my friends. 

The walking wasn’t done yet either! Next we headed to the Killarney National Park Visitor Center. The visitor center was very cool and had a lot about the park’s history but by this point I was more interested in whether or not the various exhibits had benches in them rather than what they could teach me. 

And now… our final stretch of walking for the day, back into town. We made our way back into Killarney proper and got some burgers and fries for dinner. We then stopped into some gift shops to get some souvenirs. I ended up getting an iron-on patch for my jacket (I have started collecting patches of places that I have visited with this jacket so far and I am excited to see my collection grow).  After all that it was finally time to catch our train back to Dublin. In the past two days we had walked nearly 25 miles so four hours of doing nothing but sitting on a train was amazing.

Okay that was a lot. This is already my longest post I have ever made and I have only covered two days of the week so far so I’m gonna speed through the next couple days. Just every weekday pretend that I talk a bit about my classes and how much I am finding them tough yet very enjoyable! 

Monday! We actually decided that the best thing to do after walking over 20 miles for two days was to follow it up with some more walking! We paid a visit to Killiney Hill Park. There were some absolutely beautiful views of the ocean from on top of the hills and we had some fun hanging out in fields and exploring. 

After our exploration was finished we met up with some other members of our program at the Vico Baths. This popular swimming spot is in fact not relaxing warm baths but is instead a point where you jump from rocks into the freezing Irish Sea. It was a very long line down to the spot and as I was waiting for my turn I got to watch as multiple people were pushed up against the rocks as they struggled to get out of the water, coming away with bloody knees and hands (one girl even thought she broke her foot). At this point I had already been waiting 20 minutes in nothing but my swim trunks so I was committed to going in. Finally it was my turn, I took a deep breath and lept into the water. It was freezing (as expected from my experience at 40 Foot). A couple of my friends joined in the water (taking their sweet time to jump in in my opinion). We bobbed in the water for a couple minutes, acclimating to the chill while enjoying the slow rocking of the massive waves. After about 15-20 ish minutes I decided it was time to get out and began making my way to the spot I had jumped in from. See, the reason so many people were coming out of the water all bloody and battered was because there isn’t exactly a “ladder” or “easy way” to get out of the water. There’s more just some stairs roughly hewn into the stone and a railing. You kind of just have to catch a high wave, hope you manage to grab onto the railing, and then scramble up the slippery stairs before another wave bashes into you all while your entire body is numb from the cold. I managed to catch a pretty good wave and make it up onto somewhat-dry land with only a bloody knee after getting hit by one wave. My friend Brennen, however, was not as lucky. He managed to grab the rail on his first try but couldn’t get his footing on the stairs and was slammed against them about 5 or 6 times while I tried to help him up. He was fine… only a few cuts and scrapes here and there but it was fineeeee. Yeah… don’t recommend the Vico Baths unless you’re pretty confident in your swimming abilities or know that the waters will be pretty calm.

Okay that was not a short update either let’s try that again. Tuesday! The program took us all on a field trip to see Croke Park, an incredibly important spot for Gaelic sports. It is where many Gaelic sports such as hurling and Gaelic football take place. It also has a fairly bloody history due to an event known as Bloody Sunday in 1920. It took place during the Irish Civil War and saw more than 30 people killed or fatally wounded as British “Black and Tans” (British members of the RIC) fired into the crowd and onto the field. It was interesting to see the place where so many people visit to watch athletes achieve great triumph be also such a place of great tragedy.

Wednesday! My friend group and I decided to have a “PowerPoint Night” where we all took turns presenting a fake PowerPoint to the group. The topics of presentation ranged from random quotes we have all said throughout the trip taken out of context to what we thought each other's strengths and weaknesses were. The night was an absolute blast.

Thursday! This day was pretty slow for me because I had an actual PowerPoint presentation for class worth 30% of my grade to work on. Despite literally being the last person to present in the entire program I still managed to wait until the last minute to start working on the presentation. That meant that while all my friends went to karaoke at the UCD Student Bar, I was cooped up in my dorm researching the Good Friday Agreement.

Friday! I did my presentation and it went pretty well! I think I did a fairly good job talking about “What was the Good Friday Agreement and how did it lead to lasting peace in Northern Ireland?”. The rest of the day was pretty relaxing which was incredibly needed after that entire week. The week was so busy that it still hasn’t really hit me that that was my last day of class for this program. All we have left now is a week off to study and then the final exams. It is crazy that everything is all coming to a close now.

Saturday! My group took a trip into Dublin city and got promptly rained on the entire time we were there! We had originally planned on meeting up with the Australians we had met a couple of weeks ago but those plans fell through. It was a pretty fun day though and we headed back to our apartments to make lunch. We ended up all making lunch together which was a breakfast-for-lunch kind of thing. I made more pancakes (I am stuck in an infinite loop of just making more and more pancakes until I can get rid of all this flour and sugar), Allie made bacon, my friend, Lee, made scrambled eggs, and my other friend, Pearl, supervised mostly. The food was all really good and it was made even better by sharing it with my friends. We then spent the rest of the day hanging out and playing card games.

Sunday! Today has been pretty lazy. I have just been hanging out, reading, and writing this MASSIVE BLOG POST (seriously it’s like 3000 words long now, is anyone still here??). Only got two more weeks left, but that means I will still keep y’all posted for a little while longer. Until next time!

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Week8: Post Dublin Reflection

Hello, hello! Declan McGrath is back for one final time to give you one final post. As the program is now over this is going to be a reflection and overview of the Big 10 STEM Physics and Irish History Program at UCD Dublin. 

Welp, it’s over now. I am back in the United States of America and I am struggling to put into words how I feel. I definitely miss Ireland and all the friends that I made there. I had such a great time in Europe and it has been a process readjusting to America. Back in Ireland there was so much to see and do all the time and now I am back in Michigan where the things to do at the nearest city are go to the movie theater or go to the other movie theater five minutes away. That being said, it is also nice to be home. I have really missed all of my hometown friends and it has been really nice catching up with them all again. If I hadn’t caught a cold right when I got to Dublin airport to leave I would have immediately hung out with as many of my friends as possible when I got back to the US.

Enough sappiness (I am lying, this whole post is going to be sappy), I should tell you all what takeaways I have for this whole program. This program was life changing. Until I was leaving for Ireland I had never left the United States before. Now I have been to Canada, Ireland, Britain, Italy, and France! I met so many cool people from both America and all over Europe. The classes I took here were also very interesting and are helping put me ahead in my studies as they met a bunch of the requirements for my mechanical engineering major. The history and physics II courses I took could be a bit fast-paced (we did only have seven weeks after all) at times but it was never completely overwhelming. I felt that all the professors did an amazing job covering a large amount of content in a short period of time. Despite the time constraints the program also allowed us for a lot of time for field trips, both educational and recreational. For educational trips we did things like visiting Croke Park and Kilmainham Gaol and for recreational trips we visited the 40 Foot and Vico Baths. 

The study week before our final exams was one of the best weeks of my life. My friends and I took advantage of the free time and took a trip to Paris and Pisa, had an absolute blast, and made it back to UCD just in time to cram in some sleep before our first final. We had so much fun seeing as many sights as humanly possible while getting a tiny amount of sleep. We saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa, countless beautiful churches, American Beach, the Palace of Versailles, the Eiffel Tower, the Catacombs, and so much more! 

One thing that I am really going to miss from Europe is its aesthetics. Almost every street corner and alley had something unique about it, whether it was beautiful railings or sculptures or unique designs almost no wall was ever left bare. Heck, even their water fountains were extravagant! This has kind of left me feeling kind of dulled in America. Everything here seems to always be trying to maximize its efficiency which leads to most buildings being in competition with each other to see which one can be the most dull gray concrete building. In Dublin, Pisa, and Paris I found myself just taking pictures of random alleyways in buildings because it was all unlike anything I’d seen back home. 

Despite how much I am missing the sights, experiences, and all of my friends I made in Europe, I will stay strong! There are a couple more weeks of summer left and I am going to enjoy them as much as I can! I still have a lot of catching up to do with all my friends back home and I need to start preparing to move back into Ann Arbor for when my second year of college starts. 

Thank you all so much for reading my silly little blog posts I made every week. It has been a pleasure writing for the University of Michigan and I am so thankful that I had this opportunity. I know years from now I’ll look back on these blog posts and remember all the good times I had! 

Thank you all, 

Declan McGrath 

Mechanical Engineering

Big 10 STEM Physics and Irish History Program at UCD Dublin

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Week 7: Finals and Final Week in Dublin

Hello, hello! Declan McGrath is back to tell you all what has happened in the final week of the Big 10 STEM Physics and Irish History Program at UCD Dublin. Oh man this is gonna be a tough one to write. As I begin to write this post I am currently sitting alone in my dorm listening to sad songs and reminiscing about everything that has happened in these last few weeks. Most of the people I have been hanging out with during this entire trip are on their flights home right now and the rest are packing. However! I still gotta finish telling you all about my Pisa and Paris trip. 

When I last left off on this blog I was completely exhausted and boarding a flight to go to France. The flight was fairly uneventful, we got up pretty early so we pretty much all slept on the plane to make up for it. When we finally landed in France we were struggling pretty much immediately. See, Italy was a lot more English-speaker friendly; most signs were in Italian and English and a lot of times we were greeted in English. France had no such luxuries. We wandered around the airport trying to find where we could get a taxi to the train station after failing to call an Uber. Eventually, we managed to find one who almost immediately took a detour back to, what we assume to be, his house to help his wife get out of their driveway. He left us in the taxi with the meter still running while he helped her. He honestly must have just picked us out as easy marks to make some extra money while helping his wife because we did end up paying for that entire thing.

We did make it to the train station in time to catch our train to Paris, despite this detour. The train ride was over an hour long. Did I use this time wisely to study for my two upcoming final exams? Nope! I read a book and looked at the views from the window :)

We hopped off our original train to catch a different train for our first stop of our Paris trip: Musée d’Orsay. This museum was absolutely full of the most beautiful art I have ever seen in my life. There were paintings with more detail than you could ever dream of someone fitting on a single canvas, giant statues that towered over us, and metalworks that shone brightly. We spent hours here, just wandering from room to room, admiring all of the gorgeous artworks.

One of the most famous things housed here were collections of Vincent van Gogh’s and Claude Monet’s paintings. These works were stunning. It was incredible to see these original works of art that have inspired and entranced so many people for over a century now.

After a while, the exhaustion from the past three days of travel wore me down and I took a seat in a room with some nice paintings to look at as I recuperated. There was one painting of these beautiful ice glaciers with the most amazing deep blues that I really liked. As I was admiring this painting I noticed from the corner of my eye that someone had started drawing me. I thought that being chosen to be the subject of someone’s artwork while being surrounded by literally some of the most amazing art to have been created was a once in a lifetime opportunity so I sat and posed stoically for a while, admiring the art around me while moving as little as possible. No words were exchanged between the two of us, just a silent agreement made. After a short time the artist came over and showed me the final product and I was astounded. I really love this drawing.

We talked for a little after that before we had to part ways and it was onto my group’s next destination. Unfortunately, we did have enough time in the day to visit and enjoy all the places we wanted to visit so a couple of our trips were just cursory viewings of the outside of spots. One such place was the Louvre. When we arrived at the museum it was just about to close for the night so we only took a couple pictures outside the famous glass pyramid before moving on.

The next spot we visited was the Arc de Triomphe. This massive arch was covered in beautiful carvings that awed us all. 

Our next stop was our hostel finally. We had been on our feet pretty much all day and were dead tired and we promptly collapsed into our beds.

The next morning we slept in for a good long while, which was absolutely necessary. This was the first morning we had really gotten a decent amount of sleep and we sorely needed it. When we finally did manage to peel ourselves away from our warm, comfy sheets we headed to a bakery called Le Pain Au Naturel. This bakery had a life-changing chocolate and almond croissant. I don’t think I can properly put into words how amazing this croissant was. I was nigh moved to tears by its flavors.

After that revolutionary experience we headed to the Paris Catacombs. We descended these spiral stairs that seemed to go on and on forever. Every time I thought we had reached the bottom there would be more stairs waiting for me like some kind of twisted human-sized hamster wheel. Eventually, we made it to the bottom and began to make our way through the claustrophobic tunnels. It was about this time that I began to be very thankful that we had another private hostel room and were able to leave our backpacks behind as the tunnels kept getting narrower and narrower and shorter and shorter. There were multiple times that I had to duck down to avoid hitting my head on some protruding rock. As we traveled down the tunnels, our footsteps echoing down the winding corridors, water dripped onto our heads and I began to realize how truly far underground we were. There was absolutely no signal down here and could be incredibly dark in some places.

After marching through the tunnels for about 20 minutes we finally reached the entrance to the Catacombs, marked by the passage “ARRETE! C’EST ICI L’EMPIRE DE LA MORT” (Halt! This is the empire of the dead). We stepped through the threshold and were instantly enclosed with death. Every single wall was hidden behind stacks of femurs, ribs, and dozens upon dozens of skulls. It is pretty hard to describe the feeling of being surrounded by so much demise so far underground but it was unique. It wasn’t scary per se. I knew this area was incredibly well mapped out and there was no real danger of getting lost or trapped but it was still very off-putting.

In addition to bones, there were also quotes on the wall in both Latin and French. It was about this time that I really started wishing I had paid more attention to my Latin classes in high school but there was no changing that now (and certainly no Google translating this far underground now). I wish I could show you all some photos from the Catacombs but I have no idea what tumblr’s policy on showing pictures of dead people is and I’d rather not get my post taken down.

Eventually we ascended the stairs and were greeted by light. Not sunlight, mind you, the fluorescent lights of the gift shop. There was some pretty cool stuff there and I bought about $40 worth of iron-on patches for my jacket. In addition to this little shopping spree we also lightened the somber mood by going back to Le Pain Au Naturel for another amazing croissant. 

We next went to a park called the Luxembourg Garden. The park was filled with amazing statues and flower beds.

Near the gardens there was also a large house with a fountain out in the front. The fountain was full of small sailboats with various country’s flags on them. The boats could be rented from a nearby stand along with a short pole that was used to upright the boats if they got stuck on the wall.

Finally we decided to go get some traditional French crepes. We found a place called the “La Crepe Rit Du Clown”. True to its name, the creperie was filled with creepy clown statues. Why did they choose this as their theme for the restaurant? I will never know. But the crepes were amazing! I ordered a crepe with chocolate sauce, whipped cream, toasted almonds, and a fried pear. Because I had literally eaten nothing but sugary foods for the entire day, I split my crepe with my friend Brennen in exchange for half of his ham and egg crepe. Both of the crepes were absolutely phenomenal. The clowns could have come alive like some kind of messed up haunted house for all I cared as long as I got to finish my crepes.

Then we were back on the train heading to the Palace of Versailles. The Palace was absolutely beautiful. It shone with gold roofs and fences and was decorated to the nines. We took a tour of the inside seeing all of the amazing paintings and sculptures and history housed within its immense walls. As a Greek mythology nerd, I absolutely loved all of the rooms in the Palace that were themed around specific Greek gods.

We hopped back on a train and headed back to the hostel for a little bit for some rest as one of our friends had to do some work for her job. By this time the sun had set but we still had one more place we had to visit before the night was over. We hopped back on the train once again (we spent so much money on train tickets, I really wish they had a day pass or something like that) to see the monument that we had seen multiple times passing in the distance. Finally, we emerged from the subway tunnels and saw it, all lit up in all its glory: the Eiffel Tower.

The massive tower loomed over us (thank you thesaurus.com for that synonym of “towered”). The immense metal pillar was decorated with shining lights and decorated for the Olympic games. We took some pictures underneath the tower and then found a seat underneath the tower where we could watch the light show. We managed to arrive just in time to watch the 11:00 PM show and it was really cool! The whole thing had already been glowing but now it was twinkling (oooh… aaaaah).

The next morning was our last day in Paris so that meant it was time for a lot of walking to see as many sights as we could. We started off by walking to Sainte Chapelle. Sainte Chapelle was a chapel with some of the most beautiful stained glass windows I have ever seen in my entire life. The sun streamed through the windows, lighting up the room in a kaleidoscope of bright colors. The windows also depicted various scenes from the Old Testament of the Bible which were pretty cool to see and try to figure out which scenes I could recognize.

Next up was Notre Dame. We only had a passing glance at this historic cathedral as it was still undergoing reconstruction due to the fire a couple years ago (holy cow that was 2019 that is wild, I feel old now). It was still pretty cool to see even if it was surrounded by cranes and such.

You want to know what’s really cool after seeing two churches? A third church. Specifically, we visited Basilique du Sacré Coeur which was up a very very steep, tall hill which was devastating for our tired legs and feet. The trek was well worth it as at the top we were greeted with a panoramic view of a large portion of the city. The basilica itself was pretty amazing too with incredibly detailed paintings and sculptures inside. 

Sacré Coeur was the last sightseeing spot we went to as we now had a train to catch. On our way Allie fulfilled her lifelong goal of buying and eating a baguette in France.

It was about when we got on the train that I realized I should probably start studying for my final exams as our first one was the next day and I was in an entirely different country with only a couple hastily made notes. I spent the train ride to the airport reading the course’s history book and taking notes. I had not actually brought my own book on this trip and was borrowing Allie’s so I really had to finish my notes before the train ride ended which I mostly did (sans some minor details like specific dates, proper spelling, and important figures). 

We made it to the airport unscathed but the same could not be said for our flight to Dublin. In the last few minutes of the flight I rubbed my itching nose which for some reason signaled my nose that now was a perfect time to start gushing blood. My nose was of course wrong (really the only proper time to get a nosebleed is when you’re performing really intense telekinesis) and I had no tissues to stop the bleeding. I did however have my history notebook! I managed to tear a blank page out of the notebook and use it momentarily to stop the bleeding. I would like to point out that even though we were flying at night and the cabin was dark I was able to accomplish all of this without bleeding on anyone else and managing to only lightly smear the notes I had taken on the train with blood. When the plane finally landed I stumbled off the plane with a pocket full of bloody notebook paper and a face that looked like a vampire who only sort of knew what he was doing.

We rushed through Dublin customs (my face covered in drying blood and my nose still leaking, though now staunched with a tissue) and managed to show up to the bus stop five minutes after our bus back to UCD had already left. It was midnight at this point and the next bus wouldn’t be coming for another hour and our first final exam was in about 10 hours. That meant it was time for more studying at the bus stop, for everyone else that is. I was kind of loopy from slight blood loss and exhaustion so I spent the next hour just kind of wandering around and talking to people after I found a bathroom to clean myself in. Our bus finally arrived at five minutes to 1 and we managed to make it back to UCD at 2 AM, 8 hours before our final exam. 

You know? It probably wasn’t the smartest idea to have our flight land the same day as our final exam but in our defense the earlier flight was about $100 more expensive so I would say that it was a pretty smart financial decision but maybe not the brightest academic decision. I managed to get some more studying in on the bus ride back and did really well on the exam! We had been given six topics beforehand for this history exam and were told to study two which made things pretty easy. I managed to succinctly answer the two questions in two four page essays. 

At this point it was Tuesday, I was exhausted from traveling and I still had a physics exam to study for for the next day so I did the most reasonable thing I could think of. I took a nap. I tried, I really did, to study for the exam before napping but my brain was mush. I awoke from my nap and then spent the rest of the day studying for the exam.

The physics exam went pretty well as well! I had managed to cover most of the exam material before collapsing into my bed at midnight and I walked out of the exam confident I had done well and passed the class (though at this point I physically could not have failed the class as I needed negative points on it to fail but hey I am nothing if not an overachiever). 

That meant that we were done with all the coursework for the program and still had three more days left in the program before we got kicked out of our housing. It was time to have some more fun. After another quick power nap and dinner to get our energy back we headed to the UCD Student Bar for trivia night. Almost every single week we had tried and failed to win trivia night and this time… was no different. It wasn’t even close, we lost so bad y’all. 

However! The time had finally come for me to finally rid myself of the curse of the pancakes (for those tuning into this blog for the first time, hi, I promise I am a normal human being I just bought a lot of flour to make pancakes one time and have been desperately trying to not waste food so I just keep making pancakes over and over again). I had enough flour for 3.5 batches of pancakes and enough hungry college students to eat that much. I made chocolate pancakes, mixed berry pancakes, chocolate chip and mixed berry pancakes, marshmallow pancakes,  and chocolate chip and marshmallow pancakes. My friends also made scrambled eggs and bacon. It was a veritable feast and was also one of my favorite nights on the entire trip. We devoured the pancakes, played some games, and just talked.

The next morning was the first day of the end of the program without any classes or exams so we all slept in pretty late. It was Thursday and as most people were leaving Friday morning that meant a good portion of the day was spent packing after a farewell event organized by UCD. Once everyone was finished with their packing we played a game of Jeopardy that Brennen had put together with categories based around things that happened during the program. It was a really fun time.

After we finished Jeopardy we went back to my apartment one last time to end the night in the same way we ended most nights, a game of cards. It was a sweet, melancholic ending to the program as a whole. We had all become such close friends over these past seven weeks and none of us really wanted it to end but at the same time we were all missing home something fierce. As one last thing we all began signing posters that we had all gotten at the farewell event and suddenly more and more people began showing up in my apartment. The apartment I lived in was on the ground floor so as people walked by they could see in and see us hanging out and saying goodbye and just decided to join in. By the end, our posters were absolutely covered in signatures and the night slowly came to a close as one by one people shuffled out of the apartment and back to their own to sleep. 

The next morning pretty much everyone was gone. There had been a slight miscommunication between UMich and the other schools as Michigan told us our housing a day later than all the other universities told their students so there were only about seven people from the nearly 70 original people of the program left on campus, myself included. It was pretty weird walking to the dining hall for our last meals and seeing it almost completely empty. I spent most of the rest of the day packing and getting ready for my flight back home that day. I wanted to have like a really sentimental moment where I watched the last sunset I might ever see in Ireland but Irish weather decided “nah, it’s gonna be cloudy all day” so I kind of just wandered around campus at 9 PM, looking at all the sights I had become so used to seeing for the past weeks. I wrote a little of this blog and then went to sleep.

The journey home went off without a hitch. There was no catastrophic nosebleed this time and I managed to get some shuteye (despite the crying child in the seat in front of me). I landed in Canada where I met my dad and we began the drive back home to Michigan.

Well, I guess that’s it. This post is nearly 4000 words long and I have reached tumblr's limit for photos I can include in one post. I honestly do not know how to end this blog post. I am laying in my bed at home, I’ve got my dog next to me as well as a box of tissues (I am not crying I just got sick pretty much immediately after landing and have a horrible stuffy nose). Don’t fret though dear readers! I still have one more blog post to write next week as a post-trip reflection but until then, I’ll see you around.

Declan McGrath 

Mechanical Engineering

Big 10 STEM Physics and Irish History Program at UCD Dublin

[umichenginabroad]

Week 6: UCD Study Week!

Hello, hello! Declan McGrath is back to update you all on what has happened the “study” week of the UCD Summer Physics. 

Last week had been the last full week of classes and this week was intended to give all the students a chance to relax, refresh their minds, and prepare for the final exams. My friend group decided that instead we’re going to travel to Italy and France. Soooo… not exactly “studying” or “relaxing” but it’s fine I’m sure. 

However, we started the week off with some final program events. On Monday we took a trip to Glasnevin Cemetery. This was one of the very first Catholic cemeteries established near Dublin. Previously, Catholics were simply unable to receive burial rites relating to their faith so you can imagine that once an actual Catholic cemetery opened up in the area it quickly became incredibly popular for the predominantly Catholic island. The cemetery currently holds approximately 1.5 million people (which far outnumbers the 544,000 living in Dublin right now), including some of Ireland’s most famous residents such as Eamon de Valera, the country’s first president. The cemetery is absolutely packed, every square inch is taken up by some form of burial, whether that be tombstone, flagstone, or giant tower right by the center. The cemetery has also been somewhat of a stage for Irish rebellion. One of the most popular politicians (and also a spymaster for the Irish during the Easter Rising), Michael Collins, was buried here after being shot during an ambush. His funeral was estimated to have been attended by 500,000 people and inspired more people to join the Irish cause.

The rest of the night was spent hanging out in apartment with friends and playing cards. 

Tuesday was our final review session for physics. The instructors gave us a quick overview of everything we covered in the program and gave us the six questions we will choose two from for the final exam. After the review we met back up in my dorm for some studying. We did not get too much studying done and were soon just hanging out and playing cards. I once again made pancakes for everyone (I can’t stop, I really want to get rid of this flour and sugar but at this point I’ve spent more money on milk and eggs trying to get rid of the flour and sugar than I did on the flour and sugar in the first place). 

Wednesday was our final review session for our physics exam. We were given some old exams and got to work. After the exam prep we had some lunch, packed our bags, scarfed down some dinner, and headed to the airport. Today was our first day of our Study Week World Tour! (I say world tour but it is literally just Italy and France but that’s not as fun to say.) We got into Pisa, Italy late at night and walked from the airport to our hostel for the night. It was a pretty cool experience to just be able to walk directly from the airport to our hostel, normally we’d have to drive or catch a train to get out of the airport but the Pisa airport is kind of integrated into the city. We checked into our hostel and got into our own *private* room. It had actually been cheaper to get a private room for the six of us (Me, Allie, Timothy, Brennan, Pearl, and Lee) than sharing a room. That means no subwoofer snoring for us this time! 

Thursday was our first real day in Italy after getting in last night at midnight and also the Fourth of July. We celebrated by sleeping  in pretty late to catch up on all the sleep we lost and woke up to the sunrise. Being in Pisa we obviously had to start our journeys at the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We walked from our hostel all the way to the square and were amazed. The Tower was absolutely amazing as well as the cathedral, baptistery, and museums. 

We first did the touristy photos of pretending to push over/hold up the tower and then looked into the cathedral and baptistery. Everything was so beautiful, the baptistery was full of amazing architecture and the cathedral was covered in amazing frescoes and paintings.

After that we took a break for lunch and got some amazing pasta from a local place. The atmosphere was so nice, the food was amazing, and the people working there were so friendly. 

We then returned to the square to look at the museums. They were all filled with amazing artworks and awesome historical artifacts. 

We finished the night off with some amazing pizza from another local spot. The food was all really cheap for how amazing it was.

The next morning we decided to actually celebrate the Fourth by heading to a beach called American Beach. The beach was absolutely lovely and the sun was shining brightly. We had bought some SPF 50 sunscreen before heading to the beach but it definitely did not have enough S’s, P’s, or F’s in it. We all had some pretty intense sunburns and I’m pretty sure the rest of the photos from this trip you’ll notice we are all pretty red. We ended the night pretty early because we had to be up early in the morning for our flight to Paris.

The next morning we were up once again at the crack of dawn to head to the airport. This was another situation where it was incredibly nice to be able to walk to the airport because we were able to plan directly around when we wanted to catch our plan. 

I think that I am going to end the blog post here this week. I am pretty tired and feel like if I use a word with more that three syllables in it my brain is gonna melt (and then there wouldn’t be *any* new blog posts) and I want to do this trip justice when I actually have the brain power to include details in a post. I  will catch you all next week! Wish me luck on my finals! (I am actually posting this Tuesday, after my first final because tumblr literally would not let me upload the post while I was traveling and trying to use my phone)

Declan McGrath

Mechanical Engineering

BIG 10 STEM: Physics and Irish History UCD Dublin

[umichenginabroad]

Week 4: Belfast and Beyond!

Hello, hello! I am back to tell you all about this past week in Ireland! When I last posted I was getting ready for a class trip to Belfast on Saturday. A lot has been happening since then, so sit back, relax, grab some blankets, and let me tell you all about it.

Newsflash! Waking up at 6 AM sucks no matter how early you try to go to bed. I met up with my group of friends at the bus stop a couple minutes before our bus was scheduled to leave and just as we were doing roll call for the trip I realized I left something very important behind in my dorm: my passport! You know? The thing that allows you to travel between countries? Such as Ireland and the UK (which Belfast is a part of). So yeah, I had to sprint back to my dorm (along with a couple other people, which made me a little bit less embarrassed) to grab my passport. After obtaining my passport and scrambling onto the bus, we were off! And I was soon asleep! I have gotten really good at sleeping on buses this trip. 

We finally crossed over into Northern Ireland. The way that I noticed this was by my cell service provider texting me to update me on the data plan I would be using in the UK. There was no checkpoint to cross in, there was no gate, there wasn’t even a sign to say “Hey! Welcome to Northern Ireland!”. Just a text from my provider and a change in road signs. Which means, I didn’t even need my passport! Apparently, they only do like random checks every now and then but this was obviously not one of those times. After a bit more driving we finally arrived in Belfast.

It was really interesting to be in this city after spending hours in lecture learning about the divide between Northern Ireland and Ireland. We picked a local tour guide to show us around the city who almost immediately informed us that “it should be safe to step off the bus, but keep in mind that Belfast is a very… divisive place.” With that (not at all ominous warning) we started our tour. We started our tour off at some of the Peace Walls. The Peace Walls were built to divide predominantly Catholic nationalist neighborhoods from predominantly Protestant unionist neighborhoods. These walls are absolutely covered in graffiti and it is customary for people to sign their names on the walls when they pass by.

We also visited the Clonard Martyr Memorial Gardens. This memorial commemorates civilians that were killed during conflicts with British forces and loyalists on the 15th of August 1969 when loyalist forces invaded Catholic neighborhoods and burned down around 150 Catholic homes. This tragic event really shows Belfast’s tumultuous history.

We ended our tour in the Belfast City Center just outside the Belfast City Hall. We were then released onto the streets of Belfast to kind of do our own thing for a couple of hours. My friend group and I started off with some lunch at a place called Maggie Mays, which had some amazing burgers and one of the best milkshakes I have ever had. After lunch we headed to the Victoria Square Shopping Center. We browsed around for a little bit before heading up this giant spiral staircase to a viewing dome at the top that overlooked the city. Even though it was a pretty cloudy day it was amazing to see so much of the city from up high!

After a bit more browsing in the mall, we headed back to City Hall to jump back on the bus. Our next stop was the Ulster Museum. This museum had so much natural history and art in it! Some of the art in here was absolutely breathtaking. My favorite of the bunch is a painting by Jack Butler Yeats called On Through Silent Lands (named after the poem Remember by Christina Rossetti). It shows a brightly colored, somewhat abstract, man walking through a psychedelic landscape made up of wild brushstrokes. 

There were also some pretty cool skeletons throughout the museum like this skeleton of a giant moose!

This was our last stop on the school trip. A few of my friends ended up staying in Belfast for the weekend so we said goodbye to them and then it was back on the bus (which meant more sleep for me!). My group decided that once we got back into Dublin we would have a night out on the town! We got back to UCD, dropped off our bags, ate dinner, and got ready (slight side tangent here but doing that little list just reminded me of something: I have noticed that so many people here do not use the Oxford comma which is absolutely wild to me. Like it just makes so much sense to use it, why would you not?? This has honestly been the biggest culture shock to me out of everything). We all met up beforehand and did a little photoshoot which is how we ended up with this, not at all creepy, photo of me.

We had a blast! The city was beautiful at night and we had so much fun! We also ended up meeting and becoming friends with some Australians around our age who are in Dublin as part of an international internship program. They were super cool and nice and we might hang out with them some more later down the line!

We were out pretty late Saturday night so Sunday was a rest day for us. Which was pretty convenient cause Monday we had our first (and only) physics midterm. I made some absolutely amazing ramen with salmon and then got to studying. This midterm was only worth 10% of our grade and I was not too worried about it. It was an open note exam so I ended up making some amazing formula sheets that I am very proud of. The midterm was not too hard but was pretty draining so Monday was a pretty chill day for us as we spent most of the night just playing cards.

Tuesday was another story. We had more lectures in the morning and things have started to get a bit more complicated in physics but that’s alright. In the afternoon we had a class field trip to Dublin Castle. My group had already visited the castle on our own but we had not really gotten an official tour as we were just kind of wandering around. We got to get a history of the castle as a whole, from its founding all the way to its recent history as the site for many formal dinners and events. We even got to see some of the actual foundations of the castle!

After the tour was over we split off from the group to go buy groceries. There was a cool grocery store called Lidl that had ruins covered by glass that you could walk over. I ended up buying some materials so I could make pancakes (which I have never tried making before but don’t worry about that). 

We got back to our dorms just in time for dinner. After dinner we decided to start planning. The group had been talking about doing one final big trip during the week we get off before finals and we figured if we wanted for it to actually happen we needed to start planning. We all crowded into my dorm’s kitchen with our laptops and started looking for trips we could take on a reasonable budget. As per usual I was pretty useless when it came to planning this stuff out which is why I bought the materials to buy pancakes! I think providing chocolate chip pancakes for plans is a pretty even trade. I had never made pancakes before and also did not have any measuring cups so I and one other friend were kind of just eyeballing it. The pancakes came out a bit… chunky but otherwise tasted good! They could have definitely used a bit more milk but you live and you learn. We ended up coming up with a trip to Cork (which I am currently on right now!) and two different trips that we could only do one of. 

Wednesday we decided we needed to get basic outlines of the two undecided trips and present them to the group. So after lectures had finished up for the day the two main proponents behind the trips made PowerPoint presentations to try and persuade us that their trip was better. Both trips had the same timeframe of Friday to Monday. The first trip (The Allie Adventure) would start in Pisa and end in Paris and would cost about $350, while the second trip (Tim Trip) would take us from Vienna to Slovakia and be about $300. Both trips seemed absolutely amazing and it was too hard to decide immediately so we thought it’d be best to think it over for a day or two before voting. 

We also had one more presentation from my friend Jackie. We have been going to pretty much every trivia night every Wednesday since the program started and we haven’t won once, falling just short of victory every time. Jackie’s presentation was all about why we keep losing. The presentation apparently did not help us cause we once again lost at trivia later that night :’(.

Thursday was a pretty slow day with nearly 7 hours of physics. That day was pretty draining so I had a nice night to myself and read a book and caught up with some friends back home. It’s been around this time that I’ve started to really miss my friends back home but I’ve also made so many great new friends and memories here! There’s also only a few more weeks left in the program so I know I’ll be seeing most of them sometime soon. 

Friday we finally decided on our Big Trip (™). By a slim margin of one vote we decided on The Allie Adventure! To celebrate this resounding success of democratic action we decided to have a movie night! We all sat down in the student center to watch one of my all time favorite movies, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I absolutely love this movie and regularly quote it with my friends and we had a great time watching it together! That was until my laptop died in the last five minutes of the movie… 

We ended the night there and got to bed early cause once again we are going to be waking up in the wee hours of the morning to catch another bus. This bus got us into Dublin and we then caught a train to Cork, where I am writing this from right now! I will keep y’all updated and catch you next time, wish me luck sleeping more on public transportation! See you next week! (Yes I know that I’m posting this Sunday night and it’s Saturday right when I’m writing this but I don’t really have access to post on my laptop right now and this update has gotten long enough.)

[umichenginabroad]

Week 3: For Real this Time

Hello, hello! Declan McGrath is back to update you all on what has happened in the third work of the UCD Summer Physics program (yes I did accidentally label my last post ‘Week 3’ when it was actually only the second week of the program but we’re just gonna ignore that).

It has been an interesting week so far! We started off the week on Monday with some more physics as usual. However, after our lectures wrapped up for the day, the program took a trip to the historic Kilmainham Gaol. This gaol is where many of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were held before their executions. It was a pretty fascinating historic site as we got to see the same cells where these leaders were held and where they were executed as well. We also got to see a restored painting of Mary and Child that was done by Grace Plunket, a cartoonist and wife of one of the Easter Rising leaders, Joseph Plunkett. Grace and Joseph were married in the gaol just hours before Joseph’s execution. After the marriage was finalized, the couple was granted just ten minutes together while watched over by soldiers who literally counted down the seconds aloud they had together. 

On a bit more of a happy note, later that night UCD hosted a trip to the coast of Dublin to see and jump off of the 40 Foot! The 40 Foot is a famous Irish swimming spot that has been used for over 250 years. My group of friends and I decided to get to the 40 Foot before the rest of the program as there were so many people going we knew that we could not all fit on one bus. What this decision led us to was us sprinting between multiple bus and train stops, just barely catching the necessary transportation. We just barely managed to catch the last train we needed and got to the 40 Foot almost an hour before the rest of the group did. We spent the time walking along the shore and taking pictures of the beautiful scenery around us.

It was honestly not the greatest weather for swimming. We had all walked to the 40 Foot in jackets to combat the strong winds and cool temperatures, so the idea of swimming in the Irish Sea was… not exactly appealing. However, we had already paid the bus fare and got all the way out there and might never come back, so as soon as the rest of the program showed up we doffed our heavy jackets and got first into the line. We climbed the rocks and got to the jumping off point and took the plunge! I did a flip off the ledge and splashed down. The water was colder than ice and incredibly rough. The waves were really tall and crashed down on me as I scrambled to get a hold of the nearby ladder so I could pull myself out of the water before my blood turned into a slushy. It was so much fun! I had somehow cut my toe while getting out of the water and was bleeding a bit but that didn’t stop me! I almost immediately got back in line and did another flip into the water. Somehow, the water was colder the second time around and I immediately regretted going back for seconds. 

After we all got out of the water and dried off, we decided to warm our bones in the most obvious way possible… getting ice cream. We walked about half a mile to the closest open ice cream shop to get some soft serve and it was pretty good.

The next morning we continued with more physics. In the afternoon the program showed us the movie Belfast in the university’s own movie theater! The movie was pretty good. The reason they chose this movie to show us was because we will be visiting Belfast this Saturday as part of a day trip in the program (don’t worry I will write about it next week :) ). The rest of Tuesday was pretty relaxing, with a bunch of us just meeting up and playing some more cards.

Not much happened on Wednesday. There were no planned activities and I was pretty tired from staying up late last night so I just took a small break for myself. I read a book and caught up with some friends back in Michigan over the phone which was very nice. Thursday was also a fairly relaxing day. We finished up lecture and my friends Jackie and Allie planned to meet up and watch the new season of a show on Netflix called Bridgerton. I had never heard of or seen the show before but it sounded like a fun time. We went to a Centra (Irish grocery store) that was on campus, bought some popcorn and a birthday cake, and made a night out of it! I had almost no idea what was going on (despite Jackie and Allie’s best attempts to explain it to me) but I still had a good time :). 

Friday has also been a pretty chill day. At the time of writing this blog we are just now finishing up with all our classes for today and after dinner we are planning on hanging out for a bit and getting ready for Belfast in the morning. Something I have learned from this program is that it is not a great idea to try and start packing for your day trip at 7 AM when your bus leaves the station at 7:15 AM. Wish me luck on my travels and I’ll see y’all next time!

[umichenginabroad]

Week 3: Exploring Ireland and More!

Hello, hello! It’s Declan McGrath once again to update you all on what has been going on since I last updated you all on my summer at UCD program. Strap in cause a lot happened this week.

When I last posted I was on a bus with my group of friends to the Cliffs of Moher next to a crying baby, trying to get some sleep. I did not end up getting much sleep. However! The Cliffs of Moher were absolutely beautiful. The tour group that we were apart gave us about an hour and a half to explore the cliffside and the views were absolutely stunning! The sun was shining for the most part at the beginning so we were able to take some amazing photographs. We got to see where parts of various movies were filmed here. My favorite was the spot they used for the Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride. Once again, words fail to describe how beautiful this place was but hopefully these pictures will suffice!

After the Cliffs of Moher, the tour bus took us to a small pub to get some food and we stopped at a crag called Ballyryan. This little outcropping of rocks on the east side of the coast of Ireland was covered in grass and little flowers. It was really pretty but nowhere near as amazing as the Cliffs of Moher. 

Then it was off to Galway! Galway is an incredibly beautiful city with so many cool shops to browse and restaurants to eat at. Unfortunately, we only had about an hour to explore the city (most of which my group spent looking for a bathroom) so we did not get to do as much exploration as we would have liked. However, one of the places we were able to stop at was the Galway Cathedral. This absolutely massive cathedral was breathtaking. It was beautifully decorated with intricate stone details and beautiful stained glass windows. Highly recommend making a stop in Galway and exploring the city as much as you can!

We left UCD campus at around 6 AM and finally got back to the dorms at around 8 PM. Safe to say we were all absolutely exhausted. We decided to have a chill rest of the night and met up with some friends that had not joined us for the trip and played cards and other games. We stayed up pretty late as Monday was a bank holiday in Ireland so we had the day off from classes. The next morning, the exhaustion from a nearly 14 hour day trip finally caught up with me. I am going to be completely honest, I did pretty much nothing that day. I slept in until noon and lounged around. It was amazing. Just what I needed to recuperate from the weekend.

Tuesday we started classes back up again! We continued with more physics and a history lecture in the morning and then in the afternoon we took a class trip to the National Library of Ireland! The history lecture had been about a Gaelic revival that had taken place within Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th century. A major part of this revival was an author named WB Yeats. Yeats was an Irish poet and writer that played a massive role in establishing a distinct Irish literary tradition and won a Nobel Prize in 1923. A large part of the library was dedicated to an exhibit about Yeats. He is an incredibly interesting figure and I highly recommend googling him if you get the chance!

Wednesday and Thursday went by pretty quickly. We did not have any field trips these days, just more lectures and labs. Honestly, it was pretty nice. We were all still a bit exhausted from the Cliffs of Moher and needed a bit of rest before the weekend. Speaking of which! This weekend the group I had traveled to the Cliffs of Moher with (other than two other people) took a whirlwind trip to London this weekend! We had found tickets for a round trip were pretty cheap if we left Dublin late Friday night and came back from London incredibly early so we decided that there was no time like the present to live our lives so we booked the tickets! After our classes on Friday we took the shuttle to Dublin Airport and caught our flight. The flight was only about an hour long but we arrived in London pretty late. After landing we had to rush to catch the Stansted Express train to catch a connecting train in the London Underground and check into our hostel for the night. Things went pretty smoothly, we caught our train and checked into our hostel at around 1 AM and settled down for the night, only to be woken up by a fire alarm going off at 3 AM (y'all this was a rough night I am not gonna lie but it was sooo worth it!).

In the morning, we got some breakfast and caught one of the famous red double-decker buses to go see the Tower of London! This castle was absolutely beautiful and chock-full of history! We got to see the Crown Jewels at the castle (though photography is strictly prohibited so no photos, sorry!) as well as various historic places such as the White Tower and the square where many people were executed, including Queen Anne Boelyn. After the Tower we walked across the London Bridge (another amazing sight) and stopped in at a small street market to get some lunch. The food was absolutely amazing there for pretty cheap which was awesome. 

Next we walked to the Globe Theatre where Shakespeare had originally put on his plays (well the site at least, the actual theater had long burned down and been rebuilt). It was so cool to see such a historic site (only further enhanced by one of my friends deciding to do an impromptu performance of a monologue she did for a production of Taming of the Shrew in high school)! Walking a bit farther we came across the Eye! This absolutely massive Ferris wheel sits just across the River Thames from Big Ben. Both icons were jaw dropping just from their pure scale and were amazing to see! 

Continuing on we got to see Buckingham Palace in all of its glory. I am honestly running out of synonyms for “beautiful”, “stunning”, and “awesome” so let’s just say that the palace and the giant statue in front of it were all of those words and more! I can see why the palace is known all over the world. We wanted to see the changing of the guards but had to continue on to get to the British Museum before it closed.

The Museum was so cool! We only had about 45 minutes to explore the area before the Museum shut down and I spent most of my time in the Roman Empire section and also a really cool section about timepieces throughout history. I just managed to catch a glimpse of the Rosetta Stone before the whole museum shut down! The British Museum was amazing and I highly recommend making a stop here if you are ever in London (especially because the tickets are also free)!

We had been walking for about 13 hours at this point and decided we should try and get some sleep even though it was only 9 PM because we had to be up at 3 AM to catch a 4 AM train back to the airport. It was so stressful waking up that early and rushing as quickly as possible to get ready and catch a train but the rest of the trip more than made up for it! I would definitely recommend doing a whirlwind trip like this if you ever participate in a study abroad program where international travel is really cheap! The memories I made on this trip are gonna last me a lifetime (and are also now immortalized here on this blog)!

Now I am back in Dublin, having just awoken from a nap and now pounding away on my keyboard, trying to capture all that I had seen this weekend in a few words and a couple of pictures in this little blog. I hope that I have done a good job recounting all that happened this weekend because it was one of the best weekends of my life! Until next time!

[umichenginabroad]

Week 1: Settling into Dublin

Hello, hello! It’s Declan McGrath once again to update you all on what has been going on since my abroad program at UCD started! A lot has happened since my last post and I am so excited to share it with you all.

All of the program members arrived at UCD this past Sunday. There were no official program events scheduled for that day other than check-in, so soon after getting my room all set up and meeting my dormmates I met up with a friend of a friend, Kristina, in my same program and began wandering around campus to figure out where everything was. We slowly just kept meeting more and more people in our program and the impromptu tour group of the blind leading the blind kept getting larger. Everyone in the program I have met so far have been so nice! They are all from Big 10 schools which has been nice to have a kind of touchstone to start getting to know each other. After a bit the group figured out where everything was we all split up to go find stuff for our dorms. As there was a kitchen in my dorm I went with Kristina to a supermarket to buy some food and cleaning supplies. Kristina and I bought some eggs and sponges and decided to make the most amazing trade deal by splitting them equally between us. The deal is commemorated in the photo below

The next morning was orientation. All the program members gathered into a lecture hall as we learned what the next seven weeks were going to look like for us. The program consists of a Physics 2 lecture and lab course as well as a History of Ireland Course and every now and then we will be taking group field trips to historical sites and museums around Ireland. I have been looking forward to these courses for a long time as they are both classes that meet requirements for my major and also cover topics that I find really interesting! After orientation we all went to the dining hall (called the Pi Restaurant) for some lunch and it was really good! All of the food we have had in the dining hall here has been absolutely amazing, especially the deserts with dinner. After dinner, the group of friends I had made decided to take a trip into Dublin city together to do some shopping at a mall. Funnily enough, we ended up in an American thrift store section of the mall that was playing country music and had some pretty funny things to find all the way in Ireland like this American flag jean jacket I nearly bought. We ended the night by playing a couple rounds of various card games and then getting ready for some history bright and early in the morning. 

The history class was pretty interesting and after lunch we took a class field trip to the EPIC (Every Person is Connected) Museum. The museum was based around Irish immigration and emigration which was the same topic as the day’s history lecture and it was fascinating to see a lot of the things we had just learned about in lecture in a museum. Later that night, UCD held an event where they taught us all how to play the Irish game “hurling”. The game is kind of a mix between lacrosse and baseball and is really fun! We learned how to carry the ball (called a sliotar) on and also took turns seeing who could hit it the farthest. I was not really great at the game but had an absolute blast learning how to play! Afterwards a couple of us stayed behind on the field to play some soccer and cards.

Wednesday was our first day of physics. I knew that the program was an accelerated course but oh boy was I not prepared for how fast we would actually be going. We covered an entire in the span of a 2 hour lecture and I definitely need to look over my hastily scribbled notes before we have any exams. To recuperate from the breakneck physics crash course my group took another trip into Dublin. This time we decided to do a bit of sightseeing. We first visited the Portal from Dublin to New York. It was awesome being able to see all the way back into America and take some pictures! After the Portal we visited the Dublin Spire, a massive, metal tower in the center of Dublin. The tower was really really tall and cool to see up close as we were able to literally walk up and touch it. We wandered around the Temple Bar area and saw Dublin Castle for a little bit before heading back to campus to get the cheapest pint in Dublin at the Student Bar.

We showed up to the bar halfway through trivia night and somehow didn’t place last and celebrated with some drinks. I got my first ever pint of Guinness and was immediately yelled at by my friends for drinking from it wrong. Apparently, you have to take big gulps of it, not little sips like I did. I had an awesome time trying it for the first time with a bunch of my friends but I don’t think I’ll be getting any more pints any time soon.

Thursday was fairly relaxing. We covered another chapter in physics at light speed and did a lab on circuits and then had the rest of the night ourselves. We were all fairly exhausted after hurling on Tuesday and walking a couple hours in Dublin, so we decided to have a bit more of a relaxed day. We spent some time learning a new card game called Cactus that one of my friends' middle school friends came up with called Cactus which was pretty fun. After that, one of my friends, Allie (she’s from Ohio State but we forgive her for that, we all make mistakes sometimes), and I  went back to my dorm to see if we could get a whole group trip together. I am honestly hopeless when it comes to organizing any sort of event so Allie did most of the work while I made us some ramen (pretty even exchange if you ask me). We toyed with the idea of maybe visiting France but couldn’t get it together and instead settled on a trip to the Cliffs of Moher! As I write this blog post right now we are actually on the bus to see the cliffs! 

Friday, Allie and I proposed the Cliffs of Moher trip to the group and four other friends wanted to join! Friday was another laid back day as we had to be up early the next morning for a class field trip to a place called Glendalough.

Glendalough was absolutely beautiful! Nestled in a giant, lush, green forest between some mountains was a small “Monastic City” set up by Saint Kevin. This “city” (which is more just a monastery and abbey with a graveyard) was set up by religious followers of Saint Kevin who wanted to join in on his life of living alone in the middle of the forest away from city life… by coming in large groups… and building a city near him. After exploring the ruins a little bit my group and I began hiking through the woods. Words fail to describe how beautiful this place is (hopefully the pictures won’t!).

We followed some trails through the verdant forest until we reached a lake. The Lower Lake was a small lake that had some stunning views of the surrounding mountains and forest. We continued onward until we reached the Upper Lake. This area was much more popular than the Lower Lake and was filled with dozens of tourists and locals taking in the warm weather. We took off our shoes and cuffed our pants as high as they could go and stepped into the water. It. Was. Freezing.

The water in the Upper Lake came all the way down from the tops of the mountains and was unbelievably cold. I tried to stay in the water with everyone as long as possible but was only able to stand in the water for a couple of minutes before retreating to shore to recover for a little bit and trying again. We found some really good skipping stones and spent a lot of time at Upper Lake trying to get the most skips possible. Unfortunately we had to eventually head back to the buses and go back to campus. After getting back to campus we all decided to head to a restaurant called The Goat and get some dinner and watch the start of a soccer (or I guess I should say “football” here) between two teams that none of us had ever heard of before. The food was absolutely amazing, I highly recommend stopping by if any of you get the chance! We went back to the dorms to cram as much sleep in as possible before the next morning when we would be waking up at 4 AM to catch a tour bus to the Cliffs of Moher.

Speaking of which! I did not cram as much sleep in last night as I wanted to so I think now is a good time to leave off. Wish me luck as I try to sleep on this bus next to a crying baby and I will update you all on how the Cliffs were in the next post. See you next time!

[umichenginabroad]

BIG 10 STEM and Irish Studies Final Takeaways

Hi! Now that I have had some time to gather my thoughts here are some of my final takeaways and recommendations.

Takeaways

STUDY ABROAD! My time abroad was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced and I 100% recommend this program and studying abroad in general.

Dublin is a super fun and amazing city but definitely heavily influenced by the United States so not the most traditionally European. (Some pubs are even 21+)

Say yes! Time is shorter than you think so do everything you can while you can(sometimes the most fun things are on a whim). All class work is done within the required class time so other than studying make use of your time.

Travel! While I had to opportunity to travel outside of Ireland, even travel within Ireland gains new experiences and cultures.

The people make the place. I am so thankful for the amazing friends I met through the program.

Dublin Recommendations

Dicey’s Monday. Literally the most fun night of the week and amazing drink deals.

Look at the concert schedule, most concerts are much cheaper than they are in the US!

BadAss. We loved this pub in Temple Bar and by the end of the trip constantly said “All roads lead to BadAss”. (BadBobs was our other favorite in Temple Bar but everywhere is so fun and has live music) After BadAss, walk to Temple Bar takeout for amazing garlic cheese chips.

Food. While the program included lunch and dinner at pi restaurant here are some of my other favorites in Dublin: Aoki(sushi), Yamamori Izakaya Japas and Sake Bar(fancy sushi + Asian food), MASA(tacos), Hairy Lemon(traditional pub food including fish and chips), Boeuf(steak), Bunsen Burger, Mad Egg(fried chicken), POG (pancakes), Eathos(breakfast)

Blackrock. One of my favorite places to grab a bite to eat or just walk around. Super peaceful coastal suburb which is easy to access via bus or about a 2 mile run or walk.

And with that, I’m signing out. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from my time abroad:

If anyone who is looking into the program has questions feel free to contact me via email: epater@umich.edu

Thank you!

Elsa Pater

Industrial and Operations Engineering

BIG 10 STEM and Irish Studies: University College Dublin in Dublin, Ireland

[umichenginabroad]

Week 7: Goodbye Dublin!

Hi everyone! I’m so sad that my program has come to an end but want to give a quick recap of my last week in Dublin!

Tuesday I took my physics final in the morning. The final was difficult but I did not need a good grade to pass the class so I felt fine about it. I then sat in the UCD village and waited for DHL to pick up my suitcase I was shipping home. It was super easy and I headed back to our apartment to pack up the rest of my things and study for our history final Wednesday. I then went into town to get a pedicure and met my friends at Bunsen Burger for dinner. It was so yummy and sent me into a food coma so I headed to bed when we got back.

Wednesday morning we took our history exam. We were provided with prompts ahead of time so it was very straightforward. After, I headed to Blackrock with Sammy to have lunch. We ate and grabbed a pint to celebrate our finals being done! We then headed back to UCD and showered and relaxed before heading to dinner in Dublin one last time. We went to Yamamori Izakaya and Sake Bar which was amazing and then headed to meet the rest of our friends for a pub crawl! The pub crawl was so fun and the perfect way to end our time in Dublin.

Thursday morning was an incredibly difficult wake-up call but we headed to our farewell coffee at 11 and then I did laundry one last time. Sammy and I then headed into town to walk around and shop. I love Dublin around 5pm because it always is so lively with people just getting out of work. We then met up with Jessie and Molly for dinner MASA and headed back to UCD to do final packing, play cards, and say goodbye to all our friends. It was so sad saying goodbye but luckily a lot of my friends go to Michigan and I will see them in a month!

Friday, I headed to the airport at 11am because that’s when we got kicked out of our residences. I flew on a 2:30 pm flight to London and got a taxi to Windsor. I walked around in Windsor and grabbed dinner before heading back to my hotel for an early night.

Saturday, my family arrived and met me in Windsor. They took showers, we got coffee at my hotel, grabbed lunch at an old pub, and headed into Windsor Castle at 12:30 pm. We “sprinted” through Windsor castle because we had to be in a taxi at 2:00 pm to go back to the airport but it was still super cool and we got to see where Queen Elizabeth was buried. Our flight ended up being delayed but we landed in Croatia and headed to our hotel.

This week, I will explore Croatia and spend time with my family, but also gather my final thoughts on the experience and recommendations for Dublin.

Elsa Pater

Industrial and Operations Engineering

BIG 10 STEM and Irish Studies: University College Dublin in Dublin, Ireland

[umichenginabroad]

Week 6: Brussels & Amsterdam

Hi everyone! As promised, I had a great week abroad! Last week was our last week in the classroom which means this upcoming week is full of finals and goodbyes.

Monday night marked our last time at Dicey’s for student night. It was so fun and we all left sad to go.

Tuesday, we had our last History lecture followed by an exam preparation session. Then, I took a much needed nap and rallied to celebrate the Fourth of July! We went to BadAss downtown and of course requested the most American songs they could sing.

Wednesday, we had our last physics tutorial and then headed to the airport to fly to Brussels, Belgium! We arrived around 7:30 pm and following an abnormally long passport control line, headed to the apartment we rented and to dinner. We had an amazing meal(the meatball I will dream about) and headed to bed.

Thursday, we headed to get coffee, a Belgian Waffle, and explore Brussels! The waffle was so yummy but had me stuffed. Later, we headed to a chocolate making class at the chocolate museum which was so fun. We then picked up some frites and headed back to the apartment. We took naps then headed to a bar to try Belgian Beer. We got two flights which ended up being more than enough for 6 people(the alcohol content in Belgian beers is abnormally high). We had fun tasting all the beers even though some were very gross. We then headed to dinner and back to hang out in our apartment before heading to bed.

Friday, we slept in and headed with our suitcases to a local seafood restaurant. I had mussels(apparently mussels in Brussels is a thing) and shrimp. Both were phenomenal. We then stopped in a church before heading to the train station for our train to Amsterdam! The train station was massive but we were able to find our train and got seats next to each other. Before this point, I had never seen anyone attempt to pick pocket someone, but on one of the later stops in Brussels a thief came on and attempted to take a man’s backpack that was in the overhead area. Luckily, the man recognized it and was able to run off the train and get the backpack back and return to his seat in time. After this, the train ride was nothing too crazy although we were delayed due to traffic at the station in Amsterdam.

Because we were delayed, we hurried off of the train and made the tram to our hostel just in time. The public transportation in Amsterdam was so easy. When we arrived at our hostel, we checked in and had a 5 minute turn around before heading back into the city center for our boat canal tour. The tour was so fun and included unlimited wine(this may have been a downfall). After, we headed to tapas for dinner which was so yummy and then back to our hostel. We intended on taking a short nap and then heading to a techno club, but instead slept until I woke up at 1 am. Luckily, clubs don’t close until very late so everyone rallied and we headed to the techno club. It was super fun and I think we were the only non Dutch speakers in there. The DJ was even using records which I had never seen before and was so cool. When we got back, the sun was starting to rise which must be the sign of a good night.

The next morning was a struggle but we had to be in the city center by 11:00 am for a bike tour. The tour was super cool and around 2 hours. We then got all you can eat sushi and picked up our preordered cookies at Van Stapele. The cookies were so yummy. I then took a much needed ginger, turmeric, and lime shot which tasted terrible but made me feel so much better. We then headed back to take a nap at our hostel before heading to dinner. After dinner, we walked through the Red Light District and then headed back to get ready to go out. We went to a more typical club which was fun but we headed to bed earlier because we were exhausted.

Yesterday morning, we woke up, checked out of our hostel, and headed to get Dutch Pancakes which were amazing. We then walked and shopped around for a while, got a fresh stroopwafel, and headed to the Heineken experience. The Heineken experience was actually amazing and much more interactive and fun than the Guinness one(sorry Guinness). After, we headed back towards our hostel and went to a pizza place very close by. The pizza was amazing and we walked in right on time because about 3 minutes later there was a crazy storm that lasted about 30 minutes. We then headed to the hostel to grab our bags, change, and head to the airport. We arrived home around 11:30 pm and I immediately went to bed to catch up on all my lost sleep.

This morning, I slept in and began to pack up all my stuff while procrastinating studying for final exams. I finally sat down to study and am currently taking a study break before finishing up and heading to bed. Tomorrow is our physics final and it is so crazy to think that the program is coming to an end. I am so happy to have experienced so much in the short time I have had in Dublin and am sad yet excited for our last week.

Elsa Pater

Industrial and Operations Engineering

BIG 10 STEM and Irish Studies: University College Dublin in Dublin, Ireland

[umichenginabroad]

Week 7 in Limerick (and London)

Hey, everyone, it’s Katie, for the last time because my time abroad is over. Of course, I’m sad to leave, but so glad I got to participate in research abroad and see Ireland. Here’s what I did during my last few days in Ireland and during my short family visit to London.  

Monday: Today was my last HTC experiment of the program. I used the white sludge and ran it in the reactor for 30 minutes at 190 degrees, then added acid and ran for another 30 minutes at 80 degrees. In the evening, I hung out with Grant and Maanav, watching tv and finishing up some of our alcohol.

Tuesday: Today was my last day in the lab, so Nina and I used the elemental analyzer to determine the chemical compositions of each of my samples. It took about three hours to measure and prepare small amounts of hydrochar to put in the machine, but once that was done, we could look at the carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen percentages in each sample. After the machine ran, Nina gave me a formula to determine the HHV, or energy content, of the hydrochar. At the end, we were able to see the slight increase in energy content from adding a mild acid made to the hydrochar product after the first round of HTC. This was interesting data, and was a great way to bring together my work over the past few weeks. After I finished packing and getting ready to leave, Pascale and I hung out for the evening before going to bed.

Views on my morning run

Wednesday: Today was the last morning in Ireland, and the day my family and I flew out to London. I had some issues in the morning with my key card being disabled too soon, and then my parents had trouble finding my apartment complex, but once all that was sorted we drove from Limerick to the Dublin Airport. Our flight left around 6 in the evening and landed around 7:30. Baggage took a while, but we didn’t have to go through customs, which was nice. We took a cab into the city, dropped our luggage off at our AirBnB, then went to a nice Italian restaurant for a late dinner.

Thursday: Our first full day in London started with a quick cafe breakfast, then a trip to Westminster to see the Houses of Parliament. They weren’t offering guided tours, but they let us in to watch the House of Commons and House of Lords in action. We watched each for about fifteen minutes, which gave us a little context on what the Parliament sessions are like, and also got to admire the beautiful architecture and decorations within the building. Then, we walked over to Trafalgar Square, got lunch nearby, and headed back towards Buckingham Palace (which was honestly underwhelming). We walked back towards our apartment through Hyde Park, which was very pretty, and also saw Royal Albert Hall on the way. In the evening, we took a quick trip to the grocery store, then found a place to eat dinner near us. 

Top left: Big Ben. Top right: A painting in the Houses of Parliament. Bottom left: Houses of Parliament. Bottom right: Trafalgar Square.

Friday: We had a long day planned today. First, we went to see the Tower of London, which was very exciting because it was a whole complex of buildings, each with their own exhibitions. We went to see the Crown Jewels first, then the weaponry displays in the White Tower. Next, we saw Tower Green, where nobles were executed in more privacy than everyone else. We could also go inside one of the tower prisons and see some of the carvings prisoners made during their stays. We also saw a smaller display of torture devices, such as the infamous rack. I was surprised to learn that torture was rarely used, in spite of how well-known their methods are today. Lastly, we explored some of the battlements, which took us through the medieval palace. After this visit, we went to see Westminster Abbey, right across from the Houses of Parliament. There were several famous scientists and nobles buried there, including Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, who each had elaborate tombs in their own chambers. The stained glass and architecture were both gorgeous, so this was definitely a highlight for me. Later in the afternoon, we took a trip on the London Eye, from which we could see much of London from above. 

Top left: View from the London Eye. Top right: The rack, displayed in the torture exhibit at the Tower of London. Bottom left: Outside the Tower of London. Bottom right: Inside Westminster Abbey.

Saturday: Today, we took a day trip to Oxford to see the campus and town. We couldn’t get inside the buildings because the tours were all full, but it was still really cool to see the buildings from the outside, including the famous Radcliffe’s Camera, a domed building that holds part of the library. A bit farther down campus was a natural history and archaeology museum, which we explored for a little while. The archaeology museum was very impressive with its vast collection of artifacts and interesting explanations of their purposes/origins, and the acknowledgment of colonization and eurocentrism in museum collections. Although the visit itself was short, the campus and town were both gorgeous and well worth the trip.

Top left: Oxford's Divinity School. Top right: Fossils on display at the natural history museum. Bottom left: Street in downtown Oxford. Bottom right: Radcliffe's Camera.

Sunday: Today, we had a more relaxed cafe breakfast, then went to the Globe Theatre to see the Comedy of Errors. The story was about identical twins separated at birth, one of whom unknowingly arrives at the other’s hometown and causes all sorts of mix-ups. Shakespeare can be hard to follow sometimes, but the excellent acting more than makes up for it. For the rest of the afternoon, we explored the city, which is where most of the major corporations are located, but also has some nice older landmarks, including St. Paul’s Cathedral. Next, we visited Harrods, a well-known department store full of extremely expensive stuff. It was still nice to look around the store, unless we got caught in a massive crowd, which could be more annoying. Lastly, we got dinner at a place near our apartment, enjoying one last night in London.

Left: The Globe Theatre. Right: St. Paul's Cathedral

I have to catch an early flight tomorrow. It was super great spending all this time abroad and writing all about it, so thanks for following along.

[umichenginabroad]

Week 5: Gaelic Games, Geneva, Glasnevin!

Hi everyone! It was another amazing week abroad!

Monday night, I was dragged out of bed and into town to go to another Dicey’s student night. Again, it was a super fun night which had me even more exhausted on Tuesday.

Tuesday, we had both physics and history lecture in the morning, followed by a field trip to Croke Park. Croke Park is a Gaelic games stadium in Dublin and it was super cool to see the stadium(although it made me miss the Big House). After, Sammy and I headed back into town to try a sushi place which was so yummy.

Wednesday morning, I woke up early to go to Howth for a couple of hours before class. We took the dart and got breakfast, walked around the port, and headed back to UCD. Although it was rainy and we couldn’t stay for long it was good to see the town and truly is a cute area. We even saw some seals! That afternoon, we had our final physics lab and all of us were very thankful to be done! I finished the day with dinner and relaxing before watching the NHL draft that night.

Thursday, we had physics lecture and tutorial but finished around noon. My friends and I booked a Guinness Storehouse Tour a while ago which we had at 3:30 pm. We booked a tour which included a pint with our photo on it, and I have to admit it tasted really good. After, we headed up to the gravity bar to claim our second included Guinness and then hit the gift shop(probably not the best idea after two pints). We then grabbed dinner in town and headed back to UCD.

Friday was our last physics lecture. Although I am happy to no longer spend two hours of my morning in a lecture hall learning physics, I am not ready for this experience to be over(and for finals). We then had history lecture and our last history tutorial. I then packed and headed to the airport with my friends to catch a flight to Geneva, Switzerland. The flight was not too long and Swiss air even gave us yummy Swiss chocolate. When we arrived in Geneva, we took a taxi to our hostel, checked in, and went to sleep.

Saturday morning, we woke up early and headed to breakfast. The food was amazing although our attempt to speak French was comical. We then explored town, ate, and shopped around for the rest of the day. That night, we booked a boat cruise on Lake Geneva which was so peaceful and then headed to dinner. We had amazing pizza and finished the night with gelato. It was a very nice day and a good change of pace from the crazy weekends I have had.

Sunday morning, I woke up early again and ran along the water to the botanical gardens, the Red Cross, and the United Nations. Although I couldn’t go inside, it was super cool to see the UN and its surrounding area. After, we checked out of the hostel and took the public boat to the beach on the other side of the lake. As expected, the water was freezing so I only lasted for about a minute in the water. We spent the rest of the day there before grabbing lunch, heading back to the hostel to grab our bags, and heading to the airport. I slept the entire flight back to Dublin and ate dinner and laid in bed upon arrival to UCD.

This morning, I woke up and headed to the bus stop for our field trip to Glasnevin Cemetery. Glasnevin Cemetery is massive with around 1.5 million people buried there. Most of the influential Irish figures we have learned about in history class are buried there, so it was cool to hear their stories again and those of others. We returned to UCD around 12:30 and headed straight to lunch at Pi Restaurant. I then did laundry and now am attempting to study for finals before our last Monday at Dicey’s Garden Club. Our classes end Wednesday of this week with finals Tuesday and Wednesday of next week so I have a fun and full rest of the week planned.

Elsa Pater

Industrial and Operations Engineering

BIG 10 STEM and Irish Studies: University College Dublin in Dublin, Ireland

[umichenginabroad]

Week 6 in Limerick

Hey, guys, it’s Katie again, here to talk about my last full week at the University of Limerick.

Monday: Nina figured out over the weekend that the acid was causing an exothermic reaction in the sludge, so it was nice to know that for today. I started the reactor as usual, but it was making the same weird clicking noise, so Nina looked at it and determined that the stirrer was the problem. She managed to fix it, but also let me know that it’s not a major problem for the experiment. I collected my sample from today’s experiment as usual, but I also had samples from previous trials that were put in an oven to test for ash content, so I could weigh the crucibles and find the ash percentage in each one. It was great to have this data for the three procedures I’ve used the past few weeks because I could finally compare them to each other.

Tuesday: I took the day off to go to a concert in the evening, which meant I didn’t have time to run a full experiment that day with the time I have in lab. Pascale and I left for Dublin around 2:30, then hopped on a train to Malahide to see Florence and the Machine perform. We got dinner and drinks while we watched the opening acts, Nell Mescal and CMAT. Florence started performing around 9:00, and we went into the crowd to get a better view and dance to the music. I don’t listen to them much, but they played a lot of good songs, including a few I know. Florence was also so passionate about performing, and that energy was very invigorating. We left the concert around 11:15, and that’s when stuff got difficult. Pascale and I did not realize that the last bus from Dublin to Limerick was at 11:45, so we missed it and had to stay overnight at a hostel in Dublin. This was nerve-wracking, but we were glad to have somewhere safe to stay at the end, and the concert was definitely worth it.

Left: The hydrochar samples from the past few weeks. Right: Florence and the Machine concert.

Wednesday: Today was a bit more difficult in lab because I was tired and feeling some residual stress from the past night. I got the experiment done okay, with some new white sludge that has a higher phosphorus content, but I felt tense and down on myself for making a big mistake with transport after the concert, which made my smaller mistakes from today feel a lot worse. After lab, I went for a short run, which helped clear my head and make me feel a lot better. 

Thursday and Friday were pretty similar in that I ran the same procedure both days, using white sludge at 190 degrees for 30 minutes, then adding acid and running the reactor again at 80 degrees for 30 minutes.

Saturday: Today, Pascale and I went to Cork and Blarney. We left early so we would have time to explore more. First, we went to the English Market, which is basically an indoor farmers market. We got lunch there and looked at the different vendors, then we hopped on a bus to Blarney Castle. We didn’t go inside the castle because the line to kiss the stone was way too long, so we explored the grounds instead. Near the castle, there were the Poison Gardens, which had some carnivorous and poisonous plants growing in the area. Then, we checked out the Rock Close, a wooded area set on an old druid encampment. There were a lot of cool landmarks here, including a stone which, according to legend, traps the Witch of Blarney during the day. I liked this area a lot because it felt very mystical and connected to the pre-Christian roots of Ireland. Afterwards, we went on a hike along the trails, which took us close to a pretty lake. At the end of the hike, we went into a cave system right next to the castle, which was once used as an escape route during one of the castle’s sieges. After getting back to Blarney, we explored the area near the bus stop for a little while before catching the next one back to Limerick.

Top left: Blarney Castle. Top right: View of Cork City. Bottom left: Pascale and I by the lake. Bottom right: Witch's Stone.

Sunday: Today was a more relaxed day until the late afternoon, when the four of us went to meet Grainne, the director of Arcadia Abroad in Ireland, for dinner. It was nice to catch up with her and tell her about how the program went for the past few weeks, since we are now at the end of it, unfortunately. We went to a nice restaurant named Coqbull in Limerick, which had good food and a nice atmosphere. I am super grateful for all the work Grainne and the rest of the Arcadia crew have done to organize this program for us.

Grainne and the Arcadia STEM crew at the goodbye dinner

[umichenginabroad]

Week 5 in Limerick

Hey guys, it’s Katie again, and here’s what happened this past week in Limerick.

Monday: Today, I changed up the procedure in the lab a bit. I’m using the same amount of sludge and acid, but I add the acid after running the reactor, then run it again at a lower temperature. Based on the results from today, it’s possible that doing this results in more liquid product and less hydrochar, but I will need to do a few more trials to be sure. We didn’t do much that evening besides hang out, but we had plans to go kayaking the next day, so it was nice to have a chill evening.

Tuesday: I started by repeating the experiment from yesterday, but during the second run of the HTC reactor, it heated past the set temperature, so I had to discard the products. It wasn’t a huge deal since I have plenty of time to run the various trials, but it was a little frustrating. In the evening, we went kayaking. We lucked out with the weather because it had been pouring rain on and off all day, but cleared up when we went out on the river. It was different than expected since we stayed in the same area on the river and played kayaking games like kayak polo, races, and kayak tag. It was a great time, even though I crashed into everyone multiple times. 

Wednesday: Today we switched things up a bit in the lab by going to use the scanning electron microscope, or SEM, to look at the hydrochar I collected. This ended up being kind of boring because they didn’t have time to train me on how to use the SEM, so I mostly watched Nina look at the samples and practice adjusting the microscope to see better. There was also a program to show some of the elements contained within the hydrochar, and to save pictures of the SEM view. Afterwards, it was too late to start another trial that would take hours, so I went home for the day. I took a quick trip to downtown Limerick to get a book, The Priory of the Orange Tree, which I had heard good things about.

A pretty dog mural in downtown Limerick

Thursday: Today, I retried the experiment procedure from earlier in the week, because Nina and I were not sure why the product in the reactor overheated. I observed the temperature, and when it once again went over 10 degrees above the set point, I told Nina, but this time she told me to collect the product as usual, suspecting an exothermic reaction caused by the acid. Unfortunately, I spilled some of my product at the end, so I couldn't get accurate mass measurements. Friday was pretty much the same, so there's not much to say there.

Saturday: Today, Pascale and I took a bus up to Dublin for the Pride Parade. It was my first one, and it was so cool to watch everyone marching and dancing by, having a great time. Super excited to go to another one next year. Then, I went to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College. First, I walked through a room with information about Irish illuminated manuscripts, which had some enlarged photos of the pages (we can't take photos of the actual book). Then, I saw the original Book of Kells in its own room, and walked up to the Old Library. It had busts of several famous people, as well as manuscripts from an old wealthy family's collection. Once that was over, Pascale and I walked around a little more, got food, and almost missed our bus back to Limerick because we couldn't find the stop. In the evening, we went to the David Bowie Experience at Dolan's, which had a band performing Bowie's greatest hits. It was very loud, but lots of fun, and the band did a great job.

Top left: Image from an illuminated manuscript. Top right: The Old Library. Bottom left: Pascale and me at the Pride Parade. Bottom right: idk what that is

Sunday: Since we were all tired from the concert last night, we took it easy in the morning. In the mid-afternoon, Pascale and I took a bus to see the Rock of Cashel, a complex of medieval buildings with great historical and religious significance. In the 25 minutes or so we had before closing, Pascale and I explored the old Gothic cathedral, graveyard, and chapel, all of which have fascinating histories. The Rock of Cashel is known as the legendary site where St. Patrick banished the devil, as well as the seat of the High Kings of Munster (Southern Ireland). Afterwards, we caught the next bus back to Limerick, grabbed a quick dinner, and headed back to the apartment.

Top left: the Rock of Cashel. Top right: view from the Rock of Cashel. Bottom left: side view of the Rock of Cashel, including the Round Tower. Bottom right: tapestry in a chapel.