Stranger in a Strange Land

I went to orientation this morning where I received my welcome packet, information about my classes, and a tour of the campus. Apparently, I am the first international student to have chosen the computer forensics major. From what I can tell, most of the foreign students choose to take business classes. The campus looks awesome. The computer science building was only built two years ago so the architecture is cool and everything is still very clean. The best part is the art in the computer science building. Apparently an Irish artist donated a good portion of her life’s work to the school. As a result all of the walls in the building are covered with her art. Our guide said it was valued at two million Euros for the entire collection. I’ll take some pictures of it when I get a chance.

After orientation I walked back to the dorm with some of the other international students. Although my flatmates are here, none of theirs’ are, so they were all talking about how bored they are. I suggested that we all have lunch together, a plan that everyone liked. So we went to the grocery store and bought food (most of us hadn’t been shopping yet). I bought this week’s groceries for about €20 and then we spilt the cost of our pasta lunch (which came out to about €2 each). We then left the shop and went back to the dorm where we all put our groceries away and then reconvened in the room of two Brazilians, Bruno and Raphael. There was five of us total, myself, the Brazilians, a girl from Chicago named Gwenyth and a girl from Slovenia name Ivana. We all worked together making the pasta and I ended up eating quite a bit despite the fact that it had huge bits of onion and garlic in it (my two mortal enemies). I did, however, skip the garlic bread. Truth be told, this morning was a bit rough. My flatmates took me out drinking last night. We started off drinking vodka and coke in the dorm. We then took a cab uptown where we stopped in a pub named Geoff’s. Once at Geoff’s I switched to Guiness while Deirdre stuck with vodka. We only had one drink at Geoff’s before going to Ruby’s, a dance club accross the road. This is where we remained for the rest of the evening. I drank only one more Guiness during the whole three hour stretch that we were there. This is something that (despite your opinion of him) Dane Cook is right about: guys don’t go to clubs to dance, ever. There are only ever two reasons why straight men go to clubs, they’re trying pick up women or their girlfriend dragged them there. Since I was at a club for neither reason, it turned into an exercise of nursing a Guiness for three hours. Not that I want to seem ungrateful for the invite. My flatmates were very nice the entire time and I honestly felt bad that I couldn’t be more entertaining In the end, it’s like bringing a polar bear to the equator, there’s just nothing for him there. I’m going to go sleep now. My sleep schedule is still all messed up.

Despite the fact that the lady at the front desk said no one would be back until Sunday, I found some people… in my dorm. I have three flatmates, one guy and two girls. The guy’s name is Eddy and he lives in the room right next to mine. He came here last night while I was cooking my Hamburger Helper. Eddy is a 20 year old Forestry major. He seems a bit on the quite side but really nice as well.
My other two flatmates live on the other side of the common area and their names are Deirdre and Sylvia. Sylvia is a 17 year old business major, Deirdre is 23 and I’m not sure what she is studying. I met them both today while I was making myself Irish bacon and eggs for lunch (I woke up in the middle of the night and then overslept as a result). They both seem very nice despite the fact that Deirdre described them both as being ‘a bit mad.’ None of them are American, they’re all Irish and have each admitted to me separately that they love to drink. They claim that the stereotype is completely justified and that drinking is just part of Irish culture. It looks like it could be an interesting semester. Hopefully not too interesting. I have a small orientation tomorrow and then classes officially start on Monday. Apparently there aren’t that many exchange students this semester so the orientation is going to be a “small informal meeting” according to the head of the international department. I haven’t been to the campus yet. Everyone says that it is about a fifteen minute walk from the dorms I’m staying in. There will be a shuttle here every morning once classes start so I don’t know how often I’ll end up walking.

On an unrelated side note: they have “Nacho Chicken” pizza here. American pizza makers take note.