Week 5: Edinburgh and Exploration!
Updated: Jul 12, 2022
Hello! If you are new to the blog, welcome! This is my fifth week living in Ireland. I am completing an internship at Dataships (SaaS company) while taking an Irish Real Estate class. I am from the United States and something that constantly surprises me is the relaxed work nature of Ireland. I was told about the work norms before coming but my company has definitely proven it to be true. However, I am not sure if the relaxed atmosphere is due to the company I am interning at being a startup or because it is normal in Ireland. I found myself this week in the office with only the two other interns. Usually there are a few coworkers who work in the office rather than remote but on Wednesday of this past week the interns were all alone in the office. Myself and the two other interns went for lunch to Hot Chix, a chicken tender restaurant, where I introduced them to my fellow Bucknellian (student at Bucknell University) Kevin Cody.
At the table, the interns and I began making bets on if there will be someone in the office once we return. This wouldn’t be surprising since many workers come to the office very late or stay for only an hour. However, much to my dismay, I lost the bet and there were no late arrivals to the office. This week I continued working on our lead generation list for potential customers. I have been selected as leader of the interns, meaning I am the liaison between the interns and our director. For the majority of the week the intern director was occupied working remotely and tasked me with delegating responsibilities to the other interns. During this process I scheduled and lead a zoom meeting as well as touched base with interns stationed in San Francisco.
This past weekend I had the privilege of traveling with another student on the program, Kailey, to Edinburgh, Scotland to see her family. If you have not seen on the news, the Dublin Airport has been a disaster with severely long queues (lines). Though we weren’t checking a bag, we prepared for the worst by arriving four hours early.
This was a mistake. After only 24 minutes (I timed it), we were in through security with 3.5 hours left to kill before our flight. I now understand why people say Guinness depends on the place because I was not too fond of the airport Guinness compared to the local pubs.
After arriving at around 8pm, we quickly changed at our hotel and headed into the city of Edinburgh for dinner. The dinner was delicious, I had Surf and Turf which I surprisingly have never ordered before at a restaurant.
After dinner, we visited a few pubs before heading home. We specifically stopped at The Voodoo Rooms and The Guildford Arms.
We stayed for a drink then called a FreeNow taxi. As soon as we got back to the hotel, we went to sleep in preparation for the next day. We stayed at Dalmahoy Castle which is an attraction itself. President Joe Biden had stayed at this hotel for a summit and the design was awesome.
The next morning we went back into the city to join a local tour Edinburgh. The architecture was my favorite part of Scotland and was definitely not what I had expected. Most of the buildings were made out of the stone/rock which I personally believe to look better than modern structures.
After walking around the inner-city, we headed back to Dalmahoy Castle for a nice afternoon of golf. Believe me, Kailey, her brother, and I were the most inexperienced golfers to ever play on the course but we embraced it.
This was my second time ever playing golf and my strokes definitely showed this.
After, we rushed to dinner before the kitchen closed but our waiter forgot to put our order in. An hour later, we got our food and were too exhausted to go back into the city for the nightlife.
Sunday morning was an extremely early wakeup at a prompt 7am for breakfast before picking up our rental car. In our tiny car, we drove around different parts of Scotland. We saw the highlands and drove to Inverness to see the Culloden battlefield and museum. The Culloden museum was very interesting and we even were able to go on a tour of the battlefield. Before this, I was not very well versed about the struggle between the Catholics and Protestants. Overall, the Scotland trip was a brief yet adventure packed journey. We were able to return to Dublin at midnight and get some rest before our classes on Monday.
Today’s Irish Real Estate class had two guest speakers Michael Bolger and Helen Slattery. Lucky for us, the class started at 9:30am as opposed to the usual 9:00am which gave us a little extra sleep to recover from the weekend. This week we learned about mortgages in Ireland and the process with lenders. While I will not go into too much detail, the concept that interested me the most was how the Irish government would support citizens with their mortgages creating co-owner equity within many homes.
After class, our 30 student program visited Kilmainham Gaol. This site is a former prison located on the northern side of the city. The Office of Public Works now manages the prison as a museum. The UK government ordered the imprisonment and execution of numerous Irish revolutionaries in the prison and became known as both a prison and graveyard for many Irish revolutionists. I think this experience was important because I am able to better understand history and the viewpoints of my coworkers and peers. Being able to see the prison in person was an awesome experience since the prison had been restored and preserved to keep the look and feel as it was in the past.
Overall, this past week had been successful without any major hiccups. Below is some other miscellaneous nous photos of the week and my opinions on news article I read his week. Until week six...
Cheers,
Connor
Dublin MetroLink News:
Ireland is funding a project called Dublin MetroLink. I read that Dublin MetroLink could cost the State up to €12 billion. Even with that price tag, the first trains are not even expected to be in motion until 2035 at the earliest. While I am sad that I can not use it currently, I believe it will be a great addition to the city. While I love my 39A bus ride in the morning, I wish I could get into the city faster so I have more time for sleep in the morning. This development could have some environmental implications since more open land will need to be used for the MetroLink’s development. There is also economic and political implications to its development due to arguments about the funding and the burden of the tax payers.