We started the day off with a legal orientation with Hayley, our abroad coordinator, to finalize details before completely starting our adventures in Dublin. Afterwards, we had lunch at Noshington’s, a small local diner across the street from Griffith College. We then met up with our tour guide, Tim, who earned his PhD in Irish History, and began to tour the city.

Our first stop was St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where he discussed the history of the building and its significance to Ireland. Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, held a position as dean of the cathedral for thirty years. It is also the largest and tallest church in Ireland. The Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick’s Cathedral make Dublin unique in that it is one of the rare cities to have two main cathedrals instead of one. Other locations on the tour included the Dublin Castle, which has a courtyard build over the River Poddle one of the main rivers in the development of the city (and the river still runs); the Record Tower, the last original part of the castle, Trinity College, and Temple Bar.

After the tour, we hopped onto a Hop-On Hop-Off bus tour to experience parts of Dublin that we had not visited before. When driving through the north side of the city, we passed through the more modern districts of the city. It was interesting to see the difference between the older-styled Dublin and the business-focused Dublin. The North Side of Dublin felt more like home to me compared to the south side of Dublin. This feeling made me more excited to delve into the company visits we have scheduled this upcoming week, and we start with Google tomorrow. I look forward to comparing the Google Pittsburgh and Google Dublin offices, both on a design-level, how the opportunities compare between offices, and how Google plans to involve their company in Dublin.