I’ve officially spent a week at my internship in Dublin. Talking to my friends, we all are having completely different experiences with the cultures and tasks at our companies. For example, some of my friends have very flexible start times and are let out early, where mine is more strict 9-5. It takes me about 45 minutes and two busses to get to work, but it is not a bad start to the day. Walking to the bus stop helps me wake up, and the past few days I’ve run into other Pitt students getting on the same bus. Out of fear of being late, I’ve also been getting to city center about 30-40 minutes early, so I’ll go on a short walk along the river or stop in a coffee shop. It’s the little things to get my day started that make waking up early easier.

Time Management

So far at work, I’ve done administrative tasks like scanning and filling in an excel spreadsheet. I know I have to build up trust and credibility with the people I work with before I get any relevant tasks. Over the past few days at work, my manager has told me the day before what she wants me to do the next day. All of my tasks so far have been time consuming, so they’ve taken me the entire day to do it. Because of that, I haven’t had any problems with my time management. Because I’m still building up my credibility, I don’t want to rush through anything because I may lose quality in the work I’m doing. As I mentioned last week, I am interning in the accounts department, so I have been working with a lot of supplier invoices for all of the different restaurants my company manages. Its definitely interesting to see how many different suppliers are for just one restaurant.  

The department I am in consists of two full time employees and one part time employee. Even though there aren’t many people there to manage all the different restaurants, they all have their niches and know exactly what they need to do. I assume that my summer will be spent helping each of them in different ways with very basic tasks that they each feel comfortable assigning to me.  I hope I get some more interesting and relevant tasks soon, but until then I will go to work everyday with a smile on my face and work until my day is done.

Howth

*I’d now like you to reread my title, but this time imagine me winking and giving you finger guns*

This past Saturday, some of my friends and I took a day trip to Howth. It was just about an hour bus ride east of city center Dublin. First, we stopped and saw the Howth Castle, which was a little confusing to find, but we managed to walk there and to Howth’s pier and hiking spots. It was our first time seeing the sea and the water was surprisingly clear. We went on a hike that took us as close to the cliff’s edge as possible and enjoyed the views. We went a few miles with plenty of stops along the way for pictures and just to take in the views and enjoy our time there together. I think it is the moments like this that I’ll remember 5, 10, 15+ years when I think back to my time in Dublin. I know that Howth is a place I want to go back to, even sometime just after work since it is so close.

Daily Life

Something that my friends and I have decided to try to do is not let the weekdays just be about work. We want to enjoy our random Tuesdays and our big Saturdays all the same, so we’ve been making a point to still hang out in city center or around our apartments mostly every day. The other day we all met at a restaurant in city center for dinner once we were out of work. Another day we met in a park in city center and stopped for ice cream before heading home to get ready to do our day all over again. There’s a really great park near our apartments and we’ll all be there on our own and run into each other.

These past two weeks in Dublin have already flown by, and I know that’ll be the case for the rest of the two months. As I’m trying to take in each experience with my whole heart, I can’t help but think that deciding to come to Dublin was one of the best decisions I’ve made.