Happy Fourth of July from Dublin, Ireland! This is my first time being abroad on a holiday especially one that comes along with traditions. It was kind of weird to not see fireworks last night and have a barbecue with my family, which is what I normally do. On the other part of my mind, I do realize I will have those probably for the rest of my life no matter where I go just because of where I was brought up! This past week I went to a little fisherman’s town called Howth with my friend Lauren Gallagher. As soon as I got here and I met a lot of my coworkers, I asked what is your favorite place around Ireland and what is something that I should not miss while I’m here. Nine out of ten people said you have to go to Howth and do the cliff walk then have fresh seafood. Finally, Lauren and I got around to doing the walk and seafood run this past Friday! The cliff walk is around two and a half hours in total and is this beautiful sunny stretch of the Dublin Cliff side. I took the dart for the very first time which was so much easier than I ever could’ve expected! If I have any piece of advice from this trip it would be to get a student leap card a month in advance and ship it right to your house so you have it when you get in country. This leap card pretty much allows you to go anywhere with public transportation! Anyways, I was really excited about this cliff walk! I recently did the cliffs of Mohr walk in pelting freezing rain, still an incredible experience I would recommend to anybody, but not as enjoyable as it could’ve been. This walk on the other hand was beautiful on and a completely clear day with just a sprinkle of showers right in the middle. It’s still Dublin after all! The smell of the sea and the wind off the rocks, looking at the beautiful flowers wildlife and rock formations was an experience I won’t soon forget! I had seen quite a lot of TicTok about this tiny hidden beach on the cliff walk path. Lauren and I found it and went for a quick polar plunge! I have officially swam off the coast of Ireland! I swim for about a minute and a half because it was a brisk 60° outside and much less in the water! But I was officially in! After our hike, we went back and got some incredible seafood at a local restaurant O’Connell’s.

I am so grateful that my work has people who enjoy similar activities to me such as hiking and sightseeing! My company has a very interesting hierarchy. Because we’re so small there is very little leadership from a single person or group. The company did a fantastic job of hiring very independent hard-working people who naturally don’t need a lot of assistance. In my lifetime I’ve worked in several different places and I cannot say the same. It makes me interested to learn their hiring tactics or if they just got really lucky with the natural personalities of their employees. Throughout my life and especially with school projects I tend to be a pretty insistent leader. I get quickly irritated when people don’t work as hard as I do. Now, I am finally in a place where people work just as hard as I do if not harder and I can see visually the effect it has on our company. This in the future will make me a better leader if I can figure out how to hire people to work like this company. I think it is an interesting part of a small company that you need to hire extremely well or else your company goes under versus a big company that can have a more relaxed hiring standard will naturally get less motivated employees and still do well as a whole.

This upcoming weekend I will go to Edinburgh which I am extremely excited about! I am, kind of obnoxiously, a Harry Potter fan! I’ve been researching pretty much all weekend long about what to do and see while I’m there! I am a little worried about travel seeing a lot of canceled flights because of strikes, Covid spikes, and even lost luggage! I am going to use all of my Irish luck and hope that won’t happen to me and my roommates who are going with me!