It’s hard to believe that we are already half way through our program and our time in Dublin. I now feel so at home in this city and have my day to day routines that don’t make it feel like I’m just visiting. This past weekend, I escaped Dublin for a bit with eleven of my friends here, and we spent a few days exploring Amsterdam together. I loved everything amount Amsterdam. It is such a walkable city, and by the end of our first day, I was already walking around without having to look up directions. The weather was so perfect and the whole city so beautiful. I had heard of the Amsterdam bikes, but nothing could have prepared me for how many bikers there were and how little they paid attention to everyone else on the streets.

While I was there, we did some shopping, walked around the Rijksmuseum and Vondelpark, and a few of us took a tour of a nearby town called Zaandam where we saw the iconic windmills, did a tour of a clog maker’s shop, and tasted over thirty different types of Gouda at an old cheese factory. I spent a lot of time walking around the beautiful streets and sitting by all of the canals, and it was very peaceful. 

This last week in Dublin, I began to get a bit busier at work. I have a few new projects to work on, have been in a lot more meetings, and have had more small tasks to do. I appreciate having more to do and feel I am getting more out of my internship now that I have a variety of tasks. I am also starting to go in person a few more days a week, which makes the weeks go by faster. I also enjoy talking to my coworkers and getting lunch with them, and so I am excited to see them more.

I definitely notice a lot of differences between the United States and Ireland. In some cases, I prefer things here, like how friendly people are and how easy it is to get around with public transportation and walking.

Some things I am still working on adjusting to. Something small is the weather here. When I first arrived and people told me how up and down the weather was in Ireland, I shrugged it off, thinking Pittsburgh is quite unpredictable as well a lot of the time, but it is on a completely different level here. I quite like the cooler temperatures, but I have been caught in the rain without a rain jacket or umbrella a couple of times, just because it looked nice out when I left, or the weather app looked okay.

In the workplace, I am not used to being given such freedom. In my work doing research at home, everything is very methodical, and there is not much room to stray. I am also much more familiar with what I am doing and what I am writing about in my lab at home. Here, I am given very little guidance on how to analyze the data I have been given and how to write up the findings. I am also the only person working on these projects, and so there is no one to check my work against. While this has been difficult to adjust to, I feel like it has taught me a lot and has made me more confident in my professional work. I am making bigger decisions than I normally would on how to go about things and am trying to be creative, something I normally do not do in the very scientific environment I am used to at home. 

Another thing I am still adjusting to, though I prefer it, is the European emphasis on a work-life balance. At home, I spend basically all day everyday studying or working, even on the weekends. I always have my email open in case I need to be reached. Here, even when I am working from home, I open my laptop at 9, and I close it at 5. I much prefer it this way, but I still sometimes struggle to remember that just because my work day ends at 5 doesn’t mean that my whole day ends then as well. I sometimes find myself just sitting around my apartment even though there is still so much I want to do in Dublin. This is something that I am working on, and my friends and I are trying to start making plans for after work, especially because weekends are often spent outside of Dublin.