The halfway point sneaks up on you fast, doesn’t it? Writing my first blog entry in the Keflavik airport feels like just yesterday, or maybe it feels like something that happened years ago. Does that mean Dublin feels like home? Not necessarily, I think I’ve lived in enough places that everywhere on Earth is just a transient place between airports, but I think I’ve got the city’s rhythm figured out. Little things, like which car on the Luas (city tram) will be the least crowded, or the flow of foot traffic on O’Connell street during my lunch break. It’s finally starting to warm up here – I left the house without a jacket for the first time today.

Over the weekend, I took a train an hour up north to a “fishing village” called Howth. (ow sound pronounced like the o in code) I put fishing village in quotes since it was less fog on the water and quiet shacks and more California marina – it also seemed the entire populations of Germany, France, and Spain had the same travel plans I did. I took the longest trail offered, a 10 kilometer loop, and once I broke from the packs on shorter trails, it was breathtaking to be walking along the open cliff faces with nothing more than my backpack and my thoughts. Were I to do it again, I would have packed more water, a few snacks, and more serious footwear. My bottle ran dry about halfway through, and appreciating the back half of the hike was hard as the sun beat down. My beloved Clarks Wallabees held strong through the dirt, gravel, and mild scaling, of the Howth Cliff Walk Purple Loop, but by the 7 kilo mark or so, I was longing for pair of trail runners or hiking boots.

The biggest culture shock I’ve encountered so far has been the prevalence of online work. I know that’s not an Irish-exclusive thing, the U.S. has arguably spearheaded the work from home movement over the past four years, but due to the nature of all my previous work/internship experiences, remote work has never been on the table. Here, in an office with a dozen people, there are days when only one other person is physically in the room with me. I will be honest, if I was an established act, a tenured full-timer, I’d be jumping to work from home. No commute, no boss looking over your shoulder, wear your sweatpants all day, the good life. As a fresh upstart, the remote work culture is a weight on the other side of the scale. With most of my colleagues away most of the time, I don’t get the chance to form real connections with the people I work with. At previous internships, I spent extensive time in the office and field with people I now consider friends, and you don’t get that when they’re not at post, sometimes not even in Dublin. As an intern, you don’t expect to change the world, but the guy you talk about Alice In Chains with on the way to a conference will end up writing you a letter of recommendation for that grad school program. That’s not a guarantee if you’ve only exchanged workplace platitudes over Microsoft Teams. Regrettably, there’s not exactly a way around this. I can’t ask a career professional to upend their working arrangement for the resume of an intern with less than a month left on his clock. The best thing to do is try and manage with the situation at hand, and make the most of every opportunity I’m given. Small talk with the office regulars will make a big difference, as will actively seeking out more work from my superiors, even if those connections have to be made from behind a screen.

In the coming week, I’m hoping to get more time in and more time out. More time with my colleagues in the office, as suits them, so I can get to know them better, and more time out of the office, watching cases at the Four Courts. Maybe some of the paperwork will fall by the wayside, but I think it’s a small price to pay for the connections and experiences that I’ll only get to experience in this Department, in this city.