Throughout my time here in Ireland I have realized that they tend to communicate on a more low context basis. In comparison to the US where everything is very direct and usually has instructions to go along with what is being asked of you. Here things are more implied and expected of you to understand. Most of the time in Ireland I will be asked to write something up and that’s it and they won’t be very clear on what they want to see in it so it is more up to me on how I think |I should do it. While in the US things are much clearer. When someone wants something done they will either train you on how to do it always or tell you what context to put in it. There was one time where I didn’t know what my supervisor said and I asked him to repeat a few times and still didn’t get the full extent of what he was asking so when it came time for him to sign the document he realized the mistake and asked me to fix it which I then did.
This weekend me and my roommate took a trip to Paris. We flew out of Dublin on Friday night and spent two days there. When we arrived on Friday it was very late so we could not do much but we were able to walk to Notre Dame to see it lit up at night. At the hostel we were staying at we met so many people that went around with us for the weekend. We met one person from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and even Penn State. These people were all great and they were all solo travelers traveling around Europe for upwards of 3 months just going from place to place, which considering how tired I was after 2 days I don’t think I could do that.
On Saturday we got up very early with no plans but we knew we just wanted to get up and go see what there is to see around Paris. We started by walking down to the Louvre and going inside to see everything. Which we later found out to be nearly impossible to do because we were in there for around four hours and felt like we barely put a dent in what there is to see in the entire museum. When I told my boss we went there he asked me about so many famous pieces that I just didn’t see even after being there for as long as we were. Even though we didn’t see everything we were still able to hit the most important things to us, like the mona lisa, greek and roman statues, and the italian paintings. Although it felt like we had enough for the day after walking around that gigantic museum for four hours we decided to go to the Arc de Triomphe. This was a straight walk from the Louvre and you could see the Arc from nearly 2-3 miles away when walking towards it. This was a really cool experience. Also on the way there are many shops, restaurants, and stores where there were a ton of people. To get to the Arc you have to go underground due to the fact that the Arc is in the middle of a roundabout.
After the Arc we decided to go see the Eiffel Tower because of course we had to see that. Here is where we met up with my friend Max Cowie who is doing this program in Prague. We got food right under the Eiffel Tower which was surprisingly not super expensive given its location. Then we were able to play racquetball in a pop up court right under the tower as well. This was super cool because usually you would have to pay 50 euro to do this however the guy there for some reason let us play for free. After this me and my roommate were officially beat and wanted to go back to the hostel to get some food and recharge, but as we got back there was a happy hour in the lobby for everyone staying at the hostel and this is where we were able to meet everyone that we hung out with for the rest of the trip.
On Sunday we got a later start because we were tired from all the walking we did the day before but that didn’t stop us from walking back to the Notre Dame with the hopes to go inside. However those dreams were later crushed because the line looked like it could take all day so we decided to go up to the Sacre Coeur. This was a really cool spot that allowed us to look out across the entire city and there was also a very nice town where there were a bunch of pop up shops and stores where you could get little trinkets. After this we had to say our goodbyes to our new friends and head to the airport to catch our flight back to Dublin.
