At this time next week I will be moved in to my dorm/apartment thing in Dublin. I don't know exactly when it will hit me. Right now it feels like someone is going to tell me it was a joke or maybe I bought the wrong plane ticket or something. But reality is coming.
I've been packing for the past couple of days. I'm happy to say that I'm almost done, lost somewhere in the toiletries and hair products shelves of the bathroom, and did not procrastinate until midnight tonight. Maybe I forgot to mention this, but I'm leaving tomorrow for Georgia to visit my Mom. On Sunday (June 13th) of next week I'll get on a plane from Atlanta and fly to New York City, then straight over to Dublin, arriving at about 10AM on the 14th.
Packing for a double trip is kind of difficult because of the different weather conditions existing in both cities. I think my solid cotton T's, jeans and flip-flops can do double duty though, serving as workout/lounge clothes in Ireland and general wear in Georgia. Hopefully I'll be on the lake almost the entire week, water-skiing, hiking, kayaking and biking around Lake Lanier and the Chattahoochee River, also giving me a chance to turn my skin a darker shade of tan and thereby sticking out in Dublin even more.
I've gotten my second taste of cultural diversity over the past few days as I've received and read more information about my program. There are a lot of slang terms I didn't know and will be sure to use with caution. My favorite is "craic" meaning fun and "slagging" meaning to tease. There are some other words and American expressions that I need to be careful not to use, like instead of saying "do you like my pants" or "I need to put on pants," I should say "trousers" because pants means undies. And instead of saying "can i have a ride," I need to take extra, extra care to say "can I have a lift" because "having a ride" means having sexual relations. Here is a link to other Irish slang our program introduced to us.
There are some other pieces of Irish culture I'm encountering through my exchanges with the Dublin office. I read that Irish culture places more importance on verbal communication than through written, like in the US. For this reason some information that would have been very helpful for me has only just been included. I think everything will be fine and I suppose some of this has to do with my addiction to structure and organization. I just have to breathe out my frustration and American expectations and appreciate that I'm a visitor and things will not go the way I'm used to. I need to let it go and smile. Diversity is a beautiful thing!