Dublin Spring Seminar 2014 - 6

Weekend in Dublin

This weekend was one where I (and I assume the rest of the BC High guys) got

some much needed rest. We were given the two days to spend as we wanted

with our host families, although everyone had tickets for a Gaelic Football game

at Croke Park Sunday afternoon. After all the exercise in Kerry and buzzing through Dublin on Friday, I slept way in. Once I ate an always-delicious breakfast, my host brother Conor and I played some xbox and planned the day. Then, taking the bus in, we met up with Chris Young and his host Fiachra Smith and spent a few hours

cruising the streets in the sprinkling rain. Some of the other guys got together to go paintballing and one went down the country to see a relative he had never met before.

While many of the Irish seem to say that Dublin doesn't have much to do, I'd dare to say it's got lots like Boston, with shops, parks, museums everywhere. Finally, Fiarchra and his mom were kind enough to invite Conor and me over for the night, to pass the rugby ball around and meet up with some of their friends in Clontarf, a very nice suburb just on the edge of the city.

On Sunday, Conor had to go fundraise for Belvedere's trip to Kolkata all day, so he left early and the rest of us enjoyed a full Irish breakfast and again tossed a ball around with some other Belvo guys before heading off to the Gaelic Football

match, Dublin vs. Derry. Gaelic football is something like a mixture of soccer and basketball, involving both holding, bouncing, and kicking the ball into a net or between two posts. The pitch is the size of nearly two American football fields put together long-sides touching, yet the game is quick enough for the ball to travel that in seconds. The players wear jerseys similar to that of rugby players, with cleats and no pads. Despite this, it is an immensely physical sport, with players bumping, pushing, swiping at each other to gain control of the ball, which looks similar to a volleyball in size

and stitching. To summarize my experience, this was my first time watching the sport, and I was with some of the other BC High guys in wanting to start a team back home.

Reflecting on this weekend and the trip so far as a whole makes me realize howlong we've been here and how little we have left, so I hope, like many of the otherexchanges to make the best of the next few days.