School Begins! - Sunday April 26th

Sunday at noon was when the official Pepperdine program began. After checking out of the Radisson I took another tacsai to the Jury's Inn Custom House along the River Liffey in Dublin city center. Here was where we all would be staying for the duration of the program.

Jury's Inn Custom House

After checking in, we had lunch at the hotel and then grouped up for our first official session.

(Professor Mooney speaking)

  

The itinerary for the day was to take the "Dublin City Hop-on-Hop Off" bus tour; a tour meant to familiarize ourselves with the city and some of its history.

Hop-on-Hop Off Bus Tour

Class walking to the Hop-on-Hop Off Bus stop

Class taking over the top of the Double-Decker bus
(However, we did retreat to the first floor when it started to hail!)

Views from the bus tour:

  

 

The City of Dublin is growing. More businesses and people are moving in. As a result, there are several public works projects (as seen below) to improve the infrastructure. For example, the city is building a new tram line. 

Guinness Storehouse

At this point, the day was quickly coming to an end and most of class wanted to check out Guinness before it closed. Fortunately, the bus tour had a stop near the Guinness Storehouse.

Classmates

Pouring myself a pint!

 

The Gravity Bar at the top of the Guinness Storehouse (360 degree view of the city)

View from the Gravity Bar

Not a bad first day of class! I passed!

Guinness was a great way to get a glimpse into the Irish culture. It is a product of Ireland and they are very proud of it. Being able to witness the passion and skill (especially of the Coopers) that Guinness employees have was just a foreshadowing event into the same passion and skill that all of the Irish people we met throughout the trip had.