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.
I awoke in my hotel in the Montmartre neighborhood (my favorite area) of Paris that Saturday morning still full, as I had been eating roughly 2-3 French baguettes a day since my arrival in Paris (April 21). Despite that, I needed to catch my Aer Lingus flight out of Charles de Gaulle International Airport to Dublin. Checking in for my flight at the airport was simple and the Aer Lingus staff were very friendly. I had always heard how nice the Irish were and the airport staff did not disappoint me! Having never flown the airline before, I was really pleased with the cabin crew and with how clean the airplane was.
An Aer Lingus plane on the tarmac at Charled de Gaulle International Airport (Paris, France)
An Aer Lingus plane wing - in flight!
I spent the short 90 minute flight from Paris to Dublin reading Aer Lingus' inflight magazine Cara. As an international airline and the national air carrier of Ireland, I was interested to see how Aer Lingus marketed not only itself, but also the destinations it serves.
To be honest, I am still not sure who Aidan Turner is! But, I may have to check out his show Poldark!
It was interesting to see/read how Jamie Heaslip, a Rugby Union player (not sure what Rugby Union is) spends a lot of his time in the United States; specifically in California and Florida. Apparently he does this because the Irish weather is not as comfortable as he finds it in the United States. This should've been the first sign that I was in for a rude awakening about the Irish weather!
Also, it was interesting seeing how a foreign business (Aer Lingus) markets/advertises destinations in the United States and how it promotes the American markets it serves.
On approach into Dublin it was raining pretty good. And once I walked off the plane and into the jet-way, I quickly realized why Mr. Heaslip spends so much of his time in both California and Florida! It was cold!
Also, at the airport I was struck by the airport signs. The signs consisted of two written languages, one was English and the other was in some language that confused me (turned out to be the other official language of Ireland, Gaelic). This was my first experience with Gaelic; seems very complicated!
Unlike in both London and Paris where I had stayed in unfamiliar lodging (I rented someone's apartment through Air BnB in London and had a small boutique hotel in Paris), my first night in Dublin was spent at the Radisson Blu Dublin Airport. The hotel had the look and feel of many hotels I have stayed at in the United States.
Recognizing I didn't want to spend my first day in Ireland at an airport hotel, I took a taxi into Dublin city center. Having just been in France, I had to get readjusted to being in a right hand drive car on the left side of the road - as they do in Britain. I asked the taxi (or in Gaelic 'tacsai') driver to drop me off along the River Liffey near the center of downtown. It had stopped raining (I would come to learn that the weather changes constantly in Dublin) and I was able to explore.
From Aril 26 - May 1, 2015 I will be traveling to Dublin, Ireland (for the first time!).
I had only heard a few mentions of Dublin pre-departure as none of my close or immediate friends had traveled to the Republic of Ireland before myself. I had heard through random channels that Ireland is a beautiful country, but it was also a rather cold island in the North Atlantic. Despite that fact, I was excited for the trip (which would also include visits to London and Paris the week before) as I was yearning to escape the heat and dryness of Southern California. Having been fortunate to travel to Europe numerous times over the last six years, I couldn't wait to hop over to the other side of the pond!
The Dublin leg (April 25 - May 1) of my 2015 Euro trip was unique as I was traveling there to partake in a short study abroad experience as part of my Pepperdine University MBA program. Whereas my trip to London and Paris (April 17 - 25) was for leisure, Dublin was a sanctioned academic trip that did promise opportunity for some extra curricular cultural enrichment. I had done similar short intensive courses before in my Master of Planning program at the University of Southern California. While at USC I took two separate courses (one year apart from one
another) where I traveled with my classmates to India and Brazil for
about two weeks each. Those trips were similar in structure as this one; both being academic and culturally enriching.
Unlike those USC trips, where we worked with public agencies, the
Pepperdine trip to Dublin would involve meeting numerous multinational
and indigenous private firms. Hence, during our pre-departure course on
March 14, 2015, Professor Mooney and Salas tried to familiarize the class
to the best they could with what the expectations for the course were
and tried to briefly familiarize us with certain aspects of Irish
culture, such as the song "Molly Malone:"
Additionally, we were going to visit the subsidiary offices of Microsoft, Google, State Street, AirBnB and Accenture while in Dublin. Each of these multinational corporations made a business decision to setup in Ireland and our job as students was to learn why.
Since I had traveled to Europe several times before I knew how to prepare for the trip in terms of planning, transportation, lodging, having the proper documentation (passport, passport copies, having my itinerary printed) and electrical adapters. I have always found getting around Europe to be rather simple - especially where rail transit is viable.
However, anytime one travels to a new place (like myself traveling to Dublin) there is uncertainty. For example, I had no idea how big or small Dublin was. Also, I had no idea what Irish weather was like. I had been to Britain several times and had noticed on maps how close to Ireland it was. Additionally, both are islands in the north Atlantic. Therefore, I rationalized that Dublin weather and London weather had to be the same. I would come to find out upon arrival in Ireland that I was quite wrong!
Personally, the the academic trip to Dublin was different from my two trips as a masters student at USC. While at USC, the India and Brazil courses I took were full 15 week semester long courses. Each week the class would get together and do work associated with the trip. Each week each member of the class saw one another. By the time we were in country (India or Brazil) we knew each other quite well. The Pepperdine Dublin course met only once, six weeks before the trip and was made up of students from the Fully-Employed, Full-Time and Online MBA programs. It is fair to say that I only knew a few of the 24 students names in my class before we began the Dublin program on April 26. I am not saying one way is better than the other, as that is not the purpose of this statement. The purpose, as was experienced/witnessed, is to show in this blog how everyone on the Dublin trip (faculty, students, administrators) came together over five days, acted as professionals, established relationships and created lasting memories. Which goes to show the quality of individuals Pepperdine University attracts.
