We have been preparing for months, so it feels pretty amazing that our Plus3 group finally made it to Dublin today.  Our first day was everything we expected it to be and more.  The weather was beautiful and the locals told us it was the nicest day that Ireland had seen so far this year.  We got off the plan, shrugged off the jet lag (or at least tried to), left our raincoats in the suitcases and hit the ground running.  We did a walking tour of the city with our amazing CAPA host, Hayley.  We fought through the jet lag, Marty and I fought through allergies, and in what should be considered a heroic effort, we all learned a lot throughout our walking tour.

Hayley was kind enough to address some of the Irish slang such as, chips are fries, and crisps are chips and so on.  We went over the local bus routes/tours, and other best ways to navigate the city to where we will need to be during our 2-week stay in Ireland. We visited Griffith College, whose Gothic-style architecture resembles our own University.  We got to see and learn a lot in the first day, but what I got most out of Day 1 is that this is a great group of people we have here.  All 20 of us seemed to hit it off right away and I can already tell that this trip is not only going to be educational, but a ton of fun.