The First Week in Limerick, Ireland

Hi all, I’m a 3^rd year environmental engineering student coming off my first co-op and into classes in the little city of Limerick, Ireland. This trip marks a big first for me: my first time in Europe! Determined to make the most of it, I decided to take my last week of summer off from work. Along with four close friends from Northeastern – two of whom are coming to The University of Limerick with me – I spent my last 10 days before moving into Ireland touring the Iberian Peninsula. After starting in Lisbon, Portugal and making our way through a few cities in Spain, climbing the Rock of Gibraltar, and finding some time to hit the beach, needless to say I arrived at the Shannon Airport half asleep, mostly sunburnt, and fully unprepared for the week ahead.

Shannon airport immigration doesn’t take kindly to naps, and they don’t have any aloe, but their quirky Irish welcome put me in the right spirits to be meeting my 7 new roommates. So, us 3 Huskies boarded the shuttle from the airport to the university. We began talking with the student guides on the bus and they were even more friendly than the immigration officers! They answered some of our questions, made the first of a week-long series of jokes about Irish accents and weather, and dropped us off at our on-campus residence: Plassey Village, where many of the international students, and first year-Irish students are housed.

I was the last to move into my house, and after meeting everyone, I was struck by something unexpected. There was nobody from Ireland in my house. Three Americans (the other two huskies are in a different house), three Germans, one Hollander, and one Austrian living in Ireland together. On the one hand I was looking forward to meeting some more Irish folks, but on the other hand, at least I wasn’t the only one getting used to how things work in our new country of residence. We all quickly got to know each other and got to work sharing family dinners, English translations, and stories.

Now about Ireland. I arrived here with the basic knowledge of Ireland just about everyone has: lots of rain, lots of pubs, friendly people. **Disclaimer: this paragraph was written by an environmental engineer and may not be interesting to most people. Skip ahead to the next paragraph if not interested in energy efficiency** But did you know the Irish are big into energy efficiency? In the US (at least anywhere I’ve lived) we have always had hot water at the ready. You just turn on the faucet and wait a few seconds. When you need to use the oven or the stovetop, you just press a button or turn the knob on the stove. When you need to use an outlet, you just plug something in. Here, everything has it’s own switch, and is supposed to be switched off by default. The boiler is only on for designated hours – 6 hours a day – because our house is newly refurbished. Many Irish houses still operate on a system where you would have to flip the switch to turn the boiler (an electric water heater without a thermostat, called an immersion) on, then remember to turn it back off after your shower. Residual hot water could then be used for your faucet, or taken from your home heating system when necessary. On the first couple days the switches for everything annoyed me. It’s 2017, why should everything in this newly refurbished house require two steps just to access power? But now just one week in I’m already flipping the extra switches without a second thought. So why are the Irish so particular about energy? Perhaps it has something to do with the cost of electricity. At $0.288/kWh in Ireland (USD converted from Euros) compared to an average $0.12/kWh for residential electricity in the US, the Irish are wise to put in a little extra effort to cut down on expensive electric bills. Perhaps this is why the per capita energy rate in Ireland is a mere 112 million Btu compared to an average 213 million Btu for the state of Massachusetts (https://www.eia.gov/state/data.php?sid=MA#ConsumptionExpenditures, https://www.google.ie/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=eg_use_pcap_kg_oe&idim=country:IRL:NOR:NLD&hl=en&dl=en). Maybe The Chicago Tribune’s 2^nd greenest ranked state in the US has something to learn from their friends across the pond…

The Irish also do orientation a little bit differently than back home. We were greeted by a performance by globally competitive traditional Irish step dancers and musicians, dinner, and a DJ party at one of the on-campus pubs (yes, that’s right, on-campus pubs. Conveniently located next to the bookstore and the students union). Towards the end of the week we were able to take the short bus ride off of our rural little college oasis into downtown Limerick, where we explored the weekly Limerick Milk Market. Like what we would call a farmer’s market in the US, but a little different. There is everything there from fresh meat, fish, and cheese from local vendors, to thrift shop items such as VHS tapes, old cow bells, and clothes ranging from retro to new designer. As if that wasn’t enough, there are also plenty of stands where you can pick up what you need for tools, tractor wheels, and probably other things cow farmers need that I wouldn’t be able to identify. I’m looking forward to going next week to try some of the very popular and aromatic handmade Irish foot-long sausages, fresh cheese, and maybe even some coffee that isn’t instant (surprisingly hard to find).

The University of Limerick also runs regular tour trips at a discount for students. This Sunday they took about 300 UL students on a guided coach bus around the County of Clare, Ireland. Situated just northwest of our campus. The trip included a stop at Ireland’s most popular surfing beach (did you know the Irish have killer waves?), the Burren National Park, and the famous Cliffs of Moher, in addition to a few other smaller monuments and villages. The Irish countryside is BEAUTIFUL, with endless greenery, cows, stone walls, cows, ruins of castles, and cows. Lots of cows. Literally everywhere, even on the edge of a cliff in the national park there are cows.

Not too much more to share about the first week, but plenty more travel around Ireland to come with student groups on campus. Especially the International Society at UL, which is a club just for study abroad/exchange students that runs trips to explore the whole country. Looking forward I’m excited to get into the full swing of classes, meet my Irish classmates and professors, and start seeing the sights. There’s a lot to explore here, so it’s a good thing I’ve got another 3.5 months!

So for any students looking for some advice from my first week study abroad experience I’ll offer 3 main points:

1. Travel before, after, in between, whenever you can. It’ll likely be cost effective. My two flights (Boston-Lisbon, Malaga-Shannon) for my pre-Ireland travel combined cost less than if I had just flown straight there.
2. You’re there to experience the culture of your residence country, but that doesn’t make non-local connections any less valuable! Who knows when the next time you may be looking for a couch to sleep on in a foreign country…
3. Have back-ups for transferable classes. Maybe even back-ups for your back-ups. Optimism can only get you so far, and the info you’re gathering on classes the semester before you go could change ENTIRELY upon your arrival.