So, I'm sitting at the house, still recovering from a raging hangover, the result of last night's introductory pubcrawl. Like everything else organized by Irishmen, no one had any idea what was going on, where we were going or whether 300 people could fit into a bar at the same time. Ok, the last one was a lie - everyone knows attempting this is borderline insane.

But let's back up a bit...

I arrived in Dublin last Wednesday, immediately checking into my hostel. I got into a dorm full of Le French, who were quiet at first, but by the time we went out at night, they'd turned out to be easy going and great to be around.

At the hostel I got into a group of Erasmus students browsing for accommodation. I already had a fallback, but joined them in looking for something better, but I ended up settling for my fallback.
The evenings were spent exploring the Dublin nightlife and throwing back pints at an alarming rate, while days were moved along at a leisurely pace, just fixing small stuff like getting an Irish SIM or hanging with new people at the hostel.

Saturday, the last day before moving to my new home, all of Dublin was on end. Thousands of Americans made their pilgrimage to the Irish capital to watch two NCAA college football teams (Notre Dame and Navy) duke it out on Irish soil at the Aviva stadium. My new French friends weren't too interested, so I decided to go to the bar next to the stadium and check it out.
The place was crammed with drunk Americans, cheering for their team, and drunk Irishmen… enjoying an excuse to be drunk. Luckily, they are so ridiculously friendly, that I spent the entire afternoon in their company, discussing American football and cheerleaders (mostly the latter). They kept calling me Mitch (Buchanan), which did nothing to deflate my ego.

Moving Day.
Sunday I moved into the house. It's in a great neighborhood - the Rathmines, nestled in between the city center and the suburbs. It's 20 minutes to College campus and 10 to the clubs and bars. This area is popular with students and so is always buzzing with life, yet our house sits on a quiet villa road, so the noise is minimal.
The house itself is big, but it is not the most modern and cleaning it will be a pain since there's floor to floor carpet throughout. Luckily I got first pick on rooms, and duly picked the largest. The bed is of course too short, so my feet dangle out, but I'll manage.
My roommate arrived while I was in the business of unpacking. He is Trevor Newman, an Oregon, USA native standing about my height but built like linebacker. He's a great guy and we clicked pretty much immediately.

Our last few days we've spent at Ikea getting all the stuff we need for our house, but also at the UCD (University College Dublin) where we spent countless frustrating hours. There are so many cards, memberships and so on we need to acquire, and not only are they spread out all over campus, but no one has any clue where the things are so we end up wandering from place to place, only to get directed to another and so on. The agony!!

Keith, an Irishman, moved in a few days ago. He likes Soccer, drinking, and women. He's a grand lad who's been in this city a few years, and so gives us the lowdown on what's happening where - leading to us going to a packed club (Dicey's) this Monday.
We haven't gotten to talk to him that much though, as he had to return home and grab his last few items.
The same goes for the pair of Germans who moved in today, but hopefully there will be lots of good times ahead with them.

Alright, that's it for this time - I promise to bring another update next time I'm too hung over to get out of bed all day.