Dublin to Vancouver!?

It's funny that the name of my blog is Helsinki to Vancouver since I'm now more than 2000 kilometers away from my home city. But here I am and it's been such a positive experience so far :) :)

I got to know so many nice people already on the day that I arrived and everybody's friendly and easy to talk to here - and always ready to help out. A nice change compared to the grumpy Finns who hate the winter and try not to waste their energy on talking to people :D I've been here for three days now and mainly stayed at the campus area and in the centre of Blackrock. Even though I had zero expectations of the place, I really like it here. And once I finally get to Dublin city, I'm sure I'll like it a thousand times better!!

Blackrock Novitiate Residence

The Blackrock campus is cozy and the facilities excellent compared to my home university. My residence is just next to the main building so just a few minute walk and I can reach all the lecture halls and other campus facilities - also a nice change for the 35 minute bus ride that I need to take to reach the campus back home. The Blackrock campus is for graduate business students only and the rest of the University College Dublin people are at the Belfield campus, which I think is like 15mins away from here by bus and 10 times larger than Blackrock. I'm finally going to see the main campus tomorrow since I need to go get a card for the school gym. I'm guessing that doing sports is easy around here - or at least they promote the sports services heavily - and since Blackrock is located by the sea, it would probably be nice to go jogging along the coastline.

Blackrock Novitiate

Main Building

Campus entrance

The residence and my room were totally different from what I expected - thank god! :D I saw some pictures at the university website and they really don't do justice for the Novitiate :D I thought I was going to live in some rat hole where everything is dirty and not working, but instead the building looks like a castle and my room is 4 meters high!

Stairs to my floor

Hallway

So in my room I have all the basic equipment and there's a common kitchen in each floor. At first I thought that there's no fridge there, but then I discovered that the little box in my room, which I had mistaken as a heater, was actually a small fridge! So I guess I'm living quite comfortably here after all :)

My little 177

First purchases on the top shelf - wine glasses ;)

Love the huge window

Wooden blinds on the window!!

ugh missing all the stuff that I left home!!

I have an effin fireplace in here!! :D

Once I finally get to the Dublin city center, I'll post more pictures. The thing is, I haven't bought a ticket for public transportation yet. I heard that it's 110e a month, for students 90e/month... What a horrible price! But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do - otherwise I'll miss temple bar, shopping, god knows what :D