Campus Dog Park

It would appear that the University of Limerick is an unofficial dogpark for the town in which it resides, Castletroy. Over the last few days, I have seen more than 10 dogs trotting alongside ambling people carrying leashes. I have never seen a dog attached to a leash. These are very well behaved creatures! They don’t run around like insane creatures (like my dogs), and they trot happily along in the near vicinity of the person holding the leash. Many of these dogs are quite damp, so I think they are walked for the enjoyment of the river that flows behind the campus. Water features rather prominently here. There are two streams that flow through the campus, two huge fountains, several smaller fountains, and there is a big-assed river running enthusiastically behind the campus. One is never very far from the sound of running water.

Thursday and Friday are the big orientation days, and there have been tours running all around the campus. We had our welcome and Lecture on Everything, and then a two hour tour of the campus finding the ins and outs of computer labs, the student union, the sports arena, and classrooms. The “finale” was a “welcome dinner” at the student watering hole called “the Stables.” The Stables is a bar with a small area that sells food. It is located in a warren of stone coves in what used to be the actual stabling area from when the campus was a grand country manor at the turn of the century. The smell of horses has been replaced by the smell of stale beer. The student bar is long and dim with tiny tables and stools strewn all about. Guinness and Harp are on tap, and Harp seems to be the favored choice. The floor has a slightly tacky feel to it as if a good bit of beer has spilled on it and soaked into the tile. There are wooden pillars and an open wood beam ceiling to give one the Olde Tyme feel of a place where horses used to live. I was surprised to hear slow traditional ballads being played as the bar muzak.

The “welcome dinner” for Study Abroad students consisted of a paper ticket for a free dinner from the food corner of The Stables. One was supposed to meet people. I’m not sure how successful this bid for socializing was. My call? Unsuccessful. Of course people sat with who they already knew, and the pub seating limited most groups to about four people. However, the free dinner seemed like a good idea at the time. I got the fish-n-chips and concluded that free was a good price cuz the 3 Euro they would have charged would have been way too much for my Fried Fish Puck. I have been making myself some tasty rice-n-vegetables with a bit of sausage for protein, and I have found it to be a very satisfying dinner. I am reassured that I am not missing much by doing my own cooking.

During orientation, there has been much talk of “the Drink.” Of course the International Office people were trying to discourage binge drinking, but their tack was not to say it is bad for your health. They know that bid would fall on deaf ears as anyone under 30 is immortal. Instead, one clever person said, “Look up the price of a ticket with Ryan Air from Shannon to Paris for a weekend. Compare that to what a night of drinking costs. Which way do you think is a better way to spend your money?” I think that is a very smart approach because it is true that a few pints will really put a person back a few Euros, and with the dollar’s value falling like a rock into a black hole, a pint of beer becomes the price of a good dinner. But for the sake of my brother, who would be LUCKY to have been found in a basket at the free beach at Lake Wyola, I will indeed research, in the most geeeeeky way (what other way is there?), the drinking habits of Irish youth. However, that will have to happen next week when I join a Society. I doubt I will be having a pint with the people who live in my dorm as they seem to be totally nocturnal and only come out between midnight and 3 a.m. I deduce this from the door slamming noises and the huge amount of crumbs all over the common room that I find the next morning.