International Incidents (or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the time change)

As happy as we were to arrive in Dublin and have our first pints, we looked forward to the students arriving and getting started on our classes. We have an excellent group of students this year, and as they arrived they immediately proved their adaptability, curiosity, and sense of adventure. I don't think the students realize how much they can impact their experience based on their attitudes, and the first two days have shown that they are going to have a really great time here. The highlight of the day the students arrived was the tour of Dublin provided by an expert in Irish history who has written several books on the Irish Revolution. We told him that we wanted a very political tour, and he did not disappoint. In typical Irish fashion he was funny, opinionated, and loved our American students. The biggest surprise and laugh from the students was his bluntness: "I know American politics well. Republicans are the right cheek, and Democrats are the left cheek, both parts of ...

I am in Ireland again for another study abroad trip with my students. Darci (my co-leader, source of emotional support, source of emotional abuse) is joining me again with her partner Peyton. We assign our students to do a travel blog, and Darci makes me do one too. I will be posting as much as I can, hopefully with some stories that give a taste of the experience. Here it goes… Departure : Amy drove me to the La Crosse airport at 4:45. At gate at 4:48. (It’s hard to overstate how much I love small town airports.) No photos or stories of this time because neither of us were happy to be up. Great view of Westby WI out of the window Flight: I watched the movie M3GAN on the flight to Dublin. Not great, and less robot murdering than I had hoped. The woman next to me watched it on my screen the whole time. I felt a little bad that I fast forwarded most parts with dialogue (I’m not a fan of character development), but the woman didn’t seem to mind. I was using headphones, so maybe s...