Today is my 14th day in Ireland and the last day on quarantine. Every student who came from abroad must quarantine for 14 days—with no exceptions.
I’m a first-year student at Trinity College Dublin and like many international students, I live this academic year in Trinity Hall. The huge difference between any US colleges and TCD (short for Trinity College Dublin) is that you live by yourself. You are being assigned the room in an apartment which consists of a total of six rooms and a kitchen. The only time you stumble into your neighbor is in a shared kitchen.
Your room consists of everything essential—including the bathroom. That’s a huge plus. Unlike in US colleges, you don’t have to share the bathroom with anyone since each has its own.
Trinity Hall uses the smart lock system, so to enter the house, then the apartment, and then your own room, you need to use the key—basically a hotel key. During summer, Trinity Hall accepts anyone who is visiting TCD—student or not.
Going back to quarantine. Obviously, you can’t leave your room unless you're picking up your food or exercising on the ground of Trinity Hall—while keeping a 2-meter distance.
I'm picking up the bag of food at 10:45 a.m. Everyone on quarantine has to wear a red bracelet and a mask. The bag includes lunch, dinner, and breakfast for the next day. Honestly, it's not that good, so many order food. It’s quite easy but expensive.
You can’t use the laundromat during these 14 days and neither visit anyone’s rooms—including ones within the apartment. Visiting rule unfortunately works for the entire semester—quarantine or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s all because Dublin moved to the Level 3—and may move to the Level 4 of restrictions. All classes moved online as well—with some exceptions.
Well, let’s talk about transportation. Trinity Hall is about an hour walk from TCD and that’s quite annoying. The reason for this was, apparently, is that a long time ago women couldn’t enter TCD after 6 p.m. For me, it’s not the reason, but that’s what I heard. Anyway, many use bicycles or buses to get to college. The thing about bicycles here is that they are very expensive and robbery happens VERY often. With COVID restrictions, buses aren't the best choice either—due to the traffic. So it’s either walking or taking a train.
Let’s talk about classes. I’m going to generalize it, based on my major. Not like in the US, you don’t choose your classes, not really, and neither do you take classes that are irrelevant to your major. I’ve been assigned automatically two classes in my first semester and two others in my second. I have a choice of picking the module which adds me, one class, to each semester but that’s about it. The reason, again, is because here you don’t take classes like history or second language when you study science—as an example.
Moving to shops and restaurants. With COVID going on, you must wear masks in indoor spaces (duh) and try to keep a 2-meter distance (impossible). Shops are not very close to Trinity Hall so I’ll recommend ordering heavy objects online. You can use Amazon UK which delivers to Ireland or shops like SuperValu, Lidl, and Aldi. Restaurants offer mostly takeout (some have delivery, some don’t) but few of them provide eating spaces outside. With Dublin on Level 3, I don’t think you can eat inside, but I’m not 100% sure on that. It’s really confusing here.
Now, let’s get to the fun and the shocking part I learned. Some of the apartments equipped with balconies which you must NEVER use if you don’t want to have a conversation with a police officer. I didn’t get that one but apparently, if you use a balcony in here, your neighbor will call the cops and that will get quite serious.
During the night, Trinity Hall can be spooky for many reasons and one, drugs. Unfortunately, every college has those people and this one isn’t the exception. Recently, someone jumped over the fence—I really don’t know why since you can use the door. That’s €300 fine. Very common for some reason. And last week a group on quarantine decided to party. Obviously, they've been busted and nearly expelled. Each was fined €500. But the crazy part is that two days after that, they had another one and then...I don’t know what happened.
Well, that’s it for an intro. If you have any questions or just wondering about which college to pick, you are free to contact me. I’m more than happy to help.
Until next time.
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