Le Premier Jour a Dublin

What a gorgeous day today!  After unpacking and catching up on Zs, my first day in Dublin consisted of:

1) quick shopping to find essentials:  towels and bedding.
2) LLM Reception
3) new friends
4) pubs

Trinity is central to everything.  A quick walk down Grafton Street led me to St. Stephen's Green Shopping Centre which, oddly, I had not been to on my prior 2 trips to Dublin.  What I thought would be a quick trip to pick out towels, sheets, pillows, duvet, duvet cover, etc. ended up in indecisiveness.  You're all shocked, I know. 

I walked out of Dunne's with cheap and cheerful towels.  On the rest of the items, I was torn between two voices:  the student budget voice and the voice that really enjoys high thread-count bedding.  These two do not mix well.  I'll admit it, after working at Pottery Barn and getting 40% off nice soft (and visually appealing) bedding, I'm somewhat spoiled.  However, if you saw 50%cotton/50%polyester bedding, it may give you shivers as well.  I just couldn't do it.  The 3-pc set was €12 for a reason.  No gracias.  As my mother taught me, you get what you pay for.  (thanks, mom, that excuse is often convenient!).

Not wanting to be rushed to get to my LLM reception, I paid for my 6-pc towel set (2 bath, 2 hand, 2 wash) at the bargain price of €10 ($15) and walked back to College.  The hunt for nice bedding could wait another day.

LLM Reception

The Law Department hosted a wine reception at 5pm for the LLM students, where we could not only meet others in our programme, but also meet faculty and staff. 

I arrived a few minutes early and met a fellow classmate as we stood outside waiting for the doors to open.  Once inside, the reception was in what we later discovered was one of the classrooms...small room!  I met students and faculty, then said hello to our LLM Programme Director, whom I had emailed several times over the past year.  Before I said my name, he said "Molly, isn't it?"  Lexi, he asked about you as well!  He was very nice, and I thanked him again for the 1-year deferral and also for bearing with all of my email questions.  I also tracked down the Product Liability professor, who then introduced me to other faculty.  I would estimate there were approx. 50 people there.

In all, orientation was short and sweet.  We learned that this year's LLM class is 107 students, compared to only 55 who were in the programme last year.  A sign of the economy, indeed.  The Director told us that they had over 320 applicants this year.  I'm curious how many they had last year.