Go Team 7! (Or, Why My Feet Are About to Fall Off)

Ow.

I don't remember the last time I walked this much. My apartment in Burlington had a shuttle bus that carted students back and forth to campus, but here, we're walking about the same distance to get to the Academic Center, approximately half an hour. Today started with that nice brisk walk, a preview of the route we'll be taking to get to class every morning. It involves crossing the street a lot, something I am not looking forward to as people here j-walk all willy nilly with little regard for crosswalks, and the cars drive crazy fast. But we do get to pass Saint Stephen's Green, which is lovely.

The Academic Center

Once we arrived at the Academic Center, we got to know the three staff members a bit, had a pizza lunch, and were divided into groups to be sent out on a scavenger hunt! Now, as someone who has competed in Champlain's Amazing Race and in both the spirit week scavenger hunt and the huge annual one, I am pretty competitive when it comes to this sort of thing, so I was excited. The hunt led us all around the city, and although we didn't hit every single point, we saw parts that we hadn't been to yet, and I definitely spotted some places that I'd like to explore more. The list included things like finding certain sculptures and monuments, getting a pamphlet from the James Joyce Center (where I found 2 of my school books for €3 each), taking a photo of a man wearing a tweed cap and drinking a Guinness, getting a paper bag from Penneys, a popular clothing store, taking a group photo with a produce seller holding carrots and holding a sign that said 'I Love Vermont!,' and more. The hunt started at around 1, and my group called it quits around 5:30. My feet were killing me by this point, but there was more walking to be done to get to dinner.

The Church restaurant

Champlain took us out to dinner at The Church, a kind of touristy restaurant that used to be a church built in the 18th century. The food was delicious (I had penne with sun-dried tomatoes and basil cream sauce, and the other options were roasted chicken stuffed with feta cheese or Guinness beef stew, with apple pie for dessert), and the venue itself was cool as well.  After dinner, some of us passed through through the trendy Temple Bar area (more walking!) to check it out, and it seemed like an interesting place for night life, more nightclubby than some of the smaller pubs we had seen around our apartments.

Now that my legs are sufficiently dead, I'm going to rest up for more orientation activities tomorrow.