Harry Potter: Maintaining Familiarity While Abroad

By Paul Smith

Visiting Student Blogger

I am from a small town in North Carolina and I’ve never lived in what I would call a “big city.” So this term, I’ve not only been studying in a different continent but I’ve been living a different style life. I was housed in a high-rise apartment complex and I walked to class in an environment which was much more unfamiliar than I expected. I was a little overwhelmed and while I wasn’t homesick exactly, I was definitely a stranger to this community.

A Journey Around Dublin’s Coastal Towns and Villages

by Alvise Renier

Visiting Student Blogger, Università degli Studi di Udine, Italy

Dublin is more than a vibrant and chaotic city, more than Guinness and Temple Bar, more than Trinity College. Are you fed up with the bustling and buzzing streets of the city centre, with all the cars, buses, bicycles, people rapidly walking to their job, and students running, trying not to miss their next lesson? Let’s take a journey back to the past and visit the picturesque villages and fishing harbours located just a few minutes from the College. Let’s take a journey to the unknown Dublin!

Studying in Dublin: What to bring?

By Céline Brandstötter, Visiting Student Blogger

My name is Céline and I am a Belgian, third year European visiting student at Trinity College Dublin coming from the European Law School at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. I will be studying in the Law department for the upcoming academic year 2016-2017. I currently live in the student housing of the Binary Hub so this blog is inspired by my own experiences living there. The pictures included are also from the Binary Hub housing.

My Trip to Belfast

By Viviana Lletget (Visiting Student – Department(s) at Trinity: English, Political Science, and Sociology – Home University: University of California Berkeley, Ethnic Studies)

Part of the reason I came to study in Ireland was to learn more about its political history, particularly Northern Ireland, which is one of the four countries that makes up the United Kingdom. British colonialism ended with the Irish Partition in 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, making Northern and Southern Ireland UK territories operating in different Home Rule fashions, but in 1922 with the War of Independence, Southern Ireland became independent as the Irish Free State. Belfast has always been a place to protest and voice your political position within the mainstream two factions of Irish Nationalism or Unionism. Belfast is saturated with social movement histories, and has been affected by violent pasts that seem to still plague the city besides its increasing social solidarity among citizens. People get along, though generally speaking, Catholics and Protestants don’t really hang out in each other’s neighborhoods, but no one is bombing or vandalizing a rival’s area as before. Things have changed in Belfast, though the city is definitely still segregated.