Saint Mary's University Comes to Dublin

Monday December 1, 2008

Greetings and Salutations from the Gaiety School of Acting!

This is Bill Ronchak from St. Paul, Minnesota in the good old US of A. My fellow classmates and I are students at Saint Mary’s University in Winona, Minnesota and we are here for two weeks for an intensive acting workshop. Well, the others are here for the acting while I work in the office trying to learn a thing or two on Arts Administration. As one of my tasks, I will be blogging on the ups, downs, and all arounds of our experience here in Dublin, Ireland. We are not here by ourselves, but supervised by Dr. Gary Diomandes of the Saint Mary’s Theatre Department. He has been here several times before through the program, and knows a lot of good spots around Dublin. As theatre students, or officially known as Theatre Majors, we are required to study for a semester in London, England. After those three months, we are given the option to study in Dublin for and additional two weeks. Most of the students come over for the acting portion, but a few do technical workshops or work in the office such as myself. It is a rough couple of weeks for the actors, but everyone has a great time with no regrets.

Our adventure started in London back in September and during the following three months we had classes, went to see various shows, and even put on our own production. For a look at our time in London, check out the blog on the Saint Mary’s website: (http://smumn-london.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html). At the end of November, with all our finals finished we packed up the essentials, stored the rest of our belongings, and headed for the airport. We took an Aerlingus flight from Heathrow Airport to Dublin Airport, which was about an hour or so flight time.

We got a bus from the airport that dropped us off on O’Connell Street and we started walking. It was a good fifteen to twenty-minute walk to the hostel in the Temple Bar area. The hostel we stayed in was called Barnacles and the Gaiety School already set it up so we got our room keys and headed up. For more information on Barnacles check out the website (http://www.barnacles.ie/). The group in general was hungry so we dropped our stuff and hit the town for food. We tried to get into a few places but most of the restaurants near the hostel were full with about a half hour wait for a table. Gary and two others went to an Italian place while the four girls and I stopped at a place called Hungry Harry’s for a burger and fries. We got settled in and got some sleep.