The Republic of Ireland

Football and booze. If those are not the first things that come to your mind when you think of Ireland (or the entire EU for that matter), you’re probably not in the right zone. I didn’t exactly know what to expect when I was about to board my first international flight to Dublin. 19 hours later, I had the answer. Perhaps, it wasn’t about how much the place could offer, it was about how much I was ready to accept!

Apparently, I had landed on a Friday, and there was a long weekend to follow. Day 0 (the day I landed) was damn cold by Indian standards, and I was very tired after the long flight. But the mind refused to shut down and was super-keen on looking around, exploring the new place! The breath-taking greens, the tidy streets, the little traffic and the fresh air were amongst the very first things which caught my attention. Thanks to Sandipan, PK’s friend, who showed me around! I met my mentor, Dr. Maura Conway and Dr. Lisa McInerney, shifted to my apartment with lots of help from Sandipan, bought some stuff to eat and then I was pretty much, all on my own. I had to wake up to a morning to make sure I wasn’t dreaming! The next morning was a different experience altogether. I could not comprehend what I was supposed to do! Perhaps, just breathe and take some time to sink in to this new heavenly place! A visit to the sea side on a sunny Saturday marked the perfect beginning of the trip… Although the wind was chilling to death, the exotic view of the sea-side was inexplicably awesome!

Then came the big day. Tuesday, May 8, my first day at work at the Dublin City University! The feeling was a mixture of nervousness, anxiety, pride and excitement, all at the same time. I went to Dr. Maura’s office in the morning, and she got me started, running around with me to get me my ID card, my desk, access to the lab, and other stuff. She is one great person I must say! She took care of everything so well, and it was a smooth beginning. She even took us out for dinner the same evening!

During the first couple of weeks, I did not get to speak to a lot of people. The students in the lab would work all day, and there would be absolute silence around! I was amazed to see people walking out of the lab if they had something to talk about… Coming from a place where the noisiest place is the lab, I was taken by surprise! It wasn’t long before I started finding a few friends. Students here are really nice. A couple of girls came up to me and we introduced ourselves. Soon, I found an Indian, in fact, some one who lived just a stone’s throw away from my house back in New Delhi! That was shocking!

3 weeks into DCU, it was my 23rd birthday. I was expecting this one to be a silent day. No one around knew. Well, that’s what I thought! But thanks to my advisor, PK, who (I learnt lately) told Dr. Maura about it! Maura offered me to go out to a friend’s place for dinner. I instantly agreed, and thought I’d tell them it was my birthday after the dinner. But to my surprise, it was actually my own birthday dinner I had been invited to! That was the sweetest gesture I’ve ever come across in my academic life! It was a majestic experience… Birthday dinner, the Irish way. Candle lights, small cup cakes with candles, Irish food, and wine. I’m sure it would have been anyone’s dream evening! Especially, when it came as a surprise! I even got a DCU pullover for my birthday gift, again, thanks to one of the sweetest person I’ve ever come across, Dr. Maura. 🙂

The birthday party pretty much marked the beginning of the wild time I had here! I came to know more people, started going out with friends, started enjoying the night life here, basically, it turned out to put me into “party” mode! I was lucky to find a wonderful group of friends, which included people from all over the world! I met people from Spain, Poland, Romania, Greece, Costa Rica, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Ireland (of course), and more… To add to the buzz, the Euro Cup football began, with Ireland qualifying for the tournament after 10 years! Streets and pubs started to fill with enthusiastic supporters cheering for Ireland and singing “holy chants” for the “boys in green”. The atmosphere was electric! I watched all the three matches that Ireland played, with friends at different pubs. That wasn’t all. The partying went to another level when we hung out at nights and boozed and danced till the pubs shut down and kicked us out early in the mornings! It was one of these nights that I tried my first Tequila, and got a bad headache next morning…

But while in Ireland, I also got to learn a lot. The European work culture is different from the Indian one in multiple ways! 8:00 am to 6:00 pm is a strictly followed working period and is often productive. At the same time, evenings and weekends are mostly spent work-free, unless there is a real need to work! I also got the chance to be a part of the School of Law and Government here. Dr. Maura comes from the School of Law and Government, so it was my first time working with a non-computer science mentor! The experience was quite amazing (and sometimes, even amusing) since there were significant differences in the way we approached the research problem we were working on. It was also nice to know how non-computer science students pursued their research, and how they were keen and excited to learn about problems in security and privacy in computer science!

Overall, the visit was amazing both personally and professionally, and the memories and learnings would remain with me for a long time! Below is a picture of me at the Dublin Zoo. Yes, that is a real giraffe, and if you can notice the ostrich in the background! 🙂

Come back soon for more experiences and fun-reads from me and PreCog!