The Glenomena Residence Hall

University College Dublin, Ireland

In June 2006, I attended the IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing at UCD in Dublin. After a brief scare in Hartford when emergency sirens went off in the airport while I waited for my departure, the rest of my trip went relatively smoothly. I presented a poster on Self-Managing Storage Systems, work which had been done previously by another student, Vijay, in my lab, but which I helped clean up for the conference.

During the week of the conference I stayed in the Glenomena Residence Hall on campus. It was a nice dorm; I had my own room and shower, as well as a common dining and kitchen area with no one to share with.

The conference banquet was at Johnny Fox's, the highest pub in Ireland. The food was pretty good (I had the lamb) and there was a band and traditional Irish Hooley dancing.

Inside Trinity College

Dublin 1

A few days during the conference I made it into downtown Dublin, but it wasn't until the weekend that I really got to explore. I visited some of the city's parks (the picture is from St. Stephen's Green, I believe) and took a tour of Trinity Campus.

Trinity was quite pretty and I spent a late afternoon lounging on the lawn which seemed to be the thing to do for the locals. Later when I went back it was graduation so I watched a number of fancily done up students take pictures with their proud parents.

The tower and graveyard at St. Kevin's

St. Kevin's Monastery, Glendalough

On the last full day of my trip I took the bus to Glendalough, the site of a 6th century monastery nestled between two lakes in the Irish hills. It was a very pretty place, but unfortunately the day was overcast with a fair amount of rain.

There are several old stone church buildings to peak around in and an ancient graveyard. The monastery is low in the valley, so after exploring it a bit I headed up to the two lakes.

 

Looking down at the Upper Lake

Lower and Upper Lakes, Glendalough

I headed past the lower lake to beat the crowds of tourists to the larger and more impressive upper lake. There I ate my lunch on the shore of the lake, trying to stay mosty dry under some trees.

After lunch I took a hike up into the hills on the side of the lake. I had purchased a guide at the information desk, but I quickly realized that its map lacked a great deal of detail, so I just picked a color and followed that trail.

After passing a nice little waterfall I made it up the Au Spinc trail which gave me some great views back down into the valley. Although I lacked the suggested map, compass, hiking boots, and rain gear (well, I did have an umbrella), I survived my hike and easily made it back down to catch the bus home in the late afternoon.