It has come to all of our attention that Dublin Castle was certainly not built centuries ago in order to accommodate people with disabilities, and it has not been changed since. In fact, when we were pointing out all of the parts that were not handicap accessible, Christina informed our tour guide that we were on a class trip studying international disabilities so it was our duty to take note of the places that were not accessible to a person with a disability. Our tour guide gave a little laugh and said, “you will find most sites in Ireland are NOT (handicap accessible).” I thought this was a very interesting comment, and now I’m going to pay even more attention to all of the tourist sites we visit to see which accommodate disabilities and which do not.

(As most everyone is now aware of) I had the honor of attending the Aerosmith concert last night. It was located at the 3 Arena which was indeed very handicap accessible. The floor section extends very far back which is where most people are for the concert, and you are able to access that from the ground level. There was one particular VIP area called Bar Neon that was for people who had the carrier 3–a mobile phone company, similar to our Verizon or AT&T. With my Irish SIM card, my party and I were granted access into this section. When we were in there, there was a group of individuals who were in wheelchairs. They were able to order at the bar and use the area just like everyone else. Also, every bathroom in the entire arena had a handicap stall in the bathroom, as well as a separate handicap bathroom outside of the group of stalls.

Two of my favorite random facts from the week thus far:

1. There are two peep holes in the front door to our apartments–one for average height eye level, and another down lower to the ground, most likely for people who use wheel chairs.
2. I love that Psychology requires some of the highest test scores (500+ compared to 300-400 for most other areas of study focus) from Irish high school students who are applying to college and wish to study it. That is the complete opposite from Psychology back in the states; from my experience many people view Psychology as a not difficult nor important major, and sometimes even as a major to fall back on, so this fact made me really happy!