Week 2: Blog 3

We started off our second week by taking a group day tour of four historical grounds, including Newgrange and Hill of Slane. I had no prior knowledge of any of these sites, so it was great to be able to explore it all together on our day off. Every place was beautiful! Our tour guide, Martin, was awesome. He gave us private tours and brought us to a great restaurant for lunch. His van also had super comfy seats, which made the 7:45 am wake up call a bit easier!

On Tuesday, we visited Fighting Blindness; an organization that serves individuals with vision loss. We met with Melissa and John. Melissa is a scientist at Flighting Blindness that leads research on treatments and cures for blindness. John is a psychotherapist who became blind in his 50s. Melissa taught us the history of Fighting Blindness and where it currently is now. John talked about his experience with the loss of his vision. He spoke so beautifully on accepting his vision loss and how he became to love the new man he is. His viewpoint on life was inspiring. I’m upset he retired this year because the new group for next year’s trip won’t be able to hear his story.

Today, we visited the Deaf Village. The Deaf Village is a community center that services individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. The facility was huge! It had a church, swimming pool, gym, and theater. The sense of community was so strong there. Our tour guide, Amanda, shared with us that her immediate family and extended family were all deaf, and even though she is hearing, she felt more apart of the Deaf community than the hearing community. My minor is in Deafness and Hearing Studies, so today was cool to visit Deaf Village and experience the community and culture first-hand.

We only have four sites left to visit! The trip is going by way too fast. So far, I only have great things to say about every place we have seen and visited. I’m excited for the rest of the week’s adventures!