TOWSON, Md. – While most students are enjoying time off this summer, junior goalkeeper Kristen Sample of the Tiger women's soccer team is working in Ireland while training for the upcoming season. Over the next several weeks, she will check in with TowsonTigers.com to tell her experiences of life in Ireland.

In her first entry, Sample gives Tiger fans a glimpse into what she will be doing over the course of the next few weeks.

I've been in Ireland for almost two weeks already. For the first time in the four trips over here, I'm getting a good look at the rainy weather I've heard so much about. Even though it rains a good bit here, the Irish don't experience thunder storms - at least not very often.

For most people, their first experience with a thunderstorm was about a month ago where a lot of houses, stores and pubs flooded. It's pretty nice though; I walk into work from the bus and it doesn't rain. It rains just about the entire time I'm at work, then stops just before I leave - most days anyway. I have been caught in the rain a little bit while on a run, but lucky for me, it hasn't rained too hard on those occasions.

So the job is great. I work with the ticketing office for FAI (Football Association of Ireland - not to be confused with the Northern Ireland's team). The offices are in what will eventually be the location for all Irish sports. It's actually called the National Sports Campus, but so far, the only buildings are the Irish Institute of Sport headquarters and the FAI Headquarters. When it's complete, there will be housing areas for athletes during residency camps, a few rugby pitches and a few football pitches. I think there will also be some turf facilities as well, though, most prefer natural grass.

The building for the FAI is like one big square and in the middle is an outdoor “garden” area. When you pull up to the building, there's some metal soccer players on the grassy area directly to the side of the building. When you come into the building, there's a reception area where the walls are covered with proud moments in FAI past. There's actually a huge trophy in the middle of the room, which I believe is for the champions of the League of Ireland (Ireland's professional soccer league). Also, there are the drawings for how the final National Sports Campus should look.

As you walk through the building, there are cases along the wall to separate the different departments. Right outside of our office is the case for a former Irish International. There are old pictures of him, his old jersey, the jersey an English player traded to him, and a picture timeline from his club days. I'm not really doing it justice with this description.

On the left side of the building is the technical department. The technical department deals with coaching licensing, appointing coaches, summer soccer camps, soccer clinics and basically anything that is hands on with playing the game. The people on the left side of the building get to come to work in all FAI sweat suits or shorts and jerseys. I'm on the right side of the building. So, I have to come in wearing dress pants and nice shirts - sweaters if they're clean - and shoes that give me blisters. But nonetheless, I do enjoy the job.

At the moment, the FAI is moving from their current facility at Croke Park Stadium to the Aviva Stadium at Landsdowne Road. Landsdowne Road was the original stadium for the FAI, but then it got old, attendance went up, and they were forced to relocate to Croke Park. Unfortunately, Croke Park is rather selective about who uses their facilities. As it is, the FAI pays through the nose to rent the facility, which seats about 80,000 fans and offers a natural grass facility, but they don't get that great of a return on ticket sales. Croke Park's bylaws basically state that it is to be used for GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) sports ONLY. These sports include Hurling (absolute FAVORITE GAA sport) and Gaelic Football, which is kind of like Rugby. So, since I work in ticketing, I've been dealing with a lot of the people who are making the move to Landsdowne Road. There are a lot of people who are “block bookers” and they get dibs on tickets to matches. They are returning their allocation requests at the moment and I'm filing them away and writing on the spreadsheet whether or not they accepted, and also, if they requested more or less tickets. Also, the World Cup Qualifiers are running at the moment so many people are contacting our office to get tickets to Ireland's next match (a must-win match) at Cyprus. Ireland still has a chance to move forward, but Cyprus is expected to be the easiest of competitors. We sent out the ticket request forms and have already received many applications back (which, of course, I have to file away!). 

Alright, I won't bore you anymore with the details of my job! Actually, early last week, I wasn't even sure I'd be able to keep the job since I had nowhere to stay. Lucky for me, though, the Senior Women's coach has a son who is 23 years old and just moved out of his parent's house in March. He agreed to put me up and it's been great! When people say the Irish are the friendliest people on Earth, they're not kidding. I call him St. Brian when he's being too nice. The coolest part is that Brian is a professional soccer player. In his last match, he scored the game-winning goal in the 88th minute. They beat one of the top teams and it was against the city he was born in where his dad coached! He bought 3 newspapers the next day just to see what they wrote about him. Then, there was a review show on Monday night, so I got to watch his goal on TV. One of these days, I'll make it to his game, or at least we'll do a shoot around at one of the many fields by our house. That's what we keep saying anyways.

One of the teams in the League of Ireland is having a “Football Festival.” The team (Shamrock Rovers) is playing against a few big name clubs from the English Premier League, Scottish Premier League, and La Liga. I went to the match against the recently relegated New Castle Magpies. It was great; we were less than 10 rows form the field and surrounded by the New Castle fans. The backdrop to the stadium was rolling mountains with rain clouds over them. It was actually gorgeous. However, I can't help but think Rovers is choosing a terrible time to host this Festival as they're in the process of remodelling their stadium and there are literally only two stands: behind the goal and on one side of the field. You'd think in the middle of a poor economy, they would have wanted their stadium to hold the maximum amount of people so they could make more money. The next big game is this Monday. They play against the new Real Madrid team. Oh, the people are going crazy for Christiano Ronaldo! Personally, I just want to see Iker Casillas, but that's just me.  The tickets for the coming game sold out in like 5 minutes but I might be able to get a ticket for 60 Euro from my boss. We're trying to see what we can swing.

So far, the most soccer I've been playing has been with my co-workers every Wednesday after work. That's by far the best. It breaks up the week and gives you something to look forward to. I never expected them to be so good either. Of course, one of the guys playing was a fantastic keeper in his day and had to run a little training session for me at the end - that'll teach me to neglect my fitness and enjoy the social life of Dublin. Needless to say, I've thrown out my former excuses for not working out since I've been here. The fact that it rained two hours before can't keep me indoors anymore.

I was planning on going to Holland this weekend to visit a friend, but I may visit her another weekend so I can train with the U19 national team for about 6-8 hours. I'm also in the process of getting placed with a girl's club team in the Dublin area. So long as I can get a bus to take me there, I'll be able to play. I have to rely on the bus system here, but I'm luckily figuring it out. It only took getting off at the wrong stop twice to learn my way around. Until I can join a club team though, I'm left playing with co-stars who put me to shame and the young kids in my neighborhood who will keep me out past 10 every night playing soccer with them. What a life.

That's about all I have at the moment. I'm picking up some of the Dublin lingo, though I'm still not sure what a stone equates to in pounds. I can never tell if someone's referring to a fat or skinny person; I just nod and smile! Two more hours until work is out. Grand! I'll hopefully have more exciting news next time!