Everyone knows what it looks like. An old man in a tweed hat sits by a window, sipping a dark, thick beer and stares out at the rolling hills of green, dotted, of course, with rainbows and leprechauns.

This has become the stereotype that epitomizes Ireland, but people like business finance senior Katie Grace know what Ireland is really like.

Grace attended a Boston University study abroad program that allowed her to live, work and study in Dublin, Ireland for the fall 2002 semester.

“A lot of my heritage is Irish and it always seemed like a really cool place to go, because it’s picturesque and the people have always been thought of as very friendly and welcoming,” Grace said.

However, when she arrived at Dublin’s international airport, she was not greeted by the stock image that she had in her mind.

“Getting off the plane and seeing the city and the big buildings wasn’t really my expectation,” Grace said.

The Boston University program placed all of the students with Irish families who lived in Dublin. The families provided breakfast and dinner for the students and Grace found this to be one of her favorite parts of the experience.

“When we’d eat dinner at night, I could tell them things that I was learning in class about Ireland and I could hear their take on it,” Grace said.

Another unusual part of the program was that it required students to do a full-time internship for the second half of the semester.

The 16 students in the program took classes for their first six weeks of the semester and then worked at different businesses they were matched with based on their particular interests and studies.

Grace worked for Citigroup, an American financial corporation represented around the world. She enjoyed the experience that she gained in the workplace.

“It was a really good experience, and it was nothing I could have learned in a classroom, yet it was an application of things I had learned in the classroom,” Grace said.

Though she was not living with the other students in the program, the group was small and Grace said that they became very close-knit through meeting up in the city together after work and traveling on weekends.

“The friendships were instant and I know I’ll always remember those people” Grace said.

She said that she still keeps in touch with the people she met there and is glad to have met such a varied group of friends.

“I looked around the room and there were 16 people you would probably never get in the same room if it wasn’t for this,” Grace said.

Because Ireland is a relatively small island, Grace was able to see many parts of the country on her weekend trips.

Her first trip found her with six friends, a few hours away from Dublin in Galway, a college town on the western coast of Ireland.

“Galway was great because it was our first trip together. We took a train and stayed in a hostel, which made for really good bonding,” Grace said.

Though Grace said that Dublin became home, she liked the friendlier and more traditional feel of the smaller towns and cities she visited.

For the program’s week long break in October, Grace and two friends traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland.

Like many students who study abroad, Grace took advantage of the fact that she was so close to other countries and the cheap tickets of Ryan Air, an Irish airline that covers the United Kingdom and most of Europe.

“It cost 60 Euro to jump on a plane and be in Scotland in an hour. It gave us a sense of independence to travel that way, to set it up ourselves and just go,” Grace said.

Though Grace had little trouble adjusting to the Irish culture, she said that, initially, the heavy Irish brogue of natives made English difficult for her to understand.

However, she soon became an expert at identifying subtleties in their accents.

“We got to the point where we could differentiate accents from different counties of Ireland,” Grace said.

Like many travelers who find themselves abroad and alone for the first time, after the excitement wore off, Grace was faced with homesickness.

“As time went on, I was becoming homesick and questioning what I was doing so far away from home, but then I realized that any three and a half months of your life isn’t going to be all fun all the time,” Grace said.

Because she lived outside of the city center, where she attended class, worked and met up with friends, Grace was forced to know the city’s bus system.

“Sometimes it got confusing, but once you got into the routine of it, it was very simple,” she said.

For an entire semester, Grace lived and worked in a foreign culture, using her fellow American students as a support system.

She said that even though Dublin wasn’t exactly as she had pictured it, she grew to love the city.

She looks forward to going back and exploring new countries.

“The travel bug definitely bit me,” Grace said.

“Having seen one European city now, I want to see as many as I possibly can.”

Like many students, Grace went abroad hoping to learn a little bit more about the world and herself.

Grace said that her trip proved to be successful.

“I’ve always had loved ones around and all of a sudden, there I was, alone, across a big ocean from people that cared about me,” Grace said. “It was the most challenging but the most rewarding experience because I did find that sense of self.”

To learn more about the Boston University program and many other study abroad programs, visit the Center for International Education in Mercy 308.

The River Liffey runs through Dublin. Students take hundreds of photos on their study abroad trips to remember the sights of Europe. (Katie Grace)