I was born a ramblin' (wo)man...

Yesterday, I CLIMBED A MOUNTAIN. I don't necessarily know which one it was, but it was one of the Wicklow Mountains in the Glendalough region of Wicklow National Park. (For those of you who've seen P.S. I Love You, this is where the couple first meet. Not that I've gotten around to seeing it myself yet, but you get to know these types of things when you have to describe obscure Irish locations often). JJ, Sarah's best friend from Wisconsin is visiting, and she's really sportsy, so we thought we'd humor her and do something athletic. JJ and I were researching trails, and decided upon one that was labeled "Ramble" grade. Neither of us knew what that could mean, so JJ looked it up, and the first thing she got was a picture of a woman scaling a cliff, icepick in hand. Further investigation described rambling as walking at a leisurely pace. Our trail was more of the latter, paved with blacktop or gravel the whole length, but it was still SO hardcore. We diverged from the trail often as well, scaling a huge hill to investigate a cave and forging a stream by hopping from rock to rock. I fell into the stream, so my foot was soggy for the rest of the venture, but it was still a rollicking good time. Plus, I got to wear my real athletic shoes for the second time in these five months, which was a major plus.

At the Wicklow giftshop, I came across something that changed my life forever. There was a little rack of Winnie-the-Pooh stickers with names on them, so that children might pick out their own name and be able to slather all of their belongings with Tiggers and "This Belongs To ___" inscriptions. At any rate, while browsing through the R's I found MY OWN NAME! "This Belongs To RORY"! For those who have known me for a long time, this is a very big deal, because my whole childhood I was depressed because I could never find Rory pencils or notepads at Target or Meijers. Obviously I bought said stickers, though I don't imagine I'll be sticking them onto anything that isn't hugely important to me.

Other than mountain climbing, I've really been following through on getting in all the Dublin and Ireland culture I can muster. This week I visited the National Gallery, which actually had some really fascinating 20th century Irish art and a whole gallery devoted to Jack B. Yeats's paintings (Jack Butler was the brother of William Butler, obvi). Monday I visited the botanic gardens, which were very lovely and very free. On the way home from the gardens, I found a Polish grocery store, so I decided to go in and pick up some frozen perogies. When I went to the check-out, the woman at the counter gave me the price IN POLISH--she thought I was a real-life Polish person! Of course, as awkward as I am, I asked for the price in English, right before I realized it was displayed on the cash register screen in front of me. I think I'll go back and fake it a little better sometime soon.

Another cultural accomplishment of this week was breaking into the Irish theatre scene--as a part of the two week Oscar Wilde Gay Theatre Festival, me and some of the Iveagh Court girls went to see a three-person performance of The Picture (Of Dorian Grey). I was a little skeptical, as the show was a little kitschily designed: for instance, each character was signifed by a specific pair of sunglasses, which the three actors handed off as they switched around characters. Additionally, they did little supplimentary skits between chapters, which included an imagined conversation between Brittany Spears and Kevin Federline, and at one point posed one of the most hillarious similies I've heard in quite some time: in a dialogue about how the last man (or woman) on earth would probably do very well for him or herself, one character said that in this way, sex is exactly like pizza (because the last slice of pizza, however undesirablely cold and gross it is, always is eaten). However, the actors really pulled it off, and I enjoyed the production immensely.

I was planning on going on a James Joyce Centre walking tour today, but the weather isn't cooperating, so I might be stuck indoors, studying all day. Which needed to happen sometime. I'm sorry I never gave a full account of Belgium or Paris, but honestly, I'm so burnt out from travelling that revisiting these trips would be more trouble than it's worth. I did have a fantastic time on both excursions, and you can see the pictures on facebook if you don't believe me. As for now, I'm out.

Freetime Management

So it appears that I'm not very good at structuring my time, now that most of my academic commitments are over. Not only are my papers in, but most of my tutorials have wrapped up, and I'm having some of my final lectures this week. I've been trying to fill my free time with cultural stuff--i borrow tons of movies from the Trinity library and supplement these with knitting projects (I just finished the second of a pair of Latvian mittens I've been working on: the first took three months, the second took one week), or I browse around the internet looking for concerts and Dubliny things to do. The sun's out almost every day now, spring has come full-force to Dublin, and I sit in a park almost every day for about an hour as I eat lunch. This week I've also been very into museums, as Dublin has a great number of the Irish national museums that are free, if not very good. Still, I get to a point in the afternoon where I wonder, what am I doing here? What is my purpose in staying here for so long? What am I accomplishing, really?

I think I had productivity on the brain this weekend when I visited Caitlin in Galway. For instance, I went to the Aran Islands and came back, not with a fisherman sweater, but with two kilos of yarn. To knit my own. I also spent a lot of money on presents--not souvenirs, but presents for events in the near, and far, future. For instance, I bought my parents books of love poetry for their upcoming 25th anniversary (Neruda for Mom because she knows a little Spanish, Yeats for Dad because Yeats is the best, obvi) and a flashy vest from this place called River Island for my sister's birthday on July 18th. A fun fact about me: I plan presents obsessively, almost as obsessively as I plan halloween and theme party costumes. When I was in high school, I was one of those girls who gave every single one of her friends very thoughtful trinkets for Christmas, all very carefully wrapped. I've learned better by now, because those gestures are rarely returned and buying presents for your 30 closest friends becomes expensive, but at the same time I can't help but fixate on those more mandatory presents. I've been visiting a book about the Wild Women of Irish History, planning to pick it up for my Nana for Christmas... I'm ridiculous.

Today I went to the Chester Beatty Library, a museum full of Chester Beatty's medieval Iranian manuscripts, Chester Beatty's Egyptian papyrus scrolls, Chester Beatty's very old fragment of one of the earliest bibles. Chester Beatty wasn't famous for any reason other than having all of these very old books. He really made a name for himself. I wonder if I'll ever have something that grandiose to offer the world.

SEE WHAT I THINK ABOUT WHEN LEFT TO MY OWN DEVICES?

I also feel like I'm in a state of flux. I was away last weekend to Galway, the weekend before to London (which was lovely and which I'll try to write about someday but maybe I'll never get to it so just check out my facebook photos if you're interested in the meantime). This weekend I'll be in Belgium with Sally, and the weekend after that, Paris with my flatmates. There's the whole existential crisis of feeling unrooted, sure, but there are sensible implications as well. For instance, I've been having a very hard time shopping for groceries, because anything perishable I'll have to consume before the next weekend or it'll go bad. It's extra hard because I've been trying to eat well (or at least better), and foods that are good for you are often the first to go. I've never missed McEwen so much as I do now--I'd kill for a salad bar, sandwich fixin's, all of that at my fingertips. Variety is difficult to aquire when you're eating alone.

That's about all for now. Maybe I'll just do posts like this for the rest of the time, no big lists, just spontaneous impressions.

Rory and Andrew Do Dublin

Recap of Andrew's Visit:

Andrew came to Dublin on the morning of Sunday, March 15th. He was slightly delayed because there were boatloads of people (mostly Americans and Spaniards) piling into Ireland for St. Patrick's Day on the 17th. We spent most of our first afternoon resting and eating full Irish breakfast-type stuff.

Monday we trekked around Dublin, first to the Yeats exhibit at the National Library and then to the Writer's museum. We went to Trinity inbetween to try and get in for the book of Kells, but the line was out the door and around the corner. There were an obnoxious number of people EVERYWHERE: even at the Writer's museum, which anyone can tell you is not a flashy place. After oggling Elizabeth Bowen's manual Smith-Corona, we tried to go to the James Joyce centre, but alas, it was Monday. We made our way to the Winding Stair bookshop, stopping on the way in a pub called Bachelor.

Suprise suprise, I was the only woman in Bachelor. Additionally, Andrew and I were the only people under 35, and the most sober by far. A jubulant older man, shook our hands, and jubulantly bemoaned my cold hands. He asked me, "What do cold hands mean in a girl?" I answered a warm heart, and he said, "Oh, no... warm knickers! Bwa Ha Ha Ha!" He had several more anecdotes for us over the course of our half-pints, the most colorful of which was a story told deadpan about at 90-year-old woman who had been gang-raped by three men right outside the pub, and after eight hours in the hospital, the doctors couldn't stop her from saying, "More, more, more!" Needless to say we drank quickly, running out on the older man (who's Claddagh ring was up-side down, which means open for business, by the way) as he was telling us a story about Obama, repeatingly slurring our president's name into "Bahama". As we paid, a man at the bar asked us our names, and when I said "Rory," the whole place erupted in snickers.

When we got to the Winding Stair, it was closed. We took a cab to Zaytoon's for kebabs, and then spent the night in, watching movies.

Tuesday, St. Patick's Day, was hellish from the start. We woke and walked down to Dame Street at 11 a.m. for the parade. After two and a half hours of waiting in the windy, shadowy street, the parade came. Oh, did it ever come. Aside from the handful of American collegiate marching bands, the major floats were INTENSE, as was the level of commitment of the paraders. There were cique-de-solay style birds, the 60's, King Kong and all of his comrades, including film staff, and our favorite, a bunch of mad scientists and astronaut apes prancing around a spaceship while someone kept shouting, "Scientists assemble!" After the parade, we ran to the closest restaurant, ate, and then... went home for the rest of the day. Honestly, it was so hectic in every bar, and in downtown Dublin, that we only left for a solitary pint that evening. I can't say that i'd have it any other way.

Wednesday we got into the book of Kells and then hopped the commuter rail (the DART) to Howth, a sea-side resort area where I imagine several Dubliners spend their holidays. Howth boasted of seals, and if you paid 2 euro to a fish vendor, he'd give you a bag of fish heads to lure a seal your way. We walked up and down the pier, taking in the wonderful sea air, stopped for chowder, and then explored a ruined Abbey. For those of you who know Andrew and I as a couple, you know that this is our perfect day. We came home, I made chicken fajitas, and we went to bed early so we could get up at 4:30 a.m. to leave for Edinburgh.

In Edinburgh, we saw Lucea Spinelli, our friend who transferred from Hamilton our freshman year and has been going to St. Andrew's ever since. She took us all around the Meadows, a lovely span of park behind the bulk of the University, and then we sat outside and had beers with her friends. She took us to this mosque kitchen with some of the best Indian food I've had in months. We were getting sleepy by 3:30, as we had been up for 11 hours, and decided to head back to our B 'n B for some R 'n R. We woke up, just barely, at 9:30 p.m. Luckily, our Indian food was sticking to our ribs and we headed out to the Royal Mile in the Old Town just looking for a few drinks.

The Royal Mile, for those you don't know, is the area of Old Edinburgh that used to be walled in. It's significantly higher up than the rest of Edinburgh, with a sort of comic book gothic feeling to it--everything is elongated. We considered going on a ghost tour but then thought better of it, seeing as we were already pretty creeped out just being around those dark gothic streets in the dark. We found a bar that had a two-man cover band playing, so of course we stopped. The pair played all the Ireland greats: Valerie, Stand By Me, Your Sex Is On Fire, Mr. Brightsides, Someday (by the Strokes), you name it. We ended the night with this British reality show called "What if Women Ruled the Earth?", a survior-type show where women make men build fires, make dinner, sweep the huts, etc.

The next day, we took two tour buses with live guides. The first guide was fine, a proper elderly man who spoke too quietly, but our second guide was a real live-wire. He could name all the 81 Robert Browning characters on the Browning monument, at breakneck speed might I add. We got off the bus at the Edinburgh castle, then went to the Camera Obscura and the Hall of Illusions. Good Victorian fun, looking back on it. We tried to document manifestions of the Scottish Plaid Fad before heading back home for a siesta.

We were to meet our friend Kevin Kerr for drinks later, so before we grabbed the bus into town, we stopped at this fried-EVERYTHING stand. I ordered a hamburger "with 2 patties" with fries, and recieved two FRIED HAMBURGER PATTIES. I should have been so grossed out. I was so not. Full of grease, Andrew and I met Kevin at a whiskey bar. We then hopped to a more student-oriented bar, and then a more posh bar. It was lovely to see Kevin, what I can remember of that time.

The next morning Andrew and I tried to connect again with Lucea, but it wasn't in the cards. We also tried to find a vintage store Lucea told us was having a sale, but that wasn't in the cards either. It was sunny though, and after buying a few used books and other curios, we took the bus back to the airport.

Sunday was both melancholy and joyous, melancholy because Andrew was leaving on Monday but joyous because Ami Li arrived Monday afternoon. The three of us went to the Guinness factory while the rest of Dublin was out in City Centre, congratulating the Ireland rugby team for not just winning Six Nations, but SWEEPING it. The factory was worth missing the fanfare, however. Suffices to say that I'm obsessed with Guinness's various ad campaignes as of now.

Monday morning all three of us shipped out to the airport, Andrew on his way to the States and Ami and I headed for Amsterdam. But that'll come next time.

In other news, I'M DONE WITH ESSAYS. Until the fall. Can you believe it? I've been so obsessively-compulsively lazy ever since I finished, watching loads of movies and picking up an old knitting project. I've planned to be out for the rest of April--I'm actually heading to London tomorrow, back into Sally's arms. The weekend after that is Galway with Caitlin, then after that, Belgium with Sally, resident Belgian cuisine (and beer) expert. Paris for May Day, if all goes to plan... I'll keep you filled in.

Love, Me.

p.s. Scottish people: not as friendly or helpful as Irish people. I'll let you know about the English after this weekend.

Free at last...

Wowie zowie. I turned in three of my of my five solitary assessments for classes yesterday, and let me tell you, it's a huge load-off. Five thousand words is far too much for one paper. I've got one more paper due next week, but then I'm done until the end of May, when I take my Old English exam.

I'm also feeling pretty good for a few other reasons. First, I think I'm going to go home a little bit earlier than planned. After Andrew and Ami's visits, I realized just how long I've been away, and how long I'd have to stay away in the months to come, and it made me incredibly homesick. Additionally, if I go home the day I'm scheduled to go home now, I'd be in Dublin alone for five days. And I don't do very well alone. Since my only exam is on May 27th, I'm aiming to be home in the first few days of June. Ann Arbor in June--nothing could be lovelier.

I've also been thinking about what Hamilton will be like next fall, and I can't say I'm not worried. I admittedly had a weeping fit while discussing housing with Andrew on Skype for two and a half hours, having finally realized that Hamilton next fall is going to be unlike the Hamilton I'd loved in years past. Most of this realization was that the current seniors are going to be gone, out of the Hamilton scene, forever. When Andrew and I were trying to think of a cohesive group of seniors for a suite, honestly, we couldn't think of six people who would create the same dynamic as the girls of Babbitt 32 or 34, the boys of Babbitt 21, the dwellers of Milbank 12 all those years ago... Honestly, I've been looking forward to finally pulling my weight and creating a social space my senior year, and it just doesn't look like it will work out. Maybe I'll have to inflict my party concepts on other suites.

Course selection has also been stressing me out to no end, all because of one golden, impossible course: A history seminar about the IRA (Irish Republican Army). The bulk of my program's Belfast trip concentrated on the strained relationship between the Catholics and the Protestants, synonymous with the Republicans and the loyalists. I was actually out and about in Belfast the night some IRA members shot up some members of the British army. I'm absolutely captivated, and I know I would love this class more than many I've  taken at Hamilton. HOWEVER, it is a seminar, which means it takes up all of Tuesday afternoon, conflicting with 75 percent of the upper-level English classes I wanted to take. Ironically, I can't learn about the IRA and Prison Writing during the same term, a set-up that had enormous potential. Even if I opt out of the IRA class, I'm still struggling to put together a four-class schedule. I can't take studio art or anthropology, two things I've been meaning to do my whole time at Hamilton, because I don't have any pre-requisites. I'm only really interested in two or three of the English offerings, and god knows I don't want to take Women's studies again. I have a few extra credits that would allow me to take three classes, but going into a semester without a full courseload? I'd feel like such a slacker-pants.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to the rest of my time at Trinity. Trinity Ball tickets go on sale tomorrow, and I'm super amped. The student administration group put together this really cute trailer for it, you should check it out. Very Irish humor.

April's going to be a really busy month for me. This weekend I'm home, but I'm going to London for Easter with Sally, and then back to Galway and maybe up to Sligo with Caitlin the weekend after that. The fourth weekend of April will be Belgium with Sally (resident Belgian beer expert), and then I'm hopefully going to Paris for May Day weekend. I'm trying to plan one week-long trip in May, either to Prague and Vienna or to Berlin and Poznan, the old capital of Poland.

I'll break spring break up in a few sections of the next few days, so no one gets overwhelmed by a single epic post.

I hope your Marches are going out like lambs.

Four Weeks, Four Sentences

So I went to Belfast, and then Andrew came. St. Patrick's Day came and went, then Andrew and I packed off for Edinburgh to visit Lucea Spinelli and Kevin Kerr. Ami Li arrived , Andrew left, and Ami and I went to Amsterdam. Ami and I got back from Amsterdam yesterday, and we got back from an Animal Collective show a half hour ago.


So there you have it. All of my papers are due this next week, so I can't guarentee I'll be giving you many more details before all that is out of the way. You WILL get a full account, those who want one, as soon as I'm able.

Love, Me.

Ireland: The Procrasti-Nation

I've been exhausted. All week. Do you want to know why?

THE PAVACHS ARE HERE! My mom, dad, and sister landed in Dublin on Saturday morning. They were groggier than I expected, but then, I guess I forgot how wretched the flight can be, especially if it isn't direct. They brought me a few of my dresses, my critter shorts, and a new pair of keds, so I'm completely ready for Irish spring.

So about that spring--it was a false alarm. Everyone's back in their wool coats, and we're expecting snow next week. It's been cold and rainy pretty much the whole time my parents have been here--the sun only just came out when they hopped on the train to see Caitlin in Galway. Mom and Dad have been able to roll with the punches pretty well, but Lydia seems pretty pissed about the bad weather. She refuses to go to any museums or parks--she sleeps in every day and waits to go shopping. I want to wake her up, tell her she's in Europe for the first time and she'd better appreciate it, but it's no use. She's the happiest when she's sending her boyfriend facebook messages in my apartment. Ho-hum.

I took the 'Rents to watch the Ireland v. England rugby match at the Bleeding Horse on Saturday night. They were pretty loopy off of jetlag, and I'm sure Dad's pain medication for his broken wrist didn't help matters. At any rate, they insisted upon buying every one of my friends a pint. That included myself and Lydia, my sister, who is 16 and isn't officially allowed to drink, even here (maybe in Germany?). It was really surreal, being in that type of social situation with my parents. They were mostly just nervous about my sister--my mom kept pulling me aside and telling me to watch out for her, and make sure that she eats something.

We didn't make it long at the game before the draggin' Pavachs got hungry, so we went down the road to Bobo's Burgers. I'd never been there before, and this was obviously a large oversight on my part. Bobo's made quirky, crazy burgers of all kinds (Lydia, a fake vegetarian, went for a falafel burger, and my mom had a lamb burger). I sent my parents home in a cab and took Lydia home with me.

Here's where the awkward bit about this weekend begins--all of us in the suite have our ONLY papers for most of our classes due this Friday. Technically, we could turn them in at the end of the month, but then we wouldn't be able to enjoy spring break (which, for me, consists of Andrew's and Ami's visits). So we've been on academic lockdown for the past week and a half, ever since getting home from Barcelona. Lydia was staying the night in hopes of going out to a pub or club, and there really wasn't anyone in the flat who was interested in going out. We tagged along with my friend Tara, who plays for the Trinity lacrosse team, and went to the big lacrosse party at Tripod, right across the street. However, it was pretty empty in Tripod, and thus, pretty damn lame. I was also exhausted, having woken up early to greet my parents, so we were home in bed by 12:30 a.m.

The next day my parents took my flatmates (and Caitlin, who was visiting again this weekend) out to brunch. My Dad enchanted everyone like he always does, as did my mom, and my flatmates couldn'tve been more thrilled with my family.

The week sort of went downhill from there. It was rainy and cold Sunday night, and after having a delicious meal with red wine at this Thai place called Saba (I also recommended a Chinese Fusion place called Mao, but my dad refused to eat any place named after a communist), I was out. Like a light. At 10:30 p.m. I woke up early to finish my first paper, but I was dragging through my Monday lectures. When I was out of lecture I edited my sister's English paper until dinner at a fantastic (but slow-service) Italian restaurant. I, again, didn't get home until 10 p.m. and went to bed immediately. I woke up early Tuesday to work, didn't get anything done, and fell asleep in lecture. Last night I was sure not to have any wine with dinner, but I still came home in an incredibly unproductive mood.

So now, I'm well-fed, but extremely behind. I just started writing my Irish Literature paper that's due on Friday, though I have to turn it in tomorrow because I'm going to Northern Ireland with the Butler kids this weekend. Luckily, my family took the train out to Galway this morning, and are letting me camp out in the solitude of their hotel room tonight so that I'll be able to finish my paper. I was excited at the prospect of the room's wireless not working, but lo and behold, it works for me. Perfect.

At any rate, I'm powering through because ANDREW'S COMING IN A WEEK (and a half). I'm absolutely thrilled. I took a really long route to the hotel room this afternoon so I could look for cool/romantic/cheap restaurants in my neighborhood. I really hope nothing delays him--three months apart is enough without a few hours more of a delay.

At any rate, I should get back on task. And if anyone has any questions about James Joyce's Dubliners, please send them my way.

p.s. A new revelation about Ireland: The commericals are friggin' wierd. But hysterical.

Grathiath, Barthelona!

Because I'm pressed for time this week, here's a quick top ten favorite parts of my Barcelona weekend:

1-Gee whiz, alcohol is cheap. Wine is actually cheaper than water in most restaurants. The cocktails are about four times stronger than the ones in Dublin, at half the price. 

2-Alcohol is also everywhere--the skuzzy kebab place where we ate the first night, the Starbucks-type coffee shop at the bus station, they all had a variety of liquors just hanging out, I guess in case anyone wanted a bloody mary for breakfast.

3-Mercat de Sant Josef-It's this fantastic, enormous open-air fruit, fish, meat, cheese, and candy market. Extremely colorful, and pretty inexpensive. I could have wandered around all day, just gaping at the lovely food displays.

4-I know it's a cliche thing to notice, but the architecture in Barcelona is astounding. It's not just beautiful, like the architecture in Rome or Vienna, but also extremely innovative and interesting (sometimes to a fault, admittedly). If you'd like to gape at some architectural feats, here's a link to my Facebook album on this subject. It's a public access link, for those of you who have excommunicated yourselves from the Facebook world (Cameron? Breslin?). The big phallic thing is supposed to look like a geyser erupting. I don't know how it's supposed to look like anything but a dildo when it's lit up in electric blue and red at night.

5-The beach--60 degrees and sunny. In February. I merely dipped my toes into the Mediterranean, but there were definitely a few people swimming. One little old man in a speedo scared me to death, because I was sure he was going to get hypothermia and his little old body wouldn't be able to handle it. But then, I suppose he's been swimming in the Mediterranean for longer than I have, he probably knows better.

6-Our hosts were fantastic. A friend from my program had a few friends from Brown that are studying in Barcelona for the term, so he asked them to pick us up from the bus station when we got in. Not only did they pick us up, but they helped us order dinner, showed us around their neighborhood, and helped us find our hostel. We met up with the Brown boys for two more meals, one of which they cooked for us themselves, and they took us to this ancient absinthe bar (in which dusting and cleaning were strictly prohibited, lest it ruin the effect of maybe a hundred years of dust on the chandeliers) and a wild club called Razzmatazz. My flatmate Claire also had some friends from Trinity who met us for drinks and desert, took us to dinner to a charming restaurant on Las Ramblas, and circled places we should see on maps for us. To all those wonderful hosts and hostesses, thank you so much. It would've sucked to have to figure everything out on our own. If you're into social pictures, here's a link to my other Facebook album.

7-The subway system is very clean, and very intuitive, even for a person who doesn't know any Spanish or Catalan. I love me a good subway system.

8-The parks are beautiful. We went to two mountains on Sunday, and just bummed around in the greenery. The parks on the first mountain were mostly old palace gardens, and had the grandeur expected of such places. We went to the second mountain to see Gaudi's Park Guell, made famous by the ANTM screaming bride runway show. 

9-I thought it would be too intense for me, but the whole delayed day thing is actually very intuitive, especially because the sun doesn't really come out in Barcelona until noon. I had very little trouble staying out until 5:30 a.m. Saturday night, even after having toured around all day long. I also really liked eating a small breakfast, and then eating afternoon meals closer together (maybe at 2 and 5 p.m., then dinner at 9 or 10 p.m.). 

10-About 95% of Barcelona is breathtakingly beautiful. Just by design. Even the sidestreets are filled with the cutest apartment buildings, complete with laundry hanging off of tiny balconies and Venetian blinds pulled down over balcony railings. I took more pictures in two days in Barcelona than I have in the past month in Dublin.

In conclusion, it was a fantastic vacation.

However, I'm now feeling academically screwed--I was aiming to finish two ten page papers this week, but with my body recovering from so much excitement (and so much wine), I didn't feel up for it Monday. I almost broke down yesterday after one of my tutorial leaders told me my paper concept was confusing, and that I had better just stick to the given topics. However, I picked myself back up, and now I'm chugging along as fast as I can. My family is visiting next week, so I do have some light at the end of the tunnel. I can't wait to show them all of my favorite places in Dublin, nor can I wait for them to buy me some real groceries. I'm living so miserly right now, scrimping and saving for weekends and vacations. Hopefully my standard of living will improve, if only for a weekend.

I go all my sisters and me...

I rode an emotional rollercoaster this week. I spent most of the early week getting upset and stressed out over my papers. I killed myself worrying about whether or not I was on the right track, even after I asked my professors if I had the right idea. The misery hit its peak when my flatmates/best Dublin friends left for the weekend on Thursday morning. The cable was out, and with everyone out of town, I felt so lonely, as if I was going to have a nervous breakdown. Okay, it wasn't that intense, but I was very unhappy.

And then Sally arrived, and the light shined through! Instantly, I was feeling much better. I've been more homesick (schoolsick, really) than I admitted to myself, and it was incredible to be with a good old friend. Sally's Queen Mary friends Lilly and Hema tagged along, so the flat felt full again. We had a hillariously awkward late Thursday night at a pub, awkward because Dublin is early-to-bed sort of town, and most of the busiest streets were absolutely deserted.

The next morning we arose early and went to get crepes for breakfast. I feel as if I take every person who visits for crepes, but I really don't know anything else that is incredibly tasty and incredibly cheap simultaneously. And then, we walked. All over. All day. And why not? We're poor student types, and the weather was warmer than usual, a tepid 50 degrees or so, and we had our walking shoes on. We went down Dame to visit Dublin castle, then popped in to Christchurch Cathedral, erected by Vikings and hence, really fucking old. Then we walked down the Liffy, took the bridge by the Jameson distillery, trekked back up O'Connell and ended up having Guinnesses at the original Temple Bar. I tried to fill the girls in on all the history I could, but I really don't know anything about Irish history except for the Easter Rising and the Celtic Tiger.

Tuckered out (and a little tipsy), we headed back to Iveagh Court to rest for a bit. Hema met up with a friend, incidentally a Butler year girl, and Lilly, Sally, and I headed for dinner at Zaytoon, home of the most massive kebabs you can imagine. It took us a good hour to eat, and another hour to recover from what we ate. Sally and I discussed and psychoanalyzed the Hamilton community for most of the time, but Lilly was a good egg about it, bless her.

Friday night was a bit of a mess, the kebabs sitting like rocks in our stomach and the itnerary involving a trek out to student housing for a birthday party. The party was in a tiny dorm kitchen, and was actually broken up on the grounds that it was unauthorized. The security guard literally came in and said, "This is an unauthorized party. You should have registered your party. I need everyone to leave immediately." We were dragged by the Birthday Girl to the Pav, the Trinity equivalent to the Little Pub. The Pav is always swamped, with most of its patrons sitting on its steps or around its outer balcony, and seeing this from a distance, often at two in the afternoon, the idea of a Pav night never appealed to me before. It turns out instincts were right. With Sally's guidance, I realized that I really don't like the college drinking scene anymore--it's always too crowded and noisy to be comfortable. We left a little too late, and ended up at my favorite pub, Devitt's, and enjoyed their live folk music while we recollected ourselves. We were in bed by one to rest up for the next day's activities.

The next morning Claire and Sarah came home from Brussels at around 8 a.m., to find that not only both their beds but also one of the couches were occupied with my visitors. I felt terrible for forgetting to tell them that Hema was staying over an extra night for awkward reasons, and they were reasonably cranky about it. Luckily, Sally was the couch-dweller and jumped up the moment she realized my flatmates were home, but I was afraid the faux pas would negatively affect my flatmates' impressions of the London set. However, Sally and her gang evacuated the beds by 10 and all was forgotten.

Sally and co. went to the Guinness factory, and gave me a glowing report when I met up with them later on. We met for lunch at a pub in Dublin 8, which was in the strangest suburban neighborhood I've ever seen. The desolate-looking brick condos and empty streets reminded me a lot of Redford, the Detroit suburb where my grandparents lived for forty years. There weren't any restaurants or convenience stores for blocks, only pubs. Quite depressing. Our pub, the Black Lion, was a diamond in the rough. The decor was a jumble of Dublin drinking paraphernalia and childish curios. I suppose this is the type of pub Applebees or Max and Erma's bastardizes in the USA. We had some lovely soup, and then headed back to visit St. Valentine.

Yes, you read correctly, the relics of St. Valentine (or at least SOME relics of St. Valentine) are in Dublin, and not too far from my house! Whitefriar Church, the home of said relics, was one of the gaudiest Catholic churches I've ever been inside. Many of the different elements of the church were lovely, like the mosaic altar and ancient stained glass windows. However, all the conflicting aesthetics smooshed together in one place was a little daunting. There was even faux-rock cove by the door with a painting of the Virgin Mary inside. I described it to Andrew as Catholic kitsch. Anyway, we said a prayer for our love-lives, and then headed home to prepare for our Valentine's Day festivities.

For weeks, my flatmates and I have been planning the ultimate Valentine's Day slumber party, complete with chocolate, girlie movies, and a ton of booze. I was nervous that Sally and Lilly would prefer to go to a pub or something on Saturday night, but they were as thrilled about the idea as the rest of us were. So, we picked up pizza, movies, Bailey's and red wine, the girls in the next flat brought over enormous bars and trays of Cadbury candies, strawberries, and champagne, and we settled down and watched The Birdcage and Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex *But Were Too Afraid To Ask. It was the best Valentine's Day celebration any of us could remember having. There's something so sacred about a well-executed slumber party, I think it's something that men will never understand about us women...

On Sunday morning, the sun came out. It was gorgeous, 50 degrees, blue skies... heaven. Sally, Lilly and I met up with Hema and her Butler friend Emily at my favorite place in the whole world, Cafe en Seine. We feasted on Irish cheese plates and bruschetta. They told me all about London, and how cheap everything is in Camden Market, how one can get two cocktails for 7 pounds at one place and a bowl of pad thai for 5 pounds at another. I hate to say it, but us students are making out like bandits in this recession. I sent them on their way, and then spent the rest of the morning walking around parts of Dublin I hadn't seen before. Everything was so serene and quiet (it was Sunday afternoon, after all), and I felt an intense love for Dublin I hadn't felt since I just arrived and all the Christmas lights were still hanging all down O'Connell and Grafton. Reflecting on Hamilton with Sally made me realize that I'm glad that I'm here, I'm glad to be away and seeing the world, and as much as I miss a lot of Hamiltonians, this is really where I should be right now.

So that's all for now. I'm off to Barcelona this weekend for Carnival. If it's even just as nice as it was in Dublin this past weekend, I'll be thrilled. All the reading I've done on Barcelona's carnival makes me think that it's just going to be three days of confetti. Everywhere. Excellent.

It's a Beautiful Day...

I'll come back with a recap of Sally's visit soon, but I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate the weather in Dublin right now. It's 52 degrees, sunny, and everything's more green than usual. The flowers are even starting to bloom! Check out this genuine Merrion Square flowerage:


Since it's been warm, I've been exploring Dublin at greater length. On Sunday, I walked along the canal and through some residential neighborhoods. A lot of homes have palm trees in their front yards, and with the good weather I felt like I was in Florida or southern California in the off-season. It's really miraculous, what a difference a little sunshine can make.

Today the taxi drivers protested again. We heard them marching and chanting down the street right outside of my lecture classroom. I couldn't tell you what they want, but the taxi drivers are so darling, I say give it to them!

In spite of the sunshine, I'm staying in this afternoon to start my Writing Ireland paper. Cheers!

Comin' Back after a Bloodwound

Six Nation Rugby started this week, and believe it or not, I couldn't be more thrilled. Caitlin, my flatmates and I went to a darling little sports bar, adorned in all the green we could find in our wardrobes (which meant I was wearing my green tie-dyed "Ann Arbor Townie" t-shirt), and cheered on the home team for a rollicking 80 minutes of big men with bad hear tackling each other. Ireland was playing France, and thus the French had overtaken Dublin for the day, so the tension even within the pub was immense. The game was gruesome, with several people breaking or bleeding, but thoroughly entertaining. I think  I like rugby so much because unlike football, the play doesn't end when the man holding the ball is tackled to the ground--instead, he passes it out of the heap somehow, someone on his team snags it, and starts running again. I have a natural aversion to the French players, especially the one with long black hair and a nasty goatee. That particular one looks like a Tin-Tin villain.

In case you haven't heard, Ireland was VICTORIOUS over France, with a score of something like 30 to 21. We yelled, toasted, and then peeled out to get sandwiches at a cute little French cafe. I guess we can't all be that loyal for long.

Saturday evening we dressed classily, intending to find a sophisticated night club in which we could sip on glasses of red wine without having to worry about cover charge. However, no such place exists in Dublin, and certainly not on Saturday night. We ended up instead at the Palace, a classic movie theatre turned trashy club, in which all women wore skimpy backless dresses and all men wore rugby colors and other embarrassing pendants of team loyalty (clown wigs and pirate sashes come to mind). Caitlin, being the brave girl she is, sat in the noisy club with us, and even danced a bit in spite of the mostly wretched Euro-pop/techno music. 

Otherwise, I've started research on my final papers. They're freaking me out more than they should--they're not supposed to be terribly long and the topics themselves are quite easy. I would probably write the same amount in two weeks at Hamilton. I'm just caught up on the fact that these are the ONLY PAPERS we get to write. One try, one grade, and that's the grade you have to live with. I second and third guess myself all the time, and I can't shake that dreadful feeling that something's going to happen to adversely affect my performance, and that I'll somehow slip through the cracks and flunk out and waste all of this money my parents sent to get me here.

I spent an enormous amount of time on GoogleEarth today. I walked down my street, checked on Hamilton College, zoomed in on St. Marks in New York City and a portion of the rainforest in Brazil. I think I've been overwhelmed by the bigness of the world recently. Which makes it sound like I'm high. I'm not. I just am realizing how quickly time is passing, and how much of Ireland there is to see, let alone all of Europe in general. I became a little sad, because I know I don't have the resources to get every place I want to go. Damn you, GoogleEarth, making everything seem so small...

At any rate, that's all I've got for you today. A little melancholy, but that's probably just the Irish outlook rubbing off on me. By the end of the semester I should be able to see the bleak side of every happy moment.

Glen Hasard and the Family Band

So Caitlin and I went to see the Swell Season Thursday night and expected Marketa Irgova and Glen Hasard to play the whole Once soundtrack, maybe a few covers, and be done with it. The concert was so much more than just that. 

We arrived when the show was supposed to begin, and there was a group already playing on stage. For the first hour, there were probably six different one or two person acts. Most of the performers played quirky folk music, with extra personal lyrics (one man explained he was going to play a song about moving into the country from Dublin when he was thirteen years old, and then went on to sing, "I was thirteen, and we were movin' to the country"), but one man played a really cool eccentric mix of traditional Irish music, world music, and Billy Joelesque rock piano. A lone guitar player belonged to Bell X1, a group of guys who used to be in Damien Rice's college band. A lot of the solo acts seemed to be connected with the Frames in some way. Essentially, the entire Dublin music scene was in attendance. 

The whole show was very family oriented, and not just in terms of Irish brotherhood. It turns out that the show as a benefit for Glen Hasard's mother's school for the disabled--Mrs. Hasard came on stage and told us that the school could rarely come up with the money to rent a bus and take the disabled students out, so she asked Glen to get some of his friends to do a benefit for the school, "because then we could just buy a damn bus!" Glen asked her to sing a song after she gave her speech. She resisted, but then broke into "Crazy," claiming it was the only song she knew. Earlier in the show, Glen had his teenage niece come out and sing a few songs, just because that was the nature of the show. Even his violinist sang an old Irish ballad in honor of a folksinger who had passed recently. It was such an all-singing, all-dancing kind of show! 

The actual Swell Season didn't perform as many songs as I thought they would--they sang maybe six songs from their album, and then did a lot of Frames songs. It was sort of obnoxious, because the Frames are like the Irish equivalent to Barenaked Ladies fans--they know all the words to all Frames songs, and like so sing them on the tops of their lungs. It was still a lot of fun, though, and by the encore it was kind of a free-for-all. Some opening performer would come on stage and whisper to the band members what he was going to play, or give them chord progressions, and then they'd just jam out. Also, Glen Hasard sang this song called The Banana Man. Here's a link if you don't believe me.

Other than the concert, it's been a sort of miserable weekend. It snowed three days in a row, big beautiful movie snowflakes, but seeing as I didn't come prepared for snow, I was very unhappy out in the slush. So unhappy, in fact, that I caught some sort of illness and was out for the count all yesterday with terrible chills and a fever. I tried to pretend I wasn't sick and went out to UCD with a few of the people on my program to see the original manuscript for Kerouac's On The Road, which is on one single massive scroll. The exhibit was small but very informative, and I now know much more about Jack Kerouac and 1950's publishing practices than I ever knew before.

Caitlin's been doing her own thing this weekend more often than not--at this point, she's more of another flatmate than a guest. This weekend has been a lot less expensive, probably because I've been too ill to drink. I've also been reading a lot: I always knew that I only had one essay per class to assess my knowledge of the subject at hand, but I didn't know until last week that four out of five said essays are due at the end of March. That means three 3,000 and one 5,000 word essays in what, six weeks? It might be typical at Hamilton, but at Hamilton you at least get more than one chance to prove yourself. 

Though the next few weeks are going to suck academically, they're going to be fabulous socially. Sally Kral is coming to visit me for Valentine's Day weekend, and the weekend after that me and a few of my Dublin friends are going to Barcelona for Carnival. The week after that my parents visit, and then Andrew visits, and then Ami visits, and voila, it's April!

Quickly, a short Irish slang lesson:

-Grand-adj-fine, good. i.e. "Abrakebabra has a chicken kebab special? That's grand!"

-Craic (kr-ae-k)-noun-fun, a laugh. i.e. "We should go to Doyle's tonight, it should be good craic."

-Bullocks-noun, adj, adv-terrible, bullshit. i.e. "This bullocks weather is a pain in my arse," "Professor McBrien's lecture on 'Playboy of the Western World' was bullocks, don't you think?"

-Cheers-exclamation-a toast, a greeting, a goodbye, a well-wishing, i.e. "Well, I've got to run. Cheers!"

One is Silver, the other Gold

I MADE FRIENDS. New ones! They are all from America, but they're new to me, and we have so much fun together. My flatmates went on a International Students Society trip to Galway the same time I did, and met a few new people. We all went out for drinks last Tuesday night, and lo and behold, these people and their friends are all lovely. This is my biggest piece of news in a long while.

Three of my new friends and one of my comparatively older ones went to see Of Montreal at the Button Factory Wednesday night. Perhaps because the Irish hipster patrons were not very aggressive, perhaps because I didn't have to worry about helping to set up the show and then make sure people came to it, or perhaps because Kevin Barnes wanted to make an extra-fantastic impression on his Irish fans, it was one of the best concerts I've ever attended. I was right at the front, smooshed against the three-foot tall stage, at the red patent leather heels of Kevin himself, in all his glittery, nearly-naked glory. He knelt down right in front of me and two of my friends, and I got a handful of his thigh (Bryce from Bryn Mawr said she was more intimate than that). I danced like I have never danced before, they played every song I ever could have hoped for, and Kev came out covered in shaving cream for his big finale. I exited the venue coated in sweat and red paint. I'll post pictures soon, I promise.

The weekend only improved with a visit from Caitlin Dickinson (we're seeing each other more often in Ireland than we see each other at home). We spent Friday night at a pub called Devitt's, which was probably my best pub experience yet. We went up to the second floor, where a few musicians were sitting in a booth, casually playing folk music. I have to say that I can't mix pub and club nights--I go to the pub for a mellow, chatty evening, and I go to the club to dance, and the two don't mix very well. 

Caitlin and I woke up bright and early(ish) Saturday morning to eat crepes and then hit up the Dublin Bus-sponsored bus tours. We were really gung-ho about riding on the opened top of the double decker for the first half of our tour, even though it was probably 30 degrees and raining. We were frozen though before we decided to get off at the Kilmainham Gaol, which held prisoners from the late 1700s to the 1920s. The jail is really popular because it is where the leaders of the Easter Rebellion were held, and where most of them were executed. Also, Daniel Day Lewis made a movie there. At any rate, we had a spot of tea (EVERY tourist attraction has a tea room, it seems) before we took a tour of the grounds. Because the jail was built out of limestone, and before there was much heating technology, it was FRIGID for the entire tour. The jail cells were really cool though, as were the theories behind their design. Ideally, everyone was to have their own individual cells with solid doors and walls rather than bars. The cell doors had peepholes on front of them. The idea was that prisoners would never know when they were going to be watched, and by whom, so they'd always have to be on their best behavior. The east wing of the jail was actually quite beautiful--I think it would make a good tourist hostel.

Once thoroughly frozen, Caitlin and I jumped back on the bus and rode out to Merrion Square. We were attracted to this particular square because, adjacent to the building where Oscar Wilde attended school, there is a statue of Oscar lying lazily on a large rock at the entrance to the park. It is one of the only painted statues I've ever seen, and my, was it gayly colored.

That evening Caitlin and I feasted on torellini and white pudding, and then Caramel Digestives, which are God's gift to Ireland, as far as I'm concerned. We went out to the Porter House and met up with some NEW FRIENDS, but all in all it was a fairly blah night. I'm learning that Saturday nights are not for the faint of heart--we trucked ourselves all the way out to Temple Bar only to find that we might have had a better time in our own neighborhood.

On Sunday my flatmates and Caitlin and I brunched at Lemon, this hip little crepe place close to Trinity. Lemon apparently attracts aging hipsters and their darling children, so we spent the entire meal oggling the precious and well-dressed urban children. After breakfast, Caitlin, Sarah and I went to the Dublin Zoo to celebrate the first day of spring (according to the Gaelic calendar, anyway). The zoo featured baby monkeys, a baby elephant, and a baby giraffe (!!!). Obviously, the zoo attracted many nuclear families, so these darling Irish children were all over the place, calling the monkeys "cheeky" and pronouncing "tortoises" with pristine diction. The cutest moment of the trip occurred when three small girls met a mischievous chimpanzee in the African Savannah area. The chimp would knock on the window at the girls, and then run from one end of the window to the other and back again. The little girls would chase him and make faces at him and squeal. It was evident that each party was enjoying the other equally.

Moments before Caitlin left yesterday morning, we found a Ticketmaster desk at the tourism office and purchased tickets to see the Swell Season on Thursday (for those of you who have seen Once, the Swell Season is the group Marketa Irgova and Glen Hasard put together for the movie. For those of you who haven't seen Once, go see it right now!) At any rate, Caitlin's coming back next weekend. Hurray!

That's all for now. I hope to update more often, with less in each update, so it's easier to swallow. Thanks for making it this far!

A Popsicle Stick and a Galway Hooker

Sorry I've been MIA for a week or two. Ironically, I think I've been bad about updating because we finally got our wireless installed, and thus I've spent all of my time online doing what I've been meaning to do for weeks. Since I registered with the Garda last Thursday, I'm finally allowed to leave the country, which means I've spent countless hours fiddling with different days and times and places on the Ryanair website, and several hostel sites as well. In case you're curious: Barcelona in mid-February (for Carnival), maybe London in late February (a quick get-away for Sally's birthday), Edinburgh the third weekend in March (with Andrew!!), Amsterdam the fourth weekend in March (with Ami!), Paris in mid-April (for Easter at Notre Dame), and Prague the first weekend in May. This is discounting the numerous trips I could take around Ireland or the UK at the drop of a hat. 

This weekend I went to Galway to visit Caitlin Dickinson, one of my best friends from Ann Arbor. The train ride might have been the best part. Riding through the pastures and fields of Ireland, as green as ever even in January, with the sheep and cows grazing up and down the rolling hills--it's so picturesque, it's almost nauseating. Once I got to Galway on Friday evening, Caitlin and I went grocery shopping and came home with a shit-ton of white pudding and potatoes. White pudding, for anyone who doesn't know, is a sort of sausage made out of oats, spices, and all kinds of pig, one of those foods that are supposed to make non-native squirm. The potatoes came in a huge sack, and inside, they looked as if they were fresh from the ground (i.e. dirty as fuck). We baked the potatoes and fried up the sausage, creating the most stereotypically Irish meal two exchange students have ever produced.

We woke up early on sunny Saturday morning to walk down to the Bay. On the way into town, we stopped in this beautiful old graveyard. Like most older European graveyards I've seen, the ground was neatly plotted and entire families were buried within these small sections of earth. We even found the grave site for an entire flock of Jesuit priests. 

We walked down through the medieval quarters, which allow pedestrians only, like so many shopping/restaurant districts I've seen thus far. There were a multitude of darling pubs and celtic shops, even though the whole Celtic mythology was largely made up, largely by Yeats. I looked for yarn, but alas, all of it was on the Aran Islands, so I bought some pesto and pears at the farmer's market instead. I also got a Claddagh ring at a cheesy tourist stand. The Claddagh people are those fishermen who wore the big wooly sweaters, and they wore rings to show their marital/relationship status. If you wear the ring right-side up, it means you're taken, and upside down indicates you're free for the taking. Now that I'm wearing my Claddagh ring, maybe the Irish boys will be deterred, either because they'll know I have a boyfriend or because I'll look like such a campy tourist. I think I'm just starting to understand how sinister medieval European history was--there's a monument to the man the Galwayians claim invented lynching, for instance. 

By the time we got down to the bay, the sun had disappeared and the wind had come. Standing out by the Atlantic Ocean was freezing, but it was also so comforting to know that I'm sharing an ocean with all of you, and that I'm not so far away from home after all. The bay had oodles of swans, and ballsy swans at that. The swans let you come within inches of them, and even heckle you for food. The Claddagh clan said that the swans were the souls of the dead, so I suppose you can't help but feed dear departed Aunt Tilly, Uncle Paddy, and so on.

We stopped briefly in the (free) Galway Historical Museum, just long enough to enjoy the big JFK exhibit. Apparently, JFK came to Galway for four days in the 60's and Galway never got over it. One of the kids in my program visited a cathedral that was made in the 60's, and said that there is a huge mosaic of JFK praying in it. Apparently there are monuments to Bill Clinton all over Northern Ireland because he was so much help during the Troubles, and a county in north-eastern Ireland is trying to claim Obama as one of their own. It puts me off that the Irish grovel to American authority figures, but maybe I'm just being cynical, or I don't appreciate what America does for the rest of the world.

We had lunch at a small traditional Irish restaurant, and for five euro I got a massive bowl of seafood chowder and five pieces of bread (two brown, three irish soda). It was incredibly tasty, on parr with clam chowders I've had on the east coast of the USA (but again, same ocean).

In the afternoon we made our way down to the resort area called Salthill, and visited the Atlantaquarium. I've not been to many aquariums, but this was much different than any I'd ever visited before. For one, all of the tops of tanks were exposed, so you could reach out and pet a mantaray or a starfish if you so chose to. There weren't any exotic fish, just fish that could be found in the lakes and oceans surrounding Ireland, and those common species appeared in multitudes. The biggest fish tank was full of huge sea bass, and since we opportunely showed up just in time for the big fish feeding, we got to watch the hundreds of sea bass fight each other off for pieces of squid. It was the most matter-of-fact zoo-type institution I've ever visited--the guide wasn't squeamish about telling a little girl that she might kill the starfish she was holding if she brought it out of the water, or that some of the fish were all born female and became male if the population needed more males. 

Saturday night, Caitlin and I met up with some of her friends from school and my friends from the Butler program at a bar called the King's Head (I guess the original owners came to own the property because they were integral in beheading a tyrannical king). We were having a fine time, drinking Galway Hookers (a local brew named for the Claddagh fishing boats), when a bunch of women in slutty costumes stumble in. I'm talking slutty prisoner, slutty Snow White, slutty witch, just about anything one could pick up at a sex fantasy shop. Later on, a bunch of women wearing flashing bunny ears came in, and after that, a group of women adorned in bejewelled shutter shades. Us clueless city folk didn't understand what was going on, until a Galway girl explained to us that Galway is one of the top location for hen and stag parties, but especially hen parties. I suppose that explained the poor groom in a banana suit. The bejewelled shutter shade bride even brought her mother, who was bustin' it out on the dance floor to one Brittany Spears song after another. The older woman acted as I suppose my own mother would act at a hen party. I turned to Caitlin and told her that when and if I get married, I don't want any sort of bachelorette festivities. I think she was relieved. 

Other than my trip to Galway, life has been pretty quiet. My Butler friends and I are slowly learning the tricks of the trade as far as partying goes. The first few weeks we ran all over the city trying to find good clubs and bars, but recently we realized that most of the youthful nightlife takes place right in our neighborhood. Tripod, a club literally right outside our front door, has student nights on Wednesdays where cover is 6 euro and then all drinks are 2 or 3 euro once you're inside. We tried to go to Tripod last Wednesday, but underestimated the power of cheap drinks, and therefore came way too late when we stumbled out the door at 11:30. We bummed around Wexford Street and decided to go to Whelan's, a popular pub that was lively enough to still be open after midnight on a Wednesday. The bartenders told us there was live music upstairs, so we ascended only to find... a ska band. In the middle of Dublin, I found Ann Arbor. It's especially funny, because a week before I was listening to punky-looking Dubin men sing country and motown songs. The lead singer of the ska band was giving out colored popsicle sticks (because what else is a ska frontman going to do?), and he could sense my ska-roots from across the room, because he singled me out to hand me a yellow popsicle stick. I think he was from Arizona. Strange.

We found another great place called the Porter House, who brew their own beer. My favorite was chiller, which tastes like beer in its purest form, no aftertaste. Think, the Fiji water of beer. Other popular choices were strawberry beer and Brainblasta. I think I'm really starting to appreciate beer for it's taste, not just for its effect it has on me. I think this means I'm growing up.

I'm laying low for the next couple of weeks while some friends visit me, but I AM seeing Of Montreal at this club called the Button Factory in the Temple Bar district. My goal is to make friends with a few cool real Irish kids, though I still feel this is an impossible task. I sent emails to a few societies this week, but I doubt I'll meet anyone in the yoga society classes, and I'm starting to think the Rock Nostalgia society is a long shot. Trinity does have a radio station, but I think they're much more legit than what I'm used to.

And now it's everyone's favorite list:

--The Irish are snarky as all get-out when they're drinking. They're not mean, per se, just very willing to tease anyone they come across. I've been teased for saying I was from the USA instead of from Michigan, and visa versa.

--Irish people also don't watch their children very closely. A little boy walked up to me at the train station and started talking to me about how he comes to the station every day, and makes friends with hundreds of pigeons. I looked around frantically for the boy's parents, but he ran away before I could ask him who he belonged to. When I got on the train, I decided the boy must have been some sort of orphan peasant, someone out of a Dickens novel, but halfway to Galway I saw him running up and down the railcar with a little girl in a bare mid-drift sweater, who I took to be his sister. 

--To go along with that--Irish people in service industries are not very helpful. I'd even go so far as to call them flaky. Even the secretaries at the international students office at Trinity don't really act as if they know what they're doing, or what they're talking about. Maybe Americans don't know everything they're supposed to know, but at least they pretend like they do. All of this lack of authority makes me very uneasy.

--All Irish women seem to have very slutty clothes. See hen party descriptions above.

--Everything they say about sausages and potatoes is true. They're everywhere, and unavoidable, in all of Ireland. Thank God I'm not on a low fat or low carb diet.

Crystal and a Ball

WATERFORD--great fun. It felt like a truer Ireland than Dublin, but that is to be expected from a city. The Butler half-year kids (this includes me) went to Waterford on a weekend homestay. My homestay parents, George and Linda, were actually Scottish, but had lived in South Africa for most of their lives. They host students all the time, usually from Spain and Italy, and once from Saudi Arabia. They loved to talk about their previous homestay kids, and made sweeping generalizations about students from certain countries: The Spanish were very well-behaved and courtieous, the Italians are a piece of work, especially the girls (they had 14 and 16 year old girls in the house who would have a cup of coffee and a cigarette for breakfast). Extremely cool older people--George loves cooking and Coors, Linda keeps three cat with various ailments. One of the cats was born without its right hind leg, so she never really stands up unless she is very anxious to rub up against someone, and then she stood up like a three-legged stool. She is eternally cute. George and Linda's 23-year-old son lives with them, Chris, and Chris spins at the grunge/indie/punk club, Forum. The whole family tried to convince us to go, but unfortunately, we never made it up there.

The Vikings settled in Waterford before they settled anywhere else, making Waterford the first city in Ireland. We went to Regent's Tower, which used to be part of the city wall. Vikings constructed the building for defense purposes outside and in. Even the staircases were designed for warding off enemies: they build the ceilings low, so an intruder would have to duck his head and expose his neck if he wanted to get up the stairs; they build the stairs in a narrow clockwise spiral, so that a right-handed intruder couldn't swing his sword at all; they even though to build the stairs at different heights so that an intruder would stumble and fall. I know y'all aren't too into history, but I just thought that was so cool. Who knew Vikings were so clever?

Waterford's city center is very quaint. It's a big vacation destination for the Irish because it's so far south and close to the beach, and thus, the city center is essentially an outdoor shopping center. The Christmas lights were still up when we went, and there was an enormous carousel right in the center of everything. It felt a lot like Maine, for some reason. Maybe this feeling is left over from when I worked on the musical Carousel in high school.

Since every place is cheaper than Dublin, and Waterford is currently in its off-season, and the recession is still in full swing, I found incredible deals everywhere. I had been fixated on the fact that I didn't have properly sophisticated leathery boots for the city, nor did I have high heels I could ruin going out. I got both things for 35 euro in Waterford, along with a grey beaded top that makes me look like the Christler building.

Saturday evening most of the kids on my program went to Doolan's, the oldest pub in Waterford, to see some traditional Irish music. While we sat by the fire, this three man group played tons of old ballads and drinking songs, a few of which I'd heard the men's choruses in middle and high school perform in my youth. I enjoyed myself immensely for an hour and a half, and then the similarity between each song went from charming to obnoxious.

We tied up the weekend with a visit to the Waterford Crystal Factory. They weren't holding the factory tour, unfortunately, but the showroom was open, and jesus christ, I've never been so nervous to walk around a room before. Everything glimmering around me was extremely expensive and extremely delicate--I was sure I was going to trip and knock over a shelf of crystal, and that that shelf would hit another, and by domino effect, everything would be shattered, including the chandeliers miraculously. Luckily, this did not happen. I can't say that I ever want to own anything that nice--some of the larger vases were as much as a full college education--but it was interesting to see the place where they make the New Years Ball.

This week was RAG (raise a grand) Week at Trinity, which means all kinds of drinking-related fundraising. There was a three-legged pub crawl tuesday, a mystery tour Wednesday night (where they bring busloads of people some cool unknown place to drink), and the RAG Ball on Thursday. I went to two RAG events. The first was the Irish Club's screening of short films in Irish. Almost all of them were comedic and relied on the fact that barely any Irish people really speak their own language. One of the best ones was called _________, in which a Chinese youth decides to go to Ireland, and spends six months learning Gaelic, only to find that no one understands what he's saying.

The second event I attended was the RAG Ball. it took place in a three-level club, packed to the gills with Trinity students. There was a techno floor, a band floor, and a VIP floor. Very hot, very crowded, but fun, I from what I can remember. Trinity events are always a little bittersweet though, because they make me realize that I don't know ANY real Irish people yet, and I'm certainly not going to make any lasting friendships in noisy pubs and clubs. I suppose I should join a few clubs and societies, but maybe I'll just be lazy and rely on the people in my program for a good time.

Other than that, an uneventful week. I've been having a frustratingly drawn-out discussion with our landlord about installing wireless, but I think it's finally coming early next week, so I'll be able to update more often. Thanks to those of you who have been sticking it out.

And here's another installment of Irish observations:

--Most all of the bathroom doors are labelled "Ladies" and "Gents". I quite like it.

--The Irish, and the Brittish, are absolutely not squeamish about breasts, and nipples in particular. My flatmates and I were watching a public television station, and at 11:30 p.m., a girls-gone-wild type show came on, and it was boobs boobs boobs and more boobs, and even a penis or two. The newspaper fashion magazine, comparable to the New York Times Magazine, featured pictures of a topless woman in shorts and different pairs of high heels. There are boobs calendars in the front of the calendar display, as well as boob weekly logs. It's hillarious that a mostly staunch Catholic country is so into boobs.

--The Irish are also not squeamish about cursing. Irish children curse endlessly, and their parents just find it hillarious.

--Irish students are not into class participation. My tutorials started this week, and I was frustrated to find that no one would answer or entertain even the simplest prompt. I found myself speaking about a third of the time in my Postcolonial lit class because I knew the subject, but barely anyone would speak in my Irish lit class, and they're Irish! They've probably been taught Irish literature as much as Americans have been taught the Civil War.

Now I'm off to read all day long.

I still exist, though my blog would not inform that. Alas, my flat is supposed to have wireless installed, always two days from now. The only internet access I've had has been stolen from some office building in our apartment compound, and it only works fleetingly, and only on my roommate's bed. A lot has happened, but I'll try to keep it brief.

I moved into my flat last Friday. It was lovely on first glance--a full kitchen, lovely sitting room with green leather couches, cheesy hotel art on the walls. However, the Irish do not believe in chests of drawers or shelving units. The first several days of my stay consisted of trying to shove my massive duffel-full of clothes into a wardrobe and bedside table. Now that I have books, the area around my bed has become a danger zone. I'm frantically looking for shelves, but Ikea has not yet found Dublin, and thus, all shelving options are unaffordable, even at recession prices. 

The appliances proved initially impossible, and though my flatmates and I have mastered the microwave and the dishwasher, the washer/dryer and oven still prove a mystery. We didn't know how to do hot water until this past weekend, which was no fun. Though we don't have wireless yet, we do have cable, which I have been watching ad nauseum. The Irish love terrible American sitcoms, so Three and a Half Men, Ugly Betty, and Fraiser are on constantly. The music videos are also American more often than not, but the European videos are always a lot of fun. Most of them are dance songs with terrible lyrics an promiscously dressed women--think Pussycat Dolls with accents. The best example of this Brit pop phenomenon I've seen is the video for a song entitled, "The Boy Does Nothing". There's a link at the bottom of the post so you can see for yourself.

However, this independent living adventure is quite exciting, even if it is perilous. I shop as much as possible at the fruit and veg market and adjacent German discount grocery, the Lidl, and save quite a bit on food, which is my biggest expense apart from nightlife. Drinking is EXPENSIVE here--the going rate for a pint of Guinness is 4.60 euro, and that's at a cheaper pub. I went clubbing for the first time Thursday night, and we had to change our initial plans because Chris Brown was at the club we'd intended to enter, and the covercharge skyrocketed to 30 euro. That's three days of groceries, or roughly six beers. We ended up going to a sketchy, mostly empty club down the street, in which I ordered a mixed drink called a Purple Queen. It tasted like a melted grape slushy, and gave me the worst hangover since Andrew and my jello-mold birthday party. 

Though that club scene didn't appeal to me, I am going to attend Trinity's Rag Ball this Thursday. Trinity has a tradition of Rag week, Rag standing for Raise A Grand. The idea is to raise a ton of money for charity by hosting parties, restaurant events, casino nights, etc. The pinnacle of the festivities is the Rag Ball, where a ton of student bands play and there are 2 and 3 euro drink specials. I just purchased my first clubbing top and high heels, so I'm amped to see what a real party is like here. The other fabulous thing about Rag week is that everyone gets to say "I'm on the Rag" all the time. Great fun.

I do love the pub scene, as expensive as it is. My flatmates and I already have a favorite pub. It's a sportsbar called the Bleeding Horse, and it has cheapo pints of Guinness, Heineken, and Bulmers, a fantastic hard cider that goes down easy after the heavier drafts. Most Irish people go to the pubs nightly, which is something I can't yet afford, but it is refreshing to end a Tuesday evening with a pint. Hopefully my lack of proper food will compensate for the thousands beer calories I will consume more often than not.

I started classes a week ago, and am now enrolled in five English courses: Post-colonial Lit and Theory, Old English, Irish Lit, Realism and the Novel, and History of the Book. Each course consists of a 50 minute lecture and a 50 minute seminar, and along with the film class I'm auditing, that adds up to a shit-ton of class time. Aside from the actual number of hours I spend in classrooms and lecture halls, I have maybe eight or ten novels and texts assigned as mandatory reading per class, and twenty or thirty volumes of recommended reading on top of that. An orientation guide told us that if a student does the bare minimum of required reading, he or she can squeeze by with a ranking of Lower Second Class. The Trinity system has First Class, which is nearly publishable, then Upper and Lower Second Class, followed by Third Class, and finally, Failing. Not a big self-esteem booster, let me tell you. Because I plan to travel on the weekends more often than not, I'm going to have to work my ass off during the week to squeak by with a Lower Second Class mark. Sheesh.

I'm not allowed to leave the country until I register with the Irish police, but I did go to Waterford this weekend. I'll try to update later today or tomorrow with all the lovely details of that trip.

Here are some articles to add to my list of observations of Irish life:

--No one says "Top of the mornin' to ye!", but, "cheers," "dear (as in "expensive")" and "lads" are in common use, especially in the South.

--Irish couples are not modest about PDA. Even older couples will kiss, embrace, and even hold hands in public. 

--Rory is an odd name for a girl. When trying to open a bank account, my teller told me that management would probably think that Miss Rory Pavach was a mistake, and to expect to be addressed as Mr. in my first several statements.

--Irish girls are dressed to the nines EVERY DAY. I had to buy everyday heels and fancy faux-leather boots to feel less self conscious about my being underdressed. I suppose this is more of a cosmopolitan phenomenon than a common practice for Irish students, but I suppose time will tell. 

I'm off to my medieval manuscript tutorial. More on Waterford to come, and I'll put up a pictures link as soon as I get some of my photos on the web.

Cheers!

Here! Finally!

I am here. I am in one piece. God knows it was a bumpy ride...

After waiting at my airport gate for an hour, the three or four of us who weren't in the know were told that Northwest cancelled its flight to Boston. I ran to the customer service counter as fast as my little legs could carry me, and told the travel agent there I needed to get to Boston to catch my connecting flight. Then I learned that Boston was out because of the white-out snow conditions. The agent then sent me on a flight going to Amsterdam in three or four hours, and at Amsterdam I could take an Aer Lingus plane to Dublin. I went to sit at my gate, which was just underneath a huge video screen, and proceeded to watch seven cycles of the half-hour CNN news reel they were playing all morning, which mostly detailed fireworks displays in Australia and Asia.

When I finally got on the plane, I thought I'd been given a lucky break. It was a Northwest flight, so there were little individual televisions embedded in the backs of each of the seats. My fare came with two in-flight meals as well, whereas on Aer Lingus I'm pretty sure I would have had to buy any food I ate. However, at about 9 p.m. EST, 2 a.m. Dublin time, I realized that dinner kept everyone from conking out as soon as the sun went down, and that hundreds of individual movie screens give off a huge amount of light. Needless to say, I didn't sleep very long or very well on the plane.

And at least I'd get to drink a Heini in Amsterdam to ring in the New Year, right?

Not so fast. Future travellers, please take note: there are no restaurants or bars open in the Amsterdam airport at 5:30 a.m., at least on bank holidays. Also: you'd better eat your in-flight breakfast, because the only food available so early comes from the duty-free shop, and is horrifically expensive. A coke light and a box of cheapo peppermints (Wilhelmina pepermunts, the size of alkeselter tablets) were three euros--and apparently, passengers can't bring food onto Aer Lingus flights. Amsterdam Airport was also an oven. Maybe it was just because it was 5:30 a.m. and for some reason my air-conditioning spouts in the seating unit of my previous flight both somehow pointed to my seatmate, but it was hell waiting in the transfer line. On top of all that, I had a three hour layover, two hours of which I spent alone, sitting outside my gate, knitting and listening to This American Life to keep alert. By the time I got on the plane, I was about to have a exhaustion-induced nervous breakdown.

HOWEVER, the moment my Aer Lingus plane descended below the thick layer of clouds covering Ireland to reveal that ancient green farmland, it was like reaching Nirvana. A calm swept over me. After the descent, everything went smoothly: the Irish police force, the Guarda, OKed me quite easily and even gave me a month to register with them in Dublin, which is very generous to my understanding. Miraculously, my bag didn't get lost in the confusion of all the cancellations and switches, and there were even free luggage trolleys so that I wouldn't throw my back out carrying my eighty pounds of luggage. The taxi ride was wonderful, because by 11 a.m. on New Years Day, no one was on the road. Driving into a deserted Dublin, all in shades of light gray on account of cloud cover, was so charming, and so calming. It might've helped that the taxi driver's selected radio station was playing Stevie Wonder and other happy-go-lucky 80's hits, but I'll get to that later.

When I checked into my hotel room, my roommate hadn't arrived yet, so I spread out, emailed my parents, took a piping hot shower, and napped for an hour or two. Then came the welcome lunch, which was sufficiently awkward because none of the thirteen people on the trip knew each other. The Hamiltonians will be happy (or frusterated) to know that I had a lengthy discussion about post-irony and pre-irony with a philosophy major, who brought up everyone's favorite concept on his own, by the way.

After delicious goat cheese and vegetable tarts, we took tea into a conference room and our program director spent two hours describing to us Irish history, Irish customs, Irish banking/dining/shopping/renting/and on and on. She gave us massive packets to read and a folder full of Trinity-specific hand-outs. By the time she finished, I had an address, a permanent roommate, and about a thousand things to take care of before class starts on Monday morning. All of this will be more difficult because, while our apartments are incredibly hip and wonderful, we have NO internet access. How am I going to live without internet? The girls I'm living with have already agreed something must be done about that. I see a wireless port in our future.

Anyway, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. I chatted with my parents on Skype and straightened out a few emails. Then, at 6:30, one of the "year girls" took us out around Dublin. It might have been all of the gorgeous christmas lights, or just the fact that everything looks more romantic at night, but oh my GOD, is Dublin beautiful. It's also so compact, in our hour and a half of walking around, we passed by many places more than once. There are SO MANY wonderful-looking pubs, vintage stores, used book stores, music stores, coffee shops, it's daunting. I've been scoping out coffee shops especially--I think I might offer my working services in exchange for meals. Bartering isn't covered in visa laws, is it? After our long walk, our group went to a greasy fish-and-chips place. By this time, we were all friendly and acting silly because of our exhaustion, so we got along swimmingly. I hurried home at 8:30 to keep a skype date with Andrew, and drugged myself to sleep with Niquil, and was out like a light by 10.

Here's something I haven't mentioned: My roommate hasn't arrived yet. She's the only one who was delayed past the welcome lunch, and it's 8 a.m. on January second and still no sign of her. I'm nervous, because she's my roommate for the duration--what if she's the only one I don't get along with? Anyway, I hope she comes soon.

Here's a short list of observations of Irish/European culture I've collected in the past 36 hours:

1-Everyone in Ireland at least seems to be genuinely enamored of 80's music. There was a "Classics" channel on the Aer Lingus radio system that consisted of all Blondie, Sting, and early Madonna. My middle-aged cab driver had an 80's station on in his car. Even the up-scale in-hotel restaurant where we had lunch played Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go and Come On Ilene.

2-Everything has a price. The hotel room is nice, but I had to pay extra for internet, and I would have had to pay for television and a wake-up call because the TV doesn't have a connection on its own and there isn't a clock in sight. Even the lights require the use of my hotel card.

3-This price is expensive. Our program director told us that there's a 21.5% tax on luxury goods in Dublin, the highest in the EU (as compared to France with 19ish percent).

4-This is definitely a youthful culture. Most of the people we saw out and about last night seemed to be in their 20's. I even saw a group of hipply-dressed twelve or thirteen-year-old couples making out against an abandoned-looking building.

Well, that's all for now, I'm going to collect on the free continental breakfast. Muesli, here I come!