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!"