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.