The Land of Sex in the City, Hillary Clinton, Bergdorff Goodman, Harry and Sally, Al Roker and Matt Lauer, SNL and Rachel and Melissa Roderman

I am home, but before I go there, I need to recap the past few days...

The night I left Dublin was crazy and hectic and nothing worked out to plan (which is so like us) and there were people that went to bed (I wasn't one of them) and there were people who went out and stayed out (again, not one of them) and there were people who went out, stayed, had fun, then came home and still didn't sleep (that's me). Rachel, Nora and I went to the formal Gaiety Black and Red Gala at The Morgan Bar (which was crazy fancy and I totally didn't need to buy the 10 euro ticket I bought the day before) and we got all dressed up and looked beautiful and got there and saw Cathal. Brilliant. We decide that we want our picture taken with this man who all of us hope to never see again. We approach. We get side-tracked. James and David, Moe and Simon. Damn. Creeper with a camera from St. Mary's in the states (seriously, we were introduced because we were both from the states, but no one knows which St. Mary this man was from and I think there are at least 200) takes our picture. Slide past to discover that Cathal has slipped away. Talk for a while. Cathal has slipped back. He bought a drink for our friend Jane (who is 19 and he is at least 40 with a wife and two kids). We decide to sidetrack him for her benefit. Once in front of him, we discover that he is completely wasted. Cathal, the wu-chi master, relaxation king, flower-living, fairy dust eating caterpillar man that he is, is drunk. This makes our goal of getting our picture with him WAY easier. Ask James to take the picture. David joins our snapshot and James cuts my face in half. Way to go. The picture of a lifetime. The picture of MY lifetime (even though I'm only half in it). Rachel is whisked away by David to talk with creeper photo guy, Nora and I are left to engage in conversation with Cathal. He remembers that Nora is from Chicago and starts talking about the World's Fair. OK. Nora is from Chicago but not 120 years old. Nice. So he's gesticulating grandly, I'm trying to move out of the way of someone behind me, and his hand wildly slams into me. In an awkward place. Now, I'm leaving THIS conversation, Nora sees my retreating back and grabs Rachel and we all head to the front of the bar. We say our good-byes and decide to leave for another party. This one is hosted by EBS (where all the European kids are at) and we head out into the cold.

Still in our fancies and walking down Temple Bar's Fleet Street. We run into Charlotte and Hayfa and we chat with them before deciding that we're going to the Barge instead to say good-bye to all the IES Dundrum people before they have to leave for the Luas. This would prove to be a fatal mistake. Kind of. Anyway. We're at the Barge, dancing, having a few laughs and enjoying ourselves when we look at the time and realize that we better get back to Temple Bar for the EBS party before it ends at 2am. We walk outside, our companions are drunk. It takes us 1/2 hour to try to get everyone organized, and by this time Rachel and I realize that we would never make it back to Temple Bar in time, so we decide to stay where we are and get in touch with everyone later. Again, Fatal Mistake. 2:30 we decide to go home when Rachel realizes she doesn't have her phone anymore. We search for twenty minutes and it's nowhere to be found. A thoroughly pissed off Rachel, a slightly inebriated Kate and I all walk home along the Grand Canal one more time. We start to enter our terribly bare apartment when out of the corner of my eye I see Pete's blinds shoot up then down again. Curious, I walk down, followed by Kate and we discover that Mikah, Pete, Kenna and Cozy were waiting up to say good bye to everyone. Hurrah! I run back to the apartment to change (I'm still all fancy and made up) and to get Rachel (who was in the apartment) and go back. We walk in and Pete is playing a song on his guitar that I don't recognize. He starts singing. It's "Leaving on a Jet Plane" and I about flip a lid. YOU'RE GOING TO PLAY THAT NOW? Bad timing Pete, bad timing. Rachel, Kate and Cozy and I attempt to beat him up and steal his guitar, but alas, it doesn't work. He does, however, stop playing the song. Mikah is the first to go to bed, so we all say our good-byes and it's crazy sad. All of a sudden Francis, David and Mark walk through the door. Our Gaiety peeps. How cool?! So they hang out for a while, until Francis has to leave. We laughed had a lot of fantastic stories and then Nora came around 3:30 to say good-bye. That was horrifying. I was close to her, so she was the first that I really had to deal with. I love everyone on the Gaiety course, but she was uber cool and amazing and I really didn't want her to leave. It was hard. She caught the 4am AirCoach. Pete went to bed so he kicked all of us out and the party moved into my apartment. Katie V., Mark, Kate, Cozy, Kenna, Rachel, David and I all just chilled until Mark and David had to leave around 4:30 and Kate had to leave to go clean. Rachel and I raced around the apartment trying to figure out where everything was that we needed to catch the 5am bus ("where's the key? Where the F is my key? Shit! Oh. Pockets, right.") until we realized that the EBS kids hadn't come home yet. Stephanie was the one person we couldn't leave without saying good bye to, and who is the one person who doesn't come home on time like she promised? Yeah. Anyway, she got there in time to rush us off to the bus and to hurriedly say good-bye to Florian, Rachel and I. What a bus. Her closest friends in Ireland and they all leave in one bus. It was terrible. Everyone was crying with the exception of Nico, who was holding Steph back from getting on the bus with us, and saying "You come to Paris! You and Rashel come to Paris and stay with me, I will show you my home and the city!" Then there was Florian who was still drunk sticking his head between our seats and saying "ho ho ho" over and over and over again while grabbing our hands and saying "Don't cry girls, you will see her again." Oh what a scene.

I sat in Dublin airport after that horrible bus ride and call Val. To her horror (I'm sure) she hears "Val, I need you to convince me that I need to come home and that leaving is a good idea." I think I freaked her out. So, after a really long time waiting to check in, I walked slowly to my gate, ran into Cozy, laughed a little, cried a little, then waited in line with Lee who was crying a lot and laughing a little. We talked and waited, waited and talked before getting through American Customs (that's right, they make you do American customs in Dublin... I don't get it either...) I delivered Lee to Rachel and Megan Brindley (a girl in our Peace and Conflict Studies program with IES) and all three of them were on the same plane, which was cool. I waited by myself in the other gate before finding Awkward Matt (he was wearing blue scrubs and the same sweater as me... And we call him Awkward Matt, which should explain more than I could write in this space) who was sitting with his even MORE awkward friend named Rachel who he went to school with. Fun. I'm in the middle and it is AWKWARD. For all of you college students reading this, I'm doing an upside down awkward turtle right now, quickly followed by the awkward moose.

Plane was nice, I slept three times before we even got off the ground. The stewardess was strangely interested in my eating habits ("is that a chocolate muffin?" "yes, it's breakfast" "Well, that isn't a very healthy breakfast, didn't you have anything else?" "nope, I haven't eaten since 4pm yesterday, so this muffin looks awful good right now" "well, you don't have anything else? that's not a very big muffin..." "nope. But it looks really good right now, so I'm going to eat it...") Later, I pull out the sole chocolate bar that I brought home and munch on a square. You should have seen her face. Well? Don't criticize me when you don't give me any food! Anyway, I tried really hard not to cry on the plane. I succeeded, thank god. But getting off that plane and seeing Rachel's face waiting for me was the best thing I could have asked for. Knowing that I still had a piece of my journey was the best part of coming back to the states. It was only partially over.

We drive home with her Dad, Jeff (really really sweet) and get back to big balloons that say welcome home and a green, white and orange balloon to go with them. Rach immediately breaks out the suitcase and divvies up the souvenirs and, to my amazement, everything fit in that one little suitcase! We went out to Thai food and I met her middle sister, Melissa and her mom, Audrey. They all talk just like Rachel (with the exception of "obvi" and the shortened words that have been added to her vernacular) and say things like "Ma" and "Sneakers" and it makes me really happy. The next day is a relax day. We went out to lunch, they gave me a tour of their town and Rutgers University, then we made Pasta Ignazio for the fam and Rach and I headed over to Rutgers for the basketball game against UNC (the #1 college basketball team in the country... Did you see me on ESPN? I was the only one not in Rutger's Red or UNC blue... And sitting in the front row!!!) then off to a friends house to meet a couple of the kids Rach went to HPHS with. Adam really doesn't talk about anything else. And he also pretends to know Seattle. Funny kid.

Monday was New York.

HOLY COW I WAS IN NEW YORK CITY!!!!!!

Ok. So. Anyway. Railway ride into the city with Rachel and Melissa takes about 1/2 hour, walk from Penn station to Empire State Building takes 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes, we almost freeze everything off that isn't covered by wool. The line inside the building takes ages to get through. ***Side note: it's hailing here right now and it sounds like I have a tin roof. It's coming down so hard and fast that the streets are turning white. Welcome back to Seattle.*** The view from the top was stunning. Absolutely stunning. You could see for miles and miles and miles. New Jersey, Central Park, 5th Ave, Statue of Liberty, everything. Beautiful! A few bad self portraits and frozen fingers later, we're walking down some cool street looking for Time Square. And boy did we find it. Lights everywhere, people spinning like they're in a movie, beautiful women walking up and down dressed to be seen, Toys 'R' Us, Hersey's, MTV and Johnny's Pizzeria. I'm told the best pizza ever comes from this place, so the three of us sit down and partake in the best pizza ever made. Nothing special. :-) From there we walk toward Rockefeller Center to see the ice rink and the tree and NBC Studios. We toured the studios and Rachel got chills and couldn't get the smile off her face, while Melissa and I giggled at our own excitement. We got a few stares, but it was SO worth it! All the studios are being used as storage right now because of the strike, but you could still see everything, which was pretty cool. From there to 5th AVE and Central Park (it was getting dark so we didn't stay there for long) then back down 5th AVE to see the Saks Snowflakes (they light up to music if you stand there for long enough). From there, taxi to Union Square where we walked through a Christmas Market and caught a showing of Juno at the theatre. Very cute movie! I loved it and everyone should see it! From there back to Penn Station to collapse on the train and drive home to collapse into bed.

The next day we had a few hours, so we (Melissa and Rachel and I) went to a mall. Welcome back to America, here's Nordstrom and American Eagle! It was cool to be back though. Tastee Subs and iced tea for lunch then off to JFK.

Home. And I don't know what to do with myself. Dublin is so far away. Rachel and Pete and Cozy and Kate and everyone else are so far away. And everyone I left behind are still here and close by. I don't know how I feel right now. It's hard. But anyway, this is the end of my adventures in Dublin, Galway, Doolin, Trapani, Erice, Pisa, London, Belfast, Belfast, Giant's Causeway, Derry, Highland Park and New York City, and so the end of this blog. Thanks for reading those that did, it's been amazing having to write everything down and really remember it as it was and not as I might remember it in a year.

Ireland is probably the best country in the world, and Dublin is perhaps the best city in it.

New Jersey Baby

I'm here, in NJ and loving the fact that I'm in a real home with a real family and taking real showers.  Thank god.  Tomorrow I think we're going to see Spring Awakening and then Monday we're actually going to spend time in the city :-)

That's it, I'm tired and full and clean and ready to climb into a bed that is bigger than my room in Dublin...

Oh, and random note.  Is it weird that the New York Times headquarters in in New Jersey?  I think it is...

Do You Know This?

Things I never knew and/or I never want to forget:

• Contrary to what I thought I knew, you need forty-four candles for Hanukkah, not nine
  
• The presents are supposed to get bigger for each night
• Night #1: A chocolate Santa Claus. Brilliant :-)
• The Menorah is supposed to go in front of a window
• It is also supposed to be something kinda fancy
• When this fails, you should put two jars and a mug side by side and put them in front of a mirror and it's almost the same thing.
• When there is a lack of sand, brown sugar and hot chocolate mix are the next best things
• Apparently chocolate dipped candles are good enough to suck on...
• Big Daddy Noel
• When inviting someone home for the weekend to meet your family, don't tell them you're going to leave them there to get to know them better...
• Also, make sure you're ACTUALLY going home and not just extending the invitation
• Simon has this face that can contort into anything you want to see. Cathal doing a bee impression? Done. Waking up next to Moe every morning? Done.
• Gaiety kids talk terrible behind each other's backs. But they do it sneakily. "What do you think of _______" and it makes me miss Junior High.
• Guys are nasty. This is not so much of something I've learned or something I want to remember, more of a reiteration of what I already know
• "They" are making Titanic 2: The Return. It features Wilson the volleyball, Tom Hanks, space crafts, and Jack Dawson.
• Chicken and peppers every night for 3.5 months will not only sustain you for that long, but it will also make switching the menu for the evening one of the most exciting nights you've had
• It rains in Dublin
• It will also be 57 degrees outside while blowing rain sideways
• And I will still go out in it
• REI umbrellas are indestructible
• "Tha mo bhàta-foluaimein loma-làn easgannan" is Scottish Gaelic for "My hovercraft is full of eels."
• "Arthach foluaineach" is Irish for Hovercraft
• What's bizarre about this is that these languages were developed before a hovercraft was ever even thought of
• When a washing machine is full of water, do NOT open it unless you are prepared with wellies and lots of towels
• If buying an Aran Island sweater, be prepared to smell like a sheep...
• ... To water proof it they dip it in sheep urine, so you, inevitably, will smell of it.
• A pencil skirt instantly draws attention to parts of you that you haven't given thought to in years
• When apologizing for French kids, try French wine...
• The Frenchies are outrageous. End of story.
• Rachel can support someone who randomly throws himself on her. Good to know and keep in the back of my head.
• Nude has good wraps. And no one is actually naked.
• And by "wraps" I mean food, not bathrobes...
• When opening presents in front of your landlord, do NOT show them your inappropriate gift. They will NOT think it's funny, they will NOT understand and they WILL throw you out...
• Don't worry, that wasn't me :-)
• When sick, the best medicine is actually laughter and a good movie
• All you have to do is talk about Subway Meatball sandwiches and I'll collapse in a fit of giggles
• This now happens every time someone says Waterford as well...
• Kenny Chesney instant makes me ten degrees warmer thanks to his connections with summer
• He also means home
• Flour should be kept in the refrigerator...
• ... Eggs should not be.
• White paint obviously makes the party more fun. And no one will know you're putting it on their face until 45 minutes later when they take a self-portrait picture. Everyone will think you are just a "touchy person"
  
• A piece of paper can be worth more than anything else in the house, even if it looks like it was done by a 10 year old
• I type-o-ed and that said 20 year old. Which is ironic because they were all done by 20 year olds. And they definitely don't look it...
• The type of keyboard I'm typing on is called a "QWERTY" because of the first six letters on the board reading left to right on the top left side.
• If you go the other way it says "POIUY" and that's infinitely more funny
• Stream of consciousness papers are terribly hard if you think nothing about the class you are supposed to be "reflecting" on.
• 2000 words in 3 hours is not impossible
• 6000 words in four days is.
• Don't ask
• My roommate talks in funny accents, mostly French and Kazakhstan and German. Go figure.
  
• I will miss the bad things about people I've met
• I will miss the everyday things about people I've met
• I will miss having female instructors
• I will miss the people more than the country
• I will miss the country more than the school
• I will miss the city more than the country
• I will miss the pubs more than the restaurants
• I will miss some people more than others
• But the ones I will miss the most will be the ones I'm not closest to because the ones I'm closest to I will always be close to, while the ones who I merely interact with everyday will be the people that I will never see again.
• The longer I sit here, the closer I am to coming home and not living every minute of every day that I'm still in Dublin.
• Expect no more posts until I get home (or to Rachel's house) for that very reason.
  

I Got Effigy In My Eye

The sheer volume of my Saturday is staggering. This post will have many links to pictures and websites because I don't want to make this any longer then it has to be (and it will be long, my apologies in advance).

To start out, I'm watching Grey's Anatomy and am almost caught up with the current season (Horrah!). Rachel and I have been YouTube-ing all the episodes and are frantically trying to get caught up so that when we get back, we can jump right into the current episode without having missed much. So anyway, that has resulted in a few lazy nights of 3+ Grey's episodes...

Friday Night: Rachel, Katie and I go to a "Master Class" taught by Gabriel Byrne. He's the Professor from Little Women, and was in movies like Usual Suspects, Vanity Fair, Enemy of the State, End of Days and Stigmata. I was expecting an actual class. Apparently that means that Gabriel is being filmed for a documentary (on himself) and he needs to show that he talks to students and "cares about kids". A.K.A. A two hour question and answer session where he answered about four questions and then was presented with an award from Gaiety. Bravo! In all seriousness, he was interesting, and I'm glad I went, but, really? It all felt a little off.

After killing a bit of time, Rach and I decided to stop by the pub that all the Gaiety kids go to after class on Fridays called Brogans. It's this cool little pub where the bartender knows all the kids and says we're all "full of shite" before pulling another Guinness for someone. We spent about two hours there talking with Mark (a Gaiety kid) and trying to figure out these crazy coin games he was teaching us. You just wait America, I'm bringing these babies home.

Sarah Mitchell arrived here that night (a girl Rach roomed with this past summer) and we all prepared to get up at o'dark thirty for Belfast on Saturday morning.

Saturday:

4:30 am: Wake up, pack a small bag.

5:05 am: Catch AirCoach to Dublin Airport. The driver tells us not to pay now but to pay on the Belfast bus at the airport, so we get this journey for free.

5:50 am: Discover that there isn't a Belfast bus until 7am and we need to be in Belfast by 8:30. Won't work.

6:45 am: Catch an Ulster Bus that is supposed to get us there in time for our tour bus to pick us up, but barely, and the fact that Ulster Bus is 20 min. late, we think we're going to miss tour for second weekend in a row.

8:00 am: PaddyWagon Bus Tour Front Office Ladies know me by name. They are working on delaying the tour until 9 so we can get on. Conversation is as follows:

"Hi! My name is Ka -"
"Katie! Hi, I'm working on it for you. How's the ride so far?"
"Fine, thank you. Umm, do we have a tour today or should we try for another day?"
"It will be waiting for you outside the bus station. Tell Rachel we said hi!"
"Thank you again, have a great day..."
"Thanks! You both too, enjoy the tour!"

I'm sending them Christmas cards. We're like family now.

We're not late for the tour bus, in fact, we are waiting for it to show up, which was exciting :-)

We discover that our tour guide is crazy (but cool). He sings to us. Over the megaphone. It was pretty funny. And his exact words were:

"I know pretty much everything. I'll tell you what I know and make up what I don't. We'll have fun!"

10:45 am: We reach Giant's Causeway and I'm blown away. Literally. It was sunny, but the wind was incredible. I have never felt like I was in danger in any part of my travels since I've been in Ireland, but this was the first time I actually thought I could get hurt. It was crazy! The Causeway was incredible and I would have spent all day there exploring if it hadn't looked like all the strong wind was blowing in the darkest rain clouds I'd ever seen...



12:40 pm: Leave for Derry.

2:30 pm: Arrive in Derry to the sound of marching drums and the sight of hundreds of balloons released into the air. They killed hundreds of whales because you KNOW those balloons will end up in the ocean (we're on the coast for god's sake) and those balloons will land in some whale's blow hole and end up suffocating them. Very un-environmentally friendly. We're promised an art walk of the Free Derry murals, but they now say that we only get about half and hour with the tour guide because the Apprentice Boys are marching and having their annual Closing of the Gates March and there's tension in the air. The guide didn't want us out in the open when the march started. However, the abbreviated tour was interesting, and later we got to explore ourselves. I could not get over that I was standing in the road where Bloody Sunday happened. Where the Civil Rights march went on. I was looking at the wall that says "You are now entering Free Derry." and talking to a man who knew personally two people who were killed that day. A man who know personally many members of the IRA and knew who committed which crimes and who started what and who blew what up. Someone threw a Coke can at us on our tour, so we moved, while the guide said "If I ever find out who did that I'm gunna fuckin' kick their ass..." under his breath. Sweet. Tensions are still high.

3:30 pm: Rachel, Charlotte, Kenna and I jump out of the bus to see the march happening in the Walled City (Derry is the only walled city left in the UK, and inside the wall is Protestant and outside is Catholic). It's kinda scary because they are on their way up the street to burn an effigy of a man from the 1680's named Lundy. Check him out here. So, the effigy was huge and scary and intense, but the police were super nice and really cool letting us get as close are we wanted (which was still a distance away).

3:45 pm: Walked down the street to get to the walls so we could walk around them. I notice the police are in riot gear. Kenna and Rachel say it's just a precaution. I notice an alarm on a building is going off. Kenna gets a little wigged out, Rachel says it's probably a "sound the alarm" kind of thing. We continue climbing onto the wall. Rach goes to take a picture looking down on Free Derry and a policeman says something mumbled behind his giant clear mask. We ask him to repeat it and he says "You might not want to be up here, those people down there have petrol bombs."

EXCUSE ME? We MIGHT want to get down? Yeah, we booked it down those stairs SO fast!

4:30 pm: Got back on the bus and headed back to Belfast in the pouring rain, talked to Kate about the Troubles for a while before pretty much falling asleep.

6:30 pm: Arrive in Belfast in time to see our bus pull away.

7:30 pm: Catch the next bus available back to Dublin and fall into the deepest sleep of all time.

11:00 pm: Home. Finally.

Today: Christmas (and grocery) Shopping!

Sarah, Sarah, Michael, Alex, Warren, Fiona, Davey, Ellie Mskellie, and Jamie

I knew exactly two of those people before this weekend. Now I know all of them, and want them all to come visit. Maybe with the exception of Davey... Yeah, everyone but Davey. When we were introduced (in the order of Sarah, Rachel, Me then Alex) he repeated all our names back to us then leaned in to me and said "I'll remember Rachel's name. I have a daughter named Rachel." Oh boy. Why are you here?

Starting from the beginning? Rachel and I decided not to leave until Saturday morning so we wouldn't spend an exorbitant amount of money sleeping over in Belfast. OH, that's where I went, Belfast. Kind of an important thing to know. So. I went to Belfast. With Rachel. Intending to go to Derry and Giant's Causeway as well as Belfast.

Baked Mom's Apple Pie on Friday afternoon since I was longing for a bit of home. It was just what the doctor ordered, and it cured my homesickness with one slice. The rest of the house seemed to enjoy it, which was a good thing or else I would have eaten the entire thing by myself, so I'm glad they helped :-)

Saturday morning I got up early, had breakfast, packed and caught the Bus of Insanity (referring to the post below, this is my affectionate name for the AirCoach because of the insane amount of money I've spent on it). Took three hours, over which I finished one book (Into the Wild) and started my homework (Northern Protestants) and fell asleep on the long journey. I think Rach passed out in the first twenty minutes of getting on the bus and was out for two and a half hours :-)

Bus pulls into Jury's Inn, which apparently the landmark in Belfast. That's where all tours take off and leave from. Keep this in mind. Once off the bus Rachel calls Sarah (now affectionately referred to as Faude) who tells us to walk left. Once walking, we realize that people are looking at us strangely. We were headed toward Falls Road. This happens to be the 100% Catholic road and between that and Shankill Road, 30% of the people who died in the Troubles, died on these roads, and 80% of the fighting in Belfast took place on these roads. And we were headed right for it within the first two minutes of getting to Belfast. Good choice. And Faude, once called, said that we were supposed to head left if we were facing the Inn, which we weren't, so we were going the wrong direction. This should have told us how this trip was going to turn out, but, being the optimistic people we are, we turned an oblivious eye to the whole situation.

Faude's directions: "Walk right until Harry Potter. I'll meet you there."

Huh?

My impression is that we're walking towards Daniel Radcliffe. I get very VERY excited. Rachel's impression is that we're walking toward buildings that look like Hogwarts. This is not quite as exciting, but the truth, so I deal with it. Harry Potter should be around Hogwarts somewhere, right? Turns out Hogwarts is actually Queens University, and Harry Potter is not actually walking around. But Faude is, and that's almost better :-)

We meet Alex Cummings. She's our host for the evening. Faude calls Joe. At home. On his cell phone. He was in the bath. He is the cab driver that drove her and her parents around when they were there. And she had his cell phone number programmed into her phone. Anyway. So, Joe pulls up in a red cab to my exclamation "Is the Black Cab Tour actually red?" They giggle and say yes.

The Black(Red) Cab tour is where a member of the Belfast community takes you on a tour of Falls and Shankill Roads. Usually the driver is bias towards one road or the other, and ours was Catholic and was born and raised on Falls Road. He said he was six when the Troubles broke out, which means he's about 40ish. It strikes me now that a lot of people reading this will not know who I'm talking about when it comes to the acronyms that I will be using. Here's a quick run down:

IRA: Irish Republican Army. Catholic. Republican. The violent wing of Sinn Fein. Fighting to get the Brits out of Ireland. Known for their violent acts, including an attack on Margaret Thatcher that almost killed her. Referred to as terrorists by the rest of the world, but heroes by the Irish in Northern Ireland. Decommissioned in 2005.

Sinn Fein: (Pronounced Shinn Faine) Nationalist. The political wing of the IRA, fighting to get Britain out of Ireland. Huge political party, and is still around.

UVF: Ulster Volunteer Force. Loyalist (meaning they want Northern Ireland to stay a part of the UK). Protestant. Paramilitary. Prepared to use violence to get what they want. Decommissioned two weeks ago.

UUP: Ulster Unionist Party. Loyalist. Protestant. The political Loyalist party. Not too important anymore.

DUP: Democratic Unionist Party. Loyalist. Protestant. The number one political party in Northern Ireland. Ian Paisley is the head and he's the First Minister of Northern Ireland at present.

I think that's it. Back to the story:

Anyway, we froze to death on Falls Road, but saw all the murals. They're really creepy if you've never seen a picture of them. The bottom part of the Falls was mostly memorial paintings of the Irish who died during the fighting. It really starts to hit home when you see that these people died within the last ten years, and a lot of them were children. When you see that the mural was painted "in loving memory of (name) who died as a direct result of (political party) in 2002." And we were walking along their streets. We saw the Crumlin Road jail which is where all the people were held before going to the H-Blocks. Most of the people held here are Republicans or Nationalists. We also make a brief stop at the Peace wall. This wall is twenty-five feet tall made up of concrete bricks, iron, and steel, topped sometimes with netting. It was built through West Belfast between the Shankill Road and Falls Road to prevent either side from hucking petrol bombs over at each other. Before the wall, a Catholic or Protestant could literally stand on their roof and shoot down into the house behind them because they were that close. Pictures to come.

Black (Red) Cab Tour is over, pay Joe, and give him back his jacket (he saw I was shaking violently and gave it to me at the second stop of the tour). Alex and Faude take us to the Christmas Market at City Hall where we indulge on burgers that fill us twice over for 3 pounds. We meet up with Sarah Whalen (hereto forth known as Sway) and her boyfriend Michael Kaplan at the Crown. Apparently it was founded by a Catholic man and a Protestant woman, and the woman wanted to name it the Crown and the man said only if we put a picture of the crown on the ground outside the pub so that when you enter you have to walk on it. This pub had booths. With doors. How cool?! Anyway, it was filled with old men (seriously, like between 65-80 year-olds) so we left and went to the Bot which was past Hogwarts and closer to Alex's.

Here, waiting for us were Warren, Jamie, Ellie Mskellie (yes, that's her name... Pronounce it out loud and see why I love her name) and Fiona. We were later to meet Davey, the forty year-old who was apparently in love with me, but had a daughter named Rachel. The line was drawn and I stayed away from him all night. He kinda creeped me out. Anyway, we all just hung out and listened to the best play list I've ever heard and sung our hearts out until I was sure I wasn't going to have a voice the next morning. I also discovered that Belfast loves Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi. Go figure.

Rach and I wake up early and head out to catch our (get this) PaddyWagon tour bus that will take us to Giant's Causeway and Derry. We wait for over an hour past when it was supposed to come, then we go in search of it. We got the confirmation e-mail and the codes, but apparently they never got our names on the list, so they didn't stop in Belfast. Wonderful. We got our money refunded and were told to catch a different tour that was going the same place. Allen's Tours. OK, we thought, maybe our luck is changing! It wasn't. We wanted to go to Derry and Allen here was only taking us to Giant's Causeway. So we got off the bus and decided that since we'd wasted so much time, that we should just see Belfast and call it a good weekend. We hop on the coldest tour bus we could have found (and it was the only one that picked up at Jury's Inn, which is where we thought all tours picked up...) and sat on top in the wind. Smart girls, right? We realize we were even smarter when the tour guide tells us that there aren't anymore shootings on Falls and Shankill Roads, but it didn't really matter to him because he was in the bullet proof part of the bus and the people on the top were out of luck. We were sitting ducks. NOT FUNNY. Anyway, we see all the murals in the day time and the tour guide again makes a funny when he says "I know all these acronyms can be confusing, UVF, IRA, UUP, DUP, KFC." We turn the corner just as everyone is scratching their heads and there in front of us is a KFC. That was funny :-)

After getting off the bus and defrosting myself at a coffee shop, the decision is made to go to a movie because it's like 2 Euro cheaper in Belfast than in Dublin. Rachel and I see August Rush and Rach falls in love with Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I fall for the little boy and his dimples. I started channeling Julie and wanted to take him home. The music was incredible, and the movie was pretty cute. From there we walk to Faude's apartment and repeat back to her our day's troubles. We meet up with Sway and Alex and head down to the Christmas Market again before racing to catch our bus home to Dublin.

Again, Rach is asleep within the first twenty minutes, but this time, so was I. And we're headed back up to Belfast next Saturday, but this time for free courtesy of PaddyWagon to do our tour of Derry and Giant's Causeway. We leave at 5:30 am. Hopefully it works this time.

Alice's Restaurant

At the beginning of this week I was having a really hard time being in a country that doesn't celebrate a holiday that's so close to my heart. I'm surrounded by people who are from everywhere, not just the States, and even from within the States, there is no one who celebrates Thanksgiving the same. When I look at how amazing the day is at home, family, football games, Macy's Day Parade, Mom or Lori's Apple Pies, incredible friends and lots to eat, I realize how crazy lucky I am that I am able to celebrate like I do at home.

This is the first Thanksgiving I've ever had where I haven't been at home. And, while I'm still sad that I won't be in Valencia with Grandma and the Mutaws, or in Seattle with the Scotts, or in West Seattle with the Cannons and Mom and Mike, I'm learning. I'm learning that the people I'm with now are a different kind of family. One that I've chosen (in a way). We still have the Bone-Picker, the Olive-Finger Eater, the Mashed Potato and Corn Mixer, the Storyteller, the Stretchy Pants Person, the Newbee, and all the other people who usually sit at a table with you. They just aren't the same ones that you have at home. And I'm alright with that.


I'm thankful for:

• My family
• My friends back at home
• Being in Ireland
• My friends in Ireland. There are amazing people that have come into my life and hopefully will never leave it. I am so thankful that I'm sharing this day with them because they are my family here. They have made this experience everything to me. We're in this together, thick or thin, Amanda Maguire or Antoinette Duffy. They have helped me grow to be someone completely different from what I had ever thought possible. They are my world here. They are my family.
• The health of those around me and in my family
• Marina Carr :-)

I'm here. I'm not going home for the weekend. And, dammit, this is going to be the best Thanksgiving we can possibly make it.

I love my friends, my family and my life, and am thankful for everything g in and around my life.



Thank you!

Taco Flute and Donkey Mop

Hello to the world of blogging! Just kidding, I've done this a while now, but, whatever... :-)

Last weekend Sandy Freborg was here in Dublin, and it, guess what? Rained. But I had the opportunity to show her around despite the weather, and while most of you are thinking, "Jeeze, you've shown your Dad around, your Mom and Mike around, Emma and her friend around, Rachel's friends Sarah and Sarah around, and now you're showing Sandy around, you've probably already done everything there is to do in Dublin by now, haven't you?" While for the most part you're correct, but there were two things that I hadn't done until this weekend with Sandy:

1. Walk into the Old Library in Trinity College and see the Book of Kells. While the book itself was only kinda cool, the Library itself was amazing. I was a little disappointed by the fact that everything was roped off, but what you could see of the Library was INCREDIBLE. Mom and Mike, you were both totally right about seeing it. The Book of Kells is a book that was written by Monks and illuminated by illustrators (like Metalsmithes and such) circa 800. There are four volumes of the book, so one book was open to a page all written in Latin while another book was opened to a page of one large drawing. The book was about the size of a normal-sized laptop and about the thickness of your average Chemistry book. The Library was filled to the brim with 200,000 books, the oldest in Ireland, and they were all perfectly organized. This caused a mini geek-out in me because, as much as I'd like to pretend I didn't, I DID work in a Library for two years and in another Library for 6 months. I love old books, I have a collection (many don't know this, but ask my family, they are forever telling me to not bring any more home because we have no room for them) and would have just loved to browse the titles and edition numbers of any of the books. They were, however, behind TWO (not one, but TWO) sets of rope barriers, so I calmly walked past, pretending that I didn't just pick my jaw off the floor, and exited with Sandy.

2. We went into Christ Church Cathedral. Now, I've walked past this place hundred of times (probably, so don't doubt me) and never actually gone in. Sandy and I paid our dues and slid into the chairs at the back to watch/listen to the orchestra (?!?!) rehearse for that evening's performance. We just so happened to catch this free show, only paying what was needed to get inside, when that night, people had to pay almost 20 Euro to get in. SWEET! It's so amazing to see music performed live in a space where it was meant to be performed. I'm not sure if I wrote in this blog when I went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, but housed there is one of the original 20 copies of Handel's Messiah, all hand-written by the genius himself, and it's housed there because the world premiere of this iconic piece of music was held IN THAT CATHEDRAL. How amazingly cool is that? But anyway, that just goes to show that these spaces were not only meant for sermons and hellfire, but for music that can make grown men (and women) cry. SO, Christ Church is the oldest church in Ireland (there has been a church there since the mid 1000's... and there's still pieces of the foundation underneath the church). Once inside and deciding to wander, we discovered a wall that has been crooked (it leans, much like the Tower of Pisa... but... not...) for AGES and AGES and a CRYPT! The Crypt houses lots of graves and a museum and pieces of the original foundation. It was creepy and cool and incredible all at the same time :-)


Sunday morning (rain is falling) and we head up to Grafton so Sandy can get some shopping done before she heads out and all is well. We have lunch at this sweet little pub tucked around a corner in an ally and talk for about an hour before she had to climb back on the Bus of Insanity (or the AirCoach... The Bus of Insanity just has a better ring, and I've spent so much money on this thing that it might very well be driving me insane...) and head back to the dreary days of Londontown. But she leaves for Oregon on the 8th, so she doesn't have too much longer to wait!

Head home, eat dinner, listen to music and do a little homework before I get a call from Rachel asking if I want to see the lights on Grafton Street get turned on (duh). I look out the window and the rain is coming down so hard that (no joking you) there is a duck sitting in the middle of our parking lot. BRILLIANT! So I laughed, pulled on my wellies and headed out. I met Rach's friend Jenny (who is studying in Scotland) and sipped hot chocolate (Starbucks doesn't have Carmel Apple Cider, can you believe that?) while listening to the mayor of Dublin and the Energy President go on and on about Grafton Street and how all the lights are energy efficient. So none of us cared about that stuff, but you should have seen the kids. They were having to entertain themselves and it was the best thing I saw all day. This one little girl, she was sitting on her dad's shoulders, and she was sticking her tongue out and crossing her eyes at these two really important men, while her brother was standing on the ground next to his mother and getting in trouble for talking during the presentation. I loved it! The waterworks in the sky turned off for all of us to see the flickering on of the energy-efficient lights, then almost immediately burst into working order again. Good thing we had umbrellas.

That night (last night) we watched Jay and Silent Bob's Great Adventure (I think that's what it's called, it's Florian's favorite movie) and Wedding Crashers with Steph, Florian, Felix, Jenny, Rach and I. It was wonderful to have just this really easy-going night.

Today was class, and it was, well, class. I'm doing this scene with Rachel, Pete and Kenna from a play called Low in the Dark, and if any of you reading this blog are lovers of absurd theatre, you should check this one out. It's Marina Carr's first (or one of her first) plays and I love it a LOT!

Now it's dark and I'm sleepy and kinda hungry and cold and I'm going into the kitchen to make tea and some dinner and all will be well!