An Irish Halloween

I've been told that fireworks are illegal here in Dublin, but since the first of October they have been shooting them everynight culminating in tonights halloween spectacular that made me think it was back in the states and it was the 4th of July. Also, even though fireworks are suppose to be illegal, gigantic 4 story bonfires in a small area between apartment complexes apparently arn't. I took this pictures a little while ago from my balcony. Luckily it started raining right after i took it, and the firemen came. If this is what happens for halloween, i just can't imagine what St. Patrick's Day is going to be like!

Christchurch

I finally got around to taking a picture of the Christchurch Cathedral. It is right across the street from the entrance to my complex. The other picture is the entrance to the Christchurch view apartments. To the left is a garden, but i'm not exactly sure whose that is to use. I've never seen anyone in it.

Today is raining and very blustery. Hopefully I will be able to get some reading done and not fall asleep. A rotary scholar from Tenn who is studying in Newcastle, England is over here with her friends for the weekend, so i went out with them last night (crazy gals) and probobly will again tonight. I was going to go to the Wicklow Mountains tomorrow, but the weather is just horrible, so i might just stay in and get some work done.

ROLL TIDE!

Pretty Picture

This picture is one from my Italy trip, and it just turned out so well,so i decided to share it. Plus, i haven't taken any more Ireland pictures. I think i'm going to take some tomorrow when i head to school. Today's class was somewhat interesting, but apparently not that much so because i kept finding myself daydreaming about my cat, Blue. I did listen some, no worries.

Tonight Bevin's mom took me out to eat because she was in town, which was nice of her. We went to a seafood place just a half a block from my apartment called The Lord Edward Inn. It is much nicer inside that i would have ever imagined (i'll take pictures tomorrow of that too). We had a wonderful meal, and afterwords, i met some friends at the Ha'Penny Bridge Inn Pub for improv comedy night. It was simpy hillarious! Much better than the comedy club, mainly becuse they are irish and so funny. Me and this other girl named Danni found out about a stand up comedy class they offer for 6 weeks and you have a stand up gig at the end, but it was pricy, and i am coming home during that time. But that would have been such a blast.

By the way, it was 70 degrees here again today. I only have a few more days to enjoy this though, their winter season begins the first week of november.

Fancy Dinner

This is also an old picture from the conference, but i think it is a neat one. This is taken at a dinner I attended at the Stephen's Green Club which is a fancy little meeting house/bar. That is where my Rotary club, Dublin Central meets every wednesday night. This dinner was for around 30 people, and we were all at this long table. The dinner lasted about 4 hours because most all of the men and some of the women got up after we were finished eating and told jokes, stories, or read poetry. This man was one of the ones telling jokes. You can see that the building is old and beautiful. It is such a treat to go there every wednesday for wine, and then a meeting.

Familiar Faces

This is Sara D. and I at the Rotary District Conference Ball about a month ago, but i am just now able to get it up and running, so here it is. The Conference was a crazy time, but i met alot of very cool people. Currently, I have Rotary meetings every Wednesday that I attend in Dublin, but soon i'm going to have to start traveling around to see other clubs and speak to them. That will be interesting.

Today was bla, I had a really good work out that's made me exhausted, so I really am about to crash. Tomorrow night the equesetrian club is having a cowboys and indians "mixer" party really, at a bar near school. I'll be at Rotary, but I guess i could go later. But, a new episode of Lost will be on...it's such a tough decision. Let you know how that one turns out.

More apartment pics

Here are two more apartment photos. One is the view looking back towards the entrance. That map above the chair is one of the Tuscany region that i bought in Florence. That is my closet there, its pretty self explanatory. The other is the picture of the bathroom from one end of the hall. The first room on the left is mine and Andrew's is the next door on the left. The two doors on the right are storage closets.

I didn't do much today but grocery shop and read. I dont have any exams, just 2 essays before Christmas, but i do have alot of reading, so i can understand what the lecturers are talking about.

I was so excited to talk with reba and saliba last night, i hope more people get skype because it is a great way to keep in touch. Later

More Pictures

Entrance to my kitchen

Andrew, my flatmate collects coasters, so this is his collection around the entrance to the tiny kitchen.

Home Sweet Irish Home

I am finally connected to the world thank goodness. Here is a picture of my lovely room. I was going to post more, but this picture took forever to download, so more will come later. Today has been great. After the internet man delivered the router, i set everything up, then went to the market for lunch. so good.

Now, for all those who want to, go to www.skype.com and download the free Skype software. This will allow you to talk to me and others who have it via the computer for free. You will be asked to create a user name, which can be anything you want. Make sure you have either a microphone already installed in your comp, or will need to get a mic, or a headset. (they sell them on the skype website and i'm sure best buy) Once you've downloaded it, it will ask you to create a username. Then you can add my name to your contacts. My name is

IrishHoney

So, to call me, just click on my name once you've added me. It is so easy. I actually just talked to Lenor who is in Australia, and it was a great, free connection. I feel like i am a telemarketer talking about this, but it is really cool. So, try it out if you want. Hopefully I will talk to some of ya'll soon! Have a great Saturday, ROLL TIDE!

Chinese Take Away

I'm out of groceries for the week, so i'm on a mission to find some good chinese food. This might take a while, so i am starting early. I will walk around this whole city if i have to. In other news...the internet guy is coming tomorrow to install the router, so hopefully my next post will be from the comforts of my cozy room. FINGERS CROSSED! Andrew is gone again for the weekend, so i've got to find something to entertain me. I've been invited to a dinner saturday night, so that will be fun, and i'm going to lunch at my host counselor's house on sunday. The market is tomorrow, which means yummy mexican food and fresh cheese! And of course there is the mounds of feminist literature to sift through for classes next week. I think i'll be plenty busy. If not, MTV here has day long "Pimp my Ride" marathons, which have yet to get old, somehow.

The Post Office

I got a notice in the mail telling me that two packages that my mom had sent (one of them about 3 weeks ago) were here! So, instead of delivering them to me, i had to go and pick this up from the Post. Well, where i live is pretty much on the borderline of Dublin 2 and Dublin 8. Just different divisions of the city by postal code. Now, since the mailing address says Dublin 8, my package was sent to the post office in that district, the heart of which is really about a half a mile away from where i live. So, i set out to get it today, in the rain unfortunately. It wasn't that bad of a walk, i went past a few nice old churches and lots of neat little shops. Then i had to go past the Guinness brewery and storehouse. I hadn't seen it yet, so that was kind of neat. It honestly very closely resembled Willy Wonka's factory from the outside, and that just made me laugh. So i got the packages, no problem, but the moral of this story is that if anyone else wants (by the goodness of their hearts) to send me something, it might be better to send it to Dublin 2 and not 8 just for convienance purposes.
Also, i need to answer a question posed by Olivia Hooper of the infamous "US Weekly." Yes, the Irish celebrate Halloween, and NO i am most likely not dressing up for the occasion. There are some parties going on at Trinity, but the last time i went out here to a club, i felt like a chaperone, so i dont know if i will be doing that again (Elisabeth can contest to that experience whenever she gets back from Pompeii, which, by the way, i am still extremely jealous about). So, my plans for the silly holiday are still up in the air. I will let the Miss Hooper, editor of the edition know as soon as that changes.

Tuesday

First day of class, this will be an interesting year...

Registered

Well, i'm finally registered with immigration. After 6 fun visits to the Dublin Police office, i can finally stay here legally. Tomorrow i am going to try and scan the picture of me on the card that i recieved. I laugh everytime i look at it. I am sooo unhappy in the picture because i was sick of dealing with them. It looks like a mug shot. I'll try and find a scanner tomorrow. Other than that, my day was uneventful. I'm making tacos tonight and preparing for a presentation in class tomorrow. holla.

Market Day

I think saturdays are my favorite day of the week not because i dont have class, but because of the market in temple bar. I think i talked about it last week, but i can't help but rave. I try something different each time i go. This week I had a chicken taco from the mexican guy, and a thing called a Vanilla Bun. The woman selling it described it as delightful when i asked, so i thought i'd give it a try. Well, she was right. It tasted almost exactly like a cindy's cinnamon roll but definitly not as big as one. I was happy about that because normally when i try new things here, it ends up tasting like crap. Another good thing about today was that we had some beautiful weather. I wore shorts and short sleaves. My kind of day.

The Immigration Office

Well, i have definitly found something that i dont like about this city and that is the horrid immigration office. It opens at 8, and when i arrived to register as a student, the line was over a city block long and wrapped around the back of the building. Needless to say, I was there for 2 hours before my number was called (the whole scene kept reminding me of that scene in Beetlejuice, where he tries to take the number of the dead guy next to him. Of course when i get to the counter I get the meanest women in the world. She had been yelling very loudly at people while i had been waiting there, so i knew she was horrible. So, I give her all my documents and she asks for a letter from Trinity (which i had 2 of already). She wanted another one. So, I have to go back on monday and do this whole process all over again. On a positive note-I did find the laundry facilities at Trinity (the machine in my apartment in broke at the moment). The washers are exactly the same as the ones at Bham Southern, except for i actually had to pay to use these. This day can only get better because the new season of the West Wing starts tonight, so I have something to look forward to for the time being.

Wanted: good food

Today it felt like i was in birmingham during the early fall. The weather was gorgeous with not a cloud in the sky. It just goes to show how tempramental dublin weather can be since it was like 45 degrees, rainy, and windy just yesterday. Class went well. My Gender and Globalization professor was awesome, I am definitly going to like that class (even though i still dont really know what we are going to be studying). I ate a late lunch in one of the college cafes. It was the most disgusting meal i've ever had. I never thought i would say this, but it made me want to eat in the bsc cafe. So, i dont know what i am eating for dinner, but it's going to be good whatever it is.

Wednesday

I am feeling much better today after drinking like 10 pounds of herbal tea yesterday. Luckily it is not as cold nor is it raining today, so that makes my life a bit better. Tonight I am being a total dork and going to a lecture about ancient egypt at the national museum of history. I am hoping i can do some volunteer work either there or at another museum in the city. There are plenty to choose from. Anyways, I am about to go sign up for a gym membership, eat some lunch, then on to class again. Busy day for once.

Cold and Rainy

This might be the title to many of my future entries, but today is the first day the weather has turned seriously sour. It doesn't help that I am slowly coming down with a head cold mixed with a cough and sinus problems. To add insult to injury, I am having to get up again tomorrow morning at 7am (which i did today) and go back to the dublin immigration office and try and register as a student, so i dont get deported. Coupled with that mess was my first postgrad class today. It was not super exciting, we just went over the schedule and the readings. So, for the rest of the day i'm just going to rest at the apartment and eat some soup and attempt to get well. I'm sure the weather in b'ham is just delightful, and for the first time, i'm starting to get jealous.

Comments change

On a side note, since i am getting all of these creepy and annoying comments from weird people trying to sell me a mail order bride or whatnot, now if you want to leave a comment, you have to do a little word varification thing. This is just like if you are trying to buy tickets on ticketmaster. Its not hard, but hopefully this will keep the weirdos from leaving me messages. cheers.

Lazy Days

Well, school starts tomorrow...finally. Since Elisabeth left I have been pretty lazy. Other than cleaning the apartment a bit and getting some groceries, i haven't done much else. I did go to an awesome market on sat where they had fresh meat, cheeses. hot crepes, sushi, breads, all kinds of food. This guy was also making Fajitas, and it was seriously one of the best ones i've ever had. Next week i'm gonna have to try the taco. Then on sunday in the same area there is another market but instead of food people sell homemade items like jewlery and clothes. I was looking around at some stuff and a news camera (who i guess was doing a segment on the market) asked me to keep looking at these little cermamic bowls so he could get a clip of someone browsing. So, i pretended like i was still looking, it was silly. He was like, "you might be on the news, you better watch!" That would be really neat if i even knew what news channel he was talking about or if we even get the news on our tv. I looked, because all i did all night was watch tv, but i never saw anything about the market. oh well.

Back in Dublin

Elisabeth and I got back to Ireland safe and sound. Today we went to Trinity to look around the college and they are having something calling Freshers Week. They dont have sororities or frats here, so all the clubs sey up booths and try and get you to join. I joined the history club, the yogo club, the debating society, and the equestrian club. The last one is my "try a new thing while i'm here" option. I was going to do rowing (crew) but they wanted my weekends, and that's a no no. So, hopefully that will be fun. I also had orientation for my course today. The people seem really cool and i'm going to be up to my neck in readings. So, it's bsc all over again. Well, that should also be interesting. What is cool is that i dont have class on monday and fridays. Long weekends. I am excited about that. Ok, everyone at BSC enjoy Ben Folds tomorrow night. I am so jealous i could cry. I better have updates on how awesome it was. If possible sound clips...do what you can.

Arrevaderci Italia

Well, today was my last full day in Italy. We are leaving tomorrow to go back to Dublin. It rained again today, but we still managed to make it to the Moletto winery. The owner, a large, extremely friendly Italian man (who spoke no english) met us at the door and took us (me, elisabeth and her mom) on a complete tour of the winery and the bottling plant. Then we tasted some wines while he spoke to us about the history of the vinyard. Elisabeht's mom translated for us when she understood words that he was saying. For dinner we had some great italian pizza followed by a dessert made with Prescuto wine (i didn't spell that right), vodka, and sherbert. Lots of wine is the norm here, and that is fine with me. Well, hopefully I will have my computer set up soon in Dublin and will be able to write more often. Till then...

Venice

Ok, for the life of me, i couldn't get this picture to rotate. I just thought it was funny. This is when we were trying to navigate through Venice today, but it was raining and flooding and we were soaked! I was trying to look excited during this whole process, thus the picture. enjoy.

Florence

These are pictures of Florence, one from the Paizza de Michelangelo which is on top of a mtn, obviously overlooking the city. These were taken at sunset, which we enjoyed with a great glass of wine. The other is taken from a famous bridge in Florence and i can't think of the name and Elisabeth has already gone to bed, so just know that is it a really cool bridge on which they only sell 18K gold. Another thing that is cool about the bridge is that couples will come with locks, attach them to these large rings on the bridge (once used to tie up horses), they lock it, then throw the key into the river to seal their love. So, there are locks everywhere on this bridge, not the mention alot of people making out...

Italia!

I have been in Italy for the past 5 days with Elisabeth Peterman and her mom and step-dad. They have an incredibly cute house in a town called Sa Chile. (Think "Under the Tuscan Sun" and that is what this area and the towns around it on the way to Florence look like) We went to Florence for 2 1/2 days, then got back and went to Venice today. Florence was amazing and I am going to put up some pictures finally of our time there. So, these next few posts will just be pictures. We have had a blast, except today when we visted Venice and it had been raining all day, so it was messy. And, when venice rains, the main square (St. Marks) floods. It is called aqua alto (high water) and they put up these little walk ways where you can walk around if you dont have huge boots. Well, it was just a crowded mess which we tried to attempt, but we gave that up quickly. So, we are here till wed afternoon when we are both flying back to good ole Dublin to spend a few days. We are hoping it does not rain tomorrow so we can go to a local winery! Ok, here are some pics.