Cheese Sandwhich

Breaking the myth: Part 1. I'd like to take a minute to discuss the weather in Dublin for a moment. Everyone told me to BUNDLE UP and GET A RAIN COAT and an UMBRELLA......I'll have you know that, A) it has drizzled twice since I've been here, and B) the temperature every day has been in the 40s and 50s (I set my computer's thermometer in Farenheit....because who the hell knows anything about Celsius). Sure it's a little grey and glum, but the Dubliners seem to think its worse than it actually is, so good luck with all that freezing and snow, we're doing just fine.

Classes are fine, we have great professors. In Contemporary Irish Society, while discussing the media, we learned that the Irish make the joke that "Ireland discovered sex on the Late Late show." And in our history class, our professor informed us that the Easter Rising of 1916 should be called "How Not to Start a Revolution." They have such a complicated history, but an amazing sense of humor.


Thursday night, McKee and I went to "THE only weekly 80s night in Dublin" at Q-bar (and the Q does NOT stand for anything funny). There was a hula-hooping contest, and get this, McKee WON! Unreal. We met up with that gang from Northeastern again, Kate Peter and Mo, and we danced to every great 80s song you can think of....definitely going back.











Today, while the rest of the world was in London or Galway, Steve and I went downtown to explore the city and play tourist. We went to Dublin Castle, which for a few hundred years was the site of the country's government. We went down underneath it to see all these hidden rooms and waterways that were only recently discovered. We also went into the church, which was very peaceful. Next to the castle is a series of gardens where visitors can just get lost in. I found Mary and Colin and Dickin. Only my parents will get that.

Before I left for Dublin, my Literature professor from last year, Jane, told me that once here, I had to go to Davy Byrnes Pub, order a cheese sandwhich, and experience James Joyce's world up close. Joyce wrote a lot of his work at Byrnes, while eating a large slice of gorgonzola on a piece of bread, but also sets many of the scenes in Ulysses there. So Steve and I found it, we talked to the bartender about James Joyce, and I ordered a slice of gorgonzola on bread. That's for you Jane.













And finally, tonight I went to a party and met people from 3 continents, none of them being North America. Steve lives with 2 girls from Spain, and they threw their friend a birthday party. Besides the Spanish girls, I met people from Japan, Nigeria, France, Belgium, Germany, and obviously Ireland. I got to speak a lot of Spanish, which I loved, but I felt slightly inadequate not being fluent in any second language, in a room full of people who mostly spoke 3. You all know me, you know how much I like to talk to people...it was phenominal. Tonight was filled with the obvious conversations of cultural compare and contrast, but a lot more: music, politics, whatever. (I have yet to find a place where I CAN'T talk about LOST with anyone...which for those of you at home, sucked this week). Living in these apartments can only get better, as this mutual exchange continues......

but I've caught onto the abroad office's secret plan. We aren't here to study what they say we're studying. We're here to study each other.

Peace.