I have had a busy little weekend and am ready to share with the public all I've learned. Classes for the most part have been pretty standard; we tend to get out of History class about 45 minutes early because our professor is either incredibly bored or his smoking habit is worse than I thought... The Sociology professor is a bit pretentious and makes huge, controversial claims, such as how he doesn't believe in postmodernism, without backing them up. Of course I love the literature class, (we're beginning with Yeats!)
Thursday evening I went for Indian food with my friend Sarah. The food was really good, (I've never had Indian before!) My dish was a tomato sauce with mushrooms and some vegetables (I love mushrooms) and I mixed it with rice. We also got naan that was delicious and there were three dipping sauces: a mint flavor, an onion flavor, and mango. All three were interesting flavors!
After dinner, we went to The Grand Social to meet up with a boy I met last Saturday. The pub/venue has great decorations and hosts events almost nightly. There were big couches with old wooden tables and we hung out there until some more friends came to meet up with us, and then we moved on to a bar called Speakeasy which was also really nice. At one point, the word 'biddie' was used and our Irish friend informed me that to Irish people, 'biddie' doesn't refer to a silly sorority type, but an old woman! We went to one other place, I don't remember then name, but I was falling asleep so I went home with a couple of other girls.
Sarah and I have discovered the area where we had dinner is like the Brooklyn of Dublin and there are so many cool places left to try over there, but we're making good progress already.
Friday we had a field trip to Glendalough for Sociology class and even though the day was quite rainy, I had a wonderful time. Glendalough is the site of an ancient monastery started by St. Kevin and the ruins are still wonderfully intact. We saw the tower and a few other buildings, then started on a hike up the mountain. Our professor had described the trail as a wike (a mix between a walk and a hike) but let me tell you, those inclines were Steep!! My legs are a bit sore, sadly. The view from the top of the mountain made everything worth it, however (even the wet, cold, bus ride back).
That evening, I went with Sarah and my roommate Adrienne in search of Irish Coffees in Dublin. After being told no at two pubs, we settled for a restaurant Crackbird to postphone the coffee and grab a snack. Crackbird was awesome! Our waiter was friendly, good-looking, and sat down to chat for a few minutes with us. Adrienne and I shared Jalepeno cream cheese with bread crisps and Sarah got a salad. The restaurant has an interesting story because it's a pop-up. The location changes every 3 months and it's currently in an old Chinese restaurant, so the decorations were all oriental.
Saturday, I went to a Creative Writing Workshop and had an incredible experience. There were about 15 other people and we wrote for a half hour and then shared our writing. The prompt was "Eye." Because of a dream I had had the night before, the time I spent writing was really fruitful and I'm sad that the next few Saturdays I won't be able to return! After the workshop was over, I got coffee with my friend Arielle who was also downtown and then we headed back to campus.
We came back out to Dublin Saturday night and went to a couple of pubs. Maybe the writing had got to me, but I wasn't in the mood to mingle Saturday night so I followed my friends around but didn't really connect.
Yesterday, I went to the Charles Beatty Library, which is really a museum of incredible manuscripts, art, and artifacts that Charles Beatty owned and donated to Dublin. He even has portions of the dead sea scrolls! The trip was astonishing--sorry, but no cameras were allowed! We followed the library with crepes from a restaurant called Lemon, and man were they good!
I've begun reading The Hunger Games, because a lot of my friends here are obsessed, and it's been hard to put down!
This afternoon we have a History field trip to Glasnevin to see a cemetary, so hopefully the rain holds off!
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