Review

So the Cirque de Legume was pretty good. It was funny when the girl was hypnotized by a turnip. A man and a woman performed typical circus acts with veggies like a Spanish horse and the Seal of Poland (whatever that is). All in all I'm glad we went because it was definitely memorable.

Last night my roommates and I went out to a club with some American med students we had met in the laundry room earlier that day. I guess the laundry room isn't a good place to meet people because it wasn't very fun. The place where we went was meant for a crowd older than us so dancing was kind of weird with 30-year-olds strutting their stuff, trying to win the affections of my gorgeous friends:)

Today has been the forth day of sunshine in a row!!! It's been so great because each day we make a point to go out and lay on the grass to soak up the sun. After a bit of shopping in the downtown today we sat at St. Stephens Green park and ate a muffin by one of the fountains. A guy with a little, scruffy dog kept throwing a rubber ducky into the fountain and the dog would leap in after it, splashing the slimy water everywhere. This game came to an end when the dog got out on the opposite side of the fountain from his master and shook water all over a blond woman enjoying an ice cream. It was pretty funny to watch though:)

Tonight my roommates and I will enjoy a movie together. Then tomorrow we are going to a Writers' Festival just outside of Dublin. We have tickets to attend a reading of three Irish women authors. I'm glad it's forecasted to be sunny for the next two days!

Below is a picture of the ADORABLE owl earrings I bought at Topshop today:

The Cirque de Legume

This evening my roommates are celebrating the Fringe Festival here in Dublin by attending The Cirque de Legume. We heard about it at the market last Saturday. A man asked us if we liked to laugh and then invited us to it....now this is something I just cannot resist because as soon as he described it I immediately thought of the Muppets when the veggies sing in Muppet Treasure Island! So I am so completely stoked to go!!!...and I hope it's not a let down because my hopes are so high:) So here is the description in the Fringe booklet:

"Quite simply the Greatest Vegetable Circus on Earth! In this piece of comic absurd theatre we meet Mister & Missus, two genius performers who find a hidden beauty in cast-off vegetables from which they make a wonderful show full of excitement, danger, and sensuality! Marvel at the Veget-animal! Gape atthe Magical Carrot! Enthrall at the Leek of Power! Fantasise over the Onion Strip Tease! The Cirque de Legume shows us how beautiful life can be if we only stop to play with it. You'll never look at an onion the same way again."

...I'll let you know how this turns out.

Pictures from this weekend in Dublin

St. Stephens Green on a rainy day :D

Cute family at Trinity College (Oscar Wilde & Jonathan Swift studied here)

The River Liffy

Christ Church

The Chester Beatty Library (woot woot!)

Dublin Castle

Dublin City Hall

First Day of Classes

Well, today was the first day of classes and the weather was glorious:) The sun shined for the first time in a long time...I was beginning to think they had photo shopped the sun into the international students' brochures. Since labs and tutorials (like our recitations) don't begin until next week I only had one lecture today at 1:00pm. It was for Early Christian Ireland. My lady professor was very nice and I'm looking forward to the class.

After this, I began my expedition to locate my other lecture halls and labs. It's good because my six lectures are confined to three buildings. I was lucky to find all of the classrooms, before tackling the labs. I have never seen the Conway Institute (for biochemistry lab) or Ardmore House (for food microbiology lab) on my map. I asked for help in the Food Science main office and the woman was very friendly. With directions in hand, I set off in the direction of the Conway Institute. I found my lab room in the back corner of a giant building and started back towards campus. I took what I thought was a scenic detour on a nature path which let me into a construction zone. After getting through there I found my last lab in a building which I thought was a house behind the AIB bank.

This evening I thought I'd be a good idea to take a class at the gym with my roommates. We were the only five girls there, and people for that matter. This guy was an ex-drill sargent named Seamus and he worked us like I had never exercised before! He kept yelling things at us like "smile and breathe as I walk by ladies," and "blitz, Blitz, BLITZ!!!" I kept wishing there was a clock in the room because the time seemed to pass so slowly. We did the plank position four times and push-ups and squats and lunges.....whew now I am beat. We made stir fry for supper with veggies and such to be somewhat healthy while rewarding us for the awful pain we had just endured. Now I'm getting ready for my three lectures tomorrow in the Chemistry of Macronutrients, Applied Biostatistics, and The Biochemistry of Nitrogen.....I don't think I'm going to like Tuesdays very much here:)

Exploring Dublin

All this week my roommates and I have been going into the city to buy things like kitchen supplies and food and cell phones. These trips are very short and to the point. Today, however, we took the New Europe tour of Dublin. It's a free tour given in the major cities of Europe, and you just tip the guide at the end. It rained during the whole tour but was amazing! The guide was a Ph.D student at Trinity College, which is the oldest college in Dublin. Starting at the City Hall, we wound our way past Dublin Castle, the Chester Beatty Library, and Temple Bar. Here we stopped for a 15 minute brake at the Queen of Tarts. I ordered a raspberry cheesecake tart and tea. I handed the cashier a 10 Euro note and it turns out it was fake...she took it and gave me nothing in return, and I had to pay with other cash. I was so mad! But I'm glad it wasn't a 50 Euro note instead. We continued on for another hour, ending up in St. Stephen's Green.

After the tour was over the tour guide went to O'Neill's in Temple Bar to watch the championship hurling match. It was Kilkenny versus Tipperary, and Kilkenny has won the past three years straight. This is the first time I have truly been engaged in a sporting match for the entire time! To me, hurling is a mix between soccer, baseball, and american football. The men all have sticks and they hit this small ball around the pitch to either score a goal like in football (above the posts) or in soccer (into the net). Above is worth one point and below is worth three. It was a pretty bloody match but the two halves of 35 minutes flew by in the pub. The atmosphere was electric and all the Irish people were cursing at the TV. In the end, Kilkenny triumphed for the forth year in a row. I was sort of sad because I always like to root for the underdog!

Tomorrow is the first day of class, and it's hard to believe because it's felt like such a vacation so far. Yesterday, my roommates and I made plans for the semester and were booking tickets for shows and festivals. I guess it's time to get ready for tomorrow and get in gear for a semester of work!

First Attempts at Cooking...

Yesterday was a busy day...I went to St. Stephen's Green with my roommates to get cell phones and stuff for our flat. It was a beautiful, sunny day until a giant downpour broke out. It did that off and on for the rest of the afternoon. We finally got home at about 6:30pm, but still needed groceries (because I have been eating Frosties and cheese sandwiches for the last three days). We took the bus to a nearby Tesco and got this week's food for our flat. After getting home at about 8:30pm we began cooking a delicious soup. Since our range has no markings on the dials, we then proceeded to try and get the soup to a boil (on low, I might add) for the next two hours. Finally our roommate's friend Alex told us we had the burner on the lowest setting.....:( When we had gotten the settings sorted out we marked the hightest setting with a big "H" to prevent future food catastrophes. Our soup was so tasty though, and we enjoyed it as a late night snack at 10:45pm.

There is nothing on the orientation schedule today or this weekend so who knows what will happen next!

Random Thoughts

Today is my third day at University College Dublin (UCD) and it's been raining all day. I know it's supposed to be rainy here but come on! I read in the paper this morning that this has been the soggiest summer in history for Ireland.

I've been adjusting nicely to the time difference here. I go to bed at about 10pm and wake up at about 9am. I sleep with ear plugs in because there is zero insulation in our walls. I'm on the third floor of the building and I can hear every word of the conversations going on down below. The first night my ear plugs fell out in the middle of the night so I could hear my alarm go off. However, last night they stayed in so I didn't hear my alarm. I did wake up, by the grace of God, five minutes past my alarm to find that I couldn't hear it with my plugs in...guess I need to get used to sleeping with much noise going on.

I have finally been registered for all six of my classes. I am taking the following: food microbiology, the chemistry of macronutrients, applied biostatistics, the biochemistry of nitrogen, early christian Ireland: society & history, and gender, culture & society in Ireland. It's going to be a full course load but that's how many I have to take by Purdue's rules. I hope the last two about Ireland are fun and I learn about their history.

Right now I'm watching some guys playing American footbal in the rain. One has a Brett Farve (spelling?) jersey on. I've noticed in comparison to the Irish footballers who run around and do soccer drills that the Americans are much more concened with their cool looking plays. They stop every 30 seconds to confer, about what I do not know. While the Irish guys spend every second of their practice running and doing drills. Yes, I love my window:)