on that point, madam.

you know when you do something especially exciting or fun, and you think to yourself, "i really hope i remember everything about this when i'm older?" well that was tonight. nerd alert - we're talking politics and treaties... you were warned.

so around this time last week, i joined the literary and historical society. in essence, the debate club... it's actually super cool and not just for bookworms - they sponsor rockin' nights out in bars and bring in tons of awesome speakers that you can see. fo free. well tonight at 7 the good ol' l&h put on a debate about the lisbon treaty, a referendum that ireland is going to be voting for on oct 2. it's a HUGE deal - there are posters everywhere for both campaigns, yes or no, and people are very passionate about it. seeing as this isn't really breaking news in america, none of us know what exactly this treaty is about. kathleen and i decided it'd be a good way to get a little educated. perk: no reading long newspaper articles. so here it goes. this is the second time ireland is going to vote on the referendum, and they voted 'no' the first time. the treaty was signed in 2007 by the leaders of the 27 countries who are part of the european union, but it hasn't been ratified yet because the people of ireland previously voted 'no'. this second time around, there are significant changes and legally-binding guarantees on the big issues, all in hopes that irish citizens will feel more secure with the provisions of the agreement. basically, the 'yes' campaign feels that this will create a stronger ireland with jobs and a good economy, and will make the eu as a whole more democratic. a 'no' vote in the 'yes' campaign's eyes means that ireland doesn't really appreciate europe - they aren't especially committed. bad news. on the other hand, the 'no' campaign feels that this treaty will "militarize" the eu (and consequently ireland), will be a terrible idea economically, and will reduce ireland's power within the eu. the 'no' campaign also feels like this second referendum is just a way to bully the irish - they already voted no once, they don't want to have to go through the process again. (warning: these are just things that i gathered during the debate - they could very well be wrong or biased. i tried to keep it all straight, but just saying!)

so that's what the treaty is all about, but the actual debate is where the story's at! ohmygosh, i have never seen anything like this in my life! it was in one of the lecture halls and the place was packed to the brim. kathleen and i came in about 15 mins late, but luckily they hadn't started yet. we sat on the stairs in the back of the classroom - the perfect spot to watch it all go down. so the chairman of l&h is just a normal kid at ucd, probably my age, and is the moderator - he has a bell, introduces everyone, and sits in this plush chair on the side of the room. then there were the debaters. they were BIG shots, let me tell ya. one of them was the former president of the european parliament, there was another guy with a beard who was clearly a big deal, and two wayyy up-there professors. students also got to debate, and those guys were GOOD.

but quick clarification, debate means something very different here. there is no tom brokaw to moderate, and there is not really a question you answer. you have a topic, a speech you prepare, and you speak very quickly for 8 minutes. the kicker is, you do this while yelling at audience members (ie other students just chilling in the crowd) who are perfectly allowed to stand up and shout "on that point!" to try and prove that something you just said is wrong. the typical response by the debater is "no, thank you" and to just keep rattling off their speech. but as the debate got going, "no, thank you" turned into "don't you dare interrupt me" and "sit the hell down and get your facts straight." wow, alright. my personal fave was when one big shot said to another, "on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the greatest, what chance is there that we'll get kicked out of the union if we vote no on lisbon?" to which the reply was, "on a scale of 1 to 10, it's a fuck off." haha i died!!!

so aside from loving the craziness of it all, i was just in awe of how passionate people were about the debate. these extremely well-educated and respected people - doctors, ex-presidents of parliament, party leaders - were literally blue in the face from screaming at each other. and they all had excellent arguments and points to make. i couldn't tell ya who won, or if this was even about winning. all i know is that it was a great thing to see, and something i'll always (hope to) remember! so on that note, gute nacht! and i'll let ya know if i ever recover my cool factor, seeing as it pretty much just plummeted to the ground with this little diddy...

today i fight the swine. tomorrow i take over the world.

according to web md and numerous other internet resources, in addition to my own vast knowledge of public health (ha), i've diagnosed myself as a victim of the swine flu pandemic. h1n1 if you will. actually, i probably just have a really bad cold since i'm able to move around without feeling like i have sandbags attached to me. this is probably a good thing.

in other news, i won TWO battles against frighteningly large bugs today. one's still on my ceiling though. small victories.

tomorrow's the big merville soccer game - it's us (house 16, the lovely americans) against a team from one of the other houses. we are clearly going to get our butts handed to, but there's nothing better than a little friendly competition on a beautiful fall day, right? heck, maybe i can frighten the other teams away with my man voice and pigpen-like appearance. could be a good strategy.

and i had a bit of time on my hands today, so i started reading the time traveler's wife. INCREDIBLE. not to get too deep or anything, that's just not my style, but she opened the novel with one of the most beautiful poems i've ever read. it kinda goes against my fundamental beliefs to be one of those people who 'blogs', and now to be one who blogs AND leaves poetic entries... ick. but i really think this is worth the hit to the ego. the brilliant four stanzas are what i'll cap this with. also, read the book. you won't be disappointed.

LOVE AFTER LOVE

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
- Derek Walcott

my new sweater smells like an animal.

and so begins week three. but who's counting, really? i still feel a lot like a lost and confused american tourist, yet i could have sworn orientation was months ago. le strange. this week wasn't anything too special - just a whirlwind of classes, hunting for books in secondhand stores, and learning how to use the ginormous library. i had quite the encounter with the library security guard. he called me an imposter (and i laughed - imposter, really?) because the back of my student id wasn't signed. i told him it was the access card to my apartment too, and that it didn't have a place for me to sign. he then grilled me about what i was doing at ucd, and how long i'd be here, etc. he really was pretty aggressive for a library security man. glad he takes his job seriously though. anyway, i was shocked to find that people for real use this place. at home you can stroll into one of the libraries, search for your book, and like 95% of the time it's there. but here there are waiting lists, and reserved lists, and a whole lot of other lists that generally make it impossible for you to check out a book. kids here often don't buy books - they just take them out for like 3 days, photocopy pages/take some notes, return them, and then reserve them for later. not so much my style, but i guess i've got to get used to it. 'it's not bad, it's just different' - thanks, lindsay j.

aside from this boring nonsense, i finally booked a few trips for the semester - woot woot! hello paris, edinburgh, and copenhagen! i'd like to point out that my flight to edinburgh was like 14.99, yet taxes were 35... hmm, guess little ryanair has to make some money one way or another. but i think my sweet guidebook and i are going to be bff for a while - gotta find the good (ie, cheap) places to go. sadly, oktoberfest got nixed. apparently that thing is like 90% booked up by june. i did not get that memo. meh, maybe another time. i have friends here that are going, so at least i can live vicariously through them.

but let's please discuss this past weekend. while we were doing all the hunting/booking of our other trips, kathleen, grace and i spontaneously decided that going to galway this weekend was a good idea. our other friends martha and teddy were already planning on going, so we knew we could meet up with them and tour around the city. so we looked up the train schedule and booked a hostel. ohh the claddagh hostel. more to come about the claddagh hostel. on friday we were all packed and ready to go, but ran into a minor printing issue. a sweet first-year from galway told us that the train was a waste of money, and we should just take the gobus - it's 18 euro round trip and is non-stop dublin to galway. perfect! so we looked online, and figured it was probably best to buy it on there. we went through the whole process, thought we were a-ok, but then discovered we had to print out our tickets. small issue. we were planning to leave ucd at 3 to make the 4:15 bus, but due to our running around merville/trying to work the printers on campus, we didn't end up leaving until 3:45. oops. we got off the bus on o'connell st. at 4:13 and literally sprinted to the other bus stop, a good 8 blocks away. we show up and the bus is miraculously still there, so we wave our tickets obnoxiously at the bus driver, hoping he'd let us on. didn't happen. so we turn around and waited with the 50 other gobus hopefuls, hoping we'd catch the next one at 5. thankfully we made it on, and then were lucky to endure the coldest, most miserable 3 hour ride of our lives - literally sat there and shivered the entire time. rough. when we made it to galway, we defrosted a bit and walked over to the good ol' claddagh hostel. it smelled a lot like incense but seemed legit enough. we put our stuff in the locker and headed out for dinner. we had the greatest fish and chips ever, by the way. after that, we stopped in the king's head and heard a sweet cover band. around 12:30, we got back to the hostel and were ready to hit the hay. issue - our stuff was still locked in the locker and there was no one around to let us in. we banged on the door, pressed some buttons, turned the nob. nothing. guess we were sleeping in our clothes, awesomeee. the cherry on the sundae was sharing a room with 6 dudes since kathleen and i got split up.

the morning couldn't have come fast enough. we finally got our stuff and then headed out to tour the cliffs of moher and the burren, both about two hours away. seriously one of the coolest places i've ever been! we drove around the bay and through the burren, stopping first at the aillwee cave. it's this monster of a limestone cave that some farmer discovered. neat. after that was lunch in this little town called doolin, and then it was cliff time. like an idiot, i forgot my camera but this place was remarkable. they're the third highest cliffs in ireland, but probably the most well-known. and fun fact, they're in latest harry potter movie! COOL. it's just stunning though - there are these beautiful green pastures all around you, and a mini castle on one end, but then you look down and oh hey, there's the ocean 700 ft. below you. definitely a place i'll never forget. we moseyed on back to galway after that, sat and chatted in a park by the river, and then hit up a pub called the quays. we learned our lesson earlier and were actually able to put on our pj's and brush our teeth when we went back to the hostel.

today was just a lazy day walking around the city and getting souvenirs. i bought a comfy, wool sweater that was made in the aran islands, about 1.5 hours away. it legit smells like they sheared the sheep yesterday and made the sweater right then. heck, at least i know it's authentic. i also bought a hat at the market. it has the little ear-flappies and is quite sexy if i may say so myself. kathleen and i also bought a claddagh ring - they were originally made in galway so we thought it was very fitting to buy them while we were there, even though they're all over ireland. good little keepsake. we made it back on the gobus this evening and never have i ever been more excited for a shower in my life. dang, had to wash all of the claddagh hostel off me. in retrospect, it really was a fun little adventure there, just a new experience haha. and galway was definitely worth the spontaneous decision. highly recommended to any future ireland travelers :)

bobbie flay would cry if he knew what we attempted to do in the kitchen

hello world. i am currently sitting in my clean room and am no longer living out of a suitcase. yeeea! these past couple of days have been pretty busy - meetings, banks, finding the right papers to give the bank, getting horrific id photos taken - all that fun stuff. i feel like i'm starting freshman year again, minus the awkward hall meetings and hours of camp vanderbilt. the irish know how to do it though. they have schedules everywhere of what's going on when, people are handing out free stuff left and right, you're free to explore everything on your own and get a feel for the place, and it's so well organized and timely you wouldn't believe it. random observations, i know, but i feel like this whole system is so much less bureaucratic and loopholey. really works well.

all of the us study abroad kids were invited to a welcome reception on thursday with the president of the university and the study abroad coordinators. they put us in this beautiful room, brought in a little irish band who played folksy music all night, and supplied us with a whole lot of free wine. i think everyone had a great time. the president gave a great speech, he's the cutest little man too. also, the irish really do love americans. they're very welcoming people to begin with, but they have a soft spot for us. i think that's nice. after the reception, we all headed to the pub on campus to hear a couple of comedians. fo free. i couldn't understand the announcer when he said their names, but they were both very irish. the first guy was like a flight of the conchords wannabe, and was actually pretty terrible. the second guy rocked, and i'm fairly certain he explained my own life to me in terms i could understand. glad it's possible to have a small revelation at a comedy show. but he really was a hoot, i enjoyed it a lot!

yesterday goes in the books as one of the greatest days yet. granted the day part was pretty standard, although i did learn that the ucd school i am in is organizing like 6 free trips to places all around ireland. saaweeet! it pays to be in the business program i guess. so i signed up to go to kilkenny, this cool medieval town, and also to croke park stadium and malahide castle. apparently we're going to learn about hurling, which is a wonderful, violent combo of hockey and rugby. can't wait! anyway, after the academic meetings and multiple bank runs, my friends martha and grace and i decided we were going to get started on this whole cooking adventure. we picked a couple of recipes out of a book, got all of the ingredients, and began what is sure to be one of the greatest memories of the semester. now just an fyi - i don't cook. i make toast, cereal, and maybe a frozen veggie burger. but i don't deal with recipes. guess i'm crossing that bridge though. so during orientation, this cooking lady told us to buy a slab of bacon (they are BIG on the pig here - ham, bacon, other parts that i'm not sure i want to eat...) and boil it. apparently it lasts for a while and is basically like making your own lunch meat. meh, i have to disagree. but we heeded her advice, and plopped this big ol' chunk of bacon in a pot and started to boil it. it's not doing much, but then all of a sudden, water is shooting like a mini geyser everywhere, the meat was making noises, and we don't quite know what to do. after the situation was brought under control, we thought the big guy was done, but apparently it takes more than 15 minutes to boil something of this nature. close to 50, actually. well after piggy was finally finito, we took a closer look at the recipe and realized it actually called for real bacon, like the kind you eat in the morning. oops. martha and i figured it was probably good to follow the recipe though, so we then fried our concoction. next we were told to cook frozen peas in the bacon grease, but no one told us the bacon grease would turn in to little bullets aimed directly at our hands and faces. awesome. there was no major disaster with the pasta, and by some miracle of god our meal actually turned out to be kind of good. i don't exactly think the retelling of this story would do it justice, but i assure you it would have made for a hilarious what not to do video.

later that night, we met the most wonderful cab driver after the bus never showed up who said he would take us anywhere in the city for 3 euro, ie dirt cheap. we walked to the temple bar area and somehow stumbled upon THE temple bar, as in the place that made the whole area famous. we walked in and the place was packed with locals and a few groups of tourists. an awesome band was playing and whenever they started a famous irish song, the place went nuts. it was so crazy to witness. i was pulled into a circle by a little, guinness-loving irish man and danced with him for a song. thought i was going to be spun into a wall. after that, we went to the globe for a bit, and then just back home. great night though, and the sourpuss of a cab driver on the way home who kept muttering four letter words under his breath really topped it off.

today i went to the guinness storehouse, which is actually super cool. i didn't have very high expections since i'm not a big fan of the stuff, but it was really interesting to hear about it all. arthur must've known it would be a big deal for committing to that 9000 year lease. but the views from the top of the storehouse are incredible - you can see all of dublin. and it was a beautiful, clear day so we could see on for miles. after that, we went to phoenix park and saw the giant obelisk, and then went over to o'connell street for school supplies, ie my favorite time of the year! off to bed with a james patterson murder mystery and a cup of tea. sorry mom, not teavana.

the days have been a blur, and i can't actually remember what was done when...

i was told about 2 hours ago that it was actually wednesday all day long. coulda sworn it was friday. with that said, it's been a jam packed affair lately! i am officially moved in, woot woot! and i've met so many great people these past few days - i tink (ok, this was originally a typo, but just a little tidbit - the irish say 'tink' and 'tree' etc, instead of 'think' and 'three'. it's not like it's an impediment or anything, just an odd little accent. weird.) living together is going to be a blast! also, let's talk about the SWANKYYYY place that i'm living - i love it! the complex is called merville, and it's for first-years and international kids. it's 4 or 5 to an apartment, we each have our own room, two bathrooms to share, a kitchen, and a living room. the furniture is brand new, and we have granite countertops. dang, i need to let stupid vanderbilt in on this. forget about the lame commons, better housing everywhere would make those applications soar. anway, all of the ifsa kids have taken over all three floors of house 16, so we're basically within shouting distance of each other. it rocks. the fire alarm has gone off twice in the past hour, but i'm willing to forgive and forget. oh OH, we're living with a real irish girl!!!! we had an odd number of girls, so she's our fourth roomie. she's from somewhere an hour north of dublin, i can't understand where, but she's super fun. i feel so bad though - she's literally 1 of 4 irish kids in this whole house. meh, i hope she has an okay time.

i don't really know what there is to catch up on. sleep, maybe. we went on a historic walking tour of dublin, but it was a big waste of time. it was downpouring, people didn't have jackets, and we couldn't hear the guy at all. he took us to the smallest pub in dublin, the dawson lounge. the entire place is about the size of my room at home. prettyyyy cooool. after, i walked all around gafton street with three other girls. dang, i've gotta go back - the shopping is wonderful! oh, and i picked up a mobile. glad to be back in the world of communication. after, we got dinner and ate it in st. stephen's green, which seriously is one of the prettiest places i've ever seen. naturally, it decided it downpour about 10 minutes after we sat down on the grass, thanks dubtown. after that, we went to explore dame street - it was a blast! tons cheaper than temple bar. we tried to find stag's head but by the time we made it, it was closing. sad. we ended up going a block or so down to sheebin chic? the place literally belongs in harry potter, kinda three broomsticks-esque. ridiculous and strange things were all over the wall, including an enormous 12x15 mirror, and the barman looked like hagrid. coolest place EVER. we were there for about 30 mins, and then ventured on to the globe - it's a pub upstairs and a club downstairs. we met a group there of 5 irish guys who were celebrating their friend's last night in dublin. one was literally 6'10", and another was around 5'4". they were all hysterical, and really had it in for the big guy. they tried to trip him/knock him to the ground about every 5 minutes. i thought it was a great night.

today was just move-in/buy groceries and random crap for the apartment/go to orientation day. we decided to scope out lidl, some crazy-cheap german grocery store. although we found it no problem, we couldn't for the life of us find the bus to take us back to ucd. we thought we found a good alternative route, but we actually ended up having to walk back about a mile with our bedding, pillows, and groceries. that was a hoot. after we got back, we had a president's welcome ceremony, followed by an international student welcome thing. got free scarves out of it, pretty cool. they're black with stripes of ucd's colors, turquoise and orange. it's a big traditiony deal, i guess. i am pretty glad for a scarf though, this place is COLD. my feet have been freezing all day. and seeing as i haven't unpacked my enormous luggage yet, i can't find my slippie socks and i'm slightly depressed about it. gonna get a move on that. tomorrow is more ucd orientation, schedule fixing, and id taking. i'm excited for classes soon, i really am. it'll be good to have something to do. other than that, nothing else fun and exciting to report, except that we crashed some freshie's party across the quad tonight. el fin.

oh hey, dublin. i think we will be friends.

ohmygoodness. i made it to dublin. holy smokes!! getting on the plane was surreal enough, but actually seeing everything - the river liffey, all of the cute brick buildings, the double-decker buses that drive on the wrong side of the road - woah. i'm a little bit in love!! still in vacation mode for sure, and i'm really not looking forward to getting smacked in the face by reality when classes start next week. i am very excited to not live out of a suitcase though, and finally see what this little suite/apartment thing looks like. all of the ifsa-butler kids are living in one 'house' on campus in merville, i think there's only like 25 of us, so yay for all being smushed together. it's kind of comforting, and as cool as it would have been to live with a real irish person, i think i like this situation. we move in thursday i wanna say? maybe wednesday. should be a good time!

well anyway, back to the beginning. yesterday we arrived around 10am, and our wonderful advisors told us that whatever we do, just don't nap. we'd be messed up for days apparently. so my roommate at the hotel and i decided to go on a little adventure, and we just started walking up the road. we walked forever, not really looking for anything in particular, and then it started to smell like the ocean. um oops, we walked to the bay - a good 4km away. it was kind of janky and smelly, but it had a cute dog park. people also like to tailgate there i guess - we saw a bunch just sitting in the back of their cars and hanging out. we found a map at the park, and figured out the general direction of where our hotel was. we walked through some super cute neighborhoods on the way back and eventually saw the beacon of light that was our hotel. hallelujahhhh! nothing like starting the day in ireland with a little 8k. we all had dinner here when we got back and man, i have never been served so many different kinds of potatoes in my life. seriously, i understand why the famine was such a big deal - they love 'em. after that, a group of us all went to a pub and i had my first pint of real irish guinness. the bartender even drew a shamrock in it. sadly, the shamrock did not make it taste any better - that stuff is roughhhh, and i don't think i'll be a fan. we'll see though.

today was a ton of 'welcome to ireland, this is what we do here' type of meetings. and then we went to see the rivals, an r.b. sheridan play, in the city centre. it was great, but i snoozed for a bit and definitely missed the first 10 minutes. it was a little hard to follow after that, but i got it eventually and it was really pretty funny. a couple of girls had missed dinner tonight before the play, so we went together to find something quick and relatively cheap. after looking around for a while, we saw the 'thunder road cafe'. ohmyGOD i am so happy we ended up here - it's chock full of strange and stereotypical american things like the statue of liberty wearing sunglasses and an american flag, harley's, creepy-weird rock records, and tons of old posters (including 4 miami dolphin ones...). oh, and it was totally empty. haha i think it's like ireland's upscale applebee's, but who knows. tomorrow's full of more meetings and orientation stuff, but the people are all really great, so i can't complain about hours of being talked at! bring it onnn :)