Belated Tales of London and the Last Days in Dublin

Soooo I've clearly fallen way behind on this...but I do want to record everything I did so I'm going to try to remember. Luckily I have photos and little jotted notes to remind me.

I believe I left off on the 4^th of July which passed fairly festivity-less. Tuesday July 5^th we had class all day and then went to the very fancy Abbey theatre to see a talk by Seamus Deane as well as Brian Friel's play Translations. We all got fairly dressed up and it was a very nice time. The play was not my favorite but it was interesting and dealt with a lot of language issues between the English and Irish in older times. Afterwards we went to a bar called Doyles for some tasty pints.

Wednesday July 6^th was my roommate Kate's birthday! After class we headed home to start making a fabulous chicken curry birthday dinner for her as well as a cake that we managed to keep secret until its unveiling. We had a few of the boys from Rathmines join us for dinner before meeting everyone else at the Bernard Shaw for pints. Lovely times had by all, especially Kate. A few pints into the evening, she ran around attempting to memorize everyone's birthdays and middle names. Us writers are strange birds.

Thursday July 7^th was a chill day of classes followed by a roomie dinner of garlic bread and various cheeses. Cheese is an important staple in our diet. Afterwards, a few of our neighbors came over for a movie and wine night and we ended up watching a ridiculous film called The Room. It's notably one of the worst movies ever made and it's absolutely ridiculous and hilarious. It's also very quotable and was utilized for the rest of our time in Dublin.

Friday July 8^th my roommate Sara and I decided to walk out to the Glasnevin cemetery to visit Richard Hopkins' grave. For those who don't know he's a very famous poet noted for creating sprung rhythm. It was a very long but lovely walk and the cemetery was very pretty. Afterwards we popped into the Dublin Writers Museum which was unfortunately not very exciting, but was a somewhat necessary stop since we are also Dublin writers. Then the two of us had a super cute lunch at a little cafe called Queen of Tarts. We shared a chocolate and a lemon tart and both were sooooo yummy! After heading home and relaxing for a bit, a few of us decided to go out to a crazy Dublin club called Copper Face Jacks. Lots of dancing and drinks and such. Very fun evening.

 A shot of Glasnevin cemetery. So many cool Celtic crosses!

Saturday July 9^th we mostly relaxed around the house until the afternoon when we headed out to hang around in St. Stephen's Green for awhile. Later on, we met up with some friends to do homework at the Brick St. cafe in Temple Bar and then went out for a ridiculously delicious dinner at a vegetarian restaurant called Cornucopia. I had some kind of masala dish and garlic potato salad which was out of this world. After dinner and a quick stop to Murphy's ice cream (Dingle sea salt is the beeeest flavor) we headed back to Wesley house to watch Wet Hot American summer with the gang. Quite nice!

Sunday July 10^th we spent most of the day at the Gaelic football finals game at Croke Park! It was really fun even though the game is ridiculous. It's basically a mixture of soccer, basketball, football and volleyball with a touch of the violence of hockey. You can score either by kicking the ball into a net (like soccer) or over the net through some posts (like football). You also can dribble the ball (like basketball), kick it (like soccer), or bump it off of your arms to teammates (like volleyball). Me and my friends at the game had a lot of fun trying to decipher the action and listening to the adorable 10 year old Dublin fans behind us trash-talking and cheering for the “boys in blue.” Oh, and Dublin, or Ath Cliath as they say in Irish, won the game! Fantastic.

 Gaelic football in action!

Monday July 11^th was fairly uneventful aside from lots of homework and another tasty dinner from Monty's, the Indian restaurant next door. I've definitely developed an appreciation for Indian food on this trip.

Tuesday July 12^th we had class all day before going out to see Brian Friel's play Molly Sweeney which is about a blind woman who partially regains her sight. She ends up missing the world of touch and becomes so overwhelmed by sight that she eventually goes crazy. It sounds very serious but it was actually quite funny for much of it although the ending was very sad. I thought the play was lovely and really moving. Afterwards we once again had pints at Doyles, per usual.

Wednesday July 13^th was a gorgeous sunny day so some friends and I went to St. Patrick's Cathedral after class. I thought it was beautiful. Next door was a really cute park where we laid around and read some stories for class. That evening was Ryan's birthday (one of our classmates) so we all went out for a delicious pizza dinner (I ate one that had potatoes and salami on it) and then attempted to go sing kareoke at a little asian pub. Apparently Irish kareoke is not like US kareoke. They put all 19 of us into a tiny hot room with a machine which meant that we pretty much just sang to each other. It was still very fun though and we had a grand time before heading over to the Barge for some more late night pints.

 Inside St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Thursday July 14^th after class, me and five of my friends headed to the Dublin airport to get on a plane to London! Our flight left at 7pm and was fairly short, getting us to the Heathrow airport by about 9pm. We immediately got onto the London Underground (the tube system).and headed to our hostel which was just two blocks away from the Kings Cross Station (aka the location of Harry Potter's platform 9 ¾!) Our hostel was pretty cheap and we shared a room with about 20 people, but it was also clean and secure. We slept in bunk beds that had walls all around them...so you were essentially inside a box, but we were so exhausted from traveling that it really didn't matter to us.

Platform 9 3/4!

Friday July 15^th was a beautifully sunny and crazy jam-packed day of sightseeing in London! We woke up early and headed over to the Tower Bridge, which runs over the Thames river and is right next to the Tower of London. The Tower of London is actually a castley-looking village that includes the London crown jewels and the royal armory. The White Tower that houses the armory is the actual “Tower of London” and it is full of tons of really cool armor that belonged to lots of the kings. Also inside the village is the site where Anne Bolyn and many other famous figures were executed as well as the London Tower ravens who are wandering all over the place (since their flying feathers are trimmed). Legend says that if they're ever allowed to fly out, the tower will fall. 

 Tower Bridge!

 Knight and horse in the Royal Armory!

 Ravens that can't fly away!

Next we headed to St. Paul's Cathedral which is supposed to have the best panoramic view of the city. Unfortunately, that view is about 500 stairs up and it is a fairly rigorous climb. We arrived at the top fairly sweaty but were rewarded with a fantastically gorgeous view of London. Totally worth it. We also checked out the crypts underneath which were not quite as creepy as I had hoped they would be. After that we headed to a tiny little cellar pub called the Chester Cheese for some refreshments. We got a strange little cheese plate that included hunks of cheese, bread, chutney, salad, potatoes, and some other little items. Quite tasty! We then took the tube over to Big Ben (very cool) and the Westminster Abbey. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the abbey but it was absolutely gorgeous and filled with little marble rooms and tombs. Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots are both buried there which is kinda crazy. The abbey also had a “Poet's Corner” with lots of plaques and busts dedicated to famous writers as well as Geoffrey Chaucer's tomb. THE ACTUAL GEOFFREY CHAUCER! I was floored by how cool it was.

 View from the top of St. Pauls!

Big Ben in all his glory!

After Westminster we walked through St. James Park over to Buckingham Palace. I have to say that it's not very palatial looking, but the Victoria fountain in front of it was pretty. Next we went to Leicester Square (pronounced “less-turr” for some reason) for an awesome dinner at a pub called Salisbury where I had an amazingly delicious “Big Ben burger” with an egg and ten other things on it. We then went to the Odeon theatre to see the FINAL HARRY POTTER MOVIE! It was the first full day the movie had been out so the show was packed. It was one of the best theatre-going experiences I've ever had. Everyone was super excited and was cheering and clapping at all the most exciting and long-awaited scenes. The movie was fantastic and was a wonderful ending to the series that has pretty much defined my childhood. After the movie we were all physically and emotionally exhausted from our long day so we headed back to the hostel to sleep.

 Victoria fountain.

Awesome poster outside the theatre!

Saturday July 16^th was a much more low-key day and mainly involved checking out the London markets. There was a great one in Covent Garden under some glass-topped buildings (which was lucky for us because it immediately started to rain). I bought a lot of cute souvenirs including a “flower jewelry” bracelet with a real Queen Anne's lace flower embedded in it, a handmade purse, and a little keychain of a red London trolley. We visited a few other markets before heading back to the hostel for a much needed nap. Later we all went out for dinner and then my friend Jenna and I headed back to Leicester Square to check out the pubs and clubs, eventually ending up at a club called Verve. We had a great time dancing and trying the London beers. Remarkably, despite getting home around 1am, we were still able to wake up and leave our hostel by 3am to catch our 6am flight on Sunday morning. 

Inside the Covent Gardens market.

 The sign at our hostel: chock full of information.

 
Sunday July 17^th was spent getting back to Dublin, napping for four or five hours, and then writing an eight page story. But the chaos of Sunday was absolutely worth it for how much fun I had in London. Truly an excellent weekend.

 Makin some calls in London :]

Monday the 18^th through Wednesday the 20^th were fairly uneventful because I had lots of assignments to do for our last week of class and I came down with a nasty sore throated illness. I spent most of the time that I wasn't in class or doing homework sleeping so that I could cope. Not very fun.

By Thursday the 21^st I was feeling a bit better and was well enough to enjoy the IES farewell dinner with our group at a restaurant called La Cave in downtown Dublin. I can't recall much about what I ate except that it was delicious and included an out of this world crème brulee. Yum! Afterwards we headed to The Duke for drinks with our group and our professors who got rather smashed and were hilarious. Mr. Roper claimed we were “the best group the program has ever had!” though later clarified that he didn't necessarily mean we were the best writers of the program but rather the closest and most fun group. That's honestly just fine with me, I've absolutely loved getting to know this fantastic group of people. Later on we went to The Barge for more drinks and some dancing. It was our last night out as a group and it was a really really great time. 
 
We spent our last day of the program, Friday the 22^nd, enjoying some of our favorite parts of Dublin. A large group of us went down to Grafton St. to do some last minute gift shopping before heading over to Murphy's ice cream and then to St. Stephens Green to lay around in the park. Later that night we hosted a goodbye and t-shirt signing party at Wesley house, which almost everyone attended. It was a very nice time and we all tried not to be sad about leaving since we knew we would see almost everyone back at Iowa. A very nice and low key last night together!

 The Bernard Shaw, one of our favorite pubs!

Well, that caught up on quite a bit, sorry it's so long! I'll write another post soon detailing my travels around southern and western Ireland with my family!

Biking in Parks, Dancing in Clubs, and Writing All Over

Hmm yeah...that whole "keeping this blog up to date" thing really isn't happening. I have been recording what I've been doing though so I'll try to get back on track! I might not do it all in one post since it's been over a week. I'll also be more specific about dates to avoid confusion. Ah, the blogging failure. SO BUSY!

Okay so on Wednesday June 29th I had class and then a meeting with Mr. Roper to discuss my writing. We met at a restaurant called Jo Burger where I had a crazy huge and delicious BLT for dinner (on Iowa's dime, haha). He said a lot of nice things and basically told me that I'm a storyteller and I need to keep writing. I was kinda hoping for more pointers and things to work on, but he didn't seem to want to point out the flaws in my work. Instead we talked a lot about the differences between America and Ireland, particularly within the school system. Profs and students are not super friendly or close in Ireland, even at the college level. When I joked, "So if we were an Irish student and professor, we wouldn't be having a friendly dinner together" he replied, "I wouldn't even know your name." Yipes!

Later that night we went to a play called Toxic at the Project Arts Center which was absolutely my favorite play we've seen so far in Ireland. It was especially cool because we got to speak to the writer of the play beforehand, and learned that it was basically a custom project that she did to accommodate 20 roles for a group of early-20s actors and actresses from a playacting school. She had to give each of them as much stage time and as equal of roles as possible while also involving current topics relevant to Ireland. Many of the actors/actresses were brilliant and the play was incredibly cinematic and engaging. It focused on everything from drug addiction to job loss to gay relationships to suicide to new love. It also featured a lot of popular music including, as you may have guessed, Britney Spears' "Toxic." Very very cool. Afterward, of course, we went out for the typical class pint. Excellent evening.

Thursday June 30th was our last class with Mr. Roper as our workshop teacher. It was kinda bittersweet because we'd all grown rather close to him, but I was excited to see what Ms. Morrissy had to offer as a workshop teacher as well. We had a relaxed class where we read things we hadn't gotten to earlier and turned in our big 8-10 page stories that we've been working on. After class several of us went for a celebratory pint and lunch at Mother Reilly's, a pub in Rathmines. I had a tasty panini and some crazy bruschetta. I then went home and relaxed for a bit before heading back to Mother Reilly's with some friends for the night. We eventually headed over to Rody Bolands, another nearby pub. Later, several of us decided to get some late-night food at Eddie's Diner, a fairly Americanized restaurant with great nachos and garlic fries. Yum!

Friday July 1st I managed to wake up fairly early with some of my roommates and we all took a bus out to Phoenix Park, a HUGE green space that's northwest of the city. We bought baguettes, cheese, salami, grapes, and wine and had a picnic by one of the ponds. There were some pretty cool swans there. Then we rented bikes and traveled all over the place, seeing some gorgeous fields, hills, and flowers. The park is truly massive and has both a zoo and the Irish President's house inside. The bikes were ridiculously uncomfortable but they did make getting around MUCH easier. I also didn't take many pictures because I was busy, you know, biking. That's okay though, it was a gorgeous day.

 The park! Nearby where we had our lunch. Note the two swans in the pond.

 President's house! Surrounded by a mote and barbed wire. 

Later that day we put our party pants on and went clubbing for the night! We went to a place called Dandelion (where we had our IES welcome dinner) and had an amazing time despite the expensive drinks and cover charge. The dance floors were ridiculously cool and packed. I even made friends with two Irish girls who called me a "deadly dancer." Deadly is Irish for really freakin sweet and awesome. Pretty much the best moment of my life, haha.

Saturday July 2nd we spent the day cooking and getting ready for a pre-4th of July potluck celebration at the apartment of a few of our classmates. It was also celebrating the birthday of the youngest person in our program who was just turning 19. I had an interesting experience trying to make him a cake since Irish frosting consists of bars of chocolate that you melt and spread before it hardens into a chocolate shell. Very odd. Managed to transport the cake on the bus without damage and was treated to a ridiculously delicious meal consisting of way too much food. There were hot dogs, a cheese plate, peanut chicken, dumplings, spaghetti and meatballs, Irish soda bread, guacamole, sausages, pastries, another cake besides mine, and lots of wine. After eating everything in sight we headed to the Bleeding Horse (a favorite pub of ours) which was packed with people watching a boxing match. Because of the crowd, we didn't stay long before heading over to the Bernard Shaw, another pub with a dance floor and a terrific beer garden. I spoke to lots of friendly Irish lads and had a great time hanging out with my class. Lovely, lovely people.

Sunday July 3rd we decided to enjoy the sunshine so me and a few of my roommates headed over to St. Stephens Green to do homework, but mostly lay around. Everyone in Dublin had the same idea, but luckily, the park is huge, so there was still plenty of space. We also nervously watched as some 20something guys tried to jump rope with the body of a 5 year old boy. The boy was laughing and having fun, but we were all expecting a disaster that, luckily, did not occur. Later on we had a delicious dinner of pasta and sausage before inviting a few of our nearby friends/classmates over for a movie night. We watched a really cool and interesting movie called Human Instinct that questions the balance of nature and learning in human society. Very deep and all that, and a very relaxing day.

St. Stephen's Green being all gorgeous.

Monday July 4th was rather chaotic since we had our first workshop with Ms. Morrissy, got our final stories back from Mr. Roper, and then had our big essays to write for our literature class. Mr. Roper ended up really liking my final piece which was a mix of real and fabricated memories about one of my grandfathers. I also really like Ms. Morrissy, who uses a lot of in-class writing and reading activities to get us to think about approaching stories in new ways and using different perspectives in our writing. We even looked at some poetry which was refreshing for me. Unfortunately, the frenzy of paper writing stopped us from going out to celebrate the 4th of July, but we did have a tasty chicken stir fry dinner.

I think that's about all I can handle right now, I'll do another post soon where I catch up on the rest of that week. Also, apologies for this being a rather writing-heavy post, there weren't many picture-taking opportunities! More soon!

County Kerry & Dingletown (aka Gorgeous Sites and Getting Drenched)

Usual apologies to readers and myself for not posting in almost a week. Now that that's out of the way, let me tell you about some of the best times I've had in Ireland thus far!

Firstly, the play Frances and Francis on Thursday night was really crazy and silly, focusing on the life of this attention-seeking, somewhat insane, intensely flamboyant painter, Francis Bacon. The play was told through Francis and...his inner self, which was a dominatrix-looking bubbly girl, reminiscent of Magenta from Rocky Horror Picture Show. Very interesting and very silly and very sexually explicit, especially considering that both characters paraded around the stage in leopard-print lingerie for the entirety of the piece. There was also some, ahem, audience participation that involved Francis sitting in the lap of one of our program members. Hilarity. We also, of course, had the typical after-play pint with Mr. Roper but left somewhat early since we were getting up at 4am to go on our weekend trips the next morning.

4am Friday morning rolled around and we embarked for the Heuston train station that would take us to County Kerry. After two train trips equally about 3 hours, we arrived and loaded onto a bus which took us an additional 45 minutes to the Muckross Estate and Killarney National Park. The Muckross Estate was essentially a really nice looking and huge old house right next to the tourist center for the park, we didn't really learn much more about it than that. It was raining, but we embarked on a trek through a Jurassic-park looking forest towards the Torc waterfall. Along the way we saw some gorgeous misty-looking mountains and some absolutely massive trees. Stunning. The waterfall was also incredibly beautiful and we had a lot of fun hanging out there for awhile.

 Absolutely massive tree.

 Smoky mountains! Ireland is so damn pretty.

Who doesn't love a good waterfall? 

After waterfalling it was time to get into some very small boats to take a trip across Muckross Lake and Lough Lean towards Ross Castle. We were unaware that we were about to get completely soaked from head to toe by the choppy lake waves and freeze for a good hour as the water permeated our clothing. There were lovely sights to be seen, but we were all pretty miserable. Even the fact that there was a tiny dog in our boat, apparently as unphased by the weather as our grizzled boat driver, couldn't quite save the day. We eventually got off the boats and dripped our way towards the castle, which was huge and pretty cool. It was a restored 14th century defensive castle with four levels connected by a tiny spiral staircase. It also sounds like a pretty miserable place to have lived considering the cramped spaces, the lack of light and heat, and the poisonous pewter plates they were eating off of. Average life expectancy for someone living in a castle was around the 30s whereas living outside gave you an average of 50. People were also apparently tiny back then: lots of narrow hallways and short doorways.

 Outside of Ross Castle! Taken while drenched.

No pictures allowed inside, but this is a great model of what we toured. Tiny staircase!

After the castle we headed to Dingle town and checked into the Dingle Harbour Lodge which is where we were staying for the weekend. The hotel staff had been warned of our soaked approach and were incredibly sweet and accommodating, ready and waiting with hairdryers and extra towels. After some hot showers and dry clothing, we all felt much better and headed out for a group dinner at The Old Smokehouse in Dingle town. It was crazy delicious food. I had an Irish steak with potato wedges and onion rings, a cream cheese stuffed portobello mushroom with chorizo crumbles, and some amazing garlic herb butter and some kind of ridiculous steak sauce. That was all part of one meal. INSANE. Needless to say, we all stuffed ourselves. After dinner we headed out to some pubs, eventually finding one called Paudie's Bar that had some excellent live Irish music. Much fun had by all!

Saturday we were hoping for good weather, but it was, of course, still raining. That didn't stop us from touring some historic sites with out guide, a local charming Irishman named Bosco. We stopped at some Ogham stones (old grave-markers with a secret language on them), the Beehive huts (B.C. huts made without mortar, and some gorgeous cliffy sites. We had hoped to be able to take a tour of the Blasket Islands, a collection of isolated islands 2 miles off the coast that used to have all Irish speaking people and was eventually abandoned by order of the government. But the only way to get there was by boat and the weather was too rough, so we couldn't go. I was secretly a bit relieved because I was not eager to get on any more tiny boats. We did go to the Blasket Islands museum where we learned a lot about the culture and way of life that used to exist there. The islands produced an astonishing number of wonderful Irish writers for such a small population, and the museum had a lot of art that was produced by members of the old community.

 Ogham stone! Those markings on the side are the ancient form of writing.

 Me at the entrance of a Beehive Hut!

Model of the Blasket Islands.

After the museum we headed down to a beach on the Atlantic Ocean. You had to take a path down some very crazy steep cliffs but the beach was absolutely lovely and surprisingly warm! We had a fantastic time climbing the rocks, jumping in the waves, and eventually getting soaked by a surprise wave. It was so gorgeous and lovely that we didn't even care about being drenched yet again, we just continued to enjoy the water and absolutely stunning views.

 Gorgeous cliffs and beach from above.

Giant cliffs!

 Atlantic Ocean being all gorgeous.

After heading back to the hotel and changing clothes once again, me and a few friends from the group headed to a place called The Blue Zone for some fabulous pizza and intensely chocolatey cake. We then headed to a pub called Foxy Johns (aka The Hardware Store) where we met up with with rest of our group, bonded with many Irish people our age, drank many pints, and ended up in the middle of some hen and stag parties that involved many elaborate costumes including Snow White, Marge Simpson, and Sandy from Grease. Afterward, we headed to a pub called An Droichead Beag where we single-handedly started a dance party that spread to the entire bar. We then went next door to a club-type bar and danced the night away. Dingle town night life is fantastic.

Sunday morning we had a few hours of free time to wander around which several girls and I used to wander along the harbor and go shopping. We tried to find a beach walk where we might possibly spot Fungi, a dolphin who resides in the Dingle Bay Harbor, but were confused and mapless so only managed to get a picture with his statue in the middle of town. But we got to walk around a lot and explore the incredibly cute down of Dingle before heading to the trains and back to Dublin. It was an incredibly fantastic weekend.

 Dingle town, cutest ever!

 Dingle Harbor!

Statue of the elusive Fungi.

Being back in Dublin has been typical, pretty much just classes and all that jazz. Monday we had a reading by Dermot Bolger who was excellent and very personable, did some much needed grocery shopping, and had a dinner of tasty pasta in a cream sauce. Today (Tuesday) we had our literature and drama classes all day and then ordered pizza from Mizzouli's, the take-away Italian place that's practically next door.

We also recently got out final writing assignment from Mr. Roper, as it is our last week before ending our workshop with him and moving onto Ms. Morrissey's workshop. I'm sad that I won't be spending as much time with him, as I've really enjoyed his workshop and his presence. He is an incredibly brilliant professor who is so encouraging and challenging. I'm glad I'll still get to see him for plays, and I am excited to see what Ms. Morrissey's workshop will be like. I also have a private meeting with Mr. Roper tomorrow afternoon to talk about my writing and such, which I'm excited and nervous for. I'm not entirely sure what I want to ask him about...but I have a few hours to figure it out! That's about all for now, thanks for sticking with me for this long post!

I will reward you with a picture of a baby lamb. SO CUTE!

Good Food and Good Friends

I find myself going longer and longer between blog posts simply because I always have so much writing to do for class. And because I have so much to do in general. I am trying to keep up with things. Trying being the operative word.

So Sunday was a busy day! My roommates and I took a day trip to a nearby town called Malahide to check out the cute little town and its super sweet castle. We successfully navigated the Irish train system (called the DART) and made it there after a 20 minute train ride. The walk to the castle goes through a bit of a park and foresty area which is full of gorgeous trees and big green fields. And the castle itself was absolutely lovely, I want to live there. We couldn't take pictures inside, but I took plenty of the outside. We had a weird automated tour inside and only got to look at a few rooms, but it was still cool and we learned a lot about the castle's history. It used to be owned by the Talbot family, is full of lots of rare antique furniture, and is haunted by quite a few ghosts. SO COOL!

 The Malahide Castle!

 Portcullis! And a very friendly cat that was waiting for us outside. Ireland is chock full of cats.

Cemetery full of Talbots?

After wandering around the castle grounds for awhile, we headed into town to grab lunch at a pub and check out the nearby port. Malahide has some nicer beachy areas but we stuck around the boats to relax and watch the water. Very very pretty.

Too cold to go in but still picturesque.

We eventually took the train home and then immediately headed over near the Temple Bar district of Dublin where the Mayo Alive Music Festival was going on. Mayo is a county of Ireland that is apparently known for its music? It was a little rainy, but the festival was still really nice, and we arrived just in time to see a band called the Smyth family who were very Irish folksy and fun. A great ending to the day.

The Smyth family! Fiddles galore.

Monday we had workshop class as usual and were then treated to some fantastic readings by some "rockstar" Dublin writers. We listened to some excerpts and MUCH writing advice from Roddy Doyle, famous for his novel The Commitments. He was very charming and knowledgeable. We also listened to a reading by Paula Meehan, a poet who I think is absolutely fantastic. Her reading style was also very animated and fun to watch which is something I always feel very conscious of as a frequent reader of poetry. She was incredibly delightful and I had her sign my copies of some of her poems that we'd been given. She wrote: "To Anna in Dublin in 2011 in the rain." All true. It was a longer day than we usually have on Mondays so my roommates and I decided to treat ourselves to a take away dinner from the Nepalese restaurant called Monty's that is practically next door to our house. I don't know what exactly we ate but there was spicy chicken in sauce, cheese bits in sauce, lamb in sauce, and naan and it was all incredibly delicious. The lamb was especially good. We then found some visitors in our backyard and treated them to dinner as well.

Introducing Sir Wesley Windham Pryce and Lady Maude Plunkett. They were big fans of the lettuce.

Tuesday we had another very long day of Irish literature and drama classes. We also had our first play-going experience that evening, so my roommates, a few other classmates, and I decided to meet up beforehand to get dinner near the city center. We ended up at a pub called Gallaghers where I had some amazing chicken boxty (chicken in a potato pancake with sauce) and split some chocolate cake. Mighty delicious and fun. We then headed over to the Peacock theatre (essentially located in the basement of the famous Abbey theatre) to see a play called Perve which was very intense, funny, and thoughtful. It touched on many subjects including pedophilia, privacy rights, misinterpretations, and miscommunications. I liked it quite a lot despite its serious ending. The theatre was small but really nice and interesting since the main stage was essentially a big bowl while the back areas incorporated a lot of mirrors and angles. After the play, our class and Mr. Roper went for a pint despite the torrential rain and had lots of lovely chats.

Wednesday we had workshop class once again and Mr. Roper really liked one of my pieces! Our assignment had been to write a longer 6 page story about a time where we felt upset or anxious or troubled during our stay here. I wrote a slightly dramatized version of my first day in Dublin, which had a certain amount of trauma involved because of severe jet lag and culture shock. The class found it quite funny and true and Mr. Roper asked me to send it to him because he wants to include it in the materials for prospective program participants! I'm afraid it will terrify many of them, but thrilled that he wants to use my work. 

After class, my roommates and I headed home quickly because we had planned a dinner party for us and eight of our classmates who live nearby. We would have loved to invite everyone, but our house is only so big and we didn't want to get in trouble with our neighbors. We made a wonderful Irish stew with lamb, potatoes, onions, and carrots and some tasty Irish soda bread. We also made an awesome appetizer of baked brie with pineapple chutney. By we I mean my roommates who are all excellent cooks. I mostly did dishes and tidied up the place. But everyone showed up and brought wines and desserts and ate all the food and had a wonderful time. Eventually, we wandered down the road to Terenure which is the town that is just south of Rathgar. We stopped into a pub for pints and laughs and many pictures. Excellent night.

 Sooooooooooo delicious!

Today we had more workshop class, ate cake for a classmate's birthday, determined that we're clearly Mr. Roper's favorite class ever, and are now looking forward to seeing the play Frances and Francis, which is about the life of crazy artist Francis Bacon. It promises to be quite eventful. That's about all for now!

Bloomsday Celebrations and Many Other Things

Ello again! Much time has passed per usual and now I have much to catch up on in my blog. Since it's raining intermittently, this seems like a good time.

Wednesday morning I had class again and we started workshopping people's 2-page stories. It was lovely to hear everyone's writing, especially since Mr. Roper only allows us to say things we liked and observations. Takes a lot of the stress off. Was also pleased to note that we're pretty much all on the same level writing-wise: all clearly meant to be here, but no James Joyce's. Speaking of him, we've been discussing many of his stories in class as well. I find him a tad too depressing, but he certainly has beautiful writing.

After class we relaxed at home (and ate some burritos filled with our stuffed pepper filling) before heading to St. Stephen's Green to catch some pre-Bloomsday music. It was fairly classical and sounded lovely. Then we went to a bar called the International House which is supposed to have great comedy and music, but it was fairly dead when we got there. We left after a pint to meet up with some Iowa Writing friends for more pints at The Bleeding Horse which was lovely. Much less crowded than the first time we'd been there. After a Bulmers cider (soooo good, not as sweet as American hard ciders), I headed home early to work on homework. How responsible!

Thursday was Bloomsday! For those who don't know, Bloomsday commemorates the walk around Dublin that was taken by Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's Ulysses.  It began for me with more workshop class and the first workshop of one of my pieces! People seemed to like it much more than I expected which was pleasing. After class, many of us (including Mr. Roper) headed to Grafton St. to check out the Davy Byrnes, which is where Leopold Bloom had his famous lunch of gorgonzola cheese and burgandy. It was INCREDIBLY packed with people all dressed up and reciting Ulysses, so we didn't stay long.  Instead, we headed just down the street to The Duke which is a lovely old and quite large pub. We had pints and discussed the merits of writing and reading (because we're all such English nerds) with Mr. Roper and it was all very interesting and fun.

 The Davy Byrnes!

After that, a few of my roommates and I decided to more fully explore St. Stephen's Green. I have to say, it's one of the most beautiful parks I've ever been in. Simply stunning. Pictures capture it better than I ever could, but I will say this: the grass is like a carpet.

One of the pondy areas.

The entrance to the large green area, so many flowers and trees!

After a lovely dinner of homemade bruschetta (om nom nom), my roommates and I took a cab to the home of a few of our fellow writers where we proceeded to celebrate making it through our first week of classes. We eventually moved on to O'Connell's bar, which is mainly populated by locals, and had a fantastic rest of the evening.

Friday was not the best for me. I woke up with a horrible allergy cold and am still trying to get over it. I did manage to leave the house to go for a full Irish breakfast with my roommates at a cafe called Moda. While I had a somewhat smaller version, the full Irish breakfast consists of eggs, toast, sausage, rashers (Irish bacon), tomato, black pudding, white pudding, and beans. My plate lacked the puddings and the beans, but I'm determined to get the full course on a day where my head isn't so achey. The rest of the day was spent doing readings for class and drinking tea.

 Virginia Woolf, another local cat, kept me company.

Today, while still a little sickly, I managed to be much more productive! Went to downtown Dublin with a few of my roommates and wandered over to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells! The Book of Kells is an incredibly beautiful and ornate gospel book created by Celtic monks around 800AD. It's regarded as Ireland's finest national treasure. We weren't allowed to take pictures of it, but it was quite lovely. I couldn't believe how much detail went into even the smallest areas of the illustration. There was also a little pre-exhibit that talked about other old and famous books and even showed you the stones that the monks used to create various color pigments. Once you see the Book of Kells, the exhibit takes you upstairs to the Old Trinity Library which is almost MORE beautiful. I wish I could've taken pictures because there are simply thousands of old and rare books in a library that looks like it came straight out of Beauty and the Beast. There are also a bunch of glass cases with cool history stuff including Ireland's oldest harp and the skeleton of an "Irish giant" who I believe stood over 7 foot and weighed 30 stone. Very excellent.

 Pretty much the only thing you can take a picture of: the outside.

Afterwards, we wandered down Grafton St. and stopped at a large cafe called Bewley's where I had some pink lemonade and a chocolate eclaire. Very tasty, and the cafe was super cute. Later on, my roommates and I had a dinner of blue cheese burgers with potatoes and are now about to dig into a Bailey's cheesecake. I'm eager to try it, so I'm gonna get going! Laters!

Home of tasty eclairs and many other yummy things!