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!
