UCD Elections, Crazier Than *insert least favorite US Candidate Here*

Before we get to the bulk of the blog I have some business to attend to. Due to miscommunications the first half of my spring break plans have fallen through. I now have a non-refundable ticket to London that can be changed to a ticket to anywhere in Europe I want to go. If any of my readers (preferably people I know) are in Europe anywhere between the 7th and the 15th, or would enjoy coming to Europe that week, let me know and I'll come visit. Doesn't have to be the whole week, just a few days. 

Now, on to my new favorite reason to go to class, the UCD student government elections!

I first became aware that it was election week when millions of posters with peoples heads began staring at me as I walked to class. Each poster follows the same pattern, oversized headshot taken a bit too close superimposed over a picture of an iconic UCD location. Alright, I thought, this could be interesting.

I then get to class and sit down in the lecture hall. Suddenly there is a person in front of the room yelling at warp speed at all of us. Turns out they are a candidate campaigning and are desperately trying to get their statement in before class begins. Unfortunately between the accent and warp speed I hear nothing other than "judge me based on the shirt that I'm wearing". So I do. 

At this time I begin to take stock of the flyers lying around on the desktops. Everyday there are different handouts and special offers for clubs littering the room. I usually grab a bunch for paper cuttings as the paper is excellent thickness. So I noticed that todays flyers are different colors, which obviously makes me happy, so I go to grab some. I then see those same giant heads staring up at me. Ah, election flyers.

I now present to you a run down of my favorite candidates and what their flyers promised they will bring to UCD

In a failing effort to make this blog less google-able I won't use last names.

First I want to note how the two female candidates include pictures of themselves on the back in poses that are most likely going for "sexy". Both fail. As much as I hate being a feminist....I can't help but be mildly offended at this tactic

Next we have Conor, running for Welfare Office. Conor says we should vote for him because his moms are lesbians

Then there's Rory. I was having trouble finding anything too hysterical about Rory's flyer, until I turned it over and found that he had illustrated one of his points with stick figures holding signs. Touche, Rory, touche.

Moving on to Conor. Different than Conor number 1, running for the same position. No word on his parents. Conor is running on the platform that he will put toasters in every building and increase condom distribution. Not going to lie, I have become an absolute toast addict over here. Bryn Mawr should follow Conor's plan.

Now for Paul. I like Paul, I've heard his speech twice. Unfortunately he got his classes mixed up and gave the same speech to the same class twice. I don't appreciate people with poor time management skills. Paul also lays out his goals for each individual school at UCD. Each school, such as Arts and Sciences, has specific goals that he wants to reach involving courses, professors, etc. His goal for engineering? More couches. 

Moving on to Scottie. I havn't found a leaflet for Scottie yet. But his name's Scottie! So I think he has my vote.....speaking of which I don't think I get a vote. 

Finally theres the kid who showed up at my door last night. He is the kid with the biggest head on all of the posters, yet I do not know his name. I opened my door and he smiles and says "Hey! I know you, you're in my English class" before I could say "no...I'm definitely not.." he launched into his campaign speech. Across the hall another American was getting the same speech from one of this kids cronies. The two Irish kids rapidly talking in such a confined tiled space was like noise entering one ear and rattling around like the last kernel of unpopped popcorn. I'm still uneasy answering my door, afraid I'll be thrown into the vortex again. 

I handed in my midterm this morning, so now I'm ready to go enjoy the weekend. 

I should also note this quote as a follow up to my last post

While giving my presentation

Me: The largest forestry company in Ireland is......*long pause*

Class: *snicker*

Random kid in the back of the room: Come on! You can do it! 

Me: Quel....cha?

Class: HOORAY!!!! 

Professor: heyyyyyyy, not bad!

I then cracked a joke about America and did a dance about a tree....I was on fire. My group was appalled. 

EDIT!

WOW! I forgot to post about my FAVORITE candidate, Gary. Maybe I thought he needed his own entry.

Anyway, Gary is running for what I can only assume is the social committee. His main platform? If elected he will get Eiffel 65 to perform at UCD. Yes, the people who sang that Blue song in 7th grade. You might say "Well Marianna, maybe they're still big in Europe" Nope, he feels that our current acts are too new and exciting, he feels that we need to bring the 90's back. 

The Irish are Sick of Harry Potter References

While working on a group project

Irish Girl: Make sure you talk about (mumbles something that sounds like quilch)

Me: I'm sorry, did you say I should talk about quiddich?

Group: *death stares*

Irish Girl: No, Quilch....C-O-I-L-L-T-E

Gaelic makes my last name look completely pronouncable

Give Me Flowers or Give Me Kilts!

I believe a photo montage is the best way to begin the explanation of my weekend...

It was a 6 Nations Rugby Weekend! Ireland vs. Scotland!

Now for the story.

My friend Liz from Bryn Mawr is spending the semester in Galway. We planned to get together this weekend in Dublin for general merrymaking. Liz called to say that she would be arriving around 1 on Friday, so I took myself into the city to meet her. While there I saw a couple people wearing kilts, but figured it was just a tour group of some kind. I then turned a corner and saw that they city was FILLED with men wearing kilts. It was like my experience with the Brazil-Ireland soccer match, only on crack. I stopped in my tracks and thought "oh...this is going to be a GREAT weekend". 

After finding Liz we walked around the city. I must admit I was a horrible tour guide because I kept muttering "ooo, another one!" anytime a group came by. Instead of pointing out my favorite Dublin sites, I pointed out anyone wearing any form of tartan I could find. Dogs included. We went back to UCD to drop off her stuff, but decided that we had to go back into the city that night in order to watch the match and be with as many kilted men as we could. Imagine our surprise when we got home and found out that the match wasn't until Saturday! We sat in silence for a second until Liz said 

"Well you know what this means.....its going to be AMAZING tomorrow"

and it was.

We went into the city around noon and it was as if Christmas had come early. Everywhere we looked groups of gorgeous men (annnnnnd not so gorgeous men, but we'll let that one go) were parading around in kilts. We sat ourselves down at a coffee shop on Grafton St and watched the entertainment. 

However kilt watching can quickly become sketchy, so we decided to head out and do some touristy things. I had asked Liz what she wanted to do 

Liz: "Well, everyone says I should go to the Guinness Factory..."

Me ".......offffffffff course...........lets...er...go...there..."

Liz:" But what I really want to do is go to Kilmainham Gaol (jail)"

I was pumped, Kilmainham Gaol was on the top of my "To Do" list. So we hopped on the bus out to the Gaol (henceforth referred to as the jail). The jail is extremely important to Irish history as it played a huge role in the 1916 uprising. It is also an amazing building. Here are some pictures

After leaving the jail we walked across the street to the Museum of Modern Art. This is housed in an old building which I heard was either the old military hospital or barracks. The museum itself is fairly small, and everything you'd expect a modern art museum to be. Lots of white walls, pretentious video art, etc. They are my new favorite place for one reason, however. They have a craft room. Thats right, you walk in and there is a closet full of paper and glitter and scissors and everything for you to go nuts with...oh and I did. Lets just say I finally have an exhibit of my paper cuttings at a museum. 

Liz works on her saran wrap flowers
Cutting paper...as per usual
My exhibit, now on display at the Dublin Museum of Modern Art
A few additional pieces of mine
With my exhibit

As much as we loved the craft room, it was approaching kick off (is that what it's called?) for the rugby match, so we had to get back to town. After careful deliberation we decided that since we were looking for as many people in kilts as we could find, the touristy sections were where we needed to be. Onward to Temple Bar!

We stopped first in the most touristy of the Temple Bar bars, Oliver St John Gogertys. Unfortunately it was filled with people who had the same idea as us. Everyone wanted to watch people watch rugby...so everyone just sort of stared at each other. It was awkward. So we went to the other touristy bar, THE Temple Bar. Here we only found 2 guys in kilts, but the atmosphere was a little more lively. So Liz and I grabbed a pint and stood around watching rugby. It was at this point that I realized I had NO clue how rugby is played. Zero, nilch, none. Also, football players are pansies. Rugby players would take hits and I would cry out WHOA! and everyone would just stare at me, as if to say "what...that? He's breathing, he's fine"

Needless to say I left that pub a rugby fan. GOOD TIMES. After the game Liz and I continued our kilt scavenger hunt, before returning home for a good nights sleep. 

Liz was leaving this afternoon, but we decided to hit up the Dublin Film Festival before she left. So one more trip to the city was in order. Once there, MORE KILTS! Ok people, did you not remember to bring pants? Our kilt hunt ended with this picture

As the guys caught us taking their picture and then we had to endure 30 seconds of awkward eye contact. Kilt hunting was officially over. Oh well. It was fun.

The movie was lame. It was called "Mr. Lonely" and was about a colony of celebrity impersonators. Do not recommend. 

Oh! Ireland won the rugby match by the way. Woooo!

Well I Know in America We Lie When We Don't Know the Answer....

I think one of my favorite things about Ireland is the fact that I can sound like an expert on topics that I know nothing about. In order to accomplish this, I just need to begin a sentence with "Well I know in America we..." and suddenly I have all the answers. I have so far been asked for an expert opinion on the following: The Amish, marriage and age of consent laws and organic farming. 

This does not apply to the US election. So far any discussion on that with the Irish has ended with me cringing in embarrassment mumbling "err, well, you sure have researched this...who am I voting for? Uhh, look over there!"

Old Man Pete Comes to Visit!

My dad was in London this week for various reasons so he was able to pop over for a quick weekend visit to check in on me.

I ran across the street to his hotel at noon on Saturday to meet him there. After checking at the desk I was told that he hadn't checked in yet. The sofas in the lobby were looking comfortable so I settled myself in. Interesting characters were in the hotel that morning, including a team of some sort, I believe field hockey, but I can't be certain. Now they were some attractive men. They filed out of the hotel restaurant wearing their team blazers and ties, athletic bags slung over their shoulders, hair nicely kept. So dad was a few minutes late, with people like that milling around the lobby, I could wait.

After they left and Dad still wasn't there, things were no longer as fantastic. To top it off the desk clerk was starting to stare at me suspiciously. While I couldn't find anything in the lobby particularly stealable, I'm pretty sure he was convinced I was going to try and make off with something before the morning was out. 

An hour and 15 minutes later Dad came bustling into the lobby, muttering something about damn Irish air traffic controllers. Seemed like a reasonable excuse for being late.

After getting to his room Dad unloaded his bag, which was basically filled with stuff for me. WIN. Including various hotel soaps and shampoos that he had collected along the way. Also included, a bag of chocolate milk mix that he suggested I use for "bartering". I was too busy eyeing the box of Girl Scout cookies to fully recognize the ridiculousness of that idea and eagerly accepted it. 

We set out for City Center with the initial plan of getting my mother a Valentines Day gift. After visiting countless (well...2.5) museum shops (not museums, however) he found what he was looking for. So the day was declared a success at the early hour of 2 o clock. A celebratory trip to the Chester Beatty Library was then in order. I found the informative video about Chester Beatty to be more interesting than the library (which is a great collection of oriental and middle east religious items, very interesting in itself). Lets not lie, I found the amazing half sombrero, half ten gallon hat that Mr. Beatty was so found of wearing throughout the video to be the best part. 

After a nice trip through St Stephens Green we decided to head out for dinner. Dad produced two pamphlets that he had picked up some where that promised a free pint with dinner at a restaurant in Temple Bar. Works for me! So off we went.

After that we returned to Dublin 4 and Dad went to bed while I walked to Donnybrook with some friends to hang out at a pub. 

The next day we were up early and on our way to Howth, a fishing village to the north of Dublin. Our first stop was the Sunday Market for some scones and tea. We then went down to the waterfront to enjoy them, stopping to watch the seals frolic along the way. We explored the village some more before grabbing some lunch from the Lebanese food stand. We had to head back to Dublin after lunch so that Dad could catch his flight back to London.

The interesting thing about Howth was the lack of English speaking people. I heard Spanish, Polish, French and other assorted languages, but barely any English. Even the English-speaking Irish had such thick accents that it needed subtitles. 

The first half of the semester is almost done (wow, fast) so I will be doing some work this week...ick. I'm also finishing up my spring break plans, which will be spent in Italy. So look forward to entries on that in the coming days!

Scenes of Howth
Ask Dad for the name of the island...and what early settlers used it for
Beach
Sail boats ready for use
Proof that I am actually in Ireland!
The Harbor
I thought it was a pretty picture...
Hey look! A book sale! They're like crack to Dad
Dad: "Wow, look at all those cranes, give me your camera!"

Not sure why......

Thats just beautiful

One Month In: Reflections

Things I thought I would know already that I don't:

-My Cell Phone Number

-This is always awkward when I'm filling out forms and such and they ask for my number. I then subtly say "uh, hold on" whip out my phone and check under "Me" in my phonebook. Needless to say the Garda was less than amused, and I'm pretty sure they think I gave a phoney number.

-My Class Schedule

-You know how in the US where most classes meet at the same time each day that they're offered, in the same place? Yea, not so much here. I could have class one day at 11 in Theater M, then the same class another day at 2, in the Engineering building. Also, some have tutorials and small groups that meet during "week 21 and 30". I have no clue what the weeks are, so everyday when I go to bed I have to open up my schedule, find out when I have to wake up, then check again in the morning. 

-How much I have to pay to get to City Centre on the bus

-The official charge is 1.70, although others have told me that if you say 1.50 they'll let you go for that. I have no spine and am too afraid of being kicked off the bus to try it.

-The name of that SONG

-Theres a song that they go nuts for over here, and the main chorus is just everyone singing "Doo, doodoo doo, doodoodoo, doo doo doodoo doodoo" which of course is un-googleable. But its catchy. If that sounds familiar to anyone, please tell me

That leads me to my next list

Top 5 Songs That the Irish Go Crazy For

1. Soulja Boy

2. ANYTHING by Journey, they freaking love Journey

3. Doo, doodoo doo, doodoodoo, doo doo doodoo doodoo

4. Piece of Me by Brittney Spears

5. Don't Look Back in Anger-Oasis

Top 5 Irish Phrases

1. Craic-pronounced Crack

-Whats the craic-Whats up

-That was a good craic-That was a good time

2. Locked

-Don't mind him, he's locked-He's drunk

3. Splendid

-Same usage as in America, but far more frequently used.

4. D4

-Fake tan, ironed hair, she's a D4

-Not, as I had hoped, the long awaited fourth Mighty Ducks Movie

-Refers to Dublin 4, aka where I am right now, and the trashy girls that live here

5. Knackered

-Man, I'm knackered-I'm sleepy

-So much more fun to say than "I'm sleepy"

The Garda: Irelands Way of Saying "Get the Hell Out"

I'm now taking bets on how long it will be before Old Man Pete cracks his favorite joke about the French in response to my title....

As of tomorrow I will have been here for a full month (wow, fast). Tomorrow would also have been my first day as an illegal alien if I didn't get myself to the Garda, Irelands police force/immigration service. Let me explain, when you land you immediately find yourself woozy-faced starring at an angry underpaid civil servant who is stamping your passport. Before they let you through the gate they give you a card and tell you that you have one month to

 register with the Garda, or they kick you out. They do not explain who the Garda is. I told myself "Marianna, you make sure you register with the Garda IMMEDIATELY" and 30 days later I did, I think thats pretty good response time for me. 

My day goes as such:

I should begin by saying that I never went to sleep last night. A combination of factors, mainly cold medicine and chocolate, kept me high strung until 6:30 am when my alarm went off, signaling that I should get ready to catch the bus. Why so early? Because the Garda registration process is basically a giant line that you join and anywhere from 45 minutes to 5 hours later they give you a little ID card. So I was dead set on being there at 7:30 in order to be in line for 8am opening time. I jumped out of bed, marveled at the fact that I was still completely awake, grabbed all of my documentation and my iPod, and my copy of Trumpet of the Swan (Quality Book) to keep myself occupied. I even made myself some tea and toast for a pre-Garda snack, otherwise known as breakfast. I skipped out on this fabulous Wild-Card Wednesday, anxious to become a legal temporary resident of Ireland. 

Once on the bus, I began to have terrible thoughts. What exactly was going to happen at Garda registration. I realized that it was basically a modern day version of Ellis Island.

Side Story

I've been thinking about Ellis Island ever since a girl at a club asked me "Why would you ever want to leave America, there's so much opportunity there!". Making me wonder if the next morning we were all going to board the Titanic and set sail for streets paved with gold. It also made me contemplate what a modern day version of Titanic the Movie would be like if all the Irish passengers dressed like modern day Dubliners, with booty shorts and sequined halter tops. Instead of the traditional Irish dancing in Third Class everyone would instead be flailing to Soulja Boy. Shannon, I think I have a movie idea....lets work on this...

Anyway, my overactive mind started thinking of all the reasons they could turn me down, improper paper work, not enough money in my bank account ("HA!" They would laugh at me, "You could never afford to live in Dublin on that paltry account....anything less that 1 million is worthless"), this plague that's sticking around ("Well, now we're going to have to quarantine you" they'd say, before throwing me into a ward of sick immigrants to die). I clearly was sleep deprived and the cold medicine hadn't quite worn off. 

 I finally found the Garda station at 7:45, I walked inside, carefully surpressing my nagging cough (I wasn't taking ANY chances). A man inside who I thought was homeless then barked at me "Why are you here!" "Uhhh...to register...." "Are you a student?!" "yes...." "Then you have to wait until 9 o clock" The man was not homeless, but rather a civil employee....whoops. 

9 o clock, an hour and fifteen minutes of hopeless waiting. My energy was waning and walking around until that time did not seem like an option. So I plopped down, plugged in to my iPod and began reading the glorious adventures of Louis the Swan. 

at 8:45 I noticed some students starting to line up in the endless line. A public announcement asked them to sit down. They did not, I did not dare join, even though I knew it would be a good idea. At 9 o clock exactly I joined the line, I still have not figured out why we couldn't line up with the rest of the group....clearly anti-student prejudice. There were no repercussions for those who broke the rule, once again my inability to break meaningless orders had left me screwed. Another 45 minutes of waiting and I was finally at the front, where I was cleared to meet with a Garda official. Back to waiting. By this time my roommate had joined me, also on her last legal day, so at least I had some company. Another 20 minutes of waiting got me to meet with a jolly man who had no problem clearing me to stay until exactly the date I'm supposed to leave.

Him: "When are you leaving"

Me: "Well right now the 23rd, but I'm not sure if..." (trying to get a few extra legal days out of him)

Him: "Good, you will leave no later than the 23rd" *Stamp*

He then took my passport and said "alright, you're good" When I asked for my passport back he laughed and said "Oh you're good to go wait some more until your card is ready" 

Tricky tricky Ireland. 

I waited with Lauren, my roommate, for about 15 more minutes when I heard over the PA system "Will American national Marianna Bah...oh christ....American national Marianna please come claim your card"

As I now respond to Marianna BahOhChrist as if it were my actual name, I skipped on up to grab yet another useless form of ID to carry in my wallet. My picture looks exactly like you would imagine someone who had been awake for 24 hours would look in an ID photo. Fitting. 

Lauren still had awhile to wait for her process to be done, so she told me to go wander around Dublin for a little bit and then we'd meet up for lunch. Not much happened on my aimless wander of Dublin. I walked down the river Liffey and took pictures of the bridges, then wandered up to Christ Church and explored that, which was beautiful, then Lauren called and I walked back through Temple Bar and out to O'Connell St where we met for sandwiches. I then had to come back for class. Have I slept yet? Nope. 

O'Connell St, and the Millennium Spire
Ha'Penny Bridge over the Liffey
Pretty Buildings

Door at Christ Church
The Crypt at Christ Church
Christ Church
Look carefully, the right wall is leaning out
Dublin Alley
Getting ready for a big night
Anyone who says Valentines Day is overdone in the US needs to come to Dublin. Its ridiculous

To Cook a Potato

My roommates all went to Galway this weekend, I however contracted the plague and had to stay home. For those of you keeping score, this is the second time I've claimed to have caught the plague, the other time was a false alarm, I am legitimately sick this time. 

Friday night found me sick and alone in the apartment. I was hungry, the cabinets were empty. I turned to our sole food item, a sack of potatoes (how stereotypically Ireland can you get!) and decided that a baked potato would be both easy and delicious. 

I carefully read the directions on the back of the bag, which simply stated "Stab with fork, put in oven for 1 hour". Sounded hard, but I could do it. I gave the potato a couple of extra stabs just for good measure and put it in the oven. Feeling proud of myself I went off to go watch the Office while I waited for my meal to cook. One hour later I opened the oven to find said potato, warm, but in no way cooked. Alright....lets give it another half hour, and lets put it on the top shelf where its hottest. 5 minutes later the room fills with smoke, my potato has burnt, but not cooked. hmmm.....lets move it back down to the bottom shelf. 

Moral of the story is that 1 hour and 45 minutes after placing it in the over, I still was left with a very raw potato. Major failure, I cannot even cook a potato. 

No one can accuse UCD of being passive aggressive....

St Stephens Green

More Green
Pretty doors on the walk home

T-shirts for the failed open mic night

Tales of Illegality

Now that title should have pulled you in! Too bad its full of lies.

This week has been fairly low key, things are starting to move really quickly and I don't feel like I've fully settled in yet. To try and feel a bit more sturdy I went into city center this weekend to do a bit of sight seeing and exploring. Most of my time in the main part of Dublin has been spent in Temple Bar or on Grafton Street and surrounding areas, so I was dead set on exploring new places. I got off the bus at St Stephens Green, a beautiful park in the center of the city. While this is located near my usual haunts, I hadn't gone in yet and took advantage of the mild temperatures and sunshine (which is becoming more and more frequent!) to explore. It was absolutely beautiful, with flowers just starting to bloom and families enjoying a Saturday afternoon in the park. 

I then set out walking, I thought I had mapped myself a nice little route that would take me by a few Dublin landmarks while allowing me to get a feel for the city. Unfortunately my navigation sense is awful, and after a few turns I found myself smack in the middle of Grafton St, as per usual. ARGH. 

I started to worry a little bit, if my navigation sense is that bad, do I really want to try again without a buddy with me? No. So I realized that the bus route back to UCD would serve as a perfect trail, allowing me to pick up the bus whenever I needed it while still exploring. I set off after a number 10 bus and enjoyed a nice stroll through neighborhoods mixed with Georgian architecture and quaint brick buildings. I even found the Romanian embassy! I reached a point where I realized that I would have to pay a euro and change to get back on the bus, but nothing if I just kept walking. As money goes quickly here I chose the latter. Now to put this into perspective for you Philadelphia minded people, I estimate that the distance from city center to UCD is roughly the same as the difference from UPenn to Overbrook....with a slightly different demographic in the middle. Not too bad, but enough to make me tired by the time I reached home. 

That was Saturday. We all know how my Sunday night went, so moving on.

The rest of the week has been fairly low key. Today I went back into the city in order to get some sneakers. I joined the UCD squash club last week and realized this week that the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy that the BMC squash club has regarding court shoes is probably not applicable over here, and they might want me to have shoes that WON'T ruin their courts. Luckily Penneys in town sells really cheap shoes, I managed to pick up a pair of court shoes for 12 euro, and snag a pair of gold ballet flats on the way out for 6 euro, SCORE. They're probably going to disintegrate the minute I put them on. 

The sun was out again and I decided to live the european lifestyle and head to the market for some fresh veggies for dinner. The veggies they were offering looked awful. Take two. Picked up some nice fresh flowers to liven up the slum that we call our apartment. Great, excellent, realized five minutes later that we do not have a vase to put them in. Cut to me in Marks and Spencer starring at a wall of vases wondering exactly what I'm looking for in a vase. Do I want it to be tall, short, square, circular, colored or clear. Then I spotted the perfect one. The 4 euro one. 

Realizing that while my purchases were cheap, they were adding up, I returned to the bus stop. I was about to board a bus when I saw a sign announcing "Remember its Ash Wednesday, don't sin, eat our fish and chips". Can't argue with that logic, and I hadn't eaten lunch. 

If I remembered the name of the place i would highly suggest it. 7 euro gets you a heaping plate of fish and chips (fries) and the upstairs dining room has big leather chairs that allow you to sit back and read a newspaper while literally eating a heart attack. 

It was then that I noticed a strange phenomenon....everyone was dressed in strange outfits. Now I had casually taken notice of this on the ride in and (honest truth) assumed it was a Ash Wednesday/Lent related things. On closer inspection I realized that everyone was wearing brazilian flags and related brazilian items. Meanwhile an occasional person would walk by wearing a hat in Irish colors that was, for lack of better word, ridiculous. Turns out Ireland was hosting Brazil in a soccer (football) match tonight! Surrounded by fans of Brazil I immediately wanted to run out and buy a flag myself and parade through the city with it hanging out of my pants, just like they were. However my legal status in this country is up in the air for another week and a half (hopefully settled on Friday) and I did not want to run the risk of being deported while just trying to fit in. I did find it odd that there were more Brazil fans than Ireland fans.

Anyway, I returned to UCD fully intending to go back to the city for the game. Anyone that I asked to come, however, responded that they were going to open mic night to watch a friend perfom. Eh, that works too! We trekked over to the student bar (a different student bar than the one that ENG night was in) to cheer on our friend. 

I'm going to pause here and say that Brett was with me and give a shout out to Brett's mom who I hear is an avid reader of my blog! Thanks for tuning in!

Back to regularly scheduled programming....We were stoked, there were roughly 15 of us, some had made t-shirts. We sat through act after act...and it was everything you would think an Open Mic night would be. Bad Backstreet Boy songs, someone singing Brown Eyed Girl, a "Spoken Word Artist" and a comedian who actually told Holocaust jokes to the horror of the audience. Best part about the comedian was that by the time he came up everyone had left and it was just us watching...so he tried telling some jokes about Irish politics....to a group of 15 Americans. Poor guy.....thats what you get for telling Holocaust jokes. 

Long story short, we wait there for 2 hours and find out that the organizers had never put our friends name on the list. We were less than pleased.

If you made it through this entry you are amazing. That is without a doubt the longest entry about nothing I've ever written. Pictures coming soon!

Police Blotter: UCD Style

Seen today: two adolescent youth skateboarding/running around campus screaming "run, come on, faster, FASTER HE'S GOING TO ARREST US" while a UCD security guard casually walked behind them occasionally yelling out "please walk on campus".

My stomach still hurts from the laughter

"If the Patriots lose, then clearly the terrorists have won"

Well you can't win them all. 

Yesterday was Superbowl Sunday, as many of you know, and Ireland celebrated like champs. Or at least I think they did. I was asleep for much of the day with a head cold, but when I woke up there were a bunch of Irish lads outside my window in Pats jerseys playing American football. 

The plan was to go down to the student bar where they were going to be showing the game on a giant TV. However as I was at the student store buying some snacks for the night, my friend comes running in and yells at me "Did you hear! They cancelled the Superbowl!" My mind starts racing, good God what kind of national disaster has happened that they would cancel the Superbowl, is Tommy alright? Luckily she followed that up with "Superbowl party. They cancelled the Superbowl party. Sorry, I should have finished that"

Alright, plan number 2, head downtown to the Hardrock Cafe which was promising the game and free food, etc. Not my number one choice, the game didn't start until 11:30, wouldn't end until 3, then we'd have to make our way home either through Nitelink buses or an expensive cab. Luckily upon returning to our apartment we discovered that the people in the next building over had the Superbowl on their tv. Helloooooo new friends. 

11:30 comes and we cram into the room with about 30 other people. The poor resident of the apartment appears to know roughly 9 of those people. Interestingly enough I'd say the room was equally mixed Irish and American...and the Irish students were the most intense about it. One was hardcore Pats and the other was hardcore anyone but the Pats. Another one sat around and offered commentary on "If the Irish were coaching this team, this is what we'd do" as if that would make the game less awful. His main complaint "Why the hell do they run sideways! Forward, Wes Welker, FORWARD".  

I think we all know how the game turned out. I was with a bunch of Giants fans and nearly suffered a concussion when one of them jumped up and kneed me in the head. Apparently he assumed that everyone would be jumping and didn't take into account the shaking person on the floor decked out in navy and red. If anyone remembers the game actually didn't end until the Giants kneeled down and there was all that chaos on the field. Our TV actually lost power right as the Giants were about to kneel down and the room flipped out. I had great visions of us turning the tv back on and finding that out of no where the Pats had recovered a fumble and won. Alas, it cannot be. 

18-1 isn't half bad.

My favorite quote from the night:

Irish Guy: So wait, this is Superbowl Sunday, and Tuesday is Super Tuesday....are regular days of the week just not enough for you Americans? I mean...its a lot to handle in just 3 days, slow down

The Irish Have a Day for Everything!

My friends and I didn't organize fast enough to go into town tonight for entertainment, so instead we settled for a nice quiet trip to the student bar on campus. Or so we thought. Last night when we went we were 6 of maybe 20 people there. Casual, quiet, in other words lame, but that suits me just fine. 

Tonight we went over and found the place was filled with people wearing bright orange shirts. Having grown up at Princeton I found nothing wrong with this situation at first, but rather wondered how I could get my hands on a snazzy orange shirt to add to my collection of orange shirts. Closer inspection of the shirts told me that it was ENG DAY 2008!

Eng Day? What the heck is Eng Day?

Luckily someone turned around and I realized that Eng Day was short for Engineering Day. Yes, we had crashed the UCD Engineering Department party. 

This was nothing like Engineering Department parties that I have been to before.

Instead of casual conversation over a glass of wine, this was instead all out war on the dance floor, with costumes and beer flying everywhere. I saw people dressed as Teenange Mutant Ninja Turtles, the cast of Cool Runnings (excuse me, Rasta Rockett), and a gorilla. As well as plenty of people wearing togas and/or no shirts.

My friends and I entered the dance floor, hoping to join in what appeared to be a great time. However our lack of orange shirt and/or unitard quickly singled us out as outsiders. The crowd parted as if we had brought some sort of foreign plague with us. Alas, tonight was not the night I would make a new friend in the engineering department. After someone spilled their beer all over me I determined the night to be over and we left to go watch "The Office". While it may not have turned out the way I hoped, it was certainly an experience.

Otherwise life at UCD has been good. Classes are going well, although many of them started off with the professors saying "Since you all know the history of Ireland, I won't cover that" leaving me a bit worried. I joined the squash club yesterday, which I'm excited about, they gave me a membership card and everything. That seems to be a big deal over here, membership cards. I'm definitely making some for the BMC squash club next year. I'm hoping to spend the day in town tomorrow and get a little more acquainted with areas other than Grafton St and Temple Bar. 

In case you were wondering, I definitely did not get my hands on a snazzy orange shirt. Failure.