ST. PADDY’S

 

IS FUCKING NUTS HERE. MORE LATER WHEN MY EVENING TIME HANG OVER IS OVER!!

Ssssydney says hello.

Norther Ireland Weekend: Belfast ‘08!

So it’s true my Northern Ireland adventure may have been many moons ago (Feb 21- 24) but I still feel the need to blog the damn thing, mostly because I am losing big time at keeping a good travel journal and also because I have blog OCD.

Thursday: On Thursday I had class [have class] from about 9 AM to 4 PM. The official Butler Brady Family Bus was leaving at 1. This was especially frustrating (but not surprising, I’ve come to expect this level of champness from them) since they had made it a point during orientation to say, “now kiddies, remember, school is your first priority here!” Which is cute since they made us all miss several classes by planning such a dumb departure time. Anyways. I had decided at around 12 that I wasn’t going. I needed to go all my seminars because they are pretty much all grade=attendance based and I still felt sick. At 4 I went to the Doc and as you know, he told me that although he’d be glad to scrape my tonsils out, I was in fact fine and could even throw back a few beers on my anti-b’s (I blame him for the events you’ll encounter in Saturday…). There was also a free Norther Ireland Weekend, Belfast 08′ shirt at stake, so I kind of had to go. So I jumped on my own damn bus with Catherine & Caitlin (who also had classes they couldn’t miss) and got to Belfast at 10 p.m. where I settled into yet another high quality suite at le Jury’s Inn with Erin to watch quality Irish television. Our favorite program was a semi-pornographic teen drama called Skins where a crazy chick poisons her friend and nocks over her crippled mother to star in the school play( a musical about Sept. 11… called Osama!) so she can kiss and therefore win the love of her gay man crush obsession. Great stuff. Comfy beds. Ect.

Friday: We awoke at the disgusting hour of 7:30 and filled out plates with the Jury’s Inn breakfast buffet’s offerings- streaky, thick bacon, rubbery sunny side-up eggs, roasted tomatoes, something involving potatoes, mystery fruit bowls and all the cereal you could devour. We then departed in buses at 8 A.M. Sadly we were paired in the bus with some of the most obnoxious kids of all time from the Galway program (Serena not included!). See: Loud. Half of them were also high, they lit up in front of a Cathedral on our first bathroom break. So we traveled Antrium to the Northern Coast. Our first stop was the walled city of Londonderry (not just Derry, mk? that’s wrong). Now I assume Londonderry is really neat. But the wind was bitchilly blowing the icy rain into our faces as we walked the wall while this tiny fair-haired portly tour guide woman screamed lost points of interest into the cold air current. I literally heard nothing she said even when I made it a point to stand awkwardly close to her, holding my obligatory sick girl snot rag with my scarf wrapped stupidly over my head to keep my ears from freezing off. We got back on the bus grumpy and damp and headed farther up the coast to see Dunluce Castle. Famed for its position overlooking the roaring Atlantic, Dunluce castle was eroded by the sea during it’s prime and the entire kitchen, pots, pans and cook all fell in. The wind was so strong and the edge had apparently claimed the life of a tourist so recently that they didn’t let us go into the castle, but they did let us step out for about five minutes to take pictures. I could only hold my camera straight for about three, so I apologize my lame pics.

Up next was Giant’s Causeway where I learned what a complete and utter princess I am. My roommates and I made the 20 minute trek down the hill to see the famously formed stones and cut cliffs. And it was indeed beautiful, but because the rain and wind decided it was beat down time, we didn’t last long before we were all shrieking, huddled up against one of the scenic stone walls reenacting a scene from the Perfect Storm. After we all recovered they took us for a luxurious lunch at the Radisson Inn in the little village of Portrush. There I was just about to eat some oddly green chicken and a daunting pile of mashed potatoes when the woman serving said delectibles was seen, by me, popping out the first row of her teeth in determined concentration as she reached for another hot tray of odd looking mass prepared food. I spent the rest of my lunch stabbing my fork into my potatoes and troughing for stray teeth. So I was starving when we finally reached Jury’s Inn again and picked up some amazing pizza from a random Italian take-out place. I bought some ginger ale and magazines at the corner store and PJ’d up while my girlies boozed. I sent them out to party in Belfast and enjoyed a night in with my sicky self.

Saturday: Erin and I are bums. On Saturday we got up for brunch at 11:30 ate some of the plastic eggs and went back to sleep until about 2. Now in our defense, she was hung-over and I was heavily medicated, but it was still pretty lame. After deciding niether of us had any interest in seeing any more cathedrals or castles we finally got out of our hotel beds, took magnificent hotel showers, had some hotel tea and set out onto the streets of Belfast. We first went to St. George’s Market. There they sold fish with eyes in on ice, fresh fruit and veggies, cakes, crepes, baloon animals and a whole assortment of goodies. We split a peice of heavenly chocolate cake and took up our map. Naturally we then selected Aunt Sandra’s a world famous candy shoppe and factory as our next destination. 40 minutes walk into some scary neighborhoods later we made it and took the tour of a small two room shop and kitchen with a squirmy bunch of 8 year olds and their parents. We watched them pour big vats of bright yellow sugary goo out onto a silver table and were going to continue on to see the honey comb made but just after we’d put on our regulation blue shower cap status factory caps we realized we had a black cab tour scheduled to start in 14 minutes, 40 minutes away. So despite being laden with sweets and the fact that I could not breathe, we turbo power walked and got there one minute till. Due to some reservation glitch, they then arrived thirty miniutes later, which actually worked out because by then I had stopped wheezing and could listen.

The Black Cab tour takes you through the Catholic and Protestant neighborhouds where much of the violence during the troubles was concentrated. It’s also where the murals depicting the conflict or parts of Irish history can be found. (pics to the right to the right) Our driver was a young, cute but awkward college student who refused to admit whether he was Catholic or Protestant. Often he would tell us some small fact then pause, as if awaiting a response, then sort of rushedly continue. The tour made me realize how prevalent the conflict still is; murders in that area are still first and foremost considered with the possibility that it may have been due to the religious divide, a giant peace wall still cuts across the two groups’ homes and some of the murals depicted very recent dates and deaths. It was kind of scary. They closed the gates in one direction which our cabby nonchalantly said they often do when they expect trouble and we all sort of forcedly smiled and looked skittishly around when he insisted in taking our picture next to the peace wall. He dropped us off at the restaurant  where the Butler dinner was and left. There we ate delicious Italian food and planned our night.   

At this point, high on pasta, I decided it would be a great idea to go out. So I took my last antiB of the day (I had to do 4 a day). On the way back to my hotel room I found a lovely surprise waiting outside my door, one miss Serena Larkin. She came in and we chatted for a while on my bed. It was so nice to see and talk to a fellow Scrippsie and it made me realize just how much I miss it. Later, acting on the influence of too much wine and anti-b’s, I went out with Catherine and Caitlin to a very classy over-40’s crowd pub before getting a wee bit woozy and marching back out onto the street. There, by some great stroke of fate, I found Serena and walked back with her to our hotel while my roomies continued onto a club (where they broke it down to TWO songs from the dirty dancing soundtrack, which would happen when I’m too drunk to function) Serena went upstairs to sleep because she didn’t feel great and I was too drunk for sleeping or elevators to I spent the rest of the evening chatting up kids from my program and some very burly, but friendly, chicks from an Irish rugby team. I also asked the bar tender a number of delightful questions, including, but not limited to if he could make me a Shirley Temple, noooot virgin.

Sunday: I woke up in my hotel bed, took in my last Jury’s breakfast and claimed my shirt. I then jumped back on le bus, my bag two boxes of hotel kleenex heavier and returned to UCD. It was really nice to get back…

I love Irish Rugby and do you know why?

Because they’re nothing but a bunch of butch ballerinas.   That’s all I’m saying.  

 

letter to my shower

Dear Merville Apartment 3 Shower,  

 You suck and let me tell you why. First of all your name, “Supa Jet.” Really shower? You think that’s accurate? That’s what it says on your temperature adjustment wheel but I’m pretty sure Peter O’Toole gets a better stream going when he pisses. To this day.

And why a wheel? That seems a little ambitious Shower,  that seems a little like you think you’ve got some sort of spectrum of degrees going Shower. What you should have Shower is a switch. Just a switch, blue on the bottom for ice pelt and red on top for lobster fry. Because that’s what you do Shower. I get in and it’s on lobster fry and it’s ok, I scald myself into a happy blazed oblivion and once I’ve shampooed and my conditioner is conditioning, while I shave, then do you know what you do Shower? You do. You switch to ice pelt so every fibre of my being shivers. It’s sort of like a micro electric shock induced workout. Are you saying I’m getting fat Shower? Is that why you make me go into muscle spasms?

It was especially neat when you did it when I was sick Shower, there’s nothing better than being covered in ice water and soap when you have a cold. I guess you could be an outside shower, Shower, that would be worse. I mean I get that you’re in a shitty student residence. I get that power and hot water are limited since the Irish have actually started putting environmental programs into practice instead of just making documentaries and t-shirts at urban outfitters about it. I get that Shower. But please. I’d like to shave both legs for once, I’d like to get all the shampoo out of my hair before I get out. I’d like to be clean.

You’re turning me into a dirty european Shower, the kind no one wants to stand next to on the bus, and I thought you should know. 

Sincerely, 

angry wet redhead