Another Visitor! And Paddy's Weekend Fun...

So I dropped Megan off at the bus stop on Sunday morning. On Monday morning, I found myself back at that same airport, picking up a friend of John and mine, Joanna. Spring break for Siena started their spring break on March 8th, and continued through the 16th, and one week before break she had been looking up flights and found roundtrip for $400 and booked them on the spot!

On the first night she was here, we went down and wandered Grafton Street again. This time we caught a band playing in the street that was absolutely incredible. We ended up staying for at least 4 of their songs, entranced. The band was called KeyWest, and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't make it big somewhere someday! I caught them a couple of times later in the week, and every time I would get drawn back in before I'd realize it was the same band again. A video that I took of a chorus of one of their songs they repeated can be seen by clicking this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_QWsK0Eb1s&feature=youtu.be. Eventually the band finished up for the night, so we headed to Saint Stephen's park at the end of Grafton Street while it was still sunny and beautiful out. I had only been there once with Sean, and that was only for a couple of minutes, and it seemed well worth revisiting. We hung out in the park for a while, watching a kid try and pull all the flowers out of the garden in front of us before his dad could notice, and promptly kill him. We were quite amused, and his dad was mortified. I had to head down to the GNIB Immigration office for an appointment to get approval for the semester, which was supposed to take only a couple of minutes, so we left from there.

GNIB- I would assume it has the reputation of the DMV, one of the most frustrating bureaucracies in operation! Our "quick" appointment left us waiting for over 4 hours. I laughed, because if it was this bad to enter Ireland, I can't even imagine what it must take to get into the US, full body probes? It was interesting to be on the other side of the fence though, being the immigrant hoping to get scanned in. I prefer being the local! Either way, I received by residency card, so at least I don't have to go through that torture again! At GNIB, we did however meet this "character" who gave us each a piece of paper (pictured) and a 15 minute speech on how God loves us, so I guess I've got that going for me! P.S. Those are not my hands, if you were wondering, no worries.

When Joanna heard about family dinner, she offered to take another one of my shifts, and make everyone food. Obviously again I was all for it! She made dinner on Wednesday night, baked ziti and garlic bread. Two of Julia's friends, Maddie and Ann, had just flown in from Paris. Luckily Joanna was friends with Ann from Siena, so she was excited that she would be there for dinner. Our family had now extended to 9 people, but we had a great time again. We had to pull the couch over from my living room to seat everyone, but the more the merrier in this case. The night ended with my Irish roommate taking a video of Connor playing guitar, who knows where that went...

On Thursday morning, I went to my 8am class again, and  afterward we left on a hike of the Dublin Mountains. Julia had class all day, so I agreed to take Joanna, Maddie and Ann. The planning was decent, and my phone was off, so it was a true adventure. We rode a bus for about 45 minutes, and when we reached the stop that we were supposed to get off at, we were on a highway again... I was getting sick of these highway bus stops. I turned the wrong way off the bus and led us to a roundabout intersection. It was clearly no scenic mountain like I'd pictured. After a few minutes of struggling, I found the right way and we headed up to Ticknock, and the Fairy Castle Loop. On the way, we saw a variety of wild animals, and I pet a horse. It then bit me, so that sucked, but whatever he wasn't a cool horse anyway. We walked through the most amazing scenery, so untamed and natural. It was so perfect, and so stereotypical. It was a warm day, but the fog hung low all morning. Luckily, it did burn off towards the end. Somehow, I lost all of my pictures off of my camera from today, so I am now relying on highjacked photos that Joanna took at this point. We hiked around the fairy castle and down through another park. At the fairy castle, we met a group of older Irish people who were so kind. They gave us directions to the easiest way back, as well as suggested some future hikes for us to take. I'm pretty excited about those!

 

On Thursday night, we went back to DCU and ate dinner and spent a long time with my Irish roommate Eoin and his friend, who I should definitely know the name of by now (James?). They had fun with my camera, and tried taking "selfies" with it. I'm not sure I've ever seen two kids laugh so hard taking pictures, and I'm still not sure why, but I laughed watching it. Around 10, he offered to take Joanna and I to go play ping pong with him, his friend had a special key that would get us in. It sounded great to me! Apparently at DCU you have to be a sports science major to be able to access the ping pong room, leading me to wonder, is that a class?? We put an iPod on the speaker system and people filtered in and out through the night. Joanna was introduced to the concept of slagging rather quickly, and like every other American, totally missed it. I was enjoying finally picking up on it! I met and was hanging out with a kid who was to be playing in the Gaelic Football match on Saint Patrick's Day, it was what everyone was talking about. That was cool when I think back on it. He ended up losing though, so it's slightly less cool. Oh well. 

My Roommate's Friend Lukie

My roommate Eoin (pronounced Owen)

We spent the entire day on Friday roaming around the city, stopping at street vendors and other attractions, some of which are illustrated by these pictures. We stopped at quite a few vendors looking for good Paddy's Day shirts and gear, and looking around for events that would be happening later. More or less, we were just enjoying the lively and active atmosphere of a city that was about to hit its prime.

On Friday night, John made goulash for Sean, Joanna, and I. I picked up cookie mix and brought that to dinner. After, we went back down to the city. The streets were insanely crowded in the Temple Bar area and we were loving it. People of all walks of life were stumbling around the streets, it was really a sight to be seen. It was incredible to me the how trashed the city was just by Friday night. I mean, don't get me wrong I like to have fun as much as the next guy, but we were in awe. It was almost impossible to walk through the streets without kicking cans as you tried to put one foot in front of the other. The live music, again, was incredible, everywhere you went. As we walked around, we laughed really hard at all the different people and how they were acting. We ended up staying for a long time at Farrington's in Temple Bar, there was an amazing singer and band covering so many of the songs that we knew. We stopped at the Quays Bar as well, but it was shoulder to shoulder standing room only.

Saturday- Joanna went with Julia, Ann, and Maddie to Howth, where I had been the weekend before.

I opted out, as I wanted to spend the first day of "Paddys" weekend in Dublin City. Sean, John, and I went down to the city to adventure. As we wandered around, we went to the craft food and beer festival, but seeing as how you had to pay for everything there, we decided that wasn't the place for me. Down by the river, there was a carnival going on with all sorts of temporary rides set up. We joked about being dismembered on a poorly pieced together Dublin carnival ride, although one of them looked rather tempting.We were halfway through watching the first performance, when Sean's ex-girlfriend spotted him, in Dublin of all places. So they went for a walk to talk, and we were to
be with all of her friends that were also in Dublin just for the weekend. As it turns out, she goes to Hamilton College, and one of her friends was Katie Steates, who was in my grade in high school and lived in my town! We wandered around the city, and went to Saint Patrick's Cathedral and the park. Admission to the cathedral was 7 euro, so nobody wanted to go in, which was cool with me as well. We spent a long time just hanging out and talking to them in Saint Patrick's Cathedral park, which was stunning. After a while, we moved over to Christ Church down the street. There was a huge festival outside of the park with a variety of vendors, anything from sausage to candy!

After hanging out there for a while, we went off to find a pub to watch the rugby game in, there was a huge match going on, which only added to the mass amount of people and energy in the city. We looked in a few places, but they were so packed that we gave up on the idea of sitting down, we would have to stand the entire game, which was fine too. The only thing I can say is, wow, those are some loyal people! The place erupted when Ireland won, and it was a tight game the entire time! I was shocked, because normally people cheer for a few seconds, and they're done. Nope, not here. It was at least 10 minutes of people going insane at the top of their lungs! The video that I captured was at least 5 minutes into the cheering, so you can only imagine what it was like at the beginning! Sorry for the darkness, I'm not sure how to fix that, but you get the point. 

After the game, we agreed we didn't want to spend any money, so we headed back to DCU to eat then come back out after. We headed out to O'Reilley's afterward with Sean and John, and Sean's ex-girlfriend who decided to stick around. We spent the night bouncing around from pub to pub, to finish at the infamous Temple Bar itself. Somehow, Katie and their crew found a bunch of seats so we went and joined them for the night. 

Sunday Morning- I woke up early, so I decided it would be my mission to go to mass at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. It was something I've wanted to do since I went to Notre Dame in Paris in high school, and it was going to happen. I arrived slightly early, and walked in. It was absolutely stunning. However, given that I was there for mass I did not find it appropriate to take pictures, so sorry! The mass was strange, however, because it was incredibly strict and old-fashion traditional. There were three priests, and all of them kept their backs to the congregation for the entire mass unless they were talking. There was a men and boys choir of around 40 people, whose voices filled the entire

cathedral with incredible power. It was a beautiful mass in an absolutely incredible cathedral, but it just wasn't for me. I left feeling slightly intimidated, so I can only imagine how someone might have felt at the origin of the cathedral! It was a good experience though.




After mass, I went to the store and bought a baguette, a hunk of Parisian brie cheese, and an Irish yogurt and sat in the park enjoying the combination. I was so European! It was so peaceful, and exactly what I needed! Side note: the yogurt over here is incredible. Yes, I did just say yogurt. I had no idea it could taste as different as it does. Danon needs a lesson from the Irish!



I tried to catch a bus back to DCU to meet up with Joanna who was likely still sleeping, but unfortunately got caught right in the middle of a protest that was going on here. We'd been learning about it in our core class, but here I was caught in the middle of it. They blocked off the streets and began a very slow march up O'Connell Street (the center main street). They were marching and protesting against austerity measures and new taxes, and further against political and economic greed. It sort of reminded me of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, as some people moving around seemed to have some unrelated signs. Frustrated, at least that gave me a good laugh! When I got back to school, Julia had organized a big Saint Patrick's Day brunch for all of us, her friend Ann made potatoes, we had eggs, and toast as well. It was awesome. Everyone got their faces painted for Saint Patrick's day, and we got ready and headed back down to the city. It was progressively getting busier and busier, but again there were events going on everywhere. We came back for a quick dinner and got ready to go out for the night. At first, we went to Doyle's Pub, we stayed for a while, but it was relatively quiet compared to the rest of the city. We figured if we were going to be in Dublin, we may as well do it right. We went to Temple Bar and headed to Fitzsimmons again, and it was packed! They had set up a club in the basement, and that's where we stayed for most of the night. We had a great time, everyone was to head back home in the morning, but nobody wanted to leave. We all knew better though, it was a mandatory early morning. We would not be missing Paddy's Day itself!