Rock DJ

I haven't posted a new blog in far too long; this week has been so busy that I've barely had a moment of rest or time to myself!  After my sentimental July 4th posting I figured I'd give everyone an update of how my night went.  I may not have seen fireworks but I had a great time with my friends at Dicey's eating 2.50 Euro hamburgers and "chips" with curry (a recipe I want to bring back to the States along with those Baby G's).  At first, I wasn't so sure how the night would turn out, because after convincing my friends to attend that "free" barbecue I had researched, the event turned out to be a hoax and the meal was actually 10 Euros!  False advertising!  I felt bad for stringing my friends along for the disappointing ride but Dicey's turned out to be a great alternative with cheap food, fun people, and a good time.  However, the burgers aren't 2.50 Euros until 9 o'clock, so I was counting down the minutes until the clock turned to 9 and getting really antsy as the time was passing.  I was obviously the first in line at 8:59 p.m.!

That was my Dublin Fourth of July in a nutshell.  Dicey's, burgers, & dancing.  The next night our group of friends decided to go to trivia night at the Woolshed Pub since some of the Irish lads we hang out with recommended it to us.  We were quizzed for four rounds on cartoon characters, artists of songs, names of celebrities, and random trivia.  We named our team "The Locals and the Lassies" (the PG name, I can't say the real one), because our team members included three Irish locals and four non-local lassies.  We ended up with a perfect score after the first round of cartoons but then we missed a few questions during subsequent rounds and ended up in the middle of the ranks.  The winning team receives 180 Euros so there was definitely an incentive to perform well but some of the questions were really tough and we were stumped.  I actually left the pub with a headache because I wracked my brain so much!  There's always next week though; we might make Tuesday Trivia night a tradition, it just makes sense with the alliteration doesn't it?

Wednesday was the one night this week that I stayed in.  However, even though I didn't go out, I still met up with a big group at an apartment in Shanowen and had a movie night watching "28 Days Later."  We didn't actually watch the movie though; we talked and laughed instead.  Thursday night we went to The Ivy House where drinks were only 3.50 Euros (which is cheap for that pub since it's normally very expensive).  There were a lot of people there from the EUSA program along with some of our Irish friends, so the night was memorable from the get-go.

I forgot to talk about work.  There's not much to add- I did a few parent interviews this week, wrote up some references for Cathy's research project, researched CDI training programs from their newsletters, and ate sushi (my favorite days are when we order in).  I'm getting closer and closer with the people I work with and I always look forward to hearing their stories and filling them in on my weekend plans.  This weekend, my Aunt Randy is coming to Dublin to vist me (so excited), and we're both going out with my co-workers for drinks and tapas on Friday night. I can't wait to introduce them to my aunt because anyone who knows her is aware of how special and amazing she is.  It'll be nice to have her here with me, and I'm looking forward to seeing her, showing her around Dublin, and possibly doing some traveling with her on the weekend.  I also can't wait for my parents to come in about two weeks!  I don't know what all of our plans entail yet, but as of now we're staying in a castle for a few nights that Aunt Jamie recommended to us (thank you)! It looks beautiful; there are hikes and horseback riding and scenic views... It should be incredible.

Now onto the weekend.  Friday night after work I got ready to go out to Coppers, a club in city center.  We stopped by "The Irish Frat House" before the club, which is what we call the house of some of the Irish locals we're friends with.  Even though they're not in an actual fraternity, we use that name because the lads that live in the house love to have a good time.  They're always up for a party- a typical "frat boy" mentality.  The name is really fitting and everyone at Shanowen refers to their house using that term.  It's caught on quickly.  Coppers was really fun- tons of dancing and great music (hence my title).  My favorite song was Robbie William's "Rock DJ," and I think it's a good title to my blog because the theme of this week was living it up in Dublin, staying out late, and having a good time (although that seems to be the theme of every week here).  The chorus goes: "I don't wanna rock, DJ, But you're making me feel so nice, When's it gonna stop, DJ, Cause you're keeping me up all night."  We stayed at the club until closing time, around 3:30, and then took a cab home.  We always search for the cabs that hold seven people, which are typically mini-vans.  So we find a cab that will fit our group and head inside, and the cab ride was as ordinary as all the others we've had. Not!  We're all talking about our memorable night and laughing when all of a sudden the cab driver starts blasting Soca music and dancing to the tunes!  We start following along and dancing the rest of the cab ride away until we hit our destination at Shanowen.  Nobody wanted that cab ride to end.  We couldn't believe how fun our driver was- the party in the cab might have been more exciting than the actual club itself.

After I got home Friday I crashed right away to prepare for our events the next day.  I managed to get a few hours of sleep before meeting at the Spar at 10:30 in the morning to travel to the Wicklow Mountains.  We took an 11:30 bus to Wicklow and arrived around an hour later.  We decided to hike the mountains independently without going through a tour company because the tours were mostly on bus and we wanted to see the sites on feet.  Even though we enjoyed our bus tour in Galway/The Cliffs, we wanted to have the freedom to venture to the places we chose without being confined to the schedule of the tour.  Amy researched everything for us and selected some of the locations she wanted us to see.  What would we do without her?!  We hiked up the mountain following the blue path, saw some amazing sites, took some incredible pictures.  The views were breathtaking everywhere I looked and the weather was perfect, sunny and not a drop of rain in the sky.  The hike was really difficult during certain up-hill points and I lost my breath several times, but once we got to the top I felt so accomplished and proud that we all stuck with it.  We climbed down the mountain and decided to stop by The Reefert Church and a surrounding graveyard with rough stone crosses and slabs.  It was kind of an eerie site but a lot of the graves were really stunning.  I felt like I was in a scary movie; thank goodness it stays light out here until late at night because it would have been a lot scarier in the dark.  After taking pictures in the grave we stopped by the "sensory garden" to relax and catch our breath before taking our 5:30 bus back to Dublin.  We hiked for about 5 hours that day and I was so exhausted by the end I could barely move.  I was grateful that we had a 1 hour bus ride to look forward to since I could use that time to sleep.

After the bus ride we arrived in city center and decided to treat ourselves to a nice meal at... "Eddie Rockets."  Eddie Rockets is pretty much the same as "Johnny Rockets" in the States, and a burger and fries sounded perfect after physically exerting ourselves the entire day.  After dinner we all planned on going back to our apartment, showering, and resting.  Even though it was Saturday night we all agreed that it would be best to take a day off from going out and catch up on sleep.  Great plan, eh? Yeah right, with our group of friends I knew that we wouldn't stick with that plan.  We ended up showering and catching one of the last buses to the city center to meet up with one of our favorite Irish lads.  However, we put too much trust in him because he ended up taking us to the sketchiest pub I've ever seen.  There were gross people with tattoos and piercings everywhere I turned.  The pub was really crowded and hot and there was nowhere to move.  The people were not what we expected and we were completely overdressed for the scene.  I drank a pint and pretty much ran out of there once I had my last sip along with the rest of our group.  We gave our friend a hard time for taking us to this horrible pub.  It was called "Fibbers," which is fitting because he "fibbed" to us and told us that we would have fun there.  No way.  At least I have a story to tell now.  After "Fibbers" we went to McDonald's to have some McFlurries and try and pretend that "Fibbers" never happened.  I don't think I'll ever erase that place from my memory though.  Thanks Sham-wow!

After "Fibbers" I went home and crashed immediately again.  This time we got back at 2:30, pretty early when you compare it to our previous night.  We woke up at around 10:30 to meet at the Spar and head to Howth during the morning.  I posted about Howth a few Sunday's ago when we initially explored the area, and we enjoyed it so much that we decided to go back and take advantage of some of the hiking that we weren't able to do before.  We got to Howth around lunchtime and went to the market to get some food.  Nina and I bought some fresh spicy red sauce and pasta to make for dinner.  I just ate it and it was delicious.  The market was the same as last week but we can't seem to get enough of it because the food is incredible.  They sell cupcakes, fudge, bread, sauces, vegetables, fruit, jam, you name it.  I've never tried anything I haven't liked there before; the free samples are hard to resist.  We ate our lunch and decided to embark on a hike up the cliffs in Howth.  On the way to the trail we ran into a fellow Canadian and I made my friend GT take a picture with him since she loves to bond with her Canadians (where she's from).  I'm known by my friends here for approaching strangers and striking up conversations with them.  After our awkward encounter (I think the fellow Canadian was scared of me), we got to the trail and the hike lasted a few hours; most of us were dying by the end considering we had just hiked for several hours the night before AND gone out right after.  But the views were amazing and we stuck through it, enjoying the scenery but never failing to complain intermittently about the pain we were feeling in our legs and feet.  Then we caught the bus home, stopped at Tesco to get some groceries, and headed to our apartments.

That just about sums up my Monday-Sunday.  Hopefully anyone reading this can get a sense of just how busy I was now this past week.  It was great craic (which means great fun here), but also very tiring.  However, I only have a few more weeks here in Dublin, so I have to enjoy it as much as I can and fill in my time with as much sightseeing as possible.  I'm looking forward for what is to come.  Sleep is for the weak! :)