The schooling system at Trinity is quite hilarious. First, it's safe to say it's inefficient and old. I've already described what it takes to register for class. Now I only have class for a total of 8 hours per week, with a very, very minimal amount of homework to compliment each lecture. Thus I've been pushing myself to become creative with my time, to laugh more, to take long walks with company and without around this great city, and kick back and relax without the worry and bother of getting through coursework night after night with the incessant ghosts of demanding professors haunting my dreams.
That said, classes are all great and I'm definitely learning a lot about things I currently know absolutely nothing about (did you know that George Herbert wrote emblematic poetry? I didn't either).
After last weekend in Galway we all decided that we'd much rather find the cooler, more local pubs and hangout spots in the city rather than the more Americanized hip-hop clubs that we usually find ourselves attracted towards. Much pub crawling happened throughout the past week, and it was good.
Wednesday was Australia Day, the day when Australia finally gained independence from overseas superpowers. I went with Andrew and his friend Abby from high school to a pub/club where all the Dublin Australians were celebrating. The place was packed and full of drunk and crazy Australians. They had everything here from blow up kangaroos to wet t-shirt contests to line dancing.
But my favorite discovery this week was going to the Temple Bar district for the first time on Friday night. Luckily, this week was "Trad Fest," or the traditional music festival, so most pubs had live traditional music. This is a major section of Dublin right next to the Liffy River that is filled with clubs, pubs and restaurants. The nightlife is great, and caters to literally all ages. We had eaten dinner at a Fish n' Chips place (where else) that had been there since 1913 and it was great. However, they did charge 50 cents for little individual cups of ketchup. When the man asked me for my 50 cents, I stood at the counter counting up my change one coin at a time, until I reached about 38 cents and the guy told me it was enough. After that we went went pub crawling and our first real stop was at the actual Temple Bar pub. Not only is this place old (150 years old) and very large, but it was also packed and it was hard for us to move around. The place is covered with photos, bottle caps, ceiling streamers, statues, tables and booths, all cluttered in a matrix of interconnecting indoor and outdoor rooms. In the middle of a bar was a stage where two people were on guitar and singing. I was happy when they started to play my current favorite, "Galway Girl" and I knew enough of the lyrics to somewhat (shittily) sing along. You know you are becoming a resident of a place when you can sing along with all the other locals in their bars.
From Temple Bar we went to a cool place called Fitzsimon's where we spent the next four or so hours. More live music was going on their, and afterwards three performers got on stage and gave us a traditional Irish dance show. You haven't seen feet move so fast until you've seen Irish dancing. At various parts in the show they pulled up audience members to participate, and Brad being his goofy self was of course the first volunteer. He went head-to-head against an Asian guy who looked so confident he didn't even take off his coat. Brad destroyed him anyway in what seemed like his own version of You Got Served. Never underestimate the Irish Jew. Later that night Andrew went up on stage as well. If only I had my camera with me this part of the post would have been slightly more entertaining.
After this the lead dancer pointed out that these matchmakers from Claire County were there and if anyone was interested in being set up they should go talk to them. I was intrigued by these people so went up to introduce myself. The matchmaker is an older man, set in his ways, soft-spoken with a thoughtful demeanor. He showed me his matchmaker book, which is actually a 200 year old portfolio of profiles that had been passed down to him from the last matchmaker and so on. They said that the profiles at the bottom of the portfolio were of people who were most likely dead at this point. I was about to ask him why he didn't clean the portfolio out, but then thought better of it. You don't question a wise old man, ever.
Saturday was great. My dear friend Alan from back home met a 24-year old woman named Beata at a resort in Jamaica over winter break who happens to work for Google in Dublin (largest European headquarters). He gave me her contact info and on Saturday, after weeks of back and forth texting, we finally got together. We went out to lunch at a really good Asian restaurant called Yakamori and were there for quite a while. She explained what she does for Google, and how awesome it is to work for them. Google sounds like a dream job. After lunch we met up with Brad and hung out in her apartment for a while, where I was introduced to the exciting world of Couch Surfing. It is a really cool idea and if done right seems safe enough (and free!). I had a great time with her and we're planning on going to Couch Surfing game night on Wednesday to meet some CS randos. Should be interesting.
After hanging out with Beata, Brad and I bought train tickets to get back home because we're lazy. I bought the wrong ticket (the 3.10 instead of the 1.80). In order to not feel scammed out of my money I stayed on the train past our stop until the train reached the end of the line, and I got off there. I walked around for about an hour, but because it was nighttime there wasn't much to do. I wandered and found some nice parks and homes, then got back on the train and came home.
Yesterday I met up with four other people I'm going to Spain with over Reading Week and we made some plans. It's going to be an awesome trip. Then on a whim I booked a flight to Edinbrugh, Scotland for this Thursday (only 41 euros!) to hang out with my other dear friend Jenny. Traveling is awesome, especially with Ryanair (unless I get there Thursday and find out it's all one big scam). Anyway, these were the highlights of the week.
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