more dublin sight seeing and finding home in the smell of b.o. and incense

Christ Church Cathedral

Christ Church Cathedral

Dublin Castle

natasha and I in courtyard of Dublin Castle

So i'm still here, enjoying Dublin life. Haven't really been doing much but this weekend i spent every day in the city exploring some more. There is this really great farmers market type thing around temple bar (the touristy pub central in the city centre) that is open every saturday and i have been the past two weekends. It's pretty small but i could spend all day doing laps around looking at all of the fresh, homemade foods and bathing in the scent of fresh produce (which i have come to find is a rare commodity in Dublin at least). My friend Natasha and i got the most amazing vegetable curry and rice (I got half curry and half some tomato based tofu thing). Afterwards we went to the Christ Church Cathedral and took the tour of both the chapel and the crypt underneath. It is the oldest church in Dublin and is really beautiful (needless to say though considering it's a European cathedral which, in my limited experience, are all gorgeous). Our tour passes were supposed to include a tour of the connected Viking/ Medieval Dublin life museum called, Dublinia but when we walked over they had closed 15 minutes before we got there. We were upset that the woman at the counter hadn't given us a heads up that it would be closing shortly when we bought the tickets so we decided that we would go back the next day and see if we could get in to Dublinia with our old ticket (prepared to put up a fight--the next day we were reminded of the laid back nature of Irish culture when the woman at dublinia hardly even looked for an explanation and let us right in). After that we went to the Dublin Castle. It doesn't really seem as cool as some other castles and we weren't in any great rush to pay for a tour of the inside so we just took pictures from the garden and stuff. Near the garden is the Chester Beatty library which is a building displaying some amazing art all donated by a man called Chester Beatty. There were ancient scripts and artwork from all over the world (especially the middle east and asia) and it was really neat to take the time to look at it all.

Still pretty full from our amazing lunch we stopped by a small pub called Peader Kearney's and had a pint. ((side note: i got a pint of Bulmer's hard cider which is really popular here. I think it's kind of funny that it's really common to see a burly man drinking a pint of cider and nobody even glances twice. I feel like at home if some lumber jack looking man ordered a hard cider--at least i--would think he was a little lame. not in Ireland. guess alcohol is alcohol here.)) The bartender told us that later that night they were having reggae night downstairs which we were pumped about. He also told us about an italian restaurant down the street and we decided to check it out. AMAZING. The pizza was soooo good and everyone working there was italian which said something. We shared an appetizer of Parmesan asparagus, a bottle of wine, a 4 formagie pizza and then while Natasha was supposed to be in the bathroom she told the guys it was my birthday so later they brought over terimasu with a candle in it. Although apparently De Pino's is no TGIF or Red Robins cos we still had to pay for the desert even though i was the birthday girl. It was a really great meal and we kept commenting on how it made us fee like real people and not lousy college students.

Reggae night was a lot of fun. As one would expect--we discovered Dublin's hippies. The bar had incense burning and the people smelled of body odor and patchouli. mmmm...home. Any one of them could be taken out and placed in Eugene and felt right at home which i really appreciated. We closed that place down a little after 2:30 all swayed out and decided we would hit this place up again.

I was talking to my friend melinda last night (she just moved to London) and trying to find a time to meet up in Scotland. I realized that from here on out my time is going to fly by. Looking at my planner I realized that i only have about 4 free weekends before heading home which is really strange. The weekend of Halloween i'm going to northern Ireland with my group. I'm currently looking for a trip to book for the weekend of november 6-10 because that week is "reading week" (a week of no classes to catch up on non existent reading--the Irish really know how to do school here). A bunch of my friends are going to Florence and Rome but their flying back on the 11th which is when mom gets here so that isn't going to work for me (and there aren't really flights coming back on the 10th). I found a cheap flight to Brussels and also to this place called Alghero (google it!!) and i'm hoping to be able to go to alghero cos it looks incredible. November 11-that monday mom is here. That following weekend i'm going to Paris with my friend Natasha (30 euro round trip!) and then december 5-9 (i think) i'm going to barcelona with a group of people. I'm so excited for it all! Ryanair has super cheap flights all over europe and is such a great way to travel. I think it's amazing that such a thing exists and really aids Europeans in being so well traveled which Americans could use. I heard a rumor though that with the heightening gas prices and stuff Ryanair is in danger of going out of business. It would be a really big deal and a shame for sure.

I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately which i'm not sure why. I almost am wondering if it could be some aspect of culture shock or something. Every night i lie in bed wide awake until like 2:30 and then throughout the night i am woken up by the slightest noise (drunken kids singing a lot of the time or fire crackers one night). As most of you know, i usually have no problem sleeping so it's really weird. During the day i can nap for hours which is good and bad. good cos then i get some well needed sleep but bad because i miss out on the day and it probably makes it harder to sleep at night. oh well. i can sleep when i'm dead right?

next entry i will try and take some pictures of my apartment/dorm and stuff and let you know more about my living situation as i realize i have not done so.

Hope everyone is soaking up Oregon's fall for me!