Cork, etc

So since some people (Taylor) have asked (repeatedly) to see the amazing fully sequined floral leggings, here is a picture:

Its not the best picture, but I didn't carry a camera that night and its the only one I have... for now. Just know they are much better in person.(Also, that's my friend Susan wearing tights as pants.)

Also, we went to Cork this past weekend! It was a fun, short visit where IFSA treated us to a SWANK hotel and I never wanted to get out of bed-slash-wanted to ship it home to sleep in every night.

One cool thing we did was climb to the top of this church in the center of town to ring these famous bells (we played "Three Blind Mice," although other options included "Final Countdown" and "Died in Your Arms Tonight") and see AWESOME views of the whole town. The only thing that wasn't great about it was the climb involved MORE creepy, super steep, narrow-as-hell, claustrophobic stone stairs. I had flashbacks to Blarney and didn't like it. But the view was worth it:


Also, we had to wear these awesome noise-blocking headphones because the bells were so loud when you were right next to them. Styyyylish:


It was also the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival, which is the real reason we went there. Lots of music and fun:


Fun fact: Guinness is basically the sponsor of life here in Ireland. Jazz festivals, rugby championships, pub crawls, even hospitals. Guinness is everywhere. Oh, and I can drink it now!! After some practice, I have acclimated to the taste and even (gasp!) kind of like it.

top ten again

Top Ten Best Things about Ireland (halfway through version):

10. the sequins, ha!
9. the sheepies
8. the castles! (and architecture in general)
7. the beautiful countryside and greeeennnnnnn
6. the food (when I can actually afford to eat it)
5. the boozes
4. the irish pub music
3. the literary history
2. the O’Rourkes
1. the time to think and explore / the independence of being away from everything

and as a bonus, the Top Worst Thing:

1. pretty much everything about the euro/dollar exchange rate (except the euro is WAY prettier than American moneyz. Just saying.)

what are the odds?

I was on the same bus three separate times today. Once on the way to meet Grace and Kendra for dinner. Once on the way home from dinner - over an hour later. It was the same bus. I am sure. Then Grace and I went back out and the bus we caught home? It was the SAME BUS - almost 6 hours from the first time I was on it. Same bus, same 4 discarded tickets, same opened Fanta bottle spilling all over the floor. THE SAME EXACT BUS, THREE TIMES.

Creeeepyyyyy.

senioritis

I'm getting pretty bad at keeping up this whole blog thing. I always do this with journals too - I start one every couple of years and write in it for some length of time, sometimes a month, sometimes 5 months, but inevitably I ALWAYS stop. The entries get fewer and further between and then eventually stop. I actually brought a journal to Dublin too... and I've written in it all of six times. I don't like that trait about me. Almost all my life I've wanted to be a writer, so why do I forget to write??

Anyway, I haven't had much to blog about lately. I've hit that point in the semester where things are starting to be due and I just DON'T want to do them. In fact, I'd rather do almost anything BUT my homework.

Senioritis: I have it.

But I did win a t-shirt in a literary pub crawl quiz last week! Whoo!

AND I finally bought the fully sequined floral leggings!!!! and wore them out to the clubs last night!!!!
(Yes, they were a big hit.)

musings

I can't believe I have been in this country 51 days and at UCD 37. So much time has passed already, it kind of makes the neurotic side of me go "Whoa!! What have I been doing? I need to get out, do things, experience, etc, etc while there's still time!" But the other side of me is content to just sort of be. Be here, and let that mean whatever it means in the end. Maybe I leave this country not having seen EVERYTHING there is to see. Although part of me screams about the money that it took to get here, and is taking every day to stay here, and that I need to see every freaking thing to make it worthwhile, that other part of me is happy in a way that I'm not.

Before I got here, I thought my study abroad adventure would involve making the best friends of my life, going here there and everywhere as much as possible, and generally just doing things constantly. However, the actual experience is much more... sedate (is that the right word? I'm not sure). And while I have made awesome friends and had some awesome times (which I'm sure will continue to be awesome), I think the most important thing this trip has given me is the chance to get to know myself.

At Millsaps, everyone knows everyone and people are in many ways defined by what they do. Hi, I'm Kathleen and I work for the P&W, I'm an LXA sweetheart and a KD, I do Wellspring and CMT and am in such-and-such honoraries. There, now you know who I am. But not really. I think I got so caught up in the things I was going to do as a senior - the things that would define me and make me worthy. But being here, on a campus where I can go an entire day and not see a single person I know, has let me lose all those things that formed my identity in Jackson and re-learn the things that I truly want to define me.

Hi, I'm Kathleen, and I like to read. Particularly modern-era poetry/fiction and fantasy and mystery stories, but really I'll take a shot at almost anything. I'm a bad cook who wishes to be a good one. I appreciate architecture despite knowing nothing about it. I like to look out the window while in cars, buses, trains. I am a scaredy-cat. I really like that I am Irish and that the O'Rourkes have such a strong family bond. I like to make things with my hands (like books) and draw silly doodles, but I don't consider myself an artist. I love a boy named Brian. I have a great family who is always there for me. I also have a great KD family who never fails to make me laugh. I am a huge nerd who likes things like dino hats and Harry Potter jokes. I think like my dad but feel like my mom. I want to be a better writer than I am. I want to be a deeper person than I am.

Nice to meet me.

I forgot...

to blog about this ridiculous/awesome/intense-as-hell debate Kendra and I went to about about the Lisbon Treaty (all the talk here until Oct. 2, when they will vote on it).

But Kendra blogged about it! So just read hers.


http://kendraanne.blogspot.com/2009/09/on-that-point-madam.html

(I used to know how to make that all cool where you just clicked on her name instead of the URL, but I can't remember now. So there you go.)

Who needs Oktoberfest...

when you have O'ROURKETOBERFEST!??!?!

So when my parents were here and we were traveling about we stayed with the O'Rourke/Tierney clan, whose daughter was engaged. Somehow the bride-to-be's visit ended in a "you should come to the wedding!" and me with a "YES." Well, this wedding just happened to be this past weekend and against all odds, I managed to make it!

I caught a ride to Wexford with some other Dublin O'Rourkes, including my third cousin Claire who is a fresher here at UCD. "Uncle" Eamon (who is really my second cousin once removed or some crazy thing like that) found someone who had an extra bed in the hotel for me to stay in... The only problem? All I had was her first name, no surname, phone number, room info or anything. Luckily (and somewhat sketchily), the hotel receptionist gave me the key anyway.

The wedding commenced at 3:30, but as it was a FULL CATHOLIC MASS it was not over until 5:30. However, it was beautiful and sweet and awesomely wedding-y, so it didn't seem two hours long at all. There were a few bumps in the road - for example, the symbolic candle the bride and groom lit went out immediately (whoops), but luckily they occurred in a funny/charming way, not a this-marriage-is-doomed way.

Look! Here's the blushing bride:


After the wedding was over there were family pictures, and since the only people I actually knew at this shindig WERE family members, I took this time as the perfect opportunity to photographically document the NUMEROUS SASS/EDGY HAIRPIECES.

Can I just take a moment to discuss this? Irish weddings are apparently the MECCA of sass hair accessories. Flowers, feathers, art deco thingys, even netted hat dohickeys... all present. In fact, the mother of the bride, mother of the groom AND maid of honor all had some form of sass-in-the-hair going on. At one point I counted 27 heads of hair that were bedecked in some way. (Hey, I said this was a full Catholic mass! And what with all the up-and-down, saying peace, getting communion, etc., there was a lot of time to look around...)

Just a small sampling of the sassitude:


I personally channeled Blair Waldorf with an understated, minimally feathered, chic black headband, but in hindsight I really should have cranked the sass-o-meter WAY up.

But anyway, back to the reception. There was champagne and strawberries and then we all moved inside this castle-esque hall for the dinner. Or so I thought. Actually, first there were speeches. The best man acted as MC, and introduced the father of the bride (my favorite "uncle," Eamon - that man is hilarious).
Then the father of the groom gave a speech.
Then the best man gave a speech.
Then the groom gave a speech.
Then the bride gave a speech.
Then the priest gave a speech.

At this point everyone is starving and through at least one (but probably more) glass of wine, so I think the priest's speech was mostly ignored. But all the other ones were lovely and/or funny.

Finally! Dinner was delicious and then there was more wine and then there was the first dance and the father-daughter dance. And then there was an awesome band that played into the wee hours of the morning.

And can I just say that the O'Rourkes are party animals? When I finally gave up the ghost at 4 a.m. and crawled my happy ass to bed, the bride and groom were still up running around, the PARENTS of the bride were still up running around and all sorts of Irish tomfoolery continued long after I hit the hay.

Weddings rock!

P.s. Look I got the pictures to work! Yay! Check out more sass on facebook.

whoa

As of yesterday, the 19th, I have been in Ireland for exactly one month.

One month ago, my parents and I first went to O’Connell Street, to catch the hop-on, hop-off tour to officially start our Irish adventure. It was so foreign then, the buildings and streets and stores unfamiliar. To go there now is a completely different experience. I know the bus to take to get there, exactly where it will stop off, which side streets to take to get to the grocery stores and famers market, which places sell school supplies and which places sell cheap clothes. I know which direction to walk to get to Grafton Street, Temple Bar, Trinity College. I know the sights, the smells, the sounds.

Dublin and I are getting to know each other.

In other news: Two weeks of school in. One week behind. Many things to read this week!

Heat wave/Claddagh adventures

So apparently last week/weekend was the extent of Ireland’s summer. “Summer” here means that for one week, it doesn’t rain and the temperature is blissfully warm (i.e. 70 instead of 60). Summer proved to be the perfect time to go to Galway, on the west coast of this lovely island.

Galway offered me my first taste of hostel life, in the form of the Claddagh Hostel. (Note to my mother reading this: it was listed in a guidebook, and therefore clean/legit.) Now I was prepared for some facets of hostel life, like the ten strangers sleeping in one room, one miniscule shower for approximately 25 guests, etc. What I was NOT prepared for was the fact that the workers all cleared out at 11 p.m., which meant that when Kendra and I got back to ole’ Claddagh around 12/12:30 no one was around to unlock the cabinet in which we had stored our bags. Which meant that Kendra and I had no access to a) pajamas, b) face wash, c) phone chargers and d) life. Which meant that we had to sleep in our clothes (read: jeans). And it was pretty much terrible… But it was cheap, and I suppose that’s the point, right? (The next night, we made sure to get everything out of hock in time to snooze in style.)

Galway was awesome, with tours to the Cliffs of Moher (I looove those cliffs), the Ailwee Caves, Doolin and more. But one of my favorite parts of the trip was just sitting on the bus looking out the window as we drove through the countryside. It’s just so peaceful here. Pastoral. There’s just something about watching the animals, the sheep and cows and horses, grazing in pastures, peacefully. They aren’t just being forced and rushed through feedlots in order to fatten up the fastest before going to the slaughterhouse (sorry, Fast Food Nation tangent there). The animals are respected, the land is respected, the farmers and workers and salespeople and businesspeople are respected too. It’s not all about the bottom dollar – at least not everywhere. Americans have gotten so wrapped up in efficiency and economy that they are willing to settle for… well, shit, if it is less expensive and more accessible. It’s so funny because the McDonald’s here are SWANKY. They are super clean, super well equipped (think comfy high stools and nice sit-down tables), and the beef they use is Irish, naturally-grazing beef. And while I haven’t actually eaten at one yet, I have a feeling the food might just taste better too. The Irish just seem to demand better, while we settle for worse.

In other news: I’m sick. But it’s not (snot, ha) the swine.

In other other news: All the people that told us that the Irish aren’t as loud as Americans LIED. At least when it comes to the 20 screaming people directly below my window.

today it didn't rain

and I didn't have class!

and I bought many groceries!

and I "worked out" (i.e. ran a few times around the nearby track and then came home to make dinner)!

and now some friendys and I are making plans to travel to Galway, Paris and more!

... but seriously it didn't rain once today.