for the majority of my spring break, i went up to the channel islands to visit my friend heather, a lovely girl i know from school back in seattle. so, on friday march 14th (pi day!) i flew up to liverpool, england. we had one of those fun airport reunions and then mostly just got settled, did a little shopping (my new favourite store is primark, oh my gosh..) and had some dinner. we did a short walking tour of liverpool and saw the university, the anglican cathedral from the outside, and the catholic cathedral from the inside. it's very modern and absolutely BEAUTIFUL! i'm glad we decided to go in.
the next day we popped down to the warf to go to the beatle's museum. just as we arrived and i was about to open the door to the museum, the fire alarm went off and they evacuated the whole building. everyone received free reentry passes, and when one woman asked us if we had received any yet, isemi-truthfully replied no, we had not - we hadn't, but we also hadn't paid to go in yet... but, she gave us passes and we waited while the firemen did their work and then we entered and got those little audio things you get at monuments and thereby saved at least ten pounds - which right now is twenty bucks. it was a neat little museum, and we made sure to buy some souveniers to give them SOME business. at any rate, the real highlight of this day was going to the liverpool-reading game. heather is a crazy big liverpool futbol fan, and i've found that i actually enjoy watching soccer. oh yeah, and liverpool won 2-1, and i already have a favourite player: 12, favio aurelio. it was a super fun afternoon, and we had a very nice dinner of indian food before we caught a bus to wales. from there we took the plushest ferry i've ever been on to dublin. it was too bad we were so exhausted, travelling through the night and all, because it was like a hotel on a boat - shopping, restaurants, rooms even. very cool.
anyhow, upon arrival in dublin (march 16 now), we SLEPT. we woke up and went to a little scone shop/cafe before continuing on to the guinness factory. on the way, heather gave me a ton of history and we stopped at trinity college, dublin castle, and cristchurch cathedral. i wish i could go back and see more... anyhow, once at the factory, we ended up waiting in line next to 4 other americans who were studying in england. one of them goes to georgetown u and has a cousin who lives in a small city near granada and does the voice over acting for the harry potter movies when they're dubbed into spanish. crazy... anyway, the factory was crazy because there were tons of bands and mimes and free food and other entertainment as preparation for paddy's day. it was lots of fun, and i learned to pull my own pint! we accidentally met up with one of heather's roommates and her friends who were visiting and we all went on a literary pub crawl. that mean that we visited 4 of the older and more historical pubs of the city which had been important to irish authors in their days, guided by two actors who told us about irish literature and who sometimes performed scenes for us. it was actually really neat! i was glad we decided to do that.
and of course, monday was st. patrick's day, regardless of the fact that the pope moved it so it wouldn't conflict with holy week. we started the day at the parade, and then grabbed some lunch before we began our tour of the bars, somewhere around 1pm. i met tons of heather's friends, and their friends, and just all kinds of people and it was so much fun! i will tell you this, dublin is extremely expensive. part of it is the exchange rate, but part of it is just dublin. yikes. good thing i was only up there for a couple days... anyhow, we ended the night with some delicious garlic cheese fries from some fast food restaurant - not healthy, probably not especially amazing, but it was just fun to get fast food again - and then took a taxi home. our driver was very nice, as per usual with cabbies from the channel islands. a fun guy.
the next day, heather and i went to kilmainham gaol (gaelic for jail) and took the tour. i got a bunch more history because that jail has held a lot of political prisoners over the years of the irish's fight for independence. we took it easy that night and made some jumbalaiah rice, watched an obama speech on race, and kicked back with some sex in the city, just like old times! it was such a great extended weekend with my girl and i was really sorry to go, but i wanted to get back to see some of spain during holy week.
as it turns out, i didn't really like spain during holy week. there are processions all day and all night throughout the whole city, but i didn't really understand them. i know they are very moving to the catholics here, and they're all about penitence, but i just found them annoying because it was hard to get anywhere. they have a lot of people wearing outfits that in the states are ONLY worn by the KKK, so i have yet to figure out what they mean exactly here. i tried to go to the beach with nora and her sister and her sister's friend who were visiting, but when we got there it started to storm and we were in beach clothes, so it was not very happy. oh well. the rest of the weekend has been rather quiet. i watched hairspray and now i want to do musicals again - surprise, surprise. my parents come to visit on thursday which will be neat. i hope i can find enough interesting things for them to do... i also hope i can find their hotel. on the map, it's somewhere amidst the tangle of streets in the albayzin, which i am constantly getting lost in.
anyhow, as per usual, tons of good times in europe. after visiting ireland, which is a lot more like american culture than mainland european culture, i really miss home and i'm looking forward to going back. but, when i was there, i really missed speaking spanish and found that my automatic responses came in spanish before english, so that made me really glad because it means i'm making progress here. oh well! i guess there's no making me happy! or everything makes me happy. maybe that's it. let's hope!
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