Ireland!!!

DAY 1: We arrived at the Dublin airport at around 10 am, after traveling back in time one hour. We got off the plane quickly and joined the queue to go through customs. Somehow, everyone in our line didn't have the right documents, or had to answer lots of questions. After jumping back and for between lines, we were the last three people to get past the customs who weren't being detained for further questions. It was really funny and/or frustrating. Either way, we were in Ireland, and it was sunny! We hopped on an airport shuttle to head for the city center. I feel like Ireland isn't very good at forgetting their English rule, because the double decker buses and driving on the wrong side of the road throws me off. When we took our seats on the upper level, a nice video started to play that gave previews of all the different Dublin bus tours. AND U2 played 'it's a beautiful day.' We were definitely in Ireland.









After checking into our hostel, which was surprisingly nice--I've had very good hostel luck, we ventured out into Dublin. Our first stop,



Trinity College


We sneakily joined a tour group led by attractive Irish tour guide #1. The tour was not free, so we essentially stole a tour. It included lots of interesting information about such a beautiful campus. There are lots of old buildings (duh), lawns that you aren't allowed to walk on (what a horrible idea), and lots of libraries. The college is an official copyright library, which means they get a free copy of every book and journal published in the UK and British Isles since sometime in the 1800's. They've got loads of books.











and the Book of Kells. The book of Kells is an Illuminated Manuscript from the 8th or 9th century. It is a Latin reproduction of the Four Gospels. They used ingredients for the inks from Afghanistan, the Mediterranean, and other far away places [especially considering it was the 8th century and Ireland was just a tiny island in the middle of no where].







They even had solar powered trash compactor trash cans:




wow! I obviously thought it was pretty cool, because I took a picture of it. I love digital cameras for just that reason. It doesn't matter if you take a ton of pictures of stupid stuff.













After Trinity, we wandered through Temple Bar, the arts, culture, and bar area (read: tourist-y trap-y) of Dublin. We had lunch at this weird restaurant where I ate shepherds pie. nom nom nom.

Then we ventured out in search of the Guinness Storehouse for a tour. We eventually found it, and learned all about the brewing process, history, advertising, and effects of Guinness. Then we went to the 7th story, where the gravity bar had a beautiful circular view of all of Dublin. The weather was magnificent, but it turns out that I don't really like Guinness that much. Oh well, it was fake free beer. I did learn about hops, and remarked many times, "bitch, did I ask you about hops!?!?"






<---that's some hops for you. We took the bus back to the area around Trinity to eat a little picnic dinner in St, Steven's Green.

St. Steven's Green is this really huge park in Dublin that Guinness himself donated, if I remember correctly. My first impression of the park was that Amsterdam's parks suck, as do their tulips. Although to be fair, I still haven't made it all the way out to Vondelpark, because I fail. Anyway, it was beautiful. We found a cute little spot next to happy white swans, as opposed to the dirty looking, loud, scary swans in the Amsterdam canals.








Sitting down, we spread out all of our deliciousness:
bread, cheese, meat, fruit, a Dublin map, Giulia's shoe, and some macaroons (not pictured, but important enough to mention anyway). Before we could even open any of it, this man came around ringing a huge bell, which apparently signaled the closing of the park. Boo. We ended up sitting on a bench overlooking the River Liffey and the Docks to eat our snackies.

After an exhausting day, with lots of walking, and slight hills, we returned to our hostel to enjoy the nightly 9:00 movie. I fell asleep near the end of THE HULK, oops.


Dublin was very impressive, even or especially (?) after one day.


That's all I have time to write for now, considering it's nearly 1pm and I've been awake since about 2am Amsterdam time this morning. I'll be sure to add more about days 2 & 3 later this week. Also, look forward to some facebook albums of this and my other adventures!

American Reinforcements

Today, I received the most epic care package from Karen and David. Enclosed, among other things, was a box of Samoas girl scout cookies. You know, the ones covered in coconut and chocolate-y deliciousness? After resisting the urge to eat everything in the box for about 4 hours, I finally gave in. Justin and I had one little Samoa each. It was heavenly lekker. As I was eating it however, I felt like I could taste the hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup re-entering my system. Now that I've consumed the entire cookie, I can feel chemically not-goodness in my mouth.

Regardless, I will consume the entire box soon enough.

If you're interested in what goes on in my life...

The past few days have been fantastic, relatively productive, and thoroughly enjoyable. Friday, I planned to wake up early and work on lots of different things. Instead, about fifteen minutes before my alarm clock was to go off, Justin called. Taking his brother to the airport took longer than anticipated, and he was too late for his 9:00 class to go. YAY. He came over and we spent the morning lounging around and doing not much of anything.

Justin ended up taking a nap, and I got some stuff done. We then went with Giulia to a mother/daughter owned coffee shop where I had the best mocha flavored milkshake of my life. Then we went home and made the most delicious cheeseburgers with Anya and Alex. They had yummy cheese (I don't remember what it was called, but it was dutch and yummy), crisp lettuce, bacon, avocado, grilled onions, barbecue sauce, ketchup, grainy mustard, and fantastic brown buns. We then had this yummy chocolate covered peanuts and this sweet brioche-type bread with some sweet stuff on top. We watched the office and played catchphrase.

On Saturday, we woke up early to venture to Deltaworken, the best little amusement park slash war memorial in the Netherlands. It was a family park dedicated to the delta works project that keeps the country from flooding. We watched a video, looked at cute zeehouden (seals!), climbed into a whale's vagina (where we did NOT find a transporter to San Diego), and toured this crazy bridge-y flood prevention gate. look around for yourself here. It was really interesting to see from the dutch perspective, their fight against the mortal enemy: WATER!!!!! I made a yummy dinner with Justin, then went to a cute student bar that also has a movie theater. We played cards and had gin and ginger ales.

Sunday, we all made delicious brioche french toast for brunch. Then I went to the gym and did some more work. I accidentally fell asleep while I was reading, which meant that I missed the first last sunset as that was the end of daylight savings here in the Netherlands, so I had a really late dinner. It was appropriately, TAPAS! spicy potatoes, broccolini sauteed in butter and garlic, and yummy toast with Mediterranean olive tapenade and manchego cheese. It was fantastic. I really enjoy cooking, and cooking with Justin is fun. I also found out that my Dutch class today was cancelled because my instructor is stuck in Buenos Aires, poor Bonny.

After sleeping in, I did about a week's worth of dishes that had been piling up in my room. I went down the four flights of stairs to fetch my clean laundry, only to find out that the dryers are not working. So I lugged to washer's worth of wet laundry upstairs and concocted a dazzling array of hanging apparatuses. Luckily today was sunny, unlike most of last week, so it is all pretty much dry by now. I went to this cafe/bar down the street from my house to meet up and do some reading. I only read one chapter of "The McDonaldization of Society" but I'm already fascinated.
I finally decided that I've been spending enough time at my own house to warrant real grocery shopping again. Today, I bought some arborio rice, and I've begun the search for online risotto recipes.

I just found out that I did not get the affordable housing and community development internship. Apparently there were 39 applicants for 3 spots. Damn the economy; last year there were more like ten spots. There goes the easy $4,000 summer job. Now I have to find a paid internship on my own, or get a real job. Hopefully something works out with the center for food & justice at UEPI. They usually pay well. I'm also applying for a summer senior interviewer position. That job means I would get to interview the incoming freshman applicants. It would be interesting to see that side of the admissions process.

If anyone knows of anything in L.A. that pays, I'll take it.

planning, procrastination, postcards, and food?

Recently I've been caught up in a storm of planning, procrastinating, and postcard writing. This cycle ends up being really stressful, because I make lists, and get overwhelmed by the amount of responsibility and stuff I have to get done, so then I retreat into my mildly warm room and watch movies. I am simultaneously trying to plan the rest of the semester in terms of readings, final papers and projects, any travel I want to do before I leave, and I'm also trying to figure out summer plans.

I currently have a folder on my computer labeled 'summer.' It has various applications, my resume, and that's about it. I know that my summer starts on June 4, ends on August 16, and that I want to be in L.A. for the majority of the intervening weeks. I got an email last night that had the subject "Update on Affordable Housing Internship Program." That sounded vaguely like a polite heading for a rejection letter, so I didn't want to open it. When I did, it said something like, "we'll get back to you by the end of next week. We thank you for your patience as we know you're trying to figure out your summer (read: life) plans." I guess it was nice that they gave us a time frame, but the suspense is killing me.

I'm also expected to be doing research and work on my final papers/projects. In addition to all of the other regular assignments that I've barely been keeping up on. Oh well, I will just have to start using Fridays to get work done. And actually completing items on my To Do Lists. The rain that has recently returned to Amsterdam is not encouraging me to get any of this work done.

It's funny--when I wish I had more time, I want to be reading up on food, farming, agriculture, all of those things that make me want to grow vegetables. Some sites that I've been snooping around recently are: civil eats and retrovore. I also like to look at epicurious and foodtv. I guess that a lot of stuff has been happening at Oxy while I've been away. F.E.A.S.T. and the Cafe Norris. F.E.A.S.T. seems to be a gardening type thing, and according to the Oxy digest, they got land, which is something I tried to do last semester to start a community garden. I'm glad that someone finally made progress. Cafe Norris is this thing that some kids started on Saturday nights. They cook a three-course meal from farmer's market goodies for like 10 or 15 dollars. It sounds really neat. I'm really excited to get back to school and see what's going on.

I have to get back to that whole school work, class, homework thing.

list time!

So,
When I first left home to come on this fantastic voyage, I made a list of things that I would and would not miss. Reading it now, I find some things really funny, and some things were too true.

My list from January 18th.

Things I’m going to miss
o The Hein Train. Choo Choo!
o The coffee cart with Caroline and urrbody until it closes
o G&T nights
o Not having to carry around a real key because my id card does everything for me.
o American money (maybe, but only because it is worthless abroad?)
o Having a job=having an income
o The sun

Things I’m NOT going to miss
o Boarding the Hein Train for work.
o Going to work everyday

If I were to add things that I miss and don't miss after being here for two months (!?!?!) here is what it would look like:

Things I still miss/or miss now:

• Every food establishment in Los Angeles
• the sun
• English instructions of food packages
• English signs anywhere
• Driving
• having a meal plan and a dining hall instead of cooking everything I eat
• tomatoes (the kind that are juicy and crisp and delicious, not the kind that are pale, mealy, and hard)
• Mexican food (la Superrica, I will see you when I get back to California!)
• did I mention the sun?
• Making money
  

This I still DON'T miss:

• having a job
• being on duty
• being on a different time zone than everyone at home
• the fact that going anywhere in L.A. takes at least 3o minutes and two different freeways
• the Oxy bubble

That is all that I can think of right now, because I have to go to a Dutch cultural event, a room eleven concert. Hopefully I'll find my way there!

belgium, girl talk, school, OR how I spent my last week.

Belgium was a nice short weekend trip. We did not do much in the way of tourist-y things--museums, tours, etc. We mostly walked around, looked at things, and ate food. I didn't have any special Belgian beer that I've never had before, and I don't really like Belgian fries, but the chocolate and the waffles!!?!?!?!

Justin took lots of pictures for me; they are mostly of graffiti.

On Thursday, I went to a Girl Talk concert at the club Paradiso. It was so much fun, but it was a really crazy night. People drank waaay too much. One of my friends spent the night in a dutch drunk tank, another woke up in the hospital, I stayed up all night and watched the sky change colors. I lost my coat check ticket, and I had to wait for everyone else to collect their belongings. Justin and I got home around 5:00am, after the coat check woman made me cry. BUT I talked to Jess Lobl for like an hour when I got home, so that was fantastic!

Since then, I've been doing homework, resting, eating, sleeping, watching movies, and waiting for Justin's brother to get here. He should be here any moment. (I stayed home to clean Justin's room because a)it was a mess, and b)the mess was most likely more than half mine.)

One final note, on Friday, I officially accepted the position as HC of BY/Wylie for next year. Now I just have to figure out my life until then.

Maybe I'll find some good pictures to post.

weather and travel

This weekend we had amazing weather. It was sunny, and if you stood in the sun in a spot protected from the wind, you began to feel this amazing sensation of sun-generated heat. I didn't realize how happy a few hours of sun could make me feel. Then I wake up today and ride my bike through crappy, annoying rainy weather. Boo, Amsterdam. Although I did learn dutch vocabulary about weather yesterday, so I guess that's cool....

I finally have real travel plans.
March 14 & 15 (this weekend)-Brussels and Bruges, Belgium.
I plan to do the following: watch In Bruges before I go, then eat/drink Belgian waffles, Belgian chocolate, Belgian beer, and Belgian fries.

April 11-14 (Easter weekend)-Dublin, Ireland.
I don't know whether going to Ireland for Easter weekend is a good idea, or the greatest idea. I plan on taking lots of pictures of cliffs and rolling green hills, maybe going to some hardcore church on Easter Sunday, touring Irish alcohol factories (Guinness and Jameson, obviously), and seeing some castles.

That is all that I've actually reserved so far, but I'm also looking to go somewhere warm with a beach in May. I'm leaning toward anything that is cheap. Some ideas we threw around last night include: anywhere in Greece, Valencia, Sophia, Bulgaria, Istanbul (we'd call it Constantinople though), Nice, France, Prague, Dubai, Beirut, Turkey...then we started competing for the most obscure destinations.
I'll be sure to keep you updated.