So, I really don't feel like doing anything productive like all my friends are, so here's another blog post. The semester is winding down and I leave to go back to the States on Saturday... sad day. I'm really sad about leaving, but I'll post more about that Friday night when I have 12 hours to kill tout seule in the Paris airport.
Anyways, this past week, my friend Lisa left Grenoble to go back home to Ireland, so my friend Katie and I decided that we needed to make a trip to see her before we left. I promised Nanny that I would make my way over there, and what better way to keep that promise than a week with the Russell family? So, we left last Wednesday for a quick trip to Dublin.
The first night we were there, Lisa took us around the city to a few parties with her friends from college. We started at this Prohibition party at Trinity, which was really cool because people actually stuck with the 1920's theme and kept it classy... it wasn't like an American theme party where everyone ends up black-out drunk by 10PM, so that was cool. We went out to a bar afterwards where we "had the bants" with this girl in the bathroom. The girl was rockin' a fake tan, bejeweled head scarf, and a shirt with American flags covering it. She was super wasted, but kept saying "HAHAHA I'm Osama Bin Laden! HAHAHA I'm going to bomb America! HAHAHA I'm a terrorist!" and making all kinds of jokes, then asked me and Katie if we found it offensive. Bahhh... OUI! Her friend asked, "Do people do this a lot in America?" Like... seriously?? Really?? We both understood that they were just drunk girls in another country, so obviously 9/11 doesn't hit home as hard for them as it does for Americans, but still. Why would they think we just walk around making jokes of it? Do they think Germans walk around pretending to be Hitler all the time, too?
Anyways, so the next day, we did a bit of shopping around Dublin and Lisa showed us various places around the city (pictures are on the Facebook). We went to the Guiness factory, which was cool, but we didn't spend much time there. Lisa introduced us to the infamous Pennys that she talked up all semester, which is basically Ireland's version of Target, but just for clothes... it's all decent and really cheap, so that was awesome. Friday, we went to Belfast to do some shopping and visit Dani, who studied abroad at PC last year. They had this really cool Christmas market going, so we did what we do at any Christmas market: rushed straight for the tartiflette (potatoey-bacony goodness) and vin chaud. Belfast was really cool and a pretty city. Their accents are so thick there, which was weird after hearing Lisa's soft Irish accent all semester. When we got back to Dublin, we went out with Lisa, her twin, and their friends, which was really fun because everywhere we went was pretty chill, but still fun.
Saturday we did a lot of walking around Dublin to see what was there. We stumbled upon a Viking tour, which is this really dorky tour where you're in this Viking "ship" that takes you around to learn about the history of Dublin. You have to wear Viking hats the whole time and everything. Then the bus magically turns into a boat and you do a tour around the water. Anyways, we got to do some other cool things, like we saw Oscar Wilde's house and statue at a park.
So, after being in France for so long, Ireland took some adjusting at first. There were things that I knew would be different, like being in cars that drive on the other side of the road, hearing the accent, and eating heaps of potatoes, but there were a lot of instances where I (shockingly) experienced culture shock:
1. Hearing people speak English.
2. Being able to interact without stressing about language barriers.
3. People being friendly. No offense France... but I forgot what it was like for strangers to smile.
4. Getting ID'd for alcohol.
4. People wearing sweat pants at the grocery store. I forgot that people can do that... and I miss it.
6. Decent size coffee.
7. Free public restrooms.
8. Real toilets everywhere you go.
9. Quickly moving lines (or "queues", if you will)
10. Sitting on a couch and watching an actual TV.
So, don't take it all for granted guys.
