Raw.

Tonight my friend Celia and I went to a poetry reading called "Raw" at a pub down the street from where we live. We heard about the readings that take place at the end of each month, and have been patiently awaiting this event since the beginning of February. Celia really enjoys poetry as well as writing her own, and I had never been to a poetry reading, so I tagged along.

It was exactly how I imagined it would be. Dim lights, a small stage with a mic, a very relaxed atomsphere, lots of really intellegent looking and uniquely dressed people, and poems that didn't rhyme.

There were several different writers who shared their poems along with music, some incorporated singing, beat-boxing, and even rapping.

My favorite was a poem/rap/beat-box combo platter called "Black Jesus." It was sweet.

Overall, cool experience. Here are some pictures I took.

Flea Market.

Today my friend Celia and I explored a new part of Dublin in search of a flea market we had seen advertised. After getting a little turned around and getting directions from a nice man, we found what we were looking for. There were so many hippee's and interesting people. I also bought a dress. And here are some pictures. Enjoy.

"Every Woman Wants a Little Liberté"

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "Jill, you don't speak French." And you are so right. But two girls in my roommates marketing class do, thus the word "liberté" is in the title of this blog post. (If you're curious, it means freedom.)

My roommate, Ashley, has a project in her marketing class where their group has to design a product and then market it. Their product is a perfume called Liberté. And their tag line is:

"Every Woman Wants a Little Liberté."

Such a creative roommate I have. She's been talking about it all week, and coming into my room with all sorts of ideas about what the ad should look like. We recruited our friend Tiana, who also just happens to be beautiful, and headed out on the streets of Dublin to find things that screamed liberté. We laughed a lot. But also managed to capture a few shots that you can see below (and more on Facebook to come!)

And then I took a 3 hour nap. I love Saturdays.

Things I will no longer take for granted.

-the sun.
-toilet seats that don't move when you sit on them.
-driving.
-showers that are warm for longer than 3 minutes.
-my dad's cooking and meal plans.
-my beautiful Elon friends.
-free refills.
-the sun. seriously.
-not having the lights turn off randomly because the electricity card has run out.
-not paying for grocery bags.
-boxed macaroni and cheese.

Just to name a few.

Dublin at Night.

Valentine's Day.

I know it's just a Hallmark holiday, but I've always been a sucker for Valentine's Day. Ever since the days of putting Valentine's in decorated shoe boxes I've enjoyed the day where you celebrate loving people. So yesterday was no different, and all week I was pumped about dressing up and going out with friends to celebrate (I also was really excited to finally wear my pink dress).

Around lunch, some friends and I headed to a cafe called Lemon ate some delicious crepes. We sat outside and it was really cool to experience the city bustling in preparation for Valentine's festivities. Being more observant of the people than usual, I enjoyed watching them shop for different preparations for the evening, having lunch dates, and seeing so many flowers being purchased and received.

Later on, we prepared for our own festivities and after hanging out in our apartments we headed to a bar/club called Copper Face Jacks. We had such a fun night. We danced and laughed so much and it once again confirmed my love for the day of love. I hope yours was great too!

Ashley, Becca, and I looking all Valentine-y.

A Day in Bray.

No class on Friday came in handy today as some friends and I traveled to Bray for the afternoon. Bray is a small coastal town about 30 minutes south of Dublin. From what we got to explore of it, it looks like it really comes alive in the summer with lots of boardwalk type amusements, ice cream shops, and outdoor seating at restaurants. It was really cute!

We took the DART (kind of like the Metro or Subway) and got to ride along the beautiful coast of the Irish Sea. Once we got there, we frolicked on the beach for a while and made our way to a restaurant with a great lunch special (Ireland loves lunch specials). At first we got turned down from this place (they claimed it was "full" and wouldn't give us a time estimate), and after looking and unsuccessfully finding another place, we returned again and finally got a table. The food was well worth the wait, and we indulged in ice cream afterwards because it wasn't even that cold out, so why not?!

We had intended to do the "Bray Walk" which some friends had suggested, which is an hour long hike along the coastal cliffs that takes you to the next town over. Unfortunately, because of the snow last week, there had been a rock fall and the path was closed off. We did get to go a little ways down the path and the cliffs were really beautiful. Below are some pictures from the day and there's more on facebook too!

View of the town from the cliffs.

Friends :)

What we saw along the path.

this weekend.

Last night was great. After Ireland beat France in the 6 Nations rugby match, a few of us headed out on the town. We enjoyed some dinner at Supermacs, one of Ireland’s finest fast-food restaurants, then headed to a pub called The Hairy Lemon. We had heard great things about it and walked by a few times, so we finally decided to go. This place was PACKED. Literally at some points we wouldn't be able to move because of the number of people surrounding us. Nevertheless, it was really fun and we laughed so much. We met a lot of interesting people, including some man that works for Waterford Crystal and is apparently really important there. He was also old enough to be our grandfather so we moved on rather quickly from that part of the pub. Anyways, we ventured on from there after a while and after meeting some friends, discovered a pub/club that had a sign on the door saying, "No Bombs Please." Although it was comforting to know there were no bombs allowed, we made our way to a place that was a little more rocker-y. In fact, I saw someone who resembled Ozzy Osbourne. Seriously. I was also told by the bouncer before entering (who had a grand total of 1 tooth) that I had "lovely cheek bones." Hilarious. By the end of the night we ended up at Fitzsimon's which is one of our usual hang outs where we listened to some great live music and pretended like we knew the words to the songs. I was also informed about what a Kangaroo's pounch really looks like inside while talking to some people from Australia. Good to know.

Now I will share with you a list of things that you may not know about Ireland:

-Their police officers don’t carry guns.
-The teenagers are frightening.
-There is a gummy candy called Jelly Babies.
-It doesn’t go a full 24 hours without raining.
-You have to bring your own bag to put groceries in.
-They don’t sell Snakebites in Cork.
-There are a lot of French people.
-Fries are called chips and chips are called crisps. Tricky.
-People will ask you “where’s the craic (sounds like crack)?” which means “where’s the fun?” and not drugs. Also tricky.
-All Irish children have to learn how to Irish dance (Riverdance style) in primary school.
-They will charge you less if you get your food "to go".
-Wicklow National Park is not in Wicklow.

And here is a picture just because.

Northern Ireland.

Thursday morning our study abroad coordinator Elizabeth took all 43 of us American students to Northern Ireland. For those of you who don't know, Northern Ireland is not just a region but a completely different country that is part of the UK. I was pretty excited for this trip because we had plans to stay in nice hotels and pretty much all of our meals were paid for.

Before reaching our destination of Derry, we stopped in a small town called Bushmills which is home to the Giant's Causeway. The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. It was BEAUTIFUL. Below are a few pictures, but the pictures don't even do this place justice.

After trekking around the Giant's Causeway for about 2 hours, we headed to the city of Derry to check into our hotel. We got to dine (for free!) in the hotel restaurant and were served a three course meal. On Friday morning, we stuffed ourselves again with the breakfast buffet (to offset the cost of paying for our own lunch) and we headed out to walk the walls of Derry. The city of Derry has been a location of much suffering because of the conflict between Catholics and Protestants. Coincidentally, we were there on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday which took place in Derry. We got to see the Bloody Sunday museum along with meeting a man whose brother's died in the march that day. It was very depressing to say the least. Below is a picture of our tour guide Nole telling us about the history of conflict in Northern Ireland. You can also see a mural in the background. There were murals speaking of the conflict ALL OVER. Pretty much on any wall you saw there was a mural of some sort. Later that day, we got on a bus and headed to the city of Belfast where we would stay for the next two nights.

Once in Belfast, we had some free time to explore. The city center itself wasn't much different than Dublin but the overall feel of the city was. It's hard to pin point exactly what made it different, but I think the combination of their raw (and pretty recent) conflicts and their attitude towards Americans that made it a little less comfortable. Saturday morning we woke up for another walking tour hosted by Nole around the city. This was a less than pleasant experience. We ventured out of the city and into neighborhoods that were obviously divided by religious beliefs. We saw many anti-American murals and we definitely felt very unwelcome as cars passing by would honk at us for no reason (and it wasn't in a I think you're attractive so I'm honking at you kind of way). We toured around for about three hours. I can't say I enjoyed this part at all. None of what we saw was picturesqe and the things we were learning about the city were very heavy.

Later that evening we got to enjoy another free meal, and then a few of us headed out to experience the Belfast night life. We ended up making friends with a group of guys from Wales and had a really fun night laughing and talking with them.

Sunday before heading home we stopped at the shipyard where the Titanic was built. For those of you who don't know Titanic is one of my favorite movies so this was a really cool thing to see. It was kind of surreal to be standing where the actual ship was built. Below is a picture of me with the space they held the ship while it was being made. It was HUGE.

Although the trip was fun and all the free things were nice, I'm glad to be back in Dublin. I feel at home here and a hundred times more welcome. Also, it snowed today, a total rarity in Dublin. Kind of exciting!