"There are babies doing Riverdance in the street!"

I went out last night. This morning (afternoon), I immediately felt guilty and set about doing some work quietly in my room. I work well this way, right during the waking hours, before anyone knows I'm awake. I could hear Kasha downstairs banging pots and cooking something and she called up Good Morning to me. Little did I know that downstairs, they were laughing about how hungover I must be. Twice they called up to say there was breakfast if I wanted it. I didn't particularly, I don't like to break my rhythm when I'm working. Apparently, this was not the right response, and in comes Kasha with a tray of pancakes, strawberries, blueberries and cream. Her theory was that hungover or not, I must eat breakfast. I gave her a surprised look and told her I felt fine, I wasn't sick at all, I was just working. I have a lot to do. Either way, I got breakfast in bed.

As I mentioned, I went out last night. First, I met up with my friend Anna and her Galway friend ( I can't remember his name, yikes) at a bar called Tig Coili. We had a beer outside and afterwards they headed to the Roisin Dubh to see a band play, while I headed off to meet our other friend Helen. Helen had a friend visiting her this weekend named Claire. They were at The Blue Note, so I went off in search of this venue. I knew exactly what the place looked like, but unfortunately, I can't tell my right from left and ended up taking a wrong turn and taking forever to show up. Regardless, I found my way and we sat talking and drinking some really girly beer/wine cooler thing until the bar closed. Now, in Ireland, there are apparently two closing times, depending on where you are. So we headed out in search of our friend Kate, who was at Cuba. But upon arrival, we took one look at the door and thought, there is no way we're going inside that place. For those of you familiar with Blacksburg, think TOTS meets Sharkeys with a twist of Abella. No thank you. So we found a table at a neighboring "club" and watched all the crazies from the window. This is how we saw the old lady walking to her car at 2 a.m. When I say old, I mean this woman was pushing at least 70, if not more. She had a cane I think. I want to be her friend. Here we were, three girls in our twenties, yawning and thinking "Why are we still awake?" and this lady is showing no signs of wear. Seeing this deemed the evening a success and shortly afterwards, we left to go dodge the boys laying on the sidewalk and girls without pants and hardly any tops and made our way safely home. Earlier in the day, Helen, Anna and I went to a book launch for Rita Ann Higgins' "Hurting God" (which sounds really great from what she read to us), so I feel as though the weekend evened itself out.

Now I'm listening to quite possibly one of my favorite albums of all-time, The Stranger (thanks, Mom). Oh Billy Joel, I do love you. I'm working on one of my multiple fiction assignments and singing along to "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant". The sky outside is grey and menacing, there's been a chill in the air all weekend. Gaggles of birds keep swarming to the trees outside my window. Tomorrow I must go wait in line at the immigration office, then rush to poetry class, hopefully with immigration card in hand. Afterwards, if all goes well, I'll head to town to get my PPS number (my Irish Social Security number essentially) paperwork started. Gah. I can't wait until all of this technical/official stuff is taken care of and I can just worry about when I can have my next cup of tea. Oh life, why must you get in the way of fun? Still, no matter what, I've got Billy Joel and homework to keep me entertained. I've just got to "get it right the first time, that's the main thing". I couldn't resist ;).