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Published: January 18th 2006
I can't keep starting entries with "well", it could so easily get out of control!
I've continued to hang out with the same Irish boys, and more of their friends, and we are continually learning about each others' cultures. They are very concerned with their masculinity and fairly homophobic, but that's all in line with Ireland's conservativism (hope that's a word). We've had endless entertainment finding words that we say differently, or things that we have different names for. I have two favorites so far-instead of saying fillet properly, they say it like "fill it"-utterly ridiculous-and with vitamins, ya know how we say it like vite amins, they say vittamins-short i instead of long, i think? They laugh uproariously every time I say ya'll. They'll learn. Instead of "shit" they pronounce it i guess like "shite" with a long i, i think? If i knew those pronunciation symbols i'd use them, but i don't understand most of them and i'm not sure how many of ya'll would, either! Hmm what else? They say "cheers" sometimes instead of hello, "bollucks" is just a term i think like "crap", and when they text message they say funny things like "what ye at?" and "what's the craic?" "craic" pronounced "crack" means something like "the fun", and it's like asking, "where's the fun at", like asking what's going on and what's there to do. Those are all my Irish words and phrases for now, I'm sure i'll have more later.
These boys try to get us to believe the silliest things-i mean i really have to watch myself, they're so sarcastic, but i love it, and give it right back, of course. They keep telling us they'll cook us cabbage and bacon one night, that being the traditional Irish meal, but i'll be shocked if that ever really happens. At least last night one of them, Rory, made sausages for dinner and made us all eat one. They were pretty tasty, and i'm not even a big fan of sausages. Of course, then they tried to convince us that you can only make one sausage out of a pig-who the hell knows about that one. We also went bowling last night, and boy was it better than American bowling! You got a free game and a free pass to a club if you bought a beer, and you didn't have to wear bowling shoes. I didn't break 100, but for my standards i did ok-like a 76 maybe? 71? The guys unfortunately killed the girls. It was a bitter battle. (Ok maybe not) After that we went to a club-gpo's-which was fun, but not great. The clubs here, on big nights (Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and sometimes others) are just absolutely packed elbow to elbow and you can't dance for more than 30 seconds without getting shoved around, so i've kind of given up on that. My favorite is still the first one we went to at the Radisson-all the others are much smaller. The pubs are all great though, so far. Saturday night we went to Sally Long's, which was the most "Irish" i've been to so far, meaning they're not tediously used to serving Americans and most of the people in there drink Guinness. Meaning you can't get away with ordering a wussy drink without the bartender giving you a scathing look or comment. Alex ordered a Bailey's with milk, and he goes, "You really want milk with it?? Ech!" It was hilarious.
So now i've been to three whole classes! Modern Irish Literature, which is all on Joyce's Ulysses and Yeats's poetry; The Invention of the Celt, on ideas in literature and otherwise that have shaped and changed how people think about all things Celtic; and Thinking Differently: European Women's Studies. That one should be interesting, although some of the girls have already started to annoy me after one class of it! I have yet to attend my history class, and i have to get up at the ass crack of dawn tomorrow to register for my English seminar. Registration is at 9, but apparently you have to get there more like at 7 to get any of your top choices. I'm aiming for a 6 am wake up. It'll only be midnight for ya'll, so think of me then! And actually, it won't even be dawn until 8ish here. Small price to pay, eh? They also say "eh" a lot.
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Honey
non-member comment
Can I come see you?
Well, you can darn well get more than one sausage out of a pig....but you have to sew carefully. No one will let me do what I want, whenever I want and the treats really stink. The numbers of them, I mean. Well chase an Irish setter for me. Love and kisses. Honey, etc.