DUN LOAGHAIRE PIER
Tonight I write with a snack of oreos & milk. A little more my style. Healthy eating is not quite my style at home. But things change. And food consumption has been one of those things. I'll explain why. First of all. Living is expensive. Living in Europe is expensive. Living on the Euro is expensive. I've become very aware of the cost of simple things. I'd rather spend money on trips than food, but unfortunately food is a necessity of life. Cut to yesterday, which I didn't yet blog about. I'm sorry for my loyal followers who missed out. Yesterday, I woke up to Dublin rain. Dreary, cold, windy Dublin rain. But as it turns out, it was also the day we decided we needed groceries from the local Tesco. And by local, I mean roughly 2.5 kilometers away. For those, like me, who have no concept of meters, that's about 1.5 miles. So I suit up... jeans, underarmor sweatshirt, DZ rain jacket, backpack, spare bag for extra groceries. At the grocery, I chose staple items that could be cooked via stovetop or HOB as they are referred to here, since our apartments have no ovens. Which rules out things like frozen pizza or baked goods. Instead I ended up with Granola with strawberry cereal, a 4 pack of chicken, garlic seasoning for said chicken, more crackers, a small pack of oreos, a bag of pasta, 2 jars of sauce, a package of apples, and a package of bananas (DISNEY BRAND, who knew Walt also specialized in produce), laundry detergent (for when I run out of clean underwear and not a moment sooner). I also bought supplies to make tacos with the girls. 30 Euro later. Seriously. Then I had to pack up all my groceries in my backpack and drawstring bag and walk home the 1.5 miles. In the rain. Thank you Ireland.
The Tacos were delish. I haven't had much meat in my diet so it was good to have some fresh Irish beef. You also take for granted basic kitchen goods. Like sharp knives, or salt. Neither of which did Claire & Laura's apartment have. Luckily, my apartment had a sharp knife in order to cut up the head of lettuce for tacos. Can you imagine cutting a head of lettuce with a butter knife?
After tacos we booked our trip to Galway for this weekend. We leave tomorrow morning at about 10 am and get back at 4 am.
But today, we went to Dun Loaghaire (pronounced Dun Lee-ree-- hello unneccessary letters) for a short day trip. It's only about a 30 minute bus ride from campus. It's a seaside town south of Dublin. We got on the bus outside of the main gates and rode for about 40 minutes. The girl sitting by me on the bus was blasting her music for our enjoyment.... nothing like beyonce and kesha to make you feel like you are actually in Ireland. The Irish have a lot of things that they've picked up from Americans.... random music selections, Ugg Boots, obnoxious behavior. The girls dress up for class and wear cute clothes and Ugg boots. My feelings on the whole thing is that they all wear uniforms through schooling...and when I say uniforms, I mean UGLY uniforms. Like big baggy skirts, high kneed socks. So when they get to college, they want to dress up. In America, we've dressed for school for years, and we are just bloody tired of it. So we go to class in what we slept in. Also, while riding on the bus, I looked at the people driving next to us and saw the most ridiculous pair of rearview mirror dice I've ever seen. They were in fact boobs. I was so taken aback, but that's what they were. Talk about classy.
When we arrived at Dun Laoghaire, we got off the bus and walked along the dock to the pier. It was a BEAUTIFUL DAY in Ireland...talking we saw a convertible with their top down. It was a little chiller by the water but still nice. There are two major piers in Dun Laoghaire...West & East. Together they make kind of a hexogon shape if that makes sense, guarding the harbor. We walked down the East Pier. It was awesome. Everyone knows my love of all things water, and it was so beautiful. There were little personal sailboats in the harbor, the sun was shining, behind us in the distance are the Wicklow Mountains, the town of Dun Laoghaire has all these little steeples. We took lots of pictures, so I will put them up later this weekend.
We just walked along the pier to the end, stopping to enjoy the scenery and watch the sailboats run into one another. We saw lots of dogs (and their droppings...even though there were pooper scooper bags available). We saw dogs off leashes, and kids on leashes. It was like free reign. We climbed on rocks. We climbed down to the water on the slippery rocks... a little slick but we wanted to touch the water and see how cold it was. After finally climbing down, I touched the water (cold) and then ofcourse a wave splashed up and got my foot all wet. 
We walked down to the lighthouse and stopped to relax for a bit. I had an apple and enjoyed the view. Dublin Bay and Howth on side, and Dun Laoghaire, steeples, and mountains on the other. We laughed about all of our new Austrailan lingo. Like witch's hats (cones) or bin (trash can) or bathers (swim suits). When we walked back down the pier, some guys were playing jazz music on the saxophone. Little kids were dancing around. It was so serene. You could tell everyone was soaking it in because no one really said much. I love the water and the pier and the mountains and the old architecture. I'm not sure what its called, but it's definitely my favorite type of rooftops.
After walking around Dun Laoghaire and seeing the usually sites, a pretty church now maritime museum, a statue of Jesus Christ, a bowling green (for boccie ball--bowlers for the Aussies), a McDonald's, a Dunnes, a movie theater, we got back on the bus and headed home. These big double decker buses take these tiny streets like champs, and its a little scary sometimes.
When we arrived on campus we changed and headed into Dublin to meet up with Laura's friend from home Margaret who is studying abroad at Trinity College in downtown Dublin. Beautiful campus, creepy at night. Mags made us spaghetti and we watched some Gossip Girl. It was nice to watch TV for the first time in a week and a half. We then met up with some of Mags friends that go to Trinity, and ofcourse are from the United States. We walked to one of their apartments, and there was a bunch of people. We met some guys from Skokie and Niles... and it was pretty much like being at home. We talked about Australian stereotypes. Apparently they don't drink Fosters (I guess it's really not Australian for beer) and they don't cook shrimp on the barbie. They don't even call it shrimp. What a let down. They all were going out but given we have early bus to catch for Galway, me and Claire opted to find the bus and head on back to campus.
Galway tomorrow. I'm excited to see some legit Irish countryside.
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