In America...

Today I woke up and realized what all the hype was about with the rain. It was a dreary day, the type that makes you want to stay in bed and listen to the rain. And so I did. I didn't have class until 3 since my Thursday morning class is just a group meeting time and that is not quite necessary yet. Class from 3-5 was nothing too exciting. It's my Understanding Entrepreneurs class, and our lecturer likes us to socialize and interact with one another so I ended up talking to these irish guys. They were ridiculous and basically just made fun of one another.

After class, I had dinner with Claire. Hamburgers. Irish meat seems to be more tasteful then American beef. Probably due to their large focus on livestock here in Ireland. We planned our hostel for London and booked that. I'm getting really excited about it.

Then Stacy and I went to see Tucker Max. For those who are not familiar, Tucker Max is an American author who's book "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" is a New York Times Bestseller and was also the inspiration for a 2009 movie. The basic concept of this guy is that he gets really drunk, has one night stands with random women, and gets into a lot of fights, and writes about it. His book, which I've read select passages from, makes you laugh and also wonder what the world is coming to when we are glorifying this behavior. The UCD Law Society was honoring Tucker Max with lifetime membership. He went to law school at Duke, so he's pretty smart but chooses temptation over litigation. He said that he was convinced into coming to Ireland by his assistant, who is Irish, and convinced to come for free (instead of his usual $25,000 per event charge). He explained that he hates Ireland so far, due to the fact that the UCD Law Society put him up in a hotel similar to an Econolodge (of which only the Americans in the room got the reference to) which ended up having blood on the pillowcase of his bed. After that horrid nights rest, he switched hotels, and ended up going out wandering at 4 am looking for a poker room and found himself robbed at knife point--steak knife point. Now I've been in Dublin for 3 weeks and found it a relatively safe city. He described it as one big dark alley way which you'd never go down if you were in Detriot. But trouble always to seem to find trouble.

Anyway, after he told us about his time in Dublin, he answered a lot of ridiculous questions. He tried to explain things to the Irish students, but beginning the sentences with "In America...". For example, "In America...we play video games. Like Nintendo, do they have that here?" or "In America, every college student goes on spring break. Usually to places like Cancun." He at one point tried to explain fraternities to the crowd. His explanation went something like this..."In America... we have undergraduate and graduate programs. And undergraduate is just one big party. Especially if you go to one of the Big Ten Degree Factories. At these schools, the people who go out and drink and do crazy stupid things are in fraternities. Like Sig Eps." Thank you for referencing Sigma Phi Epsilon Tucker Max. I will be sure to write home to all my gentlemen friends and tell them how you brought glory to their name, and how it really is great to be a Sig Ep. His humor was sarcastic, maybe even a little crude, but you had to laugh. He insulted the Irish way of life-- the way they talk and made comments about how he'd drink that much too if he lived here in this dreary place. I could see where he was coming from, today was about the most miserable weather day I've had in Dublin so far.

After his talk, we got to take photos with him so that was pretty cool. He was excited to see some more Americans. It must just be blantantly obvious that we are not from Ireland when we open our mouths because we don't ever have to say we're from America, everyone just knows.

After Tucker, we decided that it was a good night for some more Wicked Wolf. Claire, Stacy, and I took the bus over, in the mood for a repeat of last Thursday's karaoke. However, the Wicked Wolf was not hopping tonight like it was last week. After some killer performances, and being asked to dance by an old irish man who resembled the creepy old man from Aladdin...... me and Claire decided it was time for us to grace the stage. After much debate, we decided on I Will Survive, by Gloria Gayner. A personal anthem and all around jam. Now, there probably was about 20 people in the bar at this time, so we didn't necessarily bring the house down, but I am pretty sure we say the lyrics accurately and somewhat on tune. Brock Jones, our favorite MC, did enjoy our rendition and asked us to sing another song of his choosing. His choice...Oops I Did It Again, by Miss Britney Spears. We even had to do the talking part in the middle of the song... I was obviously Britney and Claire played the poor fool who went and got her the necklace from the bottom of the ocean. After our killer performance, we returned to our table and got confirmation from the grad students next to us that we had done well. Stacy and Taylor, our friend from BU, were not so impressed. We made friends with the grad students next to us, one from Switzerland, one from Belgium and one from Ohio, Dedra.

The Wicked Wolf shuts down at midnight, so we left in the pursuit of pizza. We asked our cab driver where we could get some pizza and ended up talking international cuisine and then international politics with him. So much so that when we got back to Roebuck, we sat in his car for at least 10 minutes talking about American-Iraqi relations. He was originally from Iraq, and he is actually a distance descendant of Muhammad. He has been in Ireland for about 20 years, and originally studied at UCD for Politics. He was so nice and it was interesting to hear how he in fact favors the American presence in Iraq, the democracy it brings, and even some of the actions of George W. Bush. He admits there were some mistakes, but overall the intentions were good.

After finishing our chat, we headed into our residences. We were still searching for that pizza but after making a few phone calls, we had no luck. I had to settle for granola again, while I skyped my favorite Aunt Kath.

Well, it's about 2:30 am here. So I should go to bed.

I also have Lionel Richie stuck in my head, for some reason, Brock Jones loves to end his nights with Lionel.

I'll update with some pictures tomorrow. Good night all.