Procrastination and beyond +Irish culture!

So in the past couple of weeks, I haven't done any traveling, but I'm actually (trying) to get some work done. And I've had quite a bit of Irish and "Irish" culture.

Being a student from U of I, of course I had to celebrate "Unofficial Saint Patrick's Day." However, it was much shorter than normal and not nearly as adventurous as it should have been. Though it was fun to be with everyone from U of I and sporting green! I even had some delicious Chinese food and ate 15euro worth!

A week later Aimee and Patricia flew over from Dublin to visit for a few days. It was really good to see them again. It's crazy, Aimee and I grew up together and found ourselves taking pictures by the Eiffel Tower! We had the apartment where I stayed for a couple months which was awesome.

During their stay, we had plenty of wine, bread, and cheese of course. We saw all the sites with my own personal tour, which mainly consisted of the following descriptions: "check that out, it's famous for something," and "that's a statue of some historically important guy," or "look something shiny let's walk towards it. Perhaps I should know more details, but there's so many it's sometimes better to skip over them..

We checked out Versailles and walked for ages. The girls loved the farm and especially the farm animals. They also loved my favorite part of Paris: Montmartre and the artists' square. Our last dinner together was a fondue meal in the Latin Quarter with 2 servers who refused to bring us a pitcher of water! In the end it was a good dinner though!

In total, the weekend flew by and it hardly even seems like they were here, but it'll be summer soon enough and I can see them again!

Babysitting has been going well as usual. I'm trying to make different meals for the kids because we always have the same thing. Their current favorite is hot dogs wrapped in flakey croissant-like crust. Delicious.

Vic was actually sick the other day and I had to pick him up early from school. He layed in bed and I ate my lunch (lentils and pasta-easy, cheap, healthy-ish, and delicious!) and started reading an article I have to present. Of course that ended up with me sleeping on Lou's bed for an hour before picking her up from school. Good thing I had set an alarm..

Skip ahead a few more days and we find ourselves at the REAL Saint Patrick's Day. After a shortened day of babysitting (and payday!), I headed over to my Irish friends' apartment for a party. They take their country pride seriously! Flags were being used as capes and a shamrock or flag face-painting was compulsory for all attendees. I wore a flag around my neck and had it painted on my face to rep my full blooded one-fourth Irish heritage! We all had a great time until we were strongly encouraged to take the party elsewhere by the landlady. No problem, as an Irish pub was on the list! We basically paraded over to it as well, stopping at "Place de Dublin" for a picture. I even ended up brawling my Irish friend Matthew on a street corner-all in good fun of course. The night was great, making friends

with everyone and Guinness flowing. At about 2:15 in the morning, Harlem insisted upon leaving so I had to get us a taxi home. Lucky for her, in a twisted way, that she lost her wallet and I had to pay for the cab! I left a few hours later because public transportation had not yet opened. I buttoned up my shirt all the way to hide my green shirt. That way people wouldn't know I had been out all night! But then when I returned home I realized there was still a flag painted on my face and my efforts had been in vain. Oh well, it was still a great night!

Then on Saturday, I joined the same friends for the rugby match between England and Ireland. Once again going green, I donned my Ireland shirt. At another pub, I tried to understand the sport (that my sister now plays!) while learning the insulting cheers of the Irish, something about English chariots! Ireland won in the end and I think I have a small grasp of how the game works. It's quite nice that time between plays is much more swift than in American football.

Since then I've been trying to finish my presentation and required class readings. However, Mad Men got in the way, which is fine because it relates to a couple of my courses.

I have a research paper due Friday which may or may not be started yet. And a presentation to give tomorrow in French. All of my real work is coming up very quickly which is not too exciting. But oh well, the adventures continue..