ireland sober is ireland stiff.

so okay.

things have been cruising along here. i'm quickly filling my calendar with many many wonderful dates and to-do, amidst loving, laboring, and losing my mind at all of the things i have to do on a daily basis. today is friday, and i will be spending my evening IN, writing a paper (or just starting.. let's be real) that's due next friday for my art in london class. however, because i have a special someone dropping by for a bit on thursday, i want to finish by tuesday. which requires me to sacrifice some of my weekend, which i'm okay with. now, to choose a topic..

before i do all of that boring business, i should share with all of you the stories of my travels. last weekend, tommy, nathaniel, maggie & i hopped a legoplane to DUBLIN, and spent the weekend walking, drinking, and making friends with the greener side of the united kingdom. friday night, after a long long week of muddling our way through some new classes, discovering the stanstead express, and a rather short plane ride, we arrived in dublintown. our hostel was actually very nice. we were put in a 6-person room, however, with some roommates. one was a chill kid about our age, and one was a creepy older dude who didn't speak to anyone, slept in his clothes and SNORED. we went out a-drinking, and saw the gorgeous green glow of the liffey at night. i paid entirely too much for a cocktail, and we jammed to some decidedly american hits before settling in for the evening.

saturday we were up early to see the collegiate cobblestones of trinity college. after marveling at the sheer GREEN-ness of everything, we explored the famous library.

saw 'the book of kells,' a bible from the year 800 and checked out the exhibit on the history of the detective story cleverly entitled "the body in the library." obviously my favorite. lunch, then shopping at george's st. arcade, an indoor/open air market with loads of bookshops, boutiques and record shops. i bought joni mitchell, obviously. 

we wandered forever to find the guinness storehouse, a mecca for the beer-drinking population, though not the most thrilling afternoon for me. i do not like beer and therefore, was underwhelmed. but i was a good sport and gave tommy the free pint that came with my

admission. however, after hour 4 i was getting antsy. though i did learn this fun fact: the guinness beer company is also responsible for the guinness book of world records. so that's cool. they had some copies in the gift shop. the most expensive ice cream sundae is sold at serendipity in NYC. it's $25,000 and comes in a diamond encrusted bowl. birthday?

exhausted and hungry, we settled for rick's burgers (so massive. so good.) and then went out drinking at ireland's oldest pub, the brazen head. there, we got into a rousing discussion of american life, london life and the country of origin of various movie stars with the boys sitting at the table next to us. two londoners and their australian friend, jamie, nicky & drew became our companions for the evening. we found another bar in the temple bar area with them, and became fast friends. 

as we were waiting on the corner, tommy dragged me over to a frightening street performer that i dubbed "creepy box guy." the man had scary wannabe-nosferatu makeup on and was standing on this small plastic stool, freezing in various poses, making creepy faces. every time some drunk girl would stumble up to give him money at her boyfriend's behest, he would hop on his box and change positions, thoroughly startling the victim. i caught onto his game rather quickly, but was NOT PLEASED when forced to take part. so yeah. creepy box guy. night out on dublin, everybody.

sunday saw us finally discovering the beauty of st. stephen's green park, a gorgeous spot where they used to have public hangings. typical. 

we played around in the gazebos for awhile, posed with statues and marveled at the already blooming flowers. so we wandered allll the way across the city to the kilmainham gaol (pronounced "jail") and took a tour. the place literally looked like shawshank, without james whitmore and his little crow. it was huge and chock-full of irish history. very bloody. very viscous. we took turns locking ourselves in cells and taking pictures through the guard's peephole. that's what the whole prison was based on - supervision. so yeah. that was cool. 

here's me in a prison cell. obviously gazing out the window. 

after finding out the beauties of irish incarceration we headed back over to dublin castle, in the center of the city. it's not really a castle, more of a palace/statehouse. but it's where a 13th-century castle once stood. so there's that. we got to see the table where bill clinton solved the ireland crisis. and the "bedroom" where margaret thatcher stayed. creepy. after a giant italian dinner and some line learning at the hostel, we were out of dublin in a pre-dawn cab on monday morning. 

we hung out at the airport, doing a lot of this: 

that is, sleeping and reading 'watchmen.' i finished it, by the way, as i'm sure william, seth & all of my comic book (excuse me.. graphic novel)- loving fans will be pleased to know. and as of writing, i have booked 4 tickets for seth, maggie, maggie's boyfriend mike & myself to see the film on march 7. at the theatre where they had the premiere last week! tight.

okay so yeah. the rest of the week floated by without much incident. tuesday was the victoria & albert museum for my 'art in london' class, where i had to do an oral report on a very extravagant bed. we also saw a very extravagant sculpture of a dog. very educational, these trips. all this was followed by a delicious dinner on the south bank, roses & chelsea. wednesday, thursday & today were all epically long days at RADA, with hours and hours of love's labor's lost rehearsal. it's a blast, though. i love our cast, our director is adorable, and the 5-year old inside me jumps for joy every time i look down at the script and it says PRINCESS next to my lines.

so spring break begins one week from today. which means seth will be here in 5 DAYS. holycrap. boyfriend in europe. it's going to be incredible!

the weekend outlook is fair, with a side of exciting. maggie & i plan on going to portobello road market tomorrow, as i would like to pick up a few things. and i don't feel like i've done quite enough damage to my bank account this week. tomorrow night we're all celebrating doug's fake birthday (he's a leap year baby, so he's technically 5 years old) and sunday hopefully we're going to greenwich to stand on the prime meridian. nerdalert.

i should stop this.

this is entirely too long.

novella out.

love.