an american classic...

that is not so classic in Belfast. The rootbeer float. Ahh... i love the taste of an A&W Rootbeer float. So I thought, hey there is something that I could make for the mom's for mother's day . * which by the way was last weekend for all of you slackers that forgot to send you mum a card... oh well, thankfully you have a second try in May... anyway... i had mom's into the classroom for a wee celebration, and decided we would make rootbeer floats...I would have just made rainbow punch but there is no multicolored sherbert here.... really the only thing close to sherbert that i've found is hagan daz sorbet... a little pricey for 21 moms...So I went in search of rootbeer. I went to curly's and asda... and there was nothing that said rootbeer... there were lots of things that maybe could have been rootbeer that I wwasn't sure what was in the bottle, so I decided to take a couple home and find out what they tasted like in hopes of getting something close..... I am sure that you guessed... I didn't correctly pick... in fact I was really far off. i decided on Brown Lemonade.. because it seemed to be the right color, and it lager shandy... because the name soundedd similiar and it was in a tinted dark bottle so it could have been the right color... let me tell you, if you every are thinking about pulling either of these beverages of the shelf.. don't. Brown lemonade,,... exactly what it says... if you ask for a lemonade for a mixed drink you will get sprite, if you get brown lemonade at asda.. you get lemonade that for some unknown reason is brown... not even an appetizing color... way beyond my scope of understanding. So I decided to to give the lager shandy a taste... I can sum it up by saying... carbonated beer. Not just any carbonated beer... extra carbonated milwaukee's best... BLAHHHH... I had to laugh though... they have found a way to get beer to the little ones... put it in a soda bottle... I seriously couldn't even swallow that one... so sadly not rootbeer... I was feeling daunted... there were plenty of other unknown beverages, but i just didn't have the adventure in me... I was trying to think about what other american things i could take in, when I bumped into my neighbor jack... he suggested trying Sainsbury's to get it, and I remembered that the american mom at school told me i could get skippy peanut butter (which I picked up when I was there) and so I headed off to sainsbury's. I managed to find American styly rootbeer (although i thought it was low on the carbonation) and so bought enough ice cream and rootbeer to make floats. In the end... i have to say... they were not a huge success... it turns out that all of the dentists here use rootbeer as the flavor for tooth polish, and so inevitibly everyone had an immediate connection to the dentist telling them not to swallow... oh well.. it was another experience...

missing home

I got the link to these movies this morning, and I have to say I miss the poker girls at home. I just had to share the raw talent of my friends....I thoroughly enjoyed both short films! Good times. They are slow to load but well worth the wait.
http://homepage.mac.com/kramm/movies/iMovieTheater32.html

wil' craic

I was all packed and ready for my St Paddy weekend, and I had the hat that I bought for my school hoopla. I had a feeling that one of the guys would come to the door to help me with my bags, so I put on my obnoxious hat and thought... they will just die-- this is so stereotypically American. I was rushing around downstairs when I heard a knock on the door. I ran downstairs with a chuckle eagerly awaiting the looks on their faces.... when i opened the door i looked out and there facing me were both Robert and Damian wearing the same ridiculous hats. They were looking back at the girls who were absolutely busting up laughing because the boys had been scheming since the night before and couldn't wait to see my reaction... is it any wonder why I feel so at home here?

We made it to dublin in time to see the St. Paddy's day parade, although a good portion of the time we could only see the backs of people and the rest of the time we managed a prime spot behind a fence... but we could see everything! A little irish stew and 5 layers later we went to the park to see the Ireland club finals of Hurling and Gaelic Football. Robert played hurling (not sure how one would say that) and Damian played Gaelic football. Both were great, agressive sports. Much to Robert's dismay I have to admit that i enjoyed the Gaelic football better -- only because I had a team to cheer for which always makes it better. It was good fun, and I hope that i will get a chance to see another game or two of both. I do have to say though... no padding, seems dangerously crazy to me??!??!?

We also went to the guinness factory... I have to admit an airhead moment... well not exactly a moment..i never equated the guinness book of world records with guinness beer. That small chasm in my thinking was rectified and I very much enjoyed my visit. The part I enjoyed most was when we walked past the line that wrapped around 3 sides of the building and walked right in to our free tickets. Thank you Damian! It was a good tour, and we enjoyed our pint of guinness at the end.


I have to say it was an amazing weekend. The craic was 90 on St.Paddy's day and the entire weekend, although we didn't hear any irish music except for the irish drinking songs CD in our apartment. And I only met a couple of Irish people in Dublin, strangely enough. I did however have a run in with a not so friendly Scotsman at the Ireland/England rugby match, but I am trying to not allow him to stain my weekend. We took the bus tour, and visited the prison in Dublin which was very interesting. I have really enjoyed learning about the sociology of this place All in all--- a fantastic weekend,...with some fantastic folks. I suppose I only gave you the bare bones of it. As I was sitting down to blog i realized it is much easier to describe the ordinary events of my life rather than the more memorable. Either way I did have a great weekend...

an excellent celebration...

Well I have been told that the best place to celebrate St.Patrick's Day is in.... the United States of America... but the teachers and kids at my school really gave it their all to put on quite a St. Patty's day celebration. There was music, and dancing, and even a few jokes... What is green and stays out all night? Paddy O'Furniture! Ha ha ha ha ha.. So besides being good craic, I thought my kids were quite adorable as little leprechauns. It kind of made me think of dressing up babies as animals... young Irish children as leprechauns! Finding green was interesting. I went to Primark... which is a cheaper clothing store and I found loads of green things... just no two greens that actually matched. So I finally picked a shirt and pants that seemed similar enough and went on my merry way... I think that the kids especially enjoyed the bearded hat that i wore... all in good fun. I told James at school that you have to go OTT or not do it at all... and we had great fun all day long. I am heading to Dublin tomorrow. I have heard that it is a much better place to celebrate than belfast... there really isn't any division... so i can wear green and enjoy a little more st. patty's day craic. I'll post more after my weekend. HAPPY ST.PATRICK'S DAY EVERYONE!!!

one of those days...

I am about to take myself to bed to avoid any more of this rotten evening. It is raining and miserable, and I am just all out of sorts. you know the kind of day that things aren't bad, they just don't seem to be going smoothly... that is tonight. Sonia and I got together to go to the movies. I told her i would pick her up, and as I pulled out of her drive my gas/petrol light went on... Sonia said i could go about 30 miles once the light was on, and since we were late we decided to risk it... so we headed for the cinema, and I have to say I was a crap driver... I don't know if it was the rain, or what, but I seriouslydoubted my ability behind the wheel, as I am sure sonia did... not dangerous driving, just crap... anyway we did arrive to the movies without harm and ran through the rain to buy our tickets... where we realized the movie that we were going to see was at the theater across town at 7:20 (now it was7:30) --- i had somehow confused the two, and so we were faced with ˆfoolish thingsˆ or ˆmatadorˆ the girl selling us the tickets told us that she would go for matador... clearly she wasn't experiencing the best judgement either. So we get inside and begin looking for our screen which is of course up multiple flights of stairs... we get into the theater and it is packed. So we look around and I thought I saw 3 three seats together by and older couple (you know it is always nice to have a buffer seat) and so we get to the seats... there are only 2 (imagine me being mistaken tonight) so we sit down... as the previews draw to a close we are suddenly aware of the bizillion 15 year olds surrounding us... no I may sound old, but I instantly felt like I was at school...there was just general teenage behavior... and had the movie been even remotely enjoyable I would have been annoyed by the 10 times the people in front of us got out of their seats, and the obvious couple that were clearly not watching the movie... but alas the movie was HORRID... I can't actually believe that we sat through the entire thing... i would say that it rivaled a for bad movie.. and this one didn't even have an attractive man to distract you...(Pierce Brosnan was attractive as 007, but missed the mark with a really cheesy mustache in this film) so it was a HUGE flop... after which I almost tripped Sonia down the stairs by stepping on her coats tie and her skirt... 2 for one special... we parted, and I came home and decided to do my dishes... and I grabbed the silverware which I had just knocked into the sink and grap the blade side of a knife. Thankfully it didn't cut me, but at that point I decided that my best option would be to go to bed, and get myself together to face tomrrow... if it is anything like today...I am going to need my rest. Goodnight!

twins?

I know that there is a term for people on the other side of the world that look and act just like someone you know, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is... anyway, I ran into a whole bunch of them this weekend at the British Council conference. I can't believe how many of you were there! There was a girl named Raylene who was the Boston version of Susan (yes, I sat talking to here and thought.. wow you even move your hands like susan and your intonation is like her too) and then there was Brian who was not married to Raylene, but was very much like erik... and so I sat and enjoyed a glass of wine with him and a guy named Matthew who imagine reminded me of tiffany's husband matthew (although not as much and maybe because of the name and the other people had made me make connections with people back home)... and then there was Mark from Australia that reminded me of Jon.... so I really felt like I was home this weekend. Oh, and I forgot there was one person that was the absolute spitting image of Jennifer... Melynn who was from Amarillo texas.. where is Jennifer from? She was a little shorter, but if they had been in the same room you would have sworn they were sisters... weird. Anyway.. there were lots of Australians, Canadians and Americans at the conference, and it was nice to meet people, and talk about their experiences. I had very low expectations for the conference, but I have to say it was well worth the money and the chaos that I came back to this morning. I learned a lot about Belfast, and the symbolism in the banners and the murals and made a few connections with people that I will follow up with in the weeks to come. It also just reminded me of what a great experience this has been, and how lucky I am to be in Belfast. I don't even know how many people told me how friendly Belfast was (especially in comparison to London), I knew that already but it is how I feel about Grainne in Columbus, I want her to like it and be happy there. Funny how Belfast is a second home, I wanted everyone to like it and be happy here!