Stranger Danger

Golly. I feel like I've been terrible at posting, but it seems like nothing too exciting has happened to me. Here are a few happenings in my life as of late:

Last Saturday night, I went to see Ben Taylor play at the Sugar Club near St. Stephen's Green. (For those who don't know, Ben Taylor is the son of James Taylor and Carly Simon). It was so good. Oh man, he is very amazing. When he came out — just him and his guitar — and played his first song, the audience was silent. You could only hear a few clinking glasses and that's it. And after a song or two, he took off his shoes and just had fun with the audience. He said that we were getting the most quiet audience award, until about half way through and he forgot his spud-gun, so he couldn't shoot the noisy people in the audience. He was so good live. His voice is so rich and soothing. And he sounds so much like his dad. It was awesome. Admission to get into the club was €15 and drinks were incredibly expensive. I could only afford one €8 Long Island Iced Tea. And it was gone by the time Ben got on to perform. (There were two opening acts). But there was this couple in their 30s or 40s next to Springer and I who bought one bottle of wine (€20), finished that and bought another, but brought two extra wine glasses and poured us each a glass. "We'll never finish it," they said, "We're Irish — we don't drink very much!" So, we each scored two free glasses of wine. (He forced me to pour myself another when I drank the first glass). He was selling and signing CD's (because he heard that signed CD's sound better), but we had to run off to catch the bus before the buses stopped running.

Ben Taylor

But my night certainly didn't end there by any means. Outside my apartment, I ran into this couple who were taking out the trash and they told me I should come over for Lorna's Birthday. I had nothing better to do, so I went over to some strange girls' apartment (at UCD, not in the city) for her birthday party. Also, it was probably close to midnight because the concert wasn't over until after 11pm. Luckily, I kinda knew one guy at Lorna's — Sean, who lives across the hall from Ashlee, Meg and Alyssa. But other than that, I knew no one. I met pretty much everyone there — Lorna, Anna, Marian?, Canadian girl, a few other girls, Dave, John from Hong Kong, Sean... But we all hung out until about 4am. It was a lot of fun. People are so friendly. I walked in, they asked if I had rabies, and then they accepted me into the party and got me a drink. They also brain-washed me into voting for Cork as the best county in Ireland. They even taught me some Irish. They were all really cool kids.

Classes are good. Most are boring, but I'm loving my classes with Professor Dolan. He's so damn smart. I have him for Humor: Medieval to Modern (where we just read a book every week and talk about it). I went to that class by accident, but I really enjoyed it, so I registered for it. But when I tried, it was closed, so I had to see Prof. Dolan to get a letter from him and as he was writing my letter, he asked where I was from and I told him Montana and he asked if I had ever heard of Great Falls, Montana. He said that he had visited Great Falls back in the 90s and really enjoyed it.
I needed to pick up one more class to get a full course load, so I asked him about his other class (Wise Virgins). He kinda gave me an overview of it and it sounded interesting enough, plus he's awesome, so he wrote me a letter to get into that class as well. And then he showed me the text that we were using that was a book that belonged to JRR Tolkien. (Author of Lord of the Rings). On the inside cover were the initials "JRRT" in elvish handwriting. It was amazing. I asked him how he got it and he goes "Oh, I knew him at Oxford." Of course.
He seems to like to pick on me in class. I think it's because I'm American, but also cause he knows my name. That, and I'm really cool.

Well, I think that's everything of at least mild interest so far. My friend Catherine is coming tonight from England where she is studying abroad, so I'm excited for her to come which should end in at least a few adventures of worth. Until then,