skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Katie is here!
On Thursday morning, I left Dublin for London and made my way out to Harlaxton to see UE's manor and everyone who is there for the semester for a few hours before they had to leave for Lake District. After they left, we went out on the town in Grantham.
Harlaxton Manor
Friday, Springer and I made our way into London and walked around the Theatre District for most of the afternoon and that night went to a play called The Woman in Black. That was really cool. It was a thriller with two guys and it was really good.
Saturday, we got up semi-early and went to TKTS and scored tickets to the matinee of Cabaret and I bought a ticket to Phantom that night. Both shows were phenomenal. For Cabaret, we had really good seats, so that was cool, but for Phantom I was in the very last row of the top balcony, but I still enjoyed the show.
Sunday morning, I got up really early and made my way to Heathrow airport to pick up Katie who was flying in from Zambia. It was so good to see her! But I think she got shorter in the past year and a half. So, we bummed around the city for a while visiting McDonalds, The National Gallery and the sites...
London Eye
Big Ben
Westminster Abbey
Buckingham Palace
And the Tower Bridge
Sunday afternoon, we got tickets to The Lion King and that was really cool. I really enjoyed it. It was definitely a theatrical experience not to be missed. After the matinee, we met up with Springer and Meg and we all got some Italian food for dinner.Monday, we got up and just kinda bummed around London a bit more and met up again with Springer and hit Shakespeare's Globe and Pizza Hut. (Buffet for 4.99!) We killed some more time around the city and made it up to Gatwick Airport and had a picnic of Orange Juice, Dr. Pepper, Vita-Snacks and Gummi Colas before our late flight back to Dublin.We didn't get back to my apartment til about midnight and we made some Hoops (Bad Euro Spaghettios) and hit the sack. We were so exhausted from all the travel, walking with huge bads and train problems. Today, we're getting our fill of internet and going grocery shopping at Tesco later. We might be going to Galway this week, but I guess it depends when Joe comes in on Friday.More Meier Adventures to come...
This past weekend, we ventured up to the UK with Arcadia. We were in Belfast from Friday to Sunday. We got in Friday night and they gave us dinner at a hotel. Afterwards, we went to a few pubs including "The Crown" which is the oldest pub in Belfast. After that, a huge group of us went across the street to this place that had music and a bit of a dance floor, so we all were out dancing Friday night.
Saturday morning came too early when we were put on a bus up to Giant's Causeway. It's an area on the northern coast of Northern Ireland that has all these geological formations. There are all these rocks that have split into hexagonal shapes. It was crazy. Of course, the more popular version is that a giant named Finn McCool lived there and decided to fight a Scottish Giant. Well, he chickened out and hid in the baby's crib. When the Scottish giant walked over the bridge made by the stones, Finn's wife told him that Finn was out, but he should see their new baby. Taking one look at the size of the baby, the Scottish giant didn't want to stick around to see the size of his father and ran back to Scotland, pulling up all the stones behind him.
After we grabbed lunch in Portrush, a small town nearby, we drove back into Belfast where I took a nap before dinner. After dinner, we came back to the hostel and tried to figure out what to do. We all (a huge group of Arcadia kids) went out on the town to a pub called Auntie Annie's and upstairs was a club that had music and dancing. So, for hours we were there cuttin' a rug until we were all so exhausted that we had to go back to crash. Drinks were expensive and the pound made them even worse, so I wasn't drinking at all that night. The five pound cover cleaned me out of all the sterling I had. But it was still a lot of fun. I took a lot of pictures of people dancing.The next morning, we got up to go to a lecture on the murals of Belfast. Ever since there was tension between the Loyalists and the Republicans, there have been murals to promote one or the other. After the lecture, we got a bus tour of the city to see the murals and other sites around Belfast. We finished the tour and hit the road back to Dublin and arrived around dinner time. It was a fun trip and I'm glad that we went with everyone from Arcadia. We all kinda do our own thing for the most part, so it was fun to all be together and go out together.Thursday I leave Dublin for England where I will spend Thursday night at Harlaxton Manor (UE's British Campus) and then I'll stay in London a few nights. Katie comes in on Sunday morning and I can't wait to see her. Then on Monday evening, we'll return together to Dublin and possibly take the bus around Ireland for a few days and be back by Friday when Joe comes from the US. We'll then celebrate St. Patrick's Day here in Dublin on Saturday before heading off on a European conquest of Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Italy the following week. It's going to be awesome, but I don't know if Europe is prepared to handle three Meier kids at once.
The other day, I bought a bag of "Buffalo Flavoured" Hunky Dory chips and this is the excerpt from the back of the bag which I found amusing...BUFFALO FLAVOUR — Buffalo are here!
You've seen buffalo grazing the plains of North America in countless Westerns, but would you believe that these mighty animals which can weigh up to two tonnes now graze the plains of ... Co. Meath. Yes, Ireland has a buffalo ranch. But don't expect to hear beating drums or see smoke signals in the vicinity of these buffalo. These hairy giants are farmed in much the same way as conventional cattle (except stronger fences). So now thanks to Hunky Dorys, you can saddle up and try a taste of the wild west.
Ingredients: Buffalo Flavour Seasoning
Suitable for VegetariansWhat?!
Hello everyone,I don't know if you knew, but to meet people in UCD's Drama Society (DramSoc), I submitted Echoes of Our Blood for Original Writers Week. Echoes is a script that Krystina Thiel and I compiled from old war letters in 2004 for the Montana State Thespian Festival where we won Best Ensemble.So, I cast, rehearsed and performed the show in a week. It was a rough week. I had four girls and three of four guys. Right away, one guy dropped out leaving me with these two guys who didn't even go to UCD. One girl never came to any rehearsals, so I replaced her with Aileen who I cast in another little four minute skit: "The Sidikiboyo Workout Video." (Along with another girl named Áina) Then, after the first read through a week ago, I never saw the two non-UCD guys again. So, who knows what happened to them?So, I had no guys and four girls — Caitríona, Roisín, Nessa & Aileen. I asked the girls to bring in guys, so a few came into one rehearsal Monday, Sean and Eamon. I called Brian Nerney, a guy that came to UCD through Arcadia with me and he agreed to jump in at the last minute. Now, I know what you're thinking... that's only three guys and he needs four. Well, yeah. I had to step in and perform which I wasn't too excited about, but I'm glad I did because it's been too long since I've been able to act.We barely had a run-through right before the performance this afternoon at 3pm.And surprisingly, it went off very smoothly. And I think I made some friends in the process. DramSoc is pretty intense with all the shows they do (two a week), but it was good to be back into the blood of a theatre department. It makes me excited to work on The Secret Garden this summer (July 12-14, 18-21; Tickets $18; Call 455.8514... but not til May or June).
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,
