Actual St. Pat's day

Long overdue recaps:
On St. Patrick's we went to the parade down in the city center. We met up with a girl who lives here and all walked down together. Again, what is it with people telling me Missouri/Kansas isn't the Midwest. I'm pretty sure we're the freaking heart of the Midwest, but whatever, what do people from Michigan know? (Just kidding, I'm not overgeneralizing).

The parade was fun but very different. The KC one is huge, and I was actually kind of sad to have missed it b/c I realized Tymara would have been in it this year, dancing with the Foreign Language Academy drill team, just like I did a long time ago. There weren't people throwing candy and there were very few floats. Tons of little kids in school bands playing down the way and lots of different groups, ranging from the Police or Fire Dept to Amnesty International to the Galway Nigerian organization... It was quite fun. I can't remember what all went on between our exploring the bay and the city center and later on that evening. I feel like we went back to the apartment and chilled for a while before heading out. We tried to check out Taffe's but it was too crowded even for standing. Monroe's had reached capacity. We wound up at Roisin Dubh. My first time there, it was kind of insane. They had a live band and we were basically caught standing and listening to it, an interesting sound/feel to the group I must say. I did the fiddle, it's sweet. Anyways, we left after stealing Rachel a Guinness pint glass and heading back to Monroe's. We were lucky and got in. The traditional Tuesday night festivities weren't in swing, but they did have live Irish music and dancers, just a bunch of drunk/happy Irish dancing around instead of the usual group of older people. It was fun! Rachel and I took our first Guinness. This thing was my Everest, I worked hard to finish it. Not a fan, to say the least, I think I'll be keeping to my girly/fruity drinks when I return home. But if I were to drink a Guinness only once, when better than St. Patrick's at my favorite pub with my best friend? We left after finishing the drinks- it took a looong time, haha- and walked out with souvenirs pint glasses ;) I think I actually felt a bit of the alcohol, my first beer was a Guinness and a pint is 2x an American beer, so I think it makes sense that I would've felt it. We did a midnight Tesco run and bought ice cream and chocolate, came back, enjoyed the combo before crashing.

St. pat's was full of great craic (again, pronounced 'crack')

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Rachel is here!
Customs took forever and so she wound up on a later bus than expected. That meant that I went to my second class of the day and could barely sit still, waiting for the hour to end so I could run into the city center to the bus station to pick her up! I was like a little kid at Christmas time, oh so happy!

We walked back to my apartment where Rachel revealed to me the 67 pounds of stuff Mom had sent. Holy Crap! It filled my bed, I took pictures and will post them later, haha. Thank you Mom. I'm pretty sure though I didn't ask for some of those quantities of things (ie, two larger than travel sized toothpastes, three bags of tortillas, and four boxes of one-load tides, haha). yeah, it sounds bad but I might have to send some of those excesses back, don't kill/hate me! I'm so appreciative of everything though. Last night for dinner I had me some delicious pinto beans with avocado on a corn tortilla, happy Mexican (oh stereotypes).

Yesterday after lunch, consisting of delicious "corn" from Mama G (thank you!), I took Rachel on a tour of the city center and we walked along the bay. Such a gorgeous day! She brought the weather with her. After walking and exploring forever we returned to unpack all of that stuff, talk, eat dinner and try to grasp the reality of her actually being here.

We went out, originally with the intent of seeing some traditional music. When we made it to the pub, there wasn't even standing room. We wound up at King's Head pub where we were lucky enough to find seats. The music playing by the dj was sweet. I heard my "You shook me all night long" by ACDC (yeah Mom!) and loads of other jams. Then the band, Kif, came along after 10 or so. They wound up being a really awesome cover band, doing one awesome ACDC and Bruce Springstein. It was sort of like Mama Lopez and Mama G were there with us, good times! Then we called it slightly early around half past midnight and walked back home to crash.

It is now a gorgeously sunny day and I think we're going to go to the parade and adventure some more. I'm excited.

Enjoy your st. Patty's day!

Rachel is now in Ireland!

Ok so this weekend was sort of a bust work wise. For some reason, lack of motivation, laziness (anxiety to talk to home) I don't know, I didn't really get to working on my paper until last night, I'm one-tenth done though with a good outline. I fail.

Oh and I also fail in that, this is hilariously embarrassing, the bag full of stuff from Mom to me weighed 72 pounds to begin with! Wow, that means 1-I am a spoiled brat, and 2-I'm a cow. hahaha, just kidding. As Mandy pointed out, it means 3- My mom loves me very much. Basically, I won't need to go grocery shopping for anything other than fruits and vegetables and yogurt from here on out. Nice.

I just got a call from Rachel, she is in Ireland, customs took forever and she's going to be taking a later bus. Goodness, talk about stretching one's patience. We're in the same country now, I just want to see her, not wait another 2 hrs! Oh well, I'm glad she got here safe and so happy to have her!

I love you all!