Anna's visit!!

My lovely friend Anna came to visit over the past weekend! It was soooo nice to have a friend from home come and give me hugs! I think it was perfect timing because I was beginning to feel a little homesick so having her here re-energized me for a few weeks until Kurt gets here!
We had a lot of fun (more pics to come once Anna sends them to me!) She came in on Saturday evening and we went into Temple Bar that evening. There must have been about 5 bachelorette parties we saw out on the town...and they really do it up! Costumes and all (note to self: this is the place to come for that!)

We went into downtown for about 12 hours on Sunday! We took the train to Bray, which is south of Dublin. It was a beautiful sunny but freezing day so we we walked around a little and went to lunch there. It is a cute little village I will definately return to. Then we went back into Dublin and visited the Chester Beatty Library, which is actually more of a museum. It was really interesting...lots of focus on rare books and different religion histories. After the museum we went to Guinness for the world famous tour and free pint o Guinness! I don't know who's heard it tastes better here, but that is true in my opinion! To finish the day off we had an Irish dinner at a pub, complete with traditional Irish music and dancing Riverdance style! Loved the entertainment but the food was so-so. I had stew, which turned out to be fatty lamb meat in a watery stock (aka barfy). Still, it was a great day all together! I'm so glad Anna could come visit!

These are my only pics I have on my camera :( I left mine at home on Sunday so here is a couple from Sat night:

You can see some of the crazy bachelorette girls here... there was a band playing so this guy grabbed one for a quick dance. Its so entertaining to just walk around downtown any given night!

Anna rehydrating after flying in, but in the other hand is a drinky! What do ya do?!

One of the pubs in Temple Bar. We didn't go to this one...but you can imagine if we did?

Some good times...

So here's how I've spent my past couple of weekends when I wasn't being a tourist:

Me and two of my roomies Stacey and Sam on Halloween. I made my costume! I basically decided too late that I was actually going to do something so everything was sold out in the stores. Halloween here is absolutely crazy (just like home!) But they put off fireworks and have bonfires all over the place...like in culdesacs by my house. Normal?

We pretty much spent our evening in downtown Dublin walking round because the pubs and clubs were soooo packed it was ridiculous. Still it was fun to see and meet interesting folks...like these peeps! Look at the creepy guy over my shoulder! yowza!

This is my landlady Debbie. She brought Sam and me out to see a U2 tribute band last weekend. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen. The band literally dressed up like U2 and everything. The funniest part though were the fans. You've never seen a more dedicated crowd of U2 followers...and I think its pretty much the norm here. I've heard people talking about how great U2 is on several occasions. It was pretty amusing.

Sam (on far left) pretending to be as hardcore of a fan as the rest of 'em!

"Bono" came and danced on the platform right behind our booth. I swooned ;) aka laughed my head off!

Naturally I had to join in with the band! You can't really tell in this picture but this place got absolutely PACKED with crazed fans! Good times for sure!

Only in Ireland!

So part of what I do at my internship is go on home visits when someone needs assessing as to whether or not they are safe at home, especially if they live alone. Anyway, one therapist was talking about a home visit she had been on recently where they literally assessed his home environment, and then felt the need to assess another vital part of his livelyhood...the pub! This man had dinner at the local pub every night, so the OT thought it was appropriate to determine whether he could manage his way around the pub, money management, communication in ordering...you can imagine justifying it! So they took him to the pub, decided he was fine there as well as at home, and left him there! They returned to the hospital, and had discharged thier patient to the pub! Ah, Ireland!