some awesome days have passed recently
first off, Thanksgiving dinner.... was amazing. There were 20-something people there, more American than not and mostly girls. Everyone brought food and we had a FEAST. Turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, stuffing, egg nog (!), pumpkin-garlic soup, my chocolate-mint truffles.... rum, wine, everything and anything. And everything tasted right, to boot. I made new friends, danced around Gabi's kitchen, had crazy cousin time making faces at my camera.
AND, I got to cuddle a kitty. Gabi's "fostering" a 10-week-old girl named Mary Jane. She is a tuxedo cat. The same breed as Gollum. The cuteness was nearly overwhelming, but I pulled through.
Natalie's visit did not end there, though. Well, first off she arrived at 7am on Saturday. After a nap, we went to the farmers' market, made truffles, waited for Avi to show up for lunch (he didn't), went to Indian food instead (Taste of India on Wicklow St is dumb and overpriced), came home to finish making the truffles, dressed up and headed out. YAY THANKSGIVING.
On Sunday, we actually did have lunch with Avi right before Natalie left. Then A and I came home and he said he wanted to watch Ratatouille, but it turns out he can't stand it.
Monday night was a GSU dinner and karaoke. We had tasty Korean food and then headed downstairs and sang for four hours. Amazing!
Tuesday, Avi took me to dinner. We had awesome Indian food at a really nice place in Dun Laoghaire (you pronounce that "leery," btw).
Yesterday brought a talk by Dr. Thomas Mitchell entitled "What the Middle East Peace Process can Learn from Northern Ireland" but which was really "One Hour of Talking about Why Israel is a Settler State, Even More So than America, South Africa, or Northern Ireland, Complete with Pauses, Stammers, and Losing my Place -- and Ten Minutes in which I Directly Compare the Two Peace Processes." The last few minutes were five actual ideas he had.
He was followed by a scripted response from Nadav Cohen, of the Israeli Embassy over here. Nadav is, I'm sure, a great guy, but his English is not great. His accent is intelligible, but his grasp of the vocab apart from the written statement he was reading? Not so much. However, in his ten-minute script he managed to say more than Tom did in an hour and a half. More relevant, more concise, and better thought out.
And then we took Dr. Mitchell out for a pint, and we have a budget to take him to dinner tonight, and he's like "I want something traditionally Irish. I want mutton."
We're like "UM."
Avi had this idea of a place in Temple Bar -- we walked by last night. No mutton, but they have plenty of "traditional" fare. We'll probably end up taking the dude to Gogartys afterwards... ugh. He's a dumb tourist, and I honestly didn't get the impression he's actually bright.
We'll just have to see. Anyway, it's free food.
AND, I got to cuddle a kitty. Gabi's "fostering" a 10-week-old girl named Mary Jane. She is a tuxedo cat. The same breed as Gollum. The cuteness was nearly overwhelming, but I pulled through.
Natalie's visit did not end there, though. Well, first off she arrived at 7am on Saturday. After a nap, we went to the farmers' market, made truffles, waited for Avi to show up for lunch (he didn't), went to Indian food instead (Taste of India on Wicklow St is dumb and overpriced), came home to finish making the truffles, dressed up and headed out. YAY THANKSGIVING.
On Sunday, we actually did have lunch with Avi right before Natalie left. Then A and I came home and he said he wanted to watch Ratatouille, but it turns out he can't stand it.
Monday night was a GSU dinner and karaoke. We had tasty Korean food and then headed downstairs and sang for four hours. Amazing!
Tuesday, Avi took me to dinner. We had awesome Indian food at a really nice place in Dun Laoghaire (you pronounce that "leery," btw).
Yesterday brought a talk by Dr. Thomas Mitchell entitled "What the Middle East Peace Process can Learn from Northern Ireland" but which was really "One Hour of Talking about Why Israel is a Settler State, Even More So than America, South Africa, or Northern Ireland, Complete with Pauses, Stammers, and Losing my Place -- and Ten Minutes in which I Directly Compare the Two Peace Processes." The last few minutes were five actual ideas he had.
He was followed by a scripted response from Nadav Cohen, of the Israeli Embassy over here. Nadav is, I'm sure, a great guy, but his English is not great. His accent is intelligible, but his grasp of the vocab apart from the written statement he was reading? Not so much. However, in his ten-minute script he managed to say more than Tom did in an hour and a half. More relevant, more concise, and better thought out.
And then we took Dr. Mitchell out for a pint, and we have a budget to take him to dinner tonight, and he's like "I want something traditionally Irish. I want mutton."
We're like "UM."
Avi had this idea of a place in Temple Bar -- we walked by last night. No mutton, but they have plenty of "traditional" fare. We'll probably end up taking the dude to Gogartys afterwards... ugh. He's a dumb tourist, and I honestly didn't get the impression he's actually bright.
We'll just have to see. Anyway, it's free food.