Che? Cosa? Dublino è verde!

so today i realized that i have been saying the wrong word for "what" the entire time... using "che" instead of "cosa" or "che cosa" ah. i was so embarassed for myself when i discovered this. o well! good thing im here for the next what, like 5 months, to make up for it. here are pictures for the southern italy trip i talked about last post: pompeii, almalfi coast + paestum, halloween, eatpraylove + capri. sorry to spring em on you all at the same time! well whoever reads this probably sees them on facebook mostly anyway....

ive been listening to david archuleta's song "crush" on repeat for the past couple hours. its addictive, even though its just a stupid sugary pop song. he does have a good voice though. haha. life has been great lately. at some point, i dont know when, all of us here stopped being tourists. im not sure when it was, but not only do we get annoyed by crowds of slow, badly dressed tourists, but all the things we walk by everyday we now take for granted. anne and i were talking about this yesterday... one of those first nights when 3 of us ventured out to find the vatican, it was all lit up at night and seemed so magical. everything in rome did. now, i cant count how many times i been to/around the vatican, and especially to the pantheon, which we walk by just about everyday. its hard to remember to appreciate all the amazing monuments around us when they have become normal. its been fun getting to know italians more, the guys at pascuccis, the hotel workers, etc. also, we have this thing called "God Squad" every monday night, where these 2 young american seminarians here in rome lead discussions... its awesome, we love getting to know them and the other deacons/seminarians involved in our campus ministry stuff. much better than the home campus.

ireland was a great trip with my roommates! maire's aunt and uncle were absolutely wonderful, they took us all around dublin and out to dinner and everything. it was great to stay with them! we flew out friday with a bunch of other smc girls and got to dublin around noon, it couldnt have been easier. we all got freaked out by driving when maire's uncle took that first windy turn on the wrong side of the street! so weird. we went downtown to do touristy stuff and eat lunch. in dublin they actually have food that is not just the native food- like in all of italy. ethnic food... yummy. i had chickepea and potato curry stew. it was so good.
of course, we cant escape italian wherever we happen to go! the people ordering in front of me were speaking in italian (you actually hear a lot of different languages in dublin), and most of us slipped up and said a couple "grazie"s and "ciao"s... it was so funny, but those two phrases are especially burned in our minds forever now. we went into st patricks cathedral, which is actually not catholic but of the church of ireland. the satirist jonathan swift is buried there we found out, which was so cool to see! Then we went to the guinness factory. it was interesting to learn how beer is made.... at the gravity bar on the top level you get an awesome view of the city and a guinness. it was beautiful all lit up at night, but i didnt like the guinness at all... surprise, surprise. [picture of Maire and I] then we met maires uncle and aunt at a beautiful bar/restaurant thing called Cafe En Seine, it was beautiful! i wish i had a picture of it. they had they wedding reception there, her uncle is works with a bunch of pubs in dublin. we then met up with maire's cousin/relation, who is the same age as us and goes to medical school at trinity college. we ended up going to this med student day talent show thingy, it was really confusing, but awesome to find ourselves randomly thrown into another, totally different college environment in another country. he pointed us in the right direction in downtown dublin for the night, and we had hamburgers for dinner :)
saturday we went shopping, and got taken all around the outskirts of dublin! robert and pamela live in raheny, where we stayed, and then we went to the beach (who knew there was beach in dublin?!) where people were windsurfing in the freezing cold. then we went to the top of howth hill, where it was so windy!! the creators of riverdance live around there. i loved the hill. [pic of the 4 of us] The we went to the harbor, tried to fit our feet in some irish king or prince's (i forget...) footsteps left in the pavement of the harbor [pic of me], saw a castle where some dracula films were made, and had drinks at a golf course pub. i tried irish cider, baulmer's, which is the closest thing i could come to liking beer/an irish drink. haha.
Robert and Pamela's kids- the dogs- were so funny! Finn is an Irish wolfhound, and maddie is much smaller. Finn might as well be a horse!! Now of course as everyone knows, I'm not very um... fond... of dogs, but they were fun to see [pic of me being scared of Finn- haha- mom are you freaked out??]. We went to church in Raheny, and then out to a yummy Thai place. their church is called the Mother of Sweet Divine! ok, well not exactly, but thats how robert told us he calls it.

That's the four of us, Maire, me, Ashley, and Anne in front over Pamela and Robert's lovely house! Robert, who is also a writer, gave us each a copy of his book If Walls Could Talk, a kind of historical fiction book imagining what the walls of several Irish castles would say if they could talk! I'm exicted to read it... Dad, I know you'll love it too! It was such a fun trip. We felt to much more at home and comfortable in the country of Ireland... speaking English really did make a difference! and it was green there... always a plus when you live in the middle of a city all the time. It was the first time on a trip that we wished we could stay instead of going home to the hotel, which of course we also love.