So, I got a good look at the brochures I picked up in Dublin over the weekend. Most of them were for things in Dublin, but didn't look very appealing on closer examination. The one that really peeked my interest was the "Highland Tours" brochure. I fiddled with the idea on Sunday night while waiting for everyone else to get home. Then on Monday I decided definitively: I'm going to Scotland for 5 days. The tour cost a bit more than I expected after all the costs and stuff were added, but it's going to be awesome. There's a train, and I'll see Loch Lomond and Loch Ness, and the Isle of Skye. I'm more excited for this than I am the trip over Easter weekend. Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble getting it booked on Monday night. When I tried again Tuesday morning, it went quite smoothly. I shouldn't have booked things right before class because I thought for sure I was going to be late, but time was in my favor and I was right on time. So I'm thinking about this trip all day, because I'm really excited, when suddenly I almost keel over. I didn't look to see if I needed any visas for the many places I was traveling. Naturally I spent the next hour looking up visa requirements for all the countries I was going or considering going. Massive sigh of relief, I don't need any. That would have seriously put a dent in my plans, especially since most of the bookings are paid for already. Being Tuesday, it was my night to cook. I knew we had pork chops in the freezer, but I didn't want to just cook them plain and serve baked potatoes with them. That's when I remembered the fantastically awesome chops Mom had made once with a ginger glaze. Mmm, they were delicious. So I had to make an emergency Tesco run, not just to the Express a couple blocks down, but the big one in Wilton that's at least 20 minutes walk. I only had two hours between each of my classes, so it had to be quick. I made it there and back and found everything I was looking for, in less than an hour, and got to class early. Dinner took longer than it should have, and I was a bit more frazzled than I should have been, but it worked out good and was quite yummy. Overall, I'd say Tuesday was a great day.
Wednesday was pretty fantastic too. I decided spur of the moment to take advantage of the scone-baking lessons that Campus Accommodation was hosting. It was going to be just me, but then Jocelyn was home, and some of Katherine's friends showed up. That was a lot of fun, and they weren't very hard to make either. Later that evening, the girls in the dance class decided to have a practice. It was a bit of a walk to our host's house, but it was nice out and the conversation was good. Practice was, of course, exhausting, but in a refreshing kind of way. It had been a while since the last time I had practiced on my own so this was a much needed session. Oh, the other thing I did on Wednesday was delete solitaire and spider solitaire. I was wasting entirely way too much time. Hours simply disappeared when they were open. So now they are gone, and I'm going to actually do my homework now.
Thursday was a big night, one we had been planning for a while. When I came back from class, Jemma and Jocelyn were moving a couch into our room. The dining table was at the end of the hallway, and the tv made it back there eventually too. After counting seats, we realized we needed another couch. So we borrowed from the neighbors. That was two extra couches, one from each neighbor, a dining table and tv at the end of the hallway where they certainly did not belong, and lots of seating for lots of people. In case you haven't guessed yet, we were having a party.
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| The legs had to come off in order to move it from the neighbors |
And not just any party, a Disney movie party. That's right, four college students planning on watching Disney movies for 5+ hours. Actually, it came out that about 15 people made it that night. We definitely needed that last couch. So we bought three big pizzas and everyone brought something with them: chips and dip, hummus, sodas, cake, chocolates, really yummy crunchy chocolate things, and pecan pie. Yeah, not sure why pecan, but it went almost as fast as the pizza did, so apparently it was a good idea. We had a fantastic time. Clean-up on Friday morning wasn't bad either. The floor just needed mopped in a few spots where the soda had exploded, the dishes needed done, and the couches had to go back. We didn't have time to get the kitchen table returned before everyone left for the weekend, so it stayed at the end of the hallway. I wasn't going to try moving it by myself, plus I had no idea how it got back there since it was wider than certain spots of the hallway.
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| Two couches and six chairs later, I still sat on the floor |
Friday was incredibly productive, somehow. And after a whole day of homework, I sat down and started figuring out more travel plans. It wasn't looking good and I was starting to get a headache, so I left them kind of hanging at the end. When I got up the next morning, I had it all figured out in my head, worked it out on the calendar and realized I had to start completely over. That was frustrating. But because it was so frustrating I decided to get some of the trip officially on the calendar and booked the last half of the trip. Yeah, that was a kind of weird way to do it. See, after we go to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, I'm leaving before everyone else for England. So I'm starting in Newcastle, going to Bath and finishing in Bristol. But then I'm going to fly into Dublin and tour Northern Ireland for three days before coming back to Cork. In my head it was logical to book Dublin and Northern Ireland first. So I was in Amsterdam, had a few empty days on the calendar, and had a flight from Bristol to Dublin. ... I still had to work out was happening in the middle of all that. After working on the travel plans and homework, again, all day, I forgot that Katherine was home until she made a noise. I think she was Skypeing and someone made her laugh. She told me later that she had no idea if I was home on Saturday either. We were both just so wrapped up in our worlds.
After church on Sunday morning, I went back to the Chaplaincy for tea and biscuits. One of the college students had invited me, a couple weeks earlier, to a retreat over Palm Sunday weekend. The plans for the retreat were finalised and I got the rest of the information I needed. After talking for a while, there were like eight of us there, we got on the topic of "Things Jesus Never Said". There's a Facebook page with some funny pictures. By this point it's like 2, or 3 and know I need to get other things done. So I go back to the apartment and realize I really don't want to do anything. Luckily I was saved from another torturous day of homework by a call from home. It was much needed. I hadn't talked in a couple days, excepting the call I got from my brother and his girlfriend right as I was going to bed the night before. It was a weekend filled with catching up on things at home. I got to see Mom, my sister, and my niece and nephew, who are a couple nuts. Cute, but nuts all the same. So although I was boring and stayed in the apartment again this weekend, I was motivated to get things done, and also got to hear from home, which it had been a couple weeks at least. And, I got all my trip planning done so I don't have to worry about that anymore.
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