Birthday Song

It was my Birthday! You know, a few weeks ago. I realize that the ratio of days to blogs has decreased significantly this past month(s). I apologize. But if I am being truthful I must tell you that the number of blogs is not going to dramatically increase anytime soon - especially since I leave the great country of Ireland in two short weeks. How time flies and all that jazz.

However, I have digressed. My birthday.

I believe that I have mentioned the birthday tradition of 76 Malone but if I have left out any details here is the short version: I bake a cake and we eat it at midnight to celebrate into the birthday in German tradition (I live with Germans - if you missed that). And that is the nutshell version of what happened on my birthday. But because I love you all very much, here are some details.

I was strictly forbidden to bake my own cake, a harsh ruling if you ask me, but was allowed to provide the recipe for my favorite cheesecake. A springtime citrus cheesecake (YUM!). The house had plans to go out that night and I began getting ready. Suddenly there was a knock on my door. I opened it and found the beginnings of a scavenger hunt. The rules were that I had to wear my prettiest dress and the birthday sash provided for the whole night. When I went downstairs I found the rest of my tasks written on a lovely piece of paper. Among them were:

• Give everyone a kiss (on the cheek!!)
• Pretend to be the Queen for five minutes
• Sing your favorite song
• Convince someone to buy you a drink
• Greet a stranger like you know them
• Tell the bouncer "Live long and prosper"
• Dance (preferably the "shopping cart")
• Make up a rule that everyone has to follow for the night
• Give a speech

Those were some of my favorites. My rule for the night was everyone in the group, if they wished to speak to someone, had to begin with a compliment about the other person. Sarcasm was allowed but not encouraged. 

I had such a wonderful time and I owe it all to my wonderful housemates - truly a birthday I will never forget!

Kiki and I - Kiki was the photographer for the night (the camera died 2 minutes after this picture was taken).

Run For Your Life

Well, we did it. The house of 76 Malone has completed the Belfast City Marathon. After weeks of sweat, blood, and tears the final test arrived. And we ran.

It started in early January when Lisa asked a few of us if we were interested in participating in the Belfast Marathon as a relay team. And from our lofty house, months away from the actual marathon, five of us took on the challenge. So we began planning our rigorous training schedule. We then promptly forgot about the training schedule until March. We knew early on that our moto would be "complete" not "compete" and therefore set about trying to win the contest we thought we could - the team name contest. I think it is safe to say that more time was spent on choosing our name than actually training for the relay. Several names were suggested, among them "International Pub Crawl", "We Thought This Was A Pub Crawl", "Replacement Runners", "Kelsey and the German Shepherds", "Extreme Bird Watchers", and "There Better Be A Pub At The End...". Careful selections were made and we decided to go with "The Running Gags".

The morning of the race was dismal. And when I say "dismal" I mean according to Northern Ireland standards, as in HAIL. It was so cold. I was standing there waiting for Lisa to give me the sacred wristband so I could set off for my portion of the mileage and all I could think was, "I live in Florida. What am I doing here?! I bet Mom never had to deal with this when she ran her marathon!" Finally, the rain slowed down and out of the haze came Lisa! I grabbed the wristband and was off - up the hill. Turns out, it was all up hill. Then the rain picked up again, followed by hail. Somehow, this did not stop people from coming out to support the runners. A little boy was kind enough to reach beyond the ropes and offer me a Jelly-belly. Even kinder was the man standing outside his pub offering free pints to the runners. I won't lie to you - that pint looked really good and I thought long and hard about stopping. But I carried on and before I knew it I had reached the second switch point and was searching madly for Simon. By the time I handed him the wristband and set him running, another problem occurred to me. Where was the finish line?

Two hours later, I found it. Then I found Lisa and we eventually found Simon and Alex. Now all we had to do was watch for Karin as she triumphantly crossed the finish line. We were wondering where she could be when suddenly a blur crossed the finish line! We had enough time to yell and scream (starling some people around us)  just before she crossed the finish line - making our group time four hours and eleven minutes. Pretty good for our first relay. So I would like to raise a metaphorical glass to the Running Gags - without them I would have never been able to say that I completed a (relay) marathon.

The Running Gags - group picture before the race!

The Running Gags - (left to right) Alex, Simon, Kelsey, Karin, and Lisa

In other news, my final Jazz concert with the Queen's Big Band has commenced. It was great fun and I am so glad that I got the opportunity to perform with them over this past year. I will miss them. Less than four weeks until I go home - the count down begins. Unfortunately, so do exams.

King of the Road

I regret to inform you that my life has been fairly uneventful. Well, that is not completely true. I have been to Scotland, Edinburgh, as well as explored the beauty of Dublin (but on Good Friday, so everything was closed and I only saw the inside of a noodle bar.) Here is a brief summary -

Edinburgh: Beautiful. New Town, Old Town - I love it all. I recommend going with someone with an eye for architecture, that way you will learn oodles of information about Palladian architecture.

Edinburgh University

Quartet of kids playing outside St. Giles Cathedral; two violins, a cello, and a ukulele!

Hamish, the highland cow (pronounced "coo") we met at the rest stop for the highland day trip.

Kaiser - the giant schnauzer I met in Oban!

Alright, I'll admit it, I was taking pictures of old people. But they just look so happy!

WWII memorial. And seagull.

Back in Edinburgh - the Holy Rood House!

Edinburgh Castle

Dublin: I think Dublin would've been a far more exciting trip had we not arrived on Good Friday. The thought that things might not be open would've never occurred to me. I am American...we don't have an official national religion. So trying to see anything in Catholic Dublin on Good Friday was useless. But I saw lots of things from the outside! Dublin Castle, The National Gallery, The National Archaeology Museum, the Library, The Guinness Museum, and a variety of Churches. The noodle bar was perhaps the most exciting building that we actually saw the inside of!

Exploring Trinity College

The anarchists of Trinity College fight back!

Wondering if there is anything open on Good Friday.

The Guinness Museum, closed for the day. (The gentleman to the right is my boyfriend - about time he made an appearance; he was my travelling companion.)

A museum, with its doors open?! Could it be?

No, it was a horrific lie. 

The moral of the story is DON'T go to Dublin on Good Friday. 

But what I really wanted to tell you about was my Saturday. The most exciting portion of my life since Dublin! On Saturday, my housemate Karin and I headed down to the St. Georges Market that takes place in Belfast every Saturday. There you can find various types of food - produce, seafood, and a wide variety of cheeses and pestos, crafts - everything from pottery to home-made clocks, and an tempting array of take-away stands; all of which is accompanied by local music. For lunch I enjoyed a Falafel wrap from a Lebanese stand, and they the wonderful wondering began!

Oh I did mean ALL types of crafts - even doggie bandanas.

Karin and I stopped to check out the eggs and then thought, "What the heck - let's get Duck eggs!" I have not been disappointed in my decision, they are super tasty! He even let us pick which eggs we wanted!

The lovely woman Karin and I bought our desserts from - soooo good. 

I also got a honey milkshake and a box of fresh strawberries. Karin indulged in dome cooked stone crab claws and made me wish I was allowing myself to eat fish - they looked amazing! The music of the day was done by a dear old man and featured many Bob Dylan classics. My favorite part about the market is the variety combined with genuine people and good food! It was a wonderful way to spend the morning, even though I ate way too much food.

There was no reason to take this picture other than the dog is adorable. 

Whiskey in the Jar

St. Patty’s Day. In Belfast. I would follow those statements with “Need I say more?”, but I do actually plan to say more.

It started in the morning with pancakes. I should mention that, in the full spirit of the day, they were green pancakes. I had picked up some green food coloring and applied it to the pancakes which what I thought was a liberal douse. But one of my housemates – who shall remain nameless  to protect his identity – mentioned that they were not green enough. I disagreed, but in an attempt to please his pertinent cries I reached for the green food coloring. Or so I thought. You see, I had also perchased peppermint extract which was encased in green wrapping, which contrasted with the red wrapping covering the green food coloring. I must comment on the epic fail completed by the producers of the brand – covering green food coloring in red. So, as I am sure you may have figured out, I added some peppermint extract to our green pancakes. Oops. Solution: Make more pancake mix!! I can’t say that the final product was completely devoid of peppermint (it sort of snuck up on you at the end), but I was happy with the amount of recovery made.

Making the Green Pancakes

After digesting our green – and somehow minty – pancakes, the house commenced into our ceremonial green for the St. Patty’s Day Festival in the center of Belfast. It was…a bit disappointing. But there was green as far as the eye could see. Then it was off the pub for lunch (and a pint) and watching some games. Good fun was had by all.

Sometime after all this good fun took place, I headed home to cook dinner for the infamous Choir Saturday Event. It all went as planned – but with one exception. The dessert – green for the occasion – went terribly. I was trying to make these chocolate-fudge-mint-brownie concoctions and didn’t have enough powdered sugar to make anything right. But I stubbornly moved forward and continued to try and fix the problem with flour and regular sugar and so on. My efforts were in vain. The idea was to chill the dessert – but it wouldn’t chill properly. So, in haste, I threw it in the freezer. And promptly forgot that I had put it in the freezer. So when I remembered and rushed to remove it, the mint-thing had frozen solid. The melted chocolate layer I had placed on top of the mint had completely solidified, while the mint layer underneath was still gooey. Trying to cut it into squares was, well, frankly impossible. It went everywhere – mint as far as the eye can see. Luckily, my guests were not cuisine experts and were thus overjoyed as the miss-shapen results of my valiant, and slightly drunken, efforts. Of course, the two bottles of wine may have helped turn their opinions favorable. 

Marian the Librarian

I must apologize for the lack of posts in the past few weeks. This semester is proving to be more convoluted than the last. But the spring semester is always more – difficult, busy, quick, crazy, ect. – than the fall semester. It is just “More” in general. My past few weeks have been filled with work – essay after essay. This means that I have been spending most of my time in the library; an exciting life I lead.

Have you ever noticed how awkward the library is? I always feel like the loudest person in the world upon entering one. I think it is because of the stereotypical librarians looking at me over their horn-rimmed glasses – I am constantly in fear of the dreaded “shush”. I walk into the main lobby and as I cross the marble floor (it is always some sort of marble/tile flooring) towards the stairs my shoes suddenly take on a life of their own and become insanely loud. Were my shoes this loud before? How on earth are they making this much noise? And because I have dared to wear loud shoes within the sanctuary of the library, the woman sitting at the information desk looks up and raises an eyebrow, casting a disapproving look at myself in general, but specifically the offending shoes. I somehow manage to make it to the stairs without attracting the attention of the short-term loan book guy (I never know what to call him; is he a book overseer? Or would he prefer guardian of the temporary novels?) and start to tip-toe up the stairs to the second floor. But because this is a library in Northern Ireland and not the US of A I am presented with two problems. 1) I am not familiar with the stair etiquette. In the states, it mirrors the road. You drive on the right, you walk on the right. But we are in Northern Ireland- they drive on the left. The question is – do they also WALK on the left. 2) What floor is classified as the “second floor”? I have found it difficult in the past to discern what level anything is on due the difference between ground floor and first floor. The library is no exception.

Naturally, hilarity follows. I start walking up the stairs on the left, assuming I should follow traffic laws. Immediately I run into someone coming down the stairs. Now I am concerned – is this just a confused student who, like me, is unsure of what side of the stairs to walk on? Or could this be a wise and learned student who has been bestowed the knowledge of the stairs? I move over the right assuming that is where I should be, but then run into another person coming down the stairs. After this it is just a crazy few minutes of me dodging people on the stairs and receiving various strange looks – probably due to the amount of thought I seemed to be putting into walking up the stairs. I make it to the second floor and head for the music section, only to realize that in my haste to get up the stairs I have only made it to the first floor. I decide to forgo the stairs and risk taking the elevator.

I say “risk” because I, like every five year-old, enjoy jumping in the elevator a few seconds before it stops to appreciate the “zero-gravity” feel. This is a past-time that I have enjoyed for years; my favorite memory consists of a school trip to some space museum in Tallahassee. We arrived there early so my mother, to keep us occupied, had us taking the car park elevator up to the top level, jumping for the zero gravity, running down the stairs in the car park to the bottom floor, and then riding the elevator up and doing it all over again. Sometime after that, I was told not to jump in an elevator because I could break it and we would plummet to our death. But I am a risk taker – so I always jump and pray that the elevator can handle it. Anyway, I get it the elevator and am so preoccupied that I unconsciously jumped before it stopped. The two students and reference librarian were very concerned.

Needless to say – I try to avoid the library when it is very busy.  

Sing You Sinners

Last weekend began the first of many, I hope, Saturday night choir rehearsals. The agenda was to be as follows: I go over the Lenin and Lionel's new house and make dinner for the rest of the choir, who then comes over to eat, then practice, then I make dessert, and then we eat dessert. Simple.

Only no gathering is ever simple or blase when you involve Lenin and Lionel.

I got over to their house and began preparations for a basic pasta dinner. Cook the pasta, cut up the various vegetables for the sauce, grate cheese, ect. Simple. But Lenin and Lionel are not used to the amount of food I make in preparation for people. I always expect that the people coming to eat are half-starved teenage boys who are going to devour everything in sight. The problem was their stove was rather small and their pots/pans were also very small. Food was overflowing everywhere. Somehow I managed to keep order. People arrived  - food was enjoyed by all. Rehearsal started. The things took a turn for the interesting.

The small kitchen

During the "rehearsal" process we discovered that the previous tennants had left behind some alcohol. How the guys missed this is beyond me. It was suggested that we help them dispose of said alcohol. Rehearsal got far more exciting.

Pre-wine

Post-wine

Needless to say, it was a great rehearsal. After we had practiced and felt dutifully prepared for Mass the next day, I began making dessert. I was going to try and create baked custard. Now, I had attempted this once before at my own house, with familiar tools and stoves and such. But I felt confident that all would end well. Part of difficultly of baked custard is the actual baking process. You have to put the custard in your "custard cups" (or coffee mugs for the college student), then place the mugs in a oven proof bowl/baking dish and finally - after placing it in the oven - add hot water to the bowl/baking dish. The idea is that the water cooks the custard and not the heat from the oven. So you have to be sure that whatever you put the mugs in (bowl/baking dish) has a high enough rim to reach the approximate height of the custard in the individual cups. Well, as I have previously stated, their stove was small, the pans were equally small. So it is possible that the water was not high enough. That was only one issue. The real concern was when I opened the oven to check on them and it started yelling at me - the oven that is. Yelling is not really the right word. It sounded like someone was snapping very loudly inside the oven. It is possible that the sugar was burning.

"The oven is yelling at me."

Naturally, I was a little worried about this. Solution as offered by the boys: Ignore it and turn the oven temperature up. That may not have been the best idea, but I was under the influence of free wine and may not have been thinking properly. The custard did eventually get eaten - but it did not look as you would expect custard to look. It was, oddly enough, watery. There was literally enough water in each mug that you could have poured it out of the cups. It did not have the smooth consistency you want. All in all - very strange. That, however, did not stop anyone from eating it. It was still quite edible - tasty even - but I have resolved that next time the custard will be beautiful.

The evening continued with more singing - of louder and louder volumes - until I questioned the happiness of their neighbors and it was decided that the party should dissolve. Not an "epic" night by any means, but truly a night to remember.

Enjoying the custard

Singing away

Still singing

Our House

My house is truly a thing of beauty. From the outside, it has a certain charm to it. The green doors, arched windows, the “Strictly NO Parking” sign, the faint smell of vomit as you pass the front steps; they all make you think of home. When entering the house, your senses are assaulted by a lovely shade of yellow that covers the inside – with green carpeting. On the first floor are the (useable) toilets. The one on the right doesn’t flush properly so you should always use the left one – unless it is raining, then use the right toilets because there is a leak in the ceiling of the left stall. When taking a shower make sure you turn the handle as far to the right as possible when you are done – otherwise it will come back to life later and flood the shower area. Do enjoy the lovely stainglass window when brushing your teeth; but make sure you don’t use the hot water a lot – it only runs for a few minutes out of the tap on the first floor. When walking up the stairs be sure to take notice of the huge crack that runs up the entire bright yellow wall, while also enjoying the winding stair case as you arrive at the top floor.

But those are just cute quirks of the house. Things you learn to live with and even appreciate. Maybe. With a sense of humor. It is just part of living in an old house. Everything is held together with duct-tape and spit.

It feels like nothing in this house is allowed to work perfectly. If the toilets work – the heating goes. My radiator finally begins to work – the water heater breaks. Heating and water fixed – the dryer ceases to work. This weekend we had no water. It just stopped working. It stopped on Saturday evening. By the time the workers got out there it was late, and they said that one of our pipes had probably burst – one of the underground pipes. And due to the lack of sunlight, they would not be able to fix everything until the next day. It turns out, the construction crew behind our house hit one of our water pipes and just, you know, forgot to let anyone know. The university was nice enough to provide us with bottled water and told us to use the Treehouse facilities until it was fixed. There was even a shower, they promised us. 

But this was no ordinary shower. This was a scary handi-cap shower. the kind that is just a room with a drain in the middle and a removable shower-head. So you have to take a shower one-handed. Which never works out well because  - well, who can control those things properly?! And then, because there is no shower curtain, your clothes that you are going to change into get soaked from the water that goes EVERYWHERE despite the drain in the floor. Oh, did I mention the toilet? Yup - that's right, complete with toilet. And the toilet comes with a nice back cushion. Needless to say - I did not shower there. No, I chose to go with Karin to nearby University housing and use a friends shower. Only - the good shower was taken. So I, being the courteous friend, gave Karin the real shower and instead used the (wait for it) handi-cap shower. This one was, somehow, even more creepy. I did survive, but with some scars. The lesson here is this: Always expect the Spanish inquisition.