An Interesting Day

Last night, in celebration of Emma and Caroline's friend Heather being in Dublin from Avignon, France, we went to the Purty Kitchen in Temple Bar. Before 11pm on Wednesdays everyone gets in for free, but after 11pm you have to pay a 10 euro cover charge. Well we here at 11 Stephens Lane hate cover charges more than anything. Drinks are expensive enough. We literally walked into the place at 10:59pm. Emma and I believed that this was reason enough to not pay a cover. There wasn't a bouncer around, and the girl collecting the money was behind a counter, in a closet-like room. The money collector says "10 euro please" and Emma reaches into her purse to 'get money' and then bolted past the girl. The girl didn't look too surprised and she continued to ask me for my cover. I argued with the girl, saying that it was 11pm exactly! That was exactly her point though ... After arguing with her to no good result, I stared at her for about 30 seconds and then bolted up the stairs. She grabbed by arm, which I shook off, and blew her whistle to alert the troops. I ran so fast in my heels up those stairs, I don't know how I didn't break an ankle. There was no one around in the dance floor area, so I hid behind a sofa, just in case they tried to find me. Frantically texting Caroline, I then emerged from my hiding spot to go to the bathroom. I found Kate, who also slid past the cover charge via the bathroom steps. This place really had no security here! This must happen all the time to them! Hilarious!

Then today, in my Syntax class, we were talking about sentences obviously. My very Spanish teacher, Nuria, began to talk about "black talk" and thank god she was in Ireland because that would not have flied in America. She looked straight at me and my friend Alanna, also an American, and said, "Isn't it true that blacks in America say things like 'ain't' and...am I right?" We sort of laughed, 'cause this is a generalization, just a bit. She goes, "Like Ali G.." And that was just too funny because first of all Ali G is a parody on ghetto America, and second of all- the character is played by a Jewish guy! Obviously her view was a bit distorted! So Alanna says that the double negatives might be had by the uneducated.. But this is a generalization too! I just said it was intercity atmospheres. But this was just so funny, because of course Alanna and I immediately tensed up at the thought of talking about an ethnic group in that way, but then we remembered we were in Ireland, and it didn't matter quite as much. It's just not as taboo here.

After that I went to the library to see Caroline with my bag of popcorn. The library nazi caught me with food in the library, which I didn't know was a rule, and told me that I needed to leave immediately or he would give my name to the front desk! Jaysus!! I'm breakin' all the rules over here!

Anywhoooooo, I'm beat and these kids from University College Cork are coming to visit Dublin, so I have to go out again tonight! Time for a nap...