Press Coverage

I just found out that An Focal, the school Newspaper included an article covering the Intervarsity Dance Competition (click on it to see it full size):

A Weekend in Limerick

I wasn’t particularly excited for this past weekend, seeing as it was my first time staying in Limerick in a very long time. However, it turned out to be a bit more eventful than I had expected.

On Friday night, I performed the intervarsity jazz piece at Queer Bash. This event took place in downtown Limerick, at a pub called Dolans, famous for their traditional Irish music. Completely out of place in our makeup, we walked to the back of the pub, into the rented hall. 

Suddenly, we were surrounded by people in crazy makeup and costumes, so we fit right in. The theme of Queer Bash this year was “goth.” The opening number consisted of a hefty drag queen dressed in a garbage bag and tinfoil, twirling large sparklers around the stage to Lady Gaga’s latest hit. 

As the next act took the stage, a guy wearing a corset with giant feathers, it was time for us to head backstage and warm-up. Eventually, we danced, on the smallest stage I have ever danced on, literally, which included a 5 foot dead drop off the front of it. Not to mention, there was an entire drum set in the middle of the stage as well. The performance was not as horrible as expected, although we ended up covered from head to toe in brown gunk and sticky liquid from the stage. The guy filming us later revealed that the brown gunk was in fact chocolate ice cream that a drag queen in a previous act had produced out of the nether-regions of his costume, and the sticky liquid was from a bottle of vodka that had been thrown around stage (also explaining the numerous shards of glass we worked to avoid throughout the performance). That night was an interesting experience, to say the least.

On Saturday morning, some friends and I got up bright and early to go to the Milk Market in downtown. This is a giant farmer and artisans market featuring many of the same vendors from our campus farmers market. We were all starving, so we had to stop at the crepe stand for breakfast, where I had a delicious Greek crepe, complete with pesto, feta, olives, tomatoes and baby spinach. Then, we decided that the best way to tackle the market was to start at the outside and work out way in. It was so much fun to just walk around and see all of the unique stalls. 

 

We came upon a shop, called Indianisque, that sold primarily Indian jewelry, but also lots of other things, like incense and healing remedies. The jewelry was absolutely beautiful, and very reasonably priced, and as we picked out what to buy we got to talking with the owner. We spent a good ten minutes talking to him about traveling and everything, and when he rang us up, he gave us a generous discount and also let each of us choose a ring (of which there were 3 filled baskets) to take as a gift. It was such a nice gesture, which he inevitably chalked up to karma.

When we finished exploring the market, there was a unanimous vote to go back to the cheese stand. There were so many unique cheeses that we couldn’t decide on one to taste, so we ended up purchasing a wedge of both the sun-blushed tomato with basil and the pesto cheese. They proved to be a delicious snack that inspired me to start early plans on the Christmas Eve appetizer menu.

The rest of the day was spent shopping (girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do) for spring clothes at Penney’s, not to be confused with JC. We also had to stop at the Moody Cow to try their famous milkshakes. I realized (too late) that the secret behind the shop’s popularity was the variety of toppings and sauces you were able to have mixed into your milkshake (read: Yogobliss). Anyway, I went for a milkshake with a shot of espresso and bailey’s cheesecake pieces blended into it. I have to admit that it was a perfect ending to a day out.  

Sunday was spent making up for lost time in terms of spring-cleaning. 4 loads of laundry, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning every surface of the bathroom…I even made my bed (this is epic). In any case, it’s provided me with a fresh start to a new week.

Irish Stress v. American Stress

Savoring the sweet crunch of my sugar snap peas, while listening to my favorite meditation playlist on youtube, I look over my schedule for the week. I have three term papers due Friday, along with a dance performance that evening, which I have rehearsals for every night. Breathe. Look out the open window.

Just twenty minutes ago, I was walking through the student center farmer’s market. The temperature is in the low sixties (no coat necessary) and there is barely a cloud in the sky. A student with a microphone and a guitar is singing my favorite Beatles song, Blackbird, to an audience of snacking students. The farmer smiled at me as she unloaded my basket, overflowing with organic ginger root, oranges, apples, bananas, and of course sweet peas. She knows me now. On my journey, I stop to talk to a passing friend; I pass a field covered in new, tiny blooms; I pick up an Americano to sip on.

I have never had to write three papers in a week. I’m not really sure how this is going to go. If I was at Michigan, I would be absolutely freaking out right now, spending hours working in the ref room and pulling numerous all-nighters. But here…well, I researched and wrote one of the papers yesterday and still managed to get to bed before midnight, despite my 4 distracting skype calls. I plan on doing the same today and tomorrow, and not even work on them the day before they’re due. I can’t really describe how or why the stress level is lower here, it just is…for the same reason that classes never start before 9, everything closes by 6, and a cup of tea is served with an entire tray of milk, sugar, and biscuits.

This will be one of my hardest weeks here. But, I’m going to get through it just fine.

Síochán.

St. Paddy's Day Weekend

5:00 AM. Time to wake up! The bus for Dublin leaves at six.

St. Patrick’s Day is all a blur to me now. It was quite overwhelming. In my mind’s eye it goes something like – crowds, green, parade, crowds, funny hats, crowds, Irish flags, crowds, lots and lots of people.

The streets were absolutely packed. It took forever to get from one place to another. The parade was really hard to see, because the majority of it was on street level, and I am short. I caught glimpses of only the biggest floats. We were all so excited to go out that night, but by eleven o’clock, the sensory overload was too much for us and we went back to the hotel.

The next day, my friend Caroline and I went to Sligo for the Só Sligo Food and Culture Festival. In the afternoon, we walked around and explored the town, then made our way to an adorable B&B, called Glenvale. We spent the evening in a nice Italian restaurant, in which we had the best dessert that either of us have ever had. It was called the B.C.C.C, belgian chocolate cake and cream. It was heaven. The  rest of the weekend, we didn't go more than two hours without mentioning it.

 Then, we went to a pub, where we met lots of friendly colorful characters celebrating their graduation, by buying rounds for everyone. Money saver. They kept telling us how happy they were that Obama is coming to Ireland, and how upset they were that the Queen is coming. I guess they've never heard of not talking about politics in a bar.

On Saturday, we started out with a traditional Irish breakfast at our B&B.

 

Then, we walked around collecting as much free food as possible. Our favorites were the tea and chocolate tasting at a café, and free stew at a pub (served on a Singer sewing machine).

The streets were filled with vendors, musicians, and irish dance school showcases. It reminded me a lot of Dexter Daze, when I used to dance on a small wooden floor in the middle of a park. It was a fun and quaint small town atmosphere, perfect for the relaxation we desired. We meandered around, visited with birds of prey and tiny ponies, dropped a euro at the make-your-own-sticky-bun tent, watched the Ireland v. England rugby game at a pub, got a spontaneous haircut, etc.

  

Overall, it was an enjoyable weekend.

In Love With London

This past weekend, I visited London. Although it was not my favorite trip so far, I can honestly say that it has just replaced Rome as my favorite city in the world. Within ten minutes of getting off the tube and walking to my hostel, I had fallen hopelessly in love with the city…which is odd, because I hadn’t really seen anything yet. Throughout the weekend, I was consistently surprised by my increasing affection for it, and how at home I felt there. Today, I was telling (rambling to) one of the girls from the dance squad, who spent the last Semester in London, about my trip. She just kept nodding her head, and when I finally stopped, she said, “You and I are the type of people who were born to live in London, and never knew it until now.”

I began my first day in London starving, prepared to eat the first decently priced food I could find. This turned out to be an organic and fair trade shop/café that was just like People’s Food Co-op and Café Verde. I sat outside and enjoyed my lunch of cottage cheese, lentil stew, mixed steamed vegetables and ginger beer.

After lunch, the general consensus was to get our inevitable shopping done with that day, so that on Saturday we could get up early and have the whole day to sight see without carrying around shopping bags (read: we were too excited to shop to wait another day). So, we made our way over to Camden Market. This is nearly impossible to describe…it’s like the love child of NYC’s Chinatown and Las Vegas. Anyway, I found some amazing boots, vintage, and other random clothes that were just too good (and cheap) to pass up. After literally shopping till we dropped, we decided to have a relaxed/early night, which we spent in the Milk Bar and Cocoa Club.

On Saturday, the real sightseeing began. I went on a guided walking tour, that took me around to see Buckingham Palace, 

Big Ben,

West Minster Abbey,

 and all those touristy things that I wasn’t going to leave London without seeing. 

 

When royalty is out of town, you can stand in the guard boxes. 

Then, I spent the rest of the day exploring the city, seeing Soho, Chinatown, Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden, the Tower of London, Harrods and more. As cliché and horrible as I felt doing it, I made my way to Abbey road to pay homage to the Beatles and other artists (so many greats!) who have recorded at the Abbey Road Studios.

We finished off the night by going on the Big Night Out Pub Crawl, promoted by hostels around the city. We went to The Roadhouse, Verve, Oxygen, and The Zoo. Each place was completely different, which kept it fun and exciting. There was a good mix of interesting people on the crawl with us, but I’ve found that no matter where I go, I enjoy my nights the most when I end up talking to certain types of people. This happened in Belgium with the German guy, and it happened at the pub crawl when I started talking with some struggling British band members who were out celebrating a friend’s birthday. I can make a friend to talk about music with for a whole night anywhere I am, because music is a common language that spans across cultures. Similarly, making friends on my dance squad was so easy because dancers are dancers all over the world. Meeting other artistic people is completely fulfilling and I plan on making it my goal to meet and connect with as many as possible.

Belgian Bliss

Seeing as its Fat Tuesday, I find it fitting to blog about my weekend in Belgium, as it was a celebration of indulgence. I arrived in Brussels late Friday night, to find that the public transportation system workers were on strike, along with the taxi drivers. A scab crammed 7 of us into his small taxi and drove us to our hostel, charging an outrageous price, but we literally had no other choice. As soon as we got into the hostel, we found a drunk American student yelling about how he had just been robbed at gun point and the desk clerk was about to give him a ride to the police station. The two girls I arrived with, and I, grabbed our keys and towels, ran up to our rooms, and cowered under the covers until we fell asleep.

In the morning, we walked the short distance from the hostel to the Grand Place, where I enjoyed a leisurely cup of coffee and my first real Belgian waffle. It was indescribably amazing, and it makes me sad thinking that I may never have one like it again…which is why I had to have two more before the trip was over.

Café waffle

Truck waffle

 Street waffle

After breakfast, I explored the beautiful architecture around Grand Place and made a first stop at the Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate to see chocolate making demonstrations, health and nutritional benefits, chocolate fashion, and history. The next stop was the Belgisch Stripcentrum, a comic art museum. My favorite exhibits were obviously the ones featuring Tintin and the Smurfs. Then, I went to the Museum of Belgian Brewers, which provided a thorough overview of various Belgian beers, and a free glass of special beer at the end. The last museum I went to was the Musical Instrument Museum, which had four floors of antique, rare, and exotic instruments. A headset was provided that played a sample of the music for each instrument you walked toward.
 

At this point, it was time for frites. As I approached the street stand, I placed an order for frites with curry sauce. The guy taking my order, clearly a New Yorker, told me to take it from him and get this other sauce which he still had “no idea what it’s made of.” I took his advice, and it was delicious. He was really friendly, but somehow had the preconceived notion that I was a New Yorker and I had to set him straight.

Then, I walked around the bazaar and picked up some chocolate truffles (I had to, you know), on the way to Delerium Café. This pub won the world record having the most beers on tap. Flipping through the enormous menu, I settled on the Floris Cactus beer. It was absolutely delicious and stunningly green. I wish I could have it, as naturally green beer, on St. Patty’s Day. 

Leaving the pub before any of us really wanted to, we stopped at de Bier Temple to pick up some unique selections. After a quick kebab and the third waffle of the day (shown above), we headed back to the hostel. When we started tasting our beers, a French guy, named Lionel, came over to us and asked if we wanted to make friends. We said “sure”, so he and a German guy (I never got his name) pulled up their own chairs and beers to our table. We talked all about traveling Europe, their jobs (the Frenchman is some sort of airplane engineer and the German works for a European group “commonly confused with the European Union”…but that’s all I got), our studies, etc. At this point, the conversation turned to music, and everyone turned their attention to something else, except for me and this German. He started talking to me about Dream Theater and Metallica, then did a 180 and mentioned that he loved Metric and we discussed Emily Haines’ solo career vs. her involvement in the band. At that point, it was clear that I had found my musical soul mate, and the conversation was lost to music for the rest of the night until the common room closed and we were forced to go our separate ways.

At the crack of dawn, we headed to the airport. Like all good dreams, our trip to Brussels was over too soon. 

 

 

One of my favorite things about Brussels was all of the street art. It gives the city so much character and makes it exciting to turn every corner. I took probably too many photos of streets images, but here are my favorites:

Rag Week

For students, Rag Week, formally known as “Charity Week”, is the practice of truancy and day drinking. For me, it was a practice of self-control and discipline. This week long event is an Irish hybrid of tailgating and carnival. The school hosts numerous events in which you have to pay, or donate as you please (raising money for charity being the ultimate goal). Events include concerts and crazy competitions including: the yard of ale competition, helium karaoke, silent disco, human bowling, kissing competition, wet t-shirt competition, BYOB cinema night, various eating competitions…the list goes on and on, with one event per hour for the entire week. The campus was packed with students sitting around and casually drinking, listening to music, participating in an event or two. Instructors think that it’s all good craic and are genuinely surprised when anyone shows up to lecture.

Wednesday and Thursday of Rag Week, I spent in Cork at the competition. Sunday through Tuesday, I had three or four hours of rehearsal a night and double my normal class load during the day, because I had to make up labs and tutorials that I would miss during competition. I’m genuinely disappointed that I didn’t get to see any of the events or participate in Rag Week at all, since it literally would have been a once in a life-time experience for me, but obviously the competition was worth it.

I can only find some very low quality videos, but here is the jazz (incomplete, i might add):

UL Jazz Intervarsities 2011 

Here's the contemporary:

UL Alternative Intervarsities 2011

And, here is the hip-hop, which was not allowed to be competed, but only shown at the competition's halftime:

UL Hip-Hop Routine

Finally, here are some high quality photos compiled from different photographers who were at the event:

Intervarsities 2011 Photos

All Ireland Dance Intervarsities

In all the dance competitions I’ve been to, I’ve never felt that my team was the sole victim of bias judging…until this one. Last year at Intervarsities, UL Dance blew them away in every category. This year, not only was half our squad not allowed to compete, due to rule changes based on rumors about our squad, but we were also treated rudely by many of the dancers there. The competition was completely wrapped up in politics and biases, but that didn’t stop us from having a blast (complete with karaoke at a pub the first night there).

The jazz that we competed was to Bloc Party’s “Hunting for Witches”. The concept was that we were all driven mad by looking for answers to why the world is in the state that it’s in today. 

 

The contemporary that we competed was to Hawksley Workman’s “Addicted”. This piece had four characters: an addiction, an addict, and two supporters aka therapist and friends.

We took second in jazz and third in contemporary. Although these aren’t bad places at all, we deserved better, and members of the audience weren’t shy about telling us so. At the beginning of the competition, I calmed one of the dancers down by saying, “Don’t worry about winning, just dance it so everyone walks away thinking we should have won.” I think we all almost welled up with tears every time people approached us and said “You should have won.” We performed spectacularly and I hope the videos get online soon so I can share them.