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.