I have won twice today. I went to buy a cherry coke, and when I put my .70€ in the machine, it spit it out. I was about to be sad, but in a desperate moment, I pressed the button anyway. The machine started to make its noises, and out falls a Cherry Coke! THEN, about an hour ago, I went to buy a water. No one was around the machine (so I'm not cheating people here), and there was 1.00€ credit in the machine!! Water only costs .60€. So I got .40€ back. It was wonderful!! I love this country...

I am finally posting the last episode in the Dublin saga (you're welcome Mom!).

Before I start, one quick correction: Wonder Wall is not American-they're British. Je me trompe.

Ok, here we go:
After we went to St. Audoen's, we headed back to the hostel to rest before we got dinner. We got there, are we were just trying to decide what to get to eat when a couple staying in the same hostel room walked in with 2 friends. We all said hello, and they said they were going to play a game, would we like to play? We declined the first few times, but eventually we gave in and agreed to join them. Thus we met Jonathan from Finland, Peri the Iranian from Sweden, Charles and Anna, both from Detroit. We played a really ridiculous game with animal sounds, and at the end of it, most of our new friends are well on their way to being a tad intoxicated.

Well, we then discover, as fate would have it, that Peri is into martial arts. Nick didn't really believe her, so he said "show me" (Mistake #1). Peri refused, but Nick pressed her and said "Show me." "Ok," Peri said. "Choke me." So Nick acted like he was choking her (Mistake #2). Peri told him to choke harder. Nick does it (Mistake #3), and all of a sudden, Nick's hands are twisted around at his waist. And he just looks at Peri and goes "Oouuhh..." She starts to knee him, then she twist and spins or something, and before we know it, Nick is on the ground, sliding towards the other side of the room. It was really one of the fastest and most surprising things I've ever seen. She spent the rest of the evening apologizing, and Nick spent the rest of the evening nursing his wounded pride...

So, after that little adventure, we joined them on their way to the Temple Bar district. We went to a pub, danced ridiculously, and had a great time! We agreed to go eat breakfast with them the next morning, and then we walked an hour to Kilmanhaim jail. It was extremely informative, a brief overview of recent Irish history, and intriguing. Afterwards, the three of us went back to the hostel to rest, and we planned to meet Charles at 8 for coffee. We met him at 8, and he and Nick decided they wanted tea instead. Well, in France, a cafe is always open. Not really true in Ireland. The only thing we could find that sounded at all remotely offering tea was the Thunderoad Cafe (doesn't that sound like it's going to have tea? I mean, any establishment that has "thunderoad" in the title shound definitely have tea...) Notwithstanding, we sat down in a booth next to some Dutch people. Correction: crazy Dutch men. And when I say "we " sat next to them, I mean that I was the only one actually physically next to them. By the by, after less than 5 minutes, Dutch boy A (let's call him Hans) tries to start a conversation. I was polite, but very short, but Hans just kept talking. Clearly, drunk or something else, something isn't quite right with Hans & Co. Anyway, in the course of this one sided "conversation," Hans picks up a hair off the floor and says "Is this yours?" I said no. He asked again, and I said no, I was sure that wasn't mine. Then Hans did the unthinkable. He put the hair in his mouth. I almost gagged. Our whole table just "ewwed..." but it gets better. After putting the hair from the floor in his mouth, Hans turns to me and asks
"Can I taste your hair?"
"No."
"Please?"
"Absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"Because. No, you cannot touch my hair."
Then Hans says, "watch this" and grabs Fritz and stands in the open space in front of our table. Hans stands there and Fritz does a handstand. A handstand. In the restaurant. Fritz locks his knees over Han's head and tries to crawl all the way around him. We're just staring at them, open mouthed. The bartender finally came over and asked them to stop, but by that time, Nick and Charles were both chugging scalding tea to just get us out. As we got our stuff together, Dutch man C leaned over to us and said "We're not all like this..." Like I'm taking the chance to find out!

So that pretty much concludes Ireland. We flew out the next morning to Carcassone and took a train back to Pau. It was pretty unforgettable! Yay Ireland!

I know this song is really old, but I really like it. I think I like the honesty of this guy yelling at God. I also like that he meets God at the corner of first and Amistad (which means friendship in Spanish). God says "Ask me anything," and the songwriter just goes for it.

Where were you, when everything was falling apart.
All my days were spent by the telephone that never rang
And all I needed was a call that never came
To the corner of 1st and Amistad.

Lost and insecure, you found me, you found me
Lying on the floor, surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait? Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late, you found me, you found me.

And it does seem, so often, that God comes too late, that He finally shows up just when everything is lost. Ah, but do not despair, that's just because He's dramatic.
At church on Sunday, we looked at the book of Ruth. Great book. It comes right after Judges, which as Mr. Sciacca once said, is the armpit of Jewish history. Bad king after bad king, and horrible, horrible crimes committed by the people. Absolutely godlessness. But in the midst of this blackness, you have the bright book of Ruth, who stands as the single good thing out of this period of just depravity. The pastor came up with some great points from the passage. But the phrase that I loved was "par hasard" in chapter 2 verse 3. It says "So [Ruth] went out and gleaned in the field after the reapers, and she happened to come to the part of the field belonging to Boaz, who was of the clan of Elimelech [Ruth's father in law]." Life was going to be hard for Ruth; she was a foreigner (and what's more, a "forbidden" foreigner), she was widowed, and she had no livelihood nor any relatives to look to. But, she happened into the field which happened to be owned by Boaz who happened to be related to her. He happened to be a man of God and happened to be single and happened to find Ruth beautiful. Really? Concidence? i think not.
The book of Esther doesn't mention God's name once, but His fingerprints are all over that. What seems like coincidence isn't. Things just happen, but the trick is to connect all those little dots. Eventually, the bread crumbs lead back to God. But you have to keep a weather eye open, He comes to those who look for Him.

A few times, including today, we've talked about religion in my French classes. I love it, because I think I'm just hoping that eventually I'll get to talk about Jesus. But until then, my heart is just hurting from all of these misconceptions of God that the French (among others) have. People here time and time again have pinned me as "the Southern conservative." They apologize to me when they curse, they try to watch their actions around me, and they say, "oh, don't talk about that around her..." because I'll get offended. Which is fine- I'm a child. But, I hate that people automatically categorize my beliefs simply because of where I'm from. I have been undoubtedly shaped by my family and my surroundings, and I know that, and that's good, but there's more to it than that. The fact that I just might have a real relationship with a very real God that supercedes "church" and "religion" and "Southern Baptist conservatives" doesn't factor in at all, and it should! It's not about religion. It's about Jesus; His redemptive work on the cross that paid, once for all, my debt; and the response to that. What are you going to do with a man that claimed to be God and did what he did? Where do you turn with that? Oh, that I could just jump out with the truth. But I can't. It doesn't work that way, especially here. France needs Jesus. No, correction: people need Jesus. Full stop.

This is inspired by an incident I saw in the grocery today: a woman dropped 2 potatoes on the floor. She just bent down, picked them up, and placed them back on the bin. Gross.

Also, all of the bathrooms have individual rooms for stalls, and in one building, they have their own lights. Which is really ingenious because it uses so much less electricity. Also, the lights in the dorms aren't on until you press a button, and they go off after a certain amount of time. How much money does Auburn waste on lighting bills, I wonder?

Also, you can, in fact, buy just one Coke can from the grocery. When I first got here, I thought it was just a pack of Coke that fell off and broke. But no, you can open a 12 pack of Coke, take one can, and pay .37€ for a can. So weird. Try doing that in Wal-Mart, and let me know how that goes. (; Also, goat cheese flavored chips. Only in France.

And lastly, I love that when you go to a restaurant (really nice, or just a kebab place), when they give water to your table, they don't come around 5 times and refill your glass. They put a wine bottle of chilled water on your table. It's so much more efficient! Their service isn't the same as ours in anyway, so this is really just a way for the server to not have to come visit your table every 20 minutes, but it works in your favor too. Just thought I would share these small things.

Well, today was a lovely day. It started out a little rough, I won't lie to you, when I got up at 6:30. I was supposed to go to the Pyrenees today to go hiking, which I was super excited about. Upon getting up at 6:30, being driven by my kind host dad, and waiting in the bitterly cold, misting morning, the professor showed up. He lent us our shoes, we waited some more, and after about an hour, he told us that we would have to wait til next week. I couldn't get a clear answer as to why we couldn't go today; I think it was probably the weather in the mountains, or there weren't enough spaces on the bus.

Regardless, I got on the bus and rode the 39 minutes home (which really isn't as bad as it sounds). I started watching a movie, and about 10 I went downstairs and surprised my host mom and host sister, Caroline. They had invited me to go shopping with them this afternoon, and as I had planned on going to the mountains, I was sad to refuse. But since we didn't go hiking, I was glad to tell them I could go!
We had chili for lunch (which was really good), and we left after that. We went to a clothes store, a shoe store (where I bought the most beautiful pair of cream colored shoes), and to a mall with a lot of stores (where I bought socks. Woo hoo...) When we got to the mall, Caroline and I had hot chocolate and Claudie had a cup of tea. It was lovely. Very good bonding time.

Caroline is about to be 18 in a few months, and she'll get her driver's license. In France, you have to fill out a log of all your "accompanied driving" times, including how many kilometers, weather conditions, etc. So Caroline drove us today to practice in the rain. She did a wonderful job, really, because it's hard to learn to drive in France! It's a nerve-racking thing to learn anyway, just driving for real, but add to that the fact that they learn on manuals! Driving a stick shift in France is insane: these people drive like fools! It's ridiculous! So, not only are you 1) learning to drive 2) on a stick shift, but 3) the other drivers are maniacs! It's crazy. Brave Caroline and Paul... bravo.

I noted two interesting things today. 1). No dressing rooms have doors. They're all curtains. I don't think I really like that. /:
Also, when we were at the store, we came back outside, Caroline pulled out of the parking place and got in line to exit the parking lot. But, we realized that the cars in the middle of the aisle were actually parked there! Yes, middle of the aisle! My friend Mena has a picture of two cars parked at the university in the entrance to the parking lot. One car entrance- blocked by a parked car. Amazing. Oh, the French.

Finally! We made it! Well, we got in really early in the morning, and we didn't waste any time. We passed by the Bank of Ireland, which was very important in the Irish war for independence. You can still see the nicks it got from bullets during the war. Nick and I are sporting our "excited to be in Ireland" faces; Tony didn't quite get the message...

First thing, book of Kells. Marvelous. I had never heard of this before, this was all Nick, but I absolutely loved it. Basically, it's a book from the Middle Ages that's illuminated text, meaning it was engraved and painted over years and years by dozens of men. It's a Bible in pictures, really intricate and Celtic-ly fascinating. But the best part was the Long Room upstairs. You walk up a stairway and at the top, you turn the corner and in front of you this room opens up. It's just like the library in Beauty and the Beast- only better, because you can smell the old books. It's two stories full of books with an enormously tall, domed ceiling. It's got sliding ladders for each section of books and dark, polished wood. It was amazing. We couldn't take pictures, which is just as well, because even the postcards couldn't do it justice. I found this on the internet, and it's pretty good. At least it tries. (:

After that, we walked around Trinity College a bit and from there headed to the (free!) Museum of Irish history. I am here to tell you, Ireland is a lot older than I ever give it credit! They have Viking age things, Middle Age age things (Celts), and even Roman ruins. So, we looked at all that, and Nick and I stumbled on something that I was not expecting in Ireland, or ever for that matter. We walked into one exhibition called "Kings and Sacrifices" I think, and all along the length of the room, there were spiral walls. The first one we went into had a sign outside, but we didn't notice it and just walked around the spiral into the opening. Would you like to know what awaited us? Bog men.

That's right. Bog men. Shriveled, preserved men that they had found in a field while cutting peat. We walked into that unknowingly- all of a sudden this leathery form of a man is lying there, hair and all. Shocking and also strangely intriguing (is that a problem?). Anyway, there was a small child also visiting the exhibit, which is weird, but we looked at all 4 bog men, including the one that had been cut in half by the peat machine (what a sad way to find an ancient relic). Anyway, that's the 2 things I took away from the Irish museum of history: 1). It's free. 2). Bog men.

We were hungry, and we went to a pub for lunch. I am so pleased to announce that the Irish pub does in fact exist and it looks just like it should! I got fish and chips (delicious) and I just tickled pink by the whole situation. Also, we ate at about 4pm, which is impossible in France. Here, if you don't eat between 12 and 2:30, you just missed lunch and you will starve until dinner at 7:45. So, it was so freeing to be able to eat whenever you want!

Another cultural difference was the architecture. I guess I'm just really used to French architecture, which is ostentatious and flowery and decorative. Irish architecture is very cut and dried, block, Industrial-Revolution style houses. Very indicative of the British Isles, I would imagine, and deliciously different from France. It was funny, though, when we got back to France and I noticed that every single building had a balcony, a decorative window or door frame, or some other decoration. Every building. So interesting.

So, moving on, we also visited the Potato Famine memorial and other sights. That evening, we went to a pub and spent a tranquil evening listening to the live music and being entertained by a group of dancing strangers. We heard some great songs, but we were missing out traveling song: "wonder wall." When we were in San Sebastian, we heard a song in a jazz bar called "Wonder Wall." Every European knew this American song, and it appeared that I was the only one who had never heard it before. So, it became a constant source of conversation that I didn't know this song. We also heard the song when we traveled to Bordeaux. Back to Dublin: we got tired and left the pub, and as we were walking along the street, Nick said casually "Just about the only thing missing from this night is 'Wonder Wall.'" And I kid you not, not 2 full seconds later, a random musician in the street began the first few chords of Wonder Wall. Not kidding. We all flipped out, and had a really moment in the middle of the road. We sang it out loud, and marveled at notre chance. What are the odds? This is why we study abroad, eh boys?

The next day we headed to Christ Church Cathedral, went into St. Patrick's Cathedral <--- (after all, how many times are you in Dublin? You have to see St. Pat's Cathedral...) and saw Jonathan Swift's grave. They have beautiful stained glass there, and apparently, they also collect their funds for the children's choir in a keg. No lie. Look at the picture: people drop church donations into a keg. Welcome to Ireland! (:




We went by the Dublin Castle, too, and actually, upon leaving the Castle, we were approached by a lady asking where we were from. They were looking for people to interview about a referendum they were voting on that day. We weren't European, so we couldn't really help, which was sad. We also went to the Guiness Brewery (which tastes similar to what I imagine motor oil would taste like. Horrible, horrible stuff). We almost got lost going to the Brewery, but then we smelled something: I thought it smelled like a bakery, but Tony thought it smelled like a farm. The solution: I smelled the yeast, and Tony smelled the barley. Just depends on if you've actually ever been to a farm (Tony) to know what they smell like...

Lastly, we headed to St. Audoen's church, which is the oldest church in Ireland to still be holding services (over 800 years). It was free, informative, quiet, and you were free to take pictures. I have a big beef with churches that make you pay (which is a whole 'other entry), so I enjoyed the free opportunity.

This picture is deceptive: this is the tower from St. Audoen's, and it looks like it's in the country. I'm going to let you believe that. The other picture is the wall of Dublin. Been there an awful long time. And yet, it would be so easy to miss...





Also of note, there was a restaurant we passed called "Stonewall Jackson's Bar and Restaurant." I knew he was famous, but Ireland? that's true fame: I'm pretty sure there are Americans that have no idea who Stonewall Jackson was. Southern history: ever intriguing.
Well, for those besides my immediate family, if you've stuck around this long, thanks! There's more to come. We're not done yet!