Double Dip Monday!

So, I haven't updated this in a day, so I guess I'm gonna have a double dip exclusive. And rightfully so, I was up until 3:30 am today watching the Superbowl. But I'll get to that a little later.

So yesterday started off as another lazy Sunday. I woke up at 10 and went straight to the laundry house. It cost me 10 Euros just to do wash. Can you freakin believe that? At Berks, it cost me a $1.50 a wash and dry. It's so ridiculous here. It's a little over 3 Euros each here. The washers here are tiny. Literally half the size of anything back home. This is probably so they can get more money out of the students, by having them do more loads. I had to do two anyway, because I had a ton of white and darks. Then after you wash your clothing, you throw it in this enormous cylinder on the wall. It's beastly. Doesn't even look like a dryer. So you throw everything in there because it all fits, and then you hit dry. However, you have to dry twice because your clothes are still sopping wet after one cycle through the drier. Ugh, it's a pain. However, I did my laundry, and I'm happy once more.

In between doing laundry I watched a little bit of the Arsenal and Chelsea game, made some scrambled eggs and rashers, and then watched a bit of the France and Scotland rugby match. I'm really starting to get into soccer. It's so much easier to follow over here. I look forward to the weekend because there are games on all the time. It's literally like our NFL, with games being played on Saturday and Sunday. And it's religion. They break down every aspect of the game on Sky Sports. It's great. I'm starting to really love it. I can't say I support a team, maybe that will come with the season, but I just love to watch it. It's exciting. A lot of people wonder how you can watch something that is 0-0 for the longest time, but it's very strategic, and the moments when the ball enters the box, it's intense. I've been debating purchasing tickets for a game, and I was going to cave and go see Manchester United vs. West Ham United on the 27th at Old Trafford in Manchester. However, they just moved the game from a Saturday to a Tuesday night. So stupid. Now I'm searching for other games. I probably won't go, even though everyone keeps on telling me I'm being an idiot for even debating the subject. Everyone keeps saying, "When will you ever get to see an EPL(English Premiere League) game ever again?" And they are right. Maybe I won't. It's not like the next time I travel to Europe I'm going to have time to go to an EPL game. And plus the next time I go to Europe, I plan to go somewhere other than England or Ireland. So we'll see. Tickets are like 70-80 Euros though. And I'd just feel guilty buying them. I do have a Visa gift card I have yet to use, but who knows. My Mom would be pissed. I can hear her telling me to save my money already. Which is funny because I haven't heard from my parents since Thursday night. So whatever, maybe I'll just buy them anyway.

So after my laundry, I decided to clean the kitchen. Why? Because Jeremie and I are the only ones who wash dishes and clean up after ourselves. Honestly, Nelson and Theo just leave plates dirty for days. It's gross. We don't have a dishwasher. We also don't have a lot of plates. When you are done with your meal, rinse it off, put some soap on it, and scrub it. Takes less than a minute. But no, they cook, leave their stuff everywhere, and we end up having 4 plates in the sink dirty. So Jeremie and I have to scrub them before we can eat. It's ridiculous. Plus Theo takes stuff to his room and never brings it back out. He's starting to get on my nerves. Even though he just got back from NYC after a week(which was amazing), and told me how much he loved Times Square, he just doesn't know the word hygiene. And he's a klepto.

So I scrub down all the plates and wash everything in the sink. Then I clean off our disgusting wood counter tops that have random gunk all over them. I clean out the toaster, the oven, the burner, scrub the other counters, scrub the entire sink, the table, clean out the cupboards, scrub the fridge face, dust the floor. I just cleaned everything. And then 20 minutes later, Theo came in, made tea, and you would think a bomb went off. How you get a counter top that messy making tea, I have no idea, but Theo did it, and then I had to walk away.

Yesterday in the afternoon, I got a ring from Pierre. He had good news for me. He backed up my entire hard drive, and then just reformatted my entire computer. So, now I am back on MY computer. I know, I know, well your Mom just bought you a new one. Yes, I am aware. And once I get that one, I'm gonna use it. But for now, I have all my music back and important documents. Plus I can finally upload and dump pictures. So I'm happy. He did an amazing job. He worked on it for like two days. He found 123 viruses on my old computer. And the registry was destroyed. So basically, this thing was a POS. But he revived it! It's alive, It's alive!

So last night rolled around, and I still hadn't showered and ate dinner. So it was about 7:30ish, and I was leaving to go watch the game at 9. I needed food ASAP. It was too late to thaw something, and I didn't feel like cooking, so I asked Jeremie if he wanted to order out? He said yes, so we decided to order Chinese food. However, Jeremie only has 20 seconds left on his card, and we have in time found out that you can't use your house phone to dial out. That costs money. So, we decided to go to the reception, and there we met a young lady who let us use her cell phone. Thinking I was going to be talking to an asian person, I was surprised to hear a very strong Irish males voice greet me on the other side of the line. We ordered Chinese food, from Irish people. So the dude got here at around 8. It cost us both around 8 Euros. I got General Tso's chicken and Jeremie got some type of Chili fried chicken. His was much better than mine. Mine was good, but the chicken wasn't breaded like it is in the states. It was just smooth, with a really thin crust. And the sauce was not good at all. But it was food, so I can't complain. While eating, Jeremie and I were flicking around the 10 channels that we get and came across Sky News. We got to see the explosion in Connecticut, which looked pretty crazy. It took up like 15 minutes of the news hour over here, so it must have been pretty substantial. After that they mentioned something about the Superbowl briefly, but it was about how crazy and silly America gets for the game. The segment showed people dressed up stupidly for the game and crazy fans. It was pretty much poking fun at us for liking it. It actually left me kinda sour. But then the weather guy made up for it. So a map comes up showing the UK and Ireland. The guy already looks lost. The map shows winds coming down through the countries from the North East. The guy goes, "Uh, okay, as you can see wind and cold air moving through. So, it's probably gonna be a cold week. I would imagine." Wait, did a weather guy just say, "I would imagine." You have to be certain! You can't just say, "Eh, could be sunny, maybe not. Who cares, I'm a weather guy in Bipolar Ireland." So he starts going on about the week ahead. Gives no true facts, figures, numbers, highs and lows, precip, nothing. Just says, "I think this should be a cold week. Especially tomorrow. A little sunny too I suppose." Honestly? I guess in order to be a weather guy in the UK or Ireland, you have to be able to put a suit on by yourself. That's it. Verbal skills aren't really essential, because a bag of potatoes sitting up there could have done a better job. I look forward to the weather every time the news is on, because no one cares, and no one knows what they are doing.

After dinner, I got a quick shower and then Pierre and Kobe came over to go out and watch the game. So the 3 of us and Jeremie decided to head down to the Stables to watch the Superbowl! It was much different this year. There was no hype, and I almost forgot about it completely. It was very un-American. I tried to watch an online stream of the NFL network yesterday but it was way too choppy, I couldn't keep it on. This was Kobe's first American football game viewing, so that was exciting! Pierre and Jeremie told me that they were both rooting for the Saints because New Orleans used to be a French city. Haha. I thought it was a pretty valid reason! So we walk the 20 minutes onto campus to go to the Stables, we get there, and it's closed! Unbelievable. So, we stand there, almost lost. We didn't know what to do. Kara was on her way to meet us, so we had to wait for her. While waiting, Pierre said, "Let's go downtown to Flannery's!" Flannery's is a big pub downtown, and they have tons of really nice tv's all over the place. They were open late tonight for the game, so we decided to go there. Kara decided to go with Jess, so the four of us guys hopped into a taxi bus and went downtown. However, on our way there, Jeremie and I realized a problem that we completely forgot about. Ya see, as we were eating last night, Theo kept coming in and looking at our food, like he wanted some. Even though, he cooks a steak literally every 2 hours. So finally after asking us questions about this and that, he asks if we want to go drinking tonight. I didn't want to, because he is annoying when he drinks. He gets really drunk and obnoxious. Like the last time, when he took a can of Guinness, shook it up, and then opened it in our kitchen. And then Jeremie and I cleaned it up. So sorry if I wasn't too keen on drinking with him anymore. So before we left Jeremie went and asked Theo if he wanted to come with us to the Stables. He said not now, but he'd be there in 45 minutes. Woops. We don't have his number either, so Theo may or may not have walked to Stables last night. I have no idea what happened.

So we arrived downtown and walked into Flannery's. It's an awesome pub. It's set in this old stone building in a row of old stone businesses. You walk through these huge wooden doors and you are in this outside patio area. They have huge heat lamps above you on the stone facade and columns, so it's actually a little warm. This is still outside. Then they have nice HD tv's all over the walls, and tables and bar stools, it's really cool. Then you go in, and it just looks like one of those classy expensive bars. And it was. Every beer was like 4 Euros. You walk in and the bar is on your right. Cherry wood floors all over the bar, very low lights, really this awesome feel to the place. Then on your left you can step up on a landing and they have some comfortable seating up there. Then from that landing there are stairs that go up to more seating, but that was closed. It was awesome. On the wall right above the landing they had a really nice HD tv and then a huge projector screen. So everyone just stood at the bar and in the area up to the landing and watched the game. So right when we walked in, we saw the girls from Slippery Rock. Tes, Lisabeth and Andrea. So we went up on the landing and sat with them. We got there early enough that the waitress was still walking around with a promotion. Sign your name, give your email, get a free pint of Coors Light. Hell yes I will sign! So I was American, and I drank Coors all night last night.

The game. Okay, it was weird. Over here, we don't get to see the same coverage as you guys. So we weren't watching Gumble, Marino and all those guys. We had to watch Cecil Martin and some old British guy broadcast live from some booth in the nosebleeds. Cecil Martin is this huge dude with Lil Wayne dreads, who can't really talk properly. He has a bit of a lisp and talks out the side of his mouth. It was a painful night. So, the pre game was watching these two idiots talk, and then they cut to the live feed. The game itself was the American announcing crew, so that was good. Queen Latifah and Carrie Underwood sang, and all the Americans in the bar belted out the songs of the homeland right with them. Jeremie kept on laughing as I sang the Star Spangled banner. He was like, "It iz so long!" Haha, oh well. So boom, game time. Finally. The Super Bowl, in Ireland. The bar was packed. From what I could tell, no one knew anything about football. However, the Saints got an overwhelming amount of cheers when they were introduced, and the Colts and Peyton were booed. So, I picked the right bar. I myself was rooting for the Saints last night. I'm so sick of hearing about the Manning legacy.

So the game starts. Colts jump out to a 10-0 lead. Pierre keeps saying, "Ah man, itz not looking good man." But I reassured him that 10 points is nothing in American football. So the first stoppage in play came and I was very sad to see that we would not be seeing commercials. Because of copyright and region, we were just taken to a studio where someone like Jim Nantz talked to a former European Football league tight end and SMU's assistant coach. Yea, SMU. Random. So no funny commercials to talk about today. Just terrible analysis from 3 random people. Never take Chris Collinsworth for granted ever again people. I'd take anyone over what I had to sit through last night. Everyone constantly complains about commentators in America, I do it too, but not anymore. These guys were clueless. Analysis was terrible, and very spotty. They just didn't seem to know a whole lot. Instead of breaking down routes, they'd say, "Yeah, he dropped it. He should have caught it instead." Great, thanks. Cue the bag of potatoes. Maybe they hang out with the weather guys?

So the Saints finally strike, first half starts winding down. The half ends with the Colts up, and Jess, Kara, Pierre and I decide to go to Burger King. Yep, it was an American night. So we went to BK, I got a cheesburger for 99 cents, and it was glorious. We sat down at a table, and two random Irish people decided to sit with us. A guy and a girl, both a little older than myself. They start asking us about where we are from, etc. Kara asks if we look American, and they both said yes. However, they looked at me and said, "He could pass as an Irish lad." That's the 3rd time I've gotten that since I've been here. Apparently it's not a great compliment, because Irish people don't think they are very attractive. We asked them how they can tell we are American, and they said just from mannerisms, our teeth are white and usually straight, our shoes, jeans, ipods, purse style. And then when we open our mouths and speak it's a dead giveaway. They said we have a funny accent too. Haha, I didn't even know we had one! Then they taught us some random Irish slang, like how to say hey or how are you. Depending on where you are in the country, it's all different. Just like in the states. So, we finished our meals and went back to the pub.

The second half was amazing. You all saw it, so I'm not going to go into analysis. But, I gotta say, the Saints defense was rattling the Colts. Peyton Manning seemed lost at the end of the 3rd quarter. How does the greatest QB today not aware of the play clock running down? I kept saying to Andrea, someones gonna force Manning to make a mistake. I said that starting in the 3rd quarter, and didn't stop until Porter finally got that pic to seal the deal. Why the Colts ran the same exact play over the course of 3 downs, I have no idea. 1st play, slant to Collie. Second play, incomplete. Third play, slant to Wayne picked off for 6 the other way. When Porter picked that ball off, the place erupted. Everyone jumped up and down, I was out of my seat. The place went bonkers. Everyone was flipping out and cheering. It was insane! Complete craziness! It was an event. Everyone was dancing and celebrating. We watched the final minutes tick off because after all, it was Peyton, anything could happen! So we watched the clock tick down to zero and the Saints are the 2010 Super Bowl Champions. I love seeing the players react and hoist the trophy, however, seeing as how this was Ireland, as soon as they ran onto the field, video feed terminated. So I never got to see the team celebrate or hoist the trophy, which sucked.

So we ran out into the street as the bar let out and scrambled for a taxi. Pierre, Jeremie, Kobe and I all split one back to the apartments. When we got back, Jeremie and I noticed that the kitchen light was on, and Theo's bedroom light was on. So we snuck into our rooms as quiet as possible.

I went to bed last night at 4 am. The game lasted until about 3:30. It was ridiculous. Quite the experience. But ya know what, it was the Super Bowl. So who cares. Last night I went to bed with only 2 or 3 beers in me, but I think mixed with the Burger King and Chinese, it did a number on my stomach. I tossed and turned all night, felt like I was going to throw up constantly. Then when I finally got to bed, I had the craziest dream of my life. I wanted to write it down but I didn't. From what I remember, I was in the Middle East. Pierre was there with me. Some Hezbollah dude's stole Pierre's jacket. Pierre thought I stole it and got pissed at me. Then I ended up in a field with all these people, and there were huge, literally enormous bumble bees flying around stinging everyone. Then I was at a strip mall and these Hezbollah guys stole my jacket and then told me it was for the Sultan. I was pissed. Then it got really random. Ok, remember that autistic kid who scored like 20 points in 2 minutes 2 years ago in a high school bball game. I watched that video a day or two ago. Well, the Hezbollah guys in my dream sent him after me, and I ended up kicking the crap out of him in a huge kung fu battle, which took place in a warehouse that was filled with school desks. Yeah, random right? And then the dream ended. And I actually feel really bad that I beat that kid up, but I told myself that it was in self defense so. Get off my back. You people weren't there, you didn't see that crazy look in his eyes!

So I had class this morning at 9. I was well aware of that going out last night. It was only a lecture. Tutorials are the ones you cannot miss. Plus, all teachers put their powerpoints up online anyway, in case you miss class. So, when my alarm went off at 8 and I woke up profusely sweating and groggy as all hell, I laughed and said, "Ha, guess I'm not going to that class." So I reset my phones alarm for 9:30, for my 11 am class. What seemed like a minute later, my phone goes off. It's 9:30. Reset for 10. Then at 10 I finally got up. I had to sleep off my Super Bowl hangover. I cannot operate on 4 hours of sleep. Sorry Issues in Contemporary Irish Society.

So today I went to my 11am with the idiot. Who is truly and idiot. I honestly have no idea what this class is about yet. It's supposed to be about the politics and government of the EU, but so far we've just been talking about European integration and the effects of the coal and steel industries. But anyway, she is an idiot because on literally all of her slides, "steel" was spelled, "steal." For example: "The coal and steal industries of Germany..." I want to punch myself in the face with a branding iron. I can't see how I am going to make it through a semester of hearing her monotoned voice read flash cards. And I noticed while looking around me in this class, no one takes notes. Like, nearly everyone just sits there. They kids all around me have 1 page of notes for the last 3 classes. Not even a full page. I have about 12 already. Am I missing something? Do they not take notes, is it not important? I have no idea. It confuses and scares me at the same time.

So after class I went to the Stables and grabbed lunch with Kara and then Jess joined us. Then after that I had class with my cool professor who just makes fun of Italy the entire time, because they were terrible at fighting during WWI. Then this afternoon I came back to my room, dabbled on the computer and then went to my 5pm.

My 5pm is in the middle of nowhere. It's in this really cheap and crummy building that looks like the inside of a decaying hospital. It's ugly, has eerie lighting, and at points the hallways get really tight and small and it's only wide enough for one person to walk through. It's odd. So I had my tutorial. It was pointless. We talked about Lost, and what we would do if we got standed on an island. Then we talked about citing books in essays. I don't get how they relate. The girls that I worked with, who were both Irish, asked me what my name was. I said Matt, and the one girl laughed and said, "Oh my, that's such an American name." They knew right away too. Haha. I guess I have it written on my forehead.

After class I went to the gym. I decided that since it takes forever to walk there, I'm just gonna start going after my last class of the day, since my classes are right by the gym. However, there was a problem today. I went at 6. Six is when alllll classes are done. The gym was packed. I couldn't get on the track, the weight room was filled with macho dudes in reeeaaallly short rugby shorts. It was a mess. I did get to lift for about 45 minutes though. But they don't use machines at all over here. Everything is basically free weights. It kinda sucks. And for the size of the campus, the weight room is literally the size of a basketball court. Half of that is strictly weights, and half of that is treadmills and ellipticals. It makes the Berks weight room look heavenly. So don't bitch about the facilities anymore at Berks, they are so much nicer than anything they have here.

After the gym, I came back and made a pork chop, some string beans and some potatoes. It was a pretty good meal if I do say so myself. I'm becoming a master at pan searing meat. Pretty much because I don't feel like waiting for it in the oven.


Theo's on the phone right now and just said, "I want 1 pizza and another 1." Then I heard him say, "yeah, 2 pizza."

Ah, good old University of Limerick.

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have some pictures up soon? Flickr has a bandwidth max though, so there won't be many.

And how about those Washington Capitals? Lucky number 14 against the Pens yesterday!

Alright, that's it for now. Woo, long update.

Alright, talk to you again tomorrow!

Edit: Okay, so I just wrote this but... I was just informed that tickets were purchased for a group of us to go to Brussels and Amsterdam for my birthday weekend! Yay! I'm excited! It was only 20 Euro roundtrip to fly to Brussels on Friday the 26th, and then we can take a train to Amsterdam at some point Friday or Saturday. So woo! I have 3 flights booked in my name for 3 new countries! London, Denmark, and Brussels! I'm becoming such a well rounded traveler, haha.