Fair Weather and Friends

"Cold and rainy" was what we were all told to prepare for when coming to Ireland, two weather conditions I absolutely hate, especially when combined. Fortunately for us, that has not been the case at all! It's been the complete opposite, in fact! Not hot, but the temperatures have been in the 60's and we've had mostly blue skies. According to the locals, this is so rare! We've totally lucked out, as this weather could not be more perfect for sightseeing and all of the walking we do on a daily basis. I guess we brought that perfect September weather with us from Indiana! It really does remind me of fall a little bit, minus the colored leaves. Everything here stays green, but every once in a while, I'll catch that "fall" smell I love so much...
This weekend, we weren't about to waste this gorgeous weather, but first, let me back up to Thursday. Throughout the week, my roommates, Jeanine, Kayleen, and Monica, and I talked about how nice it would be to cook dinner for the boys one night during the week. We tried to figure out what to make and decided that a traditional Irish meal would be perfect. Jeanine doesn't have class on Thursdays, so we have her to thank for the majority of the cooking. And boy, did she do a good job! She made not one, but two kinds of stew, one with beef and one with lamb. Sooo delicious! In honor of Jake's birthday this weekend, she also constructed some beautiful mini cheesecakes, complete with a beautiful apple sauce (picked from our trees) to drizzle on top. In addition to the the stews and cheesecakes, the rest of us contributed our services to make Irish soda bread and garlic mashed potatoes. Perfection! Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. Because it was such a successful evening, we girls thought it would be an excellent idea to make this a weekly tradition, but to alternate houses. With this thought, we kindly invited ourselves over to the boy's apartment next week. They, of course, were thrilled with this idea and I'm sure began planning immediately. The bar was set pretty high, however, so we'll see if they can reach our standards. :) After dinner, we all played a rousing game of phrase-pictionary (or something to that effect), then began parting ways. A good time was had by all.
Unfortunately, Friday was a bit dull with not much going on, though Kayleen and I did a little exploring around Rathgar. I absolutely love all the little shops. We decided it reminds us of the olden days when there was a shop for everything instead of just huge super-stores like we have now back in the States.
All week, we had been planning a trip of some sort for this weekend. Several ideas were thrown around, but nothing was ever decided upon. Saturday (yesterday) ended up getting off to a late start, due mostly to the fact that bedtime the night before was considerably late for some, or early, depending on how you look at it. :) Regardless, we all enjoyed a beautiful brunch that Kayleen prepared. She made apple cinnamon pancakes (which ended up being more like crepes, sooo delicious!) as well as eggs, baked beans, and sausage for a more picky guest. We all enjoyed our leisurely brunch and then decided to take advantage of the aforementioned weather by going to the Dublin Zoo! Kayleen, Adam, Jeanine, Monica, and I set out on foot so we could record some videos for one of the CFS advisors back home. We ended up walking the whole four miles to the zoo, bound and determined to get a taxi on the way back. Actually, the walk wasn't that bad, as we got to walk across the River Liffey and see a few other sites along the way. We had heard great things about the Dublin Zoo, but ended up being a little disappointed in that most of the animals weren't out! We had arrived about two hours before it was scheduled to close, but some of the animals must have already been rounded up. Despite that, we enjoyed the ones we saw and can now cross that off our list of things to see! Walking at the zoo was at least another mile, so we were really looking forward to our taxi ride home. Much to our disappointment, we discovered they could only take four people at a time. We were left walking again. Directly after crossing the River Liffey, we decided to rest in The Brazen Head, which is claimed as the oldest pub in Ireland. It felt nice to finally rest our feet. We almost bought dinner there, but decided to forge on instead and finish up all of the left-overs we had at home. We finally made it back, having tracked at least nine miles by the end of the day. We immediately changed into sweatpants and dinner was made. We ended the day by watching the new "Office" episode we were all sure we going to have to miss while we were here. Thank you Jeanine's boyfriend, Shawn!!
This morning, we headed off to our separate churches. Jeanine and I went to The Vineyard down by city center. We hadn't gone before, but really liked it for the most part. when we got home we started some laundry after finally figuring out how to work the washer. Each load takes an hour and a half just to wash. When one load was done and hung out to dry, Jeanine and I went to Tesco to do some much needed grocery shopping. The rest of the day has been fairly uneventful, but relaxing none the less. Now it's back the grindstone as we gear up for another week!