Halloween is Here

It’s the end of October, and it’s starting to get colder as we get closer to winter.  Storm Ophelia seemed to have left a bunch of cold air and wind with her, and we don’t see the sun as much as we used to.  Our clocks fell an hour back yesterday (one week earlier than back home), so it starts to get dark a lot sooner than it did.  Yesterday the sun started going down and I thought the afternoon had flown by, but when I looked at the time it was only about 4:00.  Looks like I will be leaving school in the dark from now on.  

School this week was pretty much the same as always.  I went to my lectures, tutorials, and labs as usual and spent more time with my classmates.  Sometimes we have long breaks in between classes, so this week one of my friends entertained us with fun card tricks and games.  Other than school and studying, my week is mostly made up of chores, cleaning, laundry, etc.  Since our Irish flatmates go home over the weekend, my French flatmate and I usually get stuck with the weekend cleaning.  We generally take turns or do the work together and talk about how we’re going to make our other flatmates do it someday.  (Although yesterday I did clean the large windows in our living room, and they look superb if I do say so myself).  

Sometimes you need a break though from the work, so my friends here at Halls and I try to hang out as much as we can.  One of my friends lives in the apartment above me, and unfortunately she doesn’t have the greatest relationship with her flatmates, so she comes over to my place a lot to study or cook.  She gets along really well with my other flatmates, so we basically consider her part of our little family.  Thursday evening I skyped one of my good friends from back home, and she got to meet my new friends here.  On Friday one of my American friends brought along a friend from her building.  He’s from London and is studying the classics, so we got to talk a lot about Latin poetry and prose.

Friday evening one of my American friends made us Mexican food for dinner.  We were super excited, since we’ll take any chance we can get when it comes to Mexican/Tex-Mex food.  She made us tortilla soup, and we also had refried beans (had to be imported) and chips with guacamole.  And even though it’s not technically Mexican, we had to split a few containers of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream since it’s been on sale the past week.  We had to move to the couch to so that our spoons had easy access to the containers (who wants to do more dishes?).  

Saturday afternoon my American friends, French flatmate, and I decided to go exploring.  We always take the Luas (tram) into school every morning, and college is at one end of the line and Halls is about a fourth of the way down, so we never knew what was at the very end of the Luas rout.  So why not find out?  We got day passes and spent the afternoon getting on and off at places that looked cool or interesting.  We found mostly residential and business areas, but there were also a few large shopping centers and beautiful views of the hills and coast as we got farther from the city.  The weather was much colder and windier than we thought it was going to be, so none of us were really that prepared (except for Frenchie, who had a big scarf with her that we all tried to fit under).  We found a Thai restaurant to warm us up, and we took advantage of the free ice cream they had as well (even though we were cold).  

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Sunday we planned a brunch, since the international students are the only ones usually home during the weekends it can get quite lonely.  Brunch consisted of me, my two American friends, Frenchie, a girl from Spain, and a girl from Brazil.  We had pancakes, French toast, pumpkin muffins, fruit salad, eggs, and so much food that stuffed us all.  It was really fun to meet some new people, especially another person I can speak Spanish with.  We also got to play around with a polaroid camera.  That evening after we spent the rest of the day studying we were too tired to do anything else (especially cook), so we ordered pizza and had a movie night.  We watched Cabaret, which is one of Frenchie’s favorite movies.  It was a very…interesting movie, and it definitely kept your attention.

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Monday is a bank holiday, so we didn’t have school today.  It was a good day to catch up on work and relax after the busy weekend.  It was also the last day of the Bram Stoker (author of Dracula, and Trinity alumnus) Festival that had been going on this weekend.  We went to the parade they had this evening, and it was really cool and interesting.  We couldn’t really figure out the theme, because it was not quite Bram Stoker themed or Halloween, but it was cool all the same.  They had a bunch of smoke machines and dancers dressed up in elaborate costumes.  

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That’s all there is to say for last week’s update.  This week is our final week before reading week, which is a week off.  I’ve got a couple assignments due and a test since we’re wrapping up the first half of the semester.  Got lots to do, so I’ll check in with you all later.  Have a great week!