War And Peace Marathon

Back in November I spent a day watching a marathon screening of War and Peace at the Russian Embassy. I spent the whole entire day because this was a screening of a four-part eight-hour Russian version. As a reward for sitting through all the way till the end we each received a pin, I've never been so proud.

Yes, I may have been more excited to get this button than my college degree, it was hard earned.  

The Government Inspector

My brothers, sis-in-law, and I went to see The Shakespeare Theatre Company's Government Inspector last weekend and it was quite fun. The lovely STC has much-less-costly-to-get-to-see-lots-of-awesome-plays-season-subscriptions-for-students/under-35ers because it makes them so happy to see non-retired-white-hair-audience-members. We tend to pair of theater-going with yummy food beforehand and I'm extremely proud to say that we have almost completely out-grown of our traditional jog-from-place-with-yummy-food-to-theater-to-rush-to-seats-before-curtain-is-raised, not that it wasn't an exhilarating way to start a play.

Gogol's The Government Inspector is a satire about a town and its mayor who mistake a gambles-too-much-lady's-man-lowly-and-currently-broke-government-clerk with a fear-and-bribe-inducing-Government-Inspector -- hilarity ensues. You know it's a comedy because of all the doors and bright colors on stage. And there was all the laughter too.
I loved lines like: "When I see the stupid faceless masses I just want to scream 'Where are your faces?! Are you stupid?!'" The characters all had a nearly a Scarlet Pimpernel level of ridiculousness which continued nonetheless to be charming and entertaining.
The costumes were no-bones-about-it comic. To the point that the interchangeable-and-often-mixed-up middle class Pyotr Ivanovich Bobosky and Pyotr Ivanovich Dodosky were all but dressed like umpa-lumpas. Seeing a Russian play was also fun to complement the Russian I've been attempting to learn (but more on that later).

Gopher Guts

 I got home from camp a week ago, so I've enjoyed a whole seven days of air-conditioning, internet, car, cell phone signal, regular showers, and not-waking-up-before-6:30am. Being home is quite snazzy, but there is a ton to miss about the land of mountains, creeks, french-braids, giggles fits, campfires, and campers
Every week of camp has tons of memorable, precious, exclamation-point-worthy-moments. Here are a few of the highlights from this summer. Ask me for more and I'll talk your ear off.

Adventure Course has pretty much always been my favorite rotations and now I'm one of the over-eighteens so I'm certified for the zip-Line. While I was in the crow's nest, one camper in particular was frightened to tears being so high. Talking her over the edge was incredible. Lots of deep breaths and each small step taken one at a time. Despite her nerves she held on to the tether tight and rode the zip-line. You could see her smile the whole way down. When I saw her afterwards she ran over and gave me a huge hug, she was beaming with excitement and pride. She was gushing, "Even my mom didn't think I would do that, cause I'm scared of heights! But I did it! I was so frightened but I did it anyways!" I love that camp is full of those moments when you learn you can do the impossible and that makes you mighty.

Joys of Moving in July

There are a few things that I would generally advise against and strongly encourage you to avoid.
Such as: stepping on an upside-down pin cushion, eating a twizzler dipped in nacho cheese, moving in July.
Particularly moving in July in Maryland.
During a record breaking heatwave.
When the house has no power.

Not that moving in July during a record-setting-heat-wave when the house was air-conditioning-less wasn't a brilliant way to spend a week, I just feel the need to keep all that fun for myself and spare you.

Chinese take-out eaten picnic-style on the floor
because you've already moved the table and chairs
might be the best perk of moving

In addition to the joy of having the unique sensation where you're carrying boxes of books upstairs and everything including one's knees, eyelids, and ears sweating, moving in July did have its moments.
The highlights or moving included the opportunity to defy the laws of physics that theoretically govern our planet, by having the amount of stuff (stuff = books) that fit quite fine in a technically two-bedroom-apartment somehow cover every surface in a practically four-story-house. It was honestly impressive to see. Apparently when you box things up they start taking on characteristics of tribbles and you are quickly overrun (although with less cute squeaks and fuzziness).

So much stuff.
Every (much-bigger-than-the-apartment) room in the house looked like this.
So much stuff.

happy post with cuteness and a camel

Currently I'm about as happy as this kid with a camel and I don't even have a camel, so imagine how happy I'd be if you gave me a camel.

Blogging from my phone

Jamie and me in Philly - photo credit to my mom

I'm currently in the car on 95 heading back home from Philly, my mom's driving so don't worry this blogging is not currently endangering my life.  Although I suppose I am slacking off from my navigating duties. She'll manage though. A mini-road-trip was in order since I've been away and after all that travel, I wanted more travel when I got home. Plus Jamie's bright green bag needed to complete the one last leg of its adventure from home to Germany to Galway to Dublin with Jamie, then to Cork with random-ditzy-Irish-strangers, then back to Galway and home with me, and finally many moons later back to Jamie in Philly.  It was a beautiful day for a drive and we got delicious dinner in an old-bank-turned-church-turned-restaurant. Philly is a great city with all its liberty and freedom and I like Delaware's "It's good to be first" and it's nice to be back in Maryland cause it's home even if I miss Galway a bit.

Tea and Parsnip Cake

In honor of my roomie Andi's last night here in Galway she had a little tea party with a bunch of the study -broad girls. Since my housemates have been whipping up some amazing meals recently I figured it was my turn to try my hand in the kitchen. I made Parsnip Cake, it turned out pretty amazing so I was quite excited. Tea and biscuits plus parsnip cake and some great girls (with a little Jenna Marble and youtube lessons on Grinding for entertainment) made for a grand night.

I've tried a few of the other recipes posted on the Sorted youtube channel and they've all been amazing.

Saturday Market

Before leaving home for Ireland I was told to try the fresh doughnuts from Saturday Market in Galway. It was truly wonderful advice. Dan-the-doughnut-man makes the doughnuts right there in front of you when you order them. One is only 70cents, but honestly who has the self control to buy only one single doughnut when you can buy 6 for 3.50?

Irish Family in Limerick

Me/Megan, May, Niamh, Jimmy, Aj, Tim/Dad, Dan, Ning

Oysters of awesomeness

At the Museum Cafe with cake and salad, a well balanced meal.  

We started out the day by getting breakfast at Griffins Cafe and it was delicious. This was a theme for the day, food which was delicious. Sadly the hard-core-Ireland-cough-germs started to get the best of my lil-bro and my dad so they headed back to the hotel to rest up, while my big-bro and sis-in-law and I headed back to the Galway Museum since it was not Monday and therefore it was open. We checked out the exhibits and then got super-duper-delicious snacks from the Kitchen Cafe downstairs of the museum.

Shop Street and a Bloody Window

We deciphered most of the Bible
stories in the stain-glass-windows. 

AJ found a book written by
his alter-ego WJ McCormack

 We spent the day in Galway with breakfast at Revive Cafe, then Shop Street for T. Dillon's: the official-and-original-makers-of-the-Claddagh-Ring, Charlie Bryne: the best book store ever, St. Nick's: the really old church, and the Cathedral: the really big church, and the Spanish Arch and other sights around Galway. The cathedral has a stain-glass-window with the world's bloodiest ever scene of Cain and Able, it was quite intense-- so much red!!! Turns out the little Galway Museum is closed on Mondays, but everything else was open until 6 or 7 when everything here starts closing. (A little early in my huble opintion) We got dinner at the King's Head -- a pub in the old stone house built by the executioner of King Charles II. And the crazy impressive sheets of rain didn't start until we were safely back inside for the night, wonderful timing on the part of the clouds.

Blogging from a bus

Both GoBus and CityLink have direct Galway to Dublin routes, complete with not only bathrooms, but also free wifi, what more could a traveler need?
So although today is not done yet, I'm going to post, cause I find it pretty cool that I can connect to the inter-webs while rolling down the road at some-amount-of-kilometers-an-hour. And it's the 15th so I've officially Blogged-Half-The-Month-of-April! Yay for BEDA milestones.

Lovely day for a Guinness

Friday the 13th

Last time I visited Dublin with Jamie and Jessie it went ...so...so...well. Therefore I returned to Dublin visit with my brothers and sis-in-law and all on Friday the 13th, a day known for it's luck-y-ness right? No? oh... dear me.

Regardless, after my day of rest on I got up early on Friday and took the GoBus back to Dublin were I met up with everyone at the hotel. We got some fish and chips for lunch and headed to Trinity College to see the space-alien-sphere and the Book of Kells. We stopped along the way at the General Post Office where the 1916 Easter uprising started.

The Book of Kells s quite impressive and it makes me wish I had handwriting that nice.  I've decided that if I could just move in a back corner of Old Library to live, I would be quite content for the rest of my life. So many rows of gorgeous books! And beautiful  arched ceilings! And slidy-beauty-and-the-beast-library-ladders! And spiral staircases!!!  On top of all that amazingness there was even a book on display from the 1600s with a picture of a Viceroy Tulip that pretty much made my day. (Yay for Fault in Our Stars!)

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

Star's face is cause she is in the middle of
Looking for Alaska, Monique's is cause
 we've been traveling a lot. a lot a lot. 

The five of us spent one last night in in mega-bed. Then we had a wonderful breakfast with our splendid hosts Wednesday morning. It was quite sad to leave them (and Italy as a whole as well.) We packed up all our stuff (plus a handful of new scarves) and hit the road around 12:20. We walked briskly, but not full-on-panicked-ly to the metro and then took that to the Turino train station, Porto Nouvo. Having mastered the ticket machine in Rome we quickly purchased our ticket and were able to board at the very closest platform (karma was trying to make up for Rome).

On our first train from Turin to Milan, the Italian girl across the aisle from us was being bugged by two gypsies and it turns out they stole her wallet and all out of her purse which really sucked. But I have to say that the half a dozen guys who jumped up to defend her pretty much made my day, the guys also helped her out when she realized she was robbed. It was really nice to see them help her out. I had a slight run-in with a meany-pants-train-ticket-guy who charged me for having my feet on the seat across from me, just because he could (sticky out tongue face)

Tuesday in Turin

Turino

We left Florence around midnight on Saturday. After a long night of traveling, with 3 trains, a little too much time in Pisa's station, a pickpocket-attempt involving dirty socks, a couple of movies on my laptop, not much sleep, and a lot of giggles we arrived in Turin. The Grove City girls here have an adorably Italian apartment with 100 year old wardrobes, chandlers, very tall ceilings, and tiger-print-blankets to boot. It is quite exciting to visit them. Last night we went out to Superga -- a beautiful hilltop with an amazing view of the city. We took the last bus of the night up the windy-road; but walking back down was completely worth it since we arrived right at sunset and enjoyed our Easter-dinner-picnic while watching the sun settle behind the mountains.

Firenze Day Two

*side note* A few of my friends and a handful of the You Tubers I love do BEDA (= Blog Every Day in April). This year I’m traveling and then will have visitors for the majority of April. Kind of a good reason to skip BEDA, but on the other hand it’s also the type of month I’ll want a record of, so I’m blogging everyday-ish in April. The internet is not always available, but I’ll post all the days eventually. For example, this post I typed up on the train north from Florence late Saturday night.

Best ever place to read, and Song of Myself makes me want to re-read Papertowns 

Friday in Florence

Non-zoomed-in-photo of the red roofs of Florence 

Rome -> Florence

We started Thursday with a delicious Italian breakfast of cappuccino and fresh pastries (significantly different from a full Irish Breakfast), then the three of us stopped by a few last sights in Rome. Such as the Pantheon, Trevi fountain, Piazza Novena, and the Spanish Steps—with daylight, and then we tried to see the bone church with the capuchin crypt, but when we found it the 11:30-3:00 lunch hour foiled those plans. But hey, you have to leave something to see next time right?

After finding a store for lunch and snack foods, we took the metro to Termini to catch our train to Florence. The board listed platforms for all the other trains departed; all except our train, of course. That’s where the adventure comes in! Our train to Florence departed from not one, two, three, four, or thirteen, but from “ES2”. I asked the nice Tren-Italia-man what that meant and he said that ES1 and ES2 are the platforms all the way down past all the other platforms, and then to the right, and all the way down past trains at the very end. We had time to calmly stamp our ticket and board the train, if our train departed from a normal platform. Instead we got to briskly-but-not-quite-full-panic-ly walk from one corner of Termini to the farthest possible point of Termini, completely with a short more-like-panic-full-run at the end which got us boarding the train at exactly 3:13 for our departure of 3:14. It’s not nearly as romantic as all those movies make it seem to hop onboard right as the train pulls away, but that could just be because there was no rain, dramatic music, or beautiful boy waving goodbye to us as we left him behind.

We very much enjoyed resting on the train and then we arrived in Florence around 7pm. Star’s friend from Grove City met us at the station to show us back to their flat, which is up so many steps it makes one appreciate the “Mt Everest of stairs” up to Star and Monique’s room in Galway. We enjoyed the sunset from the roof with a sea of red terracotta roofs all around us, quite a wonderful spot to sit. For dinner we got heaping servings of amazing Italian anti-pastas and pastas galore. It was family-style loads of food for 15 euros, including really nice house wine too, so it was very much worth it. Plus there was a quick stop for gelato on the way home, of course. Although it is always sad to leave the Eternal City, Florence is great as well. 

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One last Old Bridge Gelato before we left town