Life in Ireland has been pretty good, and very different from our first month in England. There we were moving every day, losing things weekly, carrying our backpacks around the city every other day, and having some kind of meltdown over transportation at least once a week.
Here, we wake up, make breakfast, lunch, whatever meal we're awake for, in our kitchen, and (usually) get dressed at some point with clothes from our closets, not from our backpacks. We can sit around. There's no "agenda" or "schedule," and there's only a slight routine. It's bizarre, after 19 years of hearing those words so many times that they've become repulsive, and even frightening.
Now the issue isn't so much dealing with problems or complications as much as forcing ourselves to actually do something. We've been working out, which is great. We do conditioning and we've gone jogging and ridden the bikes that our hosts are lending us. The only really important time-sensitive thing that we're doing right now is trying to get our India visas sorted out. It's been really difficult and frustrating, this place has a distinct lack of resources such as fax machines, printers and good internet connection. But we're on track now. We've also gotten our absentee ballot situation sorted out, so we should be able to vote in the upcoming election.
So just some random things:
1. Liesl hasn't had a cigarette in 13 days. Woo, go Liesl! She almost caved on the second day. Someone offered her one and she began slowly reaching for it, but I slapped her hand back (yay, go Stephanie). It was funny though, the guy that was offering it to her was really drunk, and I think he thought that I was under the impression that he was trying to poison Liesl, or give her some really hardcore drug or something, haha, because he was like, "No, it's okay!" I said that Liesl was quitting. He looked at me blankly. I repeated that she was quitting smoking. He definitely had no conception of the phenomenon of discontinuing the use of cigarettes. That's a shame, really.
2. In case you're wondering--and I know for sure that many people have wondered this--Liesl and I are not a couple. We're just two friends travelling together, that's it. We certainly aren't at all offended by people thinking that we're a couple--it's actually been quit amusing at times--but for the purpose of accuracy, we are not together.
We're had the pleasure of being the subjects of many funny situations of dubiousness about our relationship. This has mostly happened with some of the people that have hosted us. Our friends in Bristol told Liesl and I that we could sleep in the single bed, and that our other friend could sleep on the couch. Liesl, knowing that there was an extra bed upstairs, suggested that she or I sleep up there. Our friends looked at her with much confusion. You don't want to sleep in the bed with Stephanie? She said that she didn't mind, but since there was another bed someone might as well sleep in it so we're all more comfortable. It didn't matter to her who slept in which place, but we'd might as well utilize the space. They were so confused to find out--later, I think--that we aren't a couple.
Another host, upon showing us to our room, said that we could both sleep in the nicer bed in there, or if we wanted to sleep in separate beds there was another bed in that room, or did we even want to sleep in the same room...? It was really funny how awkward everyone has been about this. I didn't realize why they were being so strange about it until they left the room and Liesl pointed out that they clearly thought we were dating. It was pretty obvious that that was where the confusion came from, I just didn't realize because we really hadn't been acting like a couple at all. We didn't always sit together, or really have any physical contact, much less any public display of affection. We counted, and at least five different people/groups of people thought that we were a couple during our time in England. A senile Scottish man on the tube who was talking to himself said to us, "You look like a couple of lesbians!"
3. Maybe, if you're like me and aren't fond of spiders, you've asked yourself before, seriously, is there anywhere in the world where there aren't spiders? If so, I'm going there. Perhaps you thought, no, surely there are spiders everywhere that's inhabitable for humans. Well, you were wrong. There are next to no spiders in England. I realized this while staying at someone's house and noticing a daddy long legs in the corner of the ceiling. It was the first spider I'd seen on our trip. I think I saw one more of the same kind of spider in someone else's house, but that was it. Oh, and while we were on our hike we encountered a blackberry bush that was full of spiders, but that was out in nature, in the countryside, not even in a town, so it doesn't really count. But anyway, two spiders, that's it? I'd pretty much call that a spider-free country. It was great not to find huge wolf spiders on every tree.
Unfortunately, however, there are spiders in Ireland. And big ones. I've seen a couple of large black ones, many daddy long legs, and two giant, terrifying ones. Liesl got the first one and put it outside. It was quite huge, really. But the second one was the fucking biggest spider I've ever seen that wasn't a tarantula. It was enormous and horrifying. Liesl said that it was my turn to catch it since she'd gotten the last one, and I reluctantly got a glass and stood on the couch above it. I got off the couch--pretty ridiculous. After I'd stood there for a few minutes, chatting about how scary it was and making only very lame not-even-attempts at capturing it, Liesl said she would get it. But if she did, I'd have to do dishes for her the next day. (We each do all of the dishes every other day). Fine. As long as I didn't have to go near that spider. It was honestly so big that we were sure that it would either be fast enough to evade capture or that it would get it's legs chopped off by the cup. Liesl hesitated for a while during which we discussed the sheer ridiculousness of arachnophobia and how what we were really afraid of was it crawling on us, it had nothing to do with getting bitten. She finally put the cup over and we successfully relocated it to outside (though it did begin rapidly scuttling in the direction of our front door).
4. A few days ago, I decided to bake some cookies. I used to bake pretty frequently in San Diego, and I'd been feeling severely deprived of this usual pastime. So I made some chocolate chip cookies for myself, and some without chocolate chips for Liesl. I turned on the oven to preheat it, but ten minutes later it wasn't warm in the slightest. I fooled around with it for a bit, trying to get it to work, but I couldn't. I was bummed out because I really wanted some cookies, so I pondered other ways of cooking them. Hmm, maybe in a frying pan. Why not? I tried it, and it worked! Only they looked more like pancakes than cookies. Yeah, pancake cookies! (Patent pending). Liesl astutely observed that pancakes and cookies aren't really that different anyway. Check it out:
5. We've been taking almost nightly trips next door into the Big House for some food that's in the freezer in the laundry room in there. The first time we undertook this mission into the creepy mansion, I was kind of creeped out. I'd intentionally left the door open (I didn't want to get locked in there!), but this was obviously a mistake since a cat followed us into the house and ran off. We didn't know what to do, but supposed we'd just leave it there till morning, though that didn't sound like a good idea. Liesl went in and picked it up and carried it outside, which I greatly appreciated. The second time we went in I felt better, but Liesl was creeped out. But since then it's become a lot less frightening and more normal. We even went further inside it last night, and it was totally no big deal once we turned the lights on. Also, just a note about the house: it does not have any creepy old family portraits. What sort of mansion doesn't have cobwebby paintings of deceased family members in formal attire all over the walls? Our hosts are not part of the family that owned the house for a century and half, but I still feel like portraits of the former owners should be around...
6. Liesl and I went kayaking on the lake. It was awesome. Liesl met the love of her life, an adorable little dog named Baxter that was whining at us from the far bank of the lake. She played fetch with him while we walked in the forest. He belongs to somebody that takes care of the lake I think.
7. We watched Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone the other night. They call it "phliosopher's" instead of "sorcerer's" here. They actually recorded two versions of the scenes in which they say philosopher's stone so that they could have a US and a UK version. Watching the movie reminded me of an awesome thing I watched on youtube i high school, per recommendation of some friends. It's called A Very Potter Musical, and it's awesome. You should definitely watch it if you like Harrpy Potter, especially if you like the books. It's so funny. And there's a sequel.
Update: 8. Liesl's thumb is still numb. It's been almost four weeks.
Well, that's it.
Stephanie
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