I guess it takes all kinds...

Don't mind my wedgie in that photo. My pants were actually pretty loose that day but the wind up there was crazy! This blogging thing is harder than I thought. I've read other people's blogs (ahem...jodie and jill...ahem...) and they keep saying things like "Its so hard to keep up with my blogging". In the beginning I thought..wow this is easy all I have to do is write about my day. Now I'm to the point where I sit down and think...well what in the world did I do today?

It was another successful weekend here in Dublin. I was sick Wednesday and Thursday (not from drinking...I can almost see ya'll thinking that but no I was really the old fashioned kind of sick. I know...go ahead and feel very sorry for me, its fine). So I didn't do much those nights, and I was still recovering on Friday so my new friend Kaitie and I stayed in and rented He's Just Not That Into You on iTunes. I've seen it before but it was just as fabulous this time around and I cried all over again. I highly recommend it...even for guys. I knew Saturday was going to make up for it.

Lana and I took Caitlin shopping so she could unknowingly pick out her birthday present. We knew she wanted shoes, but we'd forgotten which ones. So I dragged her into some store with neon mannequins claiming I knew they had great birthday dresses while Lana snuck off and bought them. We had already discussed a payment plan with our whole group (sometimes its nice to have a lot of people) and it was fun to be able to actually get her something she wanted. We went home and got ready and headed back downtown to a predetermined birthday dinner location, Brewley's Oriental Cafe.

Don't let the name fool you as Brewley's Oriental Cafe serves neither oriental food or cafe-like pastries. It's actually a really good Italian place, that is relatively cheap by Dublin standards. We all ate a lot and drank a lot more. Though Caitlin had forgotten about it, she had asked Lynn a couple weeks ago to make her this amazing banana bread in place of a cake (Caitlin is the only human being on the planet that doesn't even like birthday cake on her birthday). Without Caitlin knowing we had dropped the banana bread off with our waiter along with candles, and he brought the lit loaf down as we sang Happy Birthday. Lana, who had gotten up to stand across the table for this very reason, asked Caitlin to hand her the camera out of her purse. When she reached in she pulled out the shoes wrapped in a decorative bag the store had given us. She opened them...and cried. Nice, right? She kept going on about how we were such good friends and this was her best birthday and I'm pretty sure the whole story got repeated on Skype about 15 times.

After dinner, we walked around and went from bar to bar until we ended up at M.J. O'Neills. Now for those of you who don't know, I've been promoting this bar since the first day we got here since its the bar where my cousins went when they were here and its named O'Neills so it has to be a pretty good time. It was. We all had a ton of pints on the rooftop patio and proceeded to sing happy birthday again...at 11:55. Still it was fun and Caitlin said she had a pretty good time so that's all that really matters.

Melanie and I have actually had some work to do this week. We've drawn up 2 fliers and gotten to walk around Dublin handing them out to businesses in an attempt to get special promotional offers to post on the website. This is hard to do since the website still hasn't launched yet and its tough to try and get people to understand the concept of promoting on a website that neither they nor their customers can get too. It couldn't have bothered us less. The weather was really nice this week (I've even got a bit of a farmers tan...a weird thing to be excited about but I'll take what I can get) and it was amazing to be able to get out of the office and explore.

The odd fashion sense here stood out to me more than ever yesterday on the bus. I mean I've noticed they wear a lot of neon and that that they like their clothes tight and small....no matter how large or pregnant one may be. But there was this group sitting in front of us...a couple friends I'm guessing from what I picked up by eavesdropping on their conversation...and the girl was wearing a suit coat with chopsticks stuck through the bun in her hair and the guy was wearing fingernail polish and a headband (the tight halo kind that's usually reserved for feminist hippies, not the 80s sweatband style that is traditionally unisex).

It's times like these that really make you miss all your friends and family at Home who still dress according to traditional gender appropriate styles...which is why I'M SO EXCITED THAT MY FAMILY WILL BE HERE TOMORROW MORNING! I can't wait and I'm taking the day off work to show them all the sights I can find around Dublin...especially those that are riding around on the city bus.

LOVES! E
(P.S.- I can't post pictures this time, even though I just learned how to add multiples to one post, because I'm writing this at work. I'll be sure to add some in later)