I have never washed dishes this quickly in my LIFE

That sounds dramatic, but for those of you who know me/have lived with me, you're aware that when it comes to washing dishes I put that mess off as LONG AS POSSIBLE.

Seriously. Dishes are the WORST.

Anyways, now that I live in a house with 14 -- COUNT THEM: FOURTEEN -- other people, I don't really have the option of being the person who doesn't wash their dishes in a timely manner. So pretty much as soon as I'm done eating, I have to head to the sink to wash my shit.
Life is hard, sometimes, man.

In other news, I lived through my first week in Dublin! The first day was a struggle: a friend of Mom's friend met me at the airport. She took me to get on a bus, and then we realized that we had to have exact change to take the bus (they don't take bills). So I went upstairs (YES! DOUBLE-DECKER BUSES!) with all of my luggage while she went to go get change... and then the bus driver STARTED DRIVING AWAY.

So then I ran down the stairs to the bus driver to ask him to wait because my friend hadn't paid for me yet and she was getting change -- to which he told me to get the hell off his bus if I hadn't paid. Cue my frantic falling down the stairs carrying ALL of my luggage, sweatshirt forgotten on the seat behind me.

Basically just another day in my life.

The rest of the week went considerably more smoothly. No broken flip-flops in any main thoroughfares. I did manage to get hopelessly lost and spent ten minutes freaking out about it until I realized that I was OBVIOUSLY still in Dublin and was therefore not that lost.
I'm learning to let things go, guys. Apparently they call this "personal growth." (It's terrible.)

But we didn't have classes last week, so I spent my time wandering around, exploring and embarrassing myself in turns, and just really enjoying not having to do much. I hung out with some friends from the IP in Warsaw, and this past Sunday was the All-Irish final in Gaelic football -- and let me tell you something. I thought that Americans took their football seriously, but I have NEVER seen anything like this.
The bars were PACKED at 9:30 in the morning for a game that was supposed to start at 3:30 pm. And since I live pretty close to the stadium where the game was being played, it was extra insane: I had to walk in the street on the corners with bars because the crowds outside the bars were too thick to walk through.

I went with some friends to a couple of bars in the city center, and we got to watch the Dubs (the Dublin county team) smash Mayo (the Co. Mayo team). Obviously, I was all for the Dubs. And maybe I've just never been to a professional football game in the States, but Ireland does not mess around when it comes to Gaelic football. Grown men were crying in the pub when the Dubs won. (Apparently Dublin and Mayo are HUGE rivals and matches between them only happen every three or more years. So this was a BFD.) And everyone was celebrating (or commiserating) in the streets until around 3 am. I know this because I could hear them from my house.

Well, that's all I've got for now, but more updates will come soon!