How to burn Pasta 101

Last night we ended up going to the "University Pub" (the idea is still such a novelty it demands the quotation marks) where they have top 100 hits and pool tables. Basically, it's still a bunch of American students getting to know each other. The Irish students haven't arrived yet. We sit around and talk about the little parts of home that we miss, or the similarities we have from region to region, or in my group's case, the mutual people from DC. I exaggerated, but the majority of the people I've started consistently associating with are from either AU, GW, Catholic...etc. They're wonderful people. The best. And I think the offchance that they might be viewing this forces me to say that I have no problem with their banter and joke about it to give them a wee bit of slagging.
BUT Back to those readers at home who don't care about the interpersonal problems we face on a constant barraging basis. After waking up and getting coffee, 4 of the folks from AU (heretofore mentioned as Max, Annie, Meredith, and Annija) went down to Blackrock campus to see their other AU friend Caitlin. I tagged along with them, and we made a day of it.

If you haven't seen the photos from Fbook, Blackrock campus is about a 10 minute ride away from UCD's main campus where the Business school is located. It's got the coastline with a DART (Dublin Area Rail Transit) system that hosts a nicer part of the Dublin housing. There are cobblestone streets, pigeons as large as over-inflated footballs, and Swans that would make reinforce PTSD to an extreme level if Leda was around (totally confused her with Medea earlier, so many inappropriate cultural references I'm dropping here. I.e. Jason Derulo and Bruno Mars- totally different people ). We walked around the dog park to the Blackrock Baths, which apparently used to be a training ground for the Irish swimmers with a huge diving board et all.

 Care for a dive?

We tried to get it, but apparently it's been locked up for years and years. And no one wanted to get wet swimming around to open the gate up for us. So we basically just wandered around the area until about 5, when Meredith and I came back to campus and split up with the rest of the group. We were confused with French people by an older woman sitting on the bus bench. I have no idea how she thought that, but I almost look higher on that than I do for being American.

After getting back and making an unexpected rendezvous with everyone at the equivalent of our student grocery store, we went back to one of the suites to cook dinner, where I informed everyone I could cook pasta.....


So. Apparently cooking pasta and watching your parents making pasta for years and years are very different things. I succeeded on the sauce. It was perfect. Like, if anyone can pour sauce out of a jar into a saucepan and warm it up, it's me. Annie pointed out well too late that the pasta I was preparing was sticky. The French student cooking with me, Lucy, was sympathetic, but it was obvious the pasta was ruined. My utter embarrassment can only last for so long, I'm assuming, but I don't know the psychology behind these things. I guess I would've felt better if I hadn't been teaching others to cook it? #neverletmecookagain #youcantburnsalad. But it was our first night cooking, and people ate the food. So, adequate is a good definition.

  Credit to Meredith West for the photo. If you look close, you can see it all sticking together.

Met up with some kids from Catholic U. in DC afterwards. Still looking for those 6 degrees to somehow know each other. We'll get there eventually.

I'm meeting up with my intern program director next week at some point. He says most of the programs are in the evening, which is slightly problematic because my classes are at 3 pm across the board, but I think I still can contribute. Tomorrow most of the group I've been hanging out with is going on a hike in south country that I didn't sign up for in time. I'm hopefully going to the city to make a walking tour sponsored by UCD.