Balls, Bands, and Valentines

Quite a few people have been asking me if the Irish celebrate Valentine's Day. Did you know that the original St. Valentine is buried in Dublin? His remains were actually right across from the hostel we stayed in a couple of weeks ago! (True story.) This year for the world's day of love, I got together with some friends for homemade dessert night. My contribution was lemon-scented blueberry cupcakes, courtesy of cookinglight.com. Anyway, ten girls plus desserts always equals a fun night! Some people went out to a dance club afterward, but a couple of my friends and I decided to go to this Irish place called Club Aras n Gael, which had Irish dancing (and also Spanish dancing, which was really fun to watch...I want to go back and learn how to salsa now!) so that was pretty cool.

Last night I attended the NUIG Arts Ball, which is basically a formal dress party for all the students in the arts program (i.e. anything that isn't science, law, or commerce...called business in America...they already had their balls.) You are allowed to go though even if you aren't an arts student, but most of the people were Arts students. They were also mostly Irish. We may have been the only Americans there! It was a lot of fun; kind of like prom actually. We all got together at my friend's apartment to get ready beforehand, just like before a high school dance! Everyone was dressed up all formal, and there was an excellent band at the beginning, and later a DJ (not as excellent). I totally got to dance to my new favorite song here (no, not "Disturbia", but "December 1963, Oh, What a Night"...it's really popular here...along with that oddly catchy song by Kings of Leon...you know the one...) and I'd forgotten how much fun it is to just hang out with a bunch of friends and dance! People definitely don't dance as much to bands here, except apparently at balls.

Well, that is it for now...I am currently in trip planning mode, and I need to summarize the 2nd Battle of Moytura for my Celtic Myths class...