SURPRISE!!

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

When I left Monica’s this morning it was freezing! So cold it was hard for me to lock the door. It actually snowed this morning while I was shelving items, but not for long and everything is too wet for it to ever stick.

The rest of the day has been cold drizzle with harsh wind. So inviting!

My apple courgete cake was a hit. Everyone loved it.
I said my goodbyes
Of course in my last 30 minutes of my last day I got the worst kind of paper cut right across the tender spot between the thumb and forefinger. Ouch! I enjoyed taking some time out to doctor it. I have a solution to the predicament. If you get this type of injury use a band-aid immediately. It pulls the skin together and lets the wound heal. If you leave it be then the skin tugs and the cut will not heal instead it burns like fire.

Went back to Monica’s and slept for another 50 minutes. I tried taking a shower, but the water was so cold it was of no use. They combine the worst things in Ireland. Cold shower, frigid air, damp towels (because they never dry out).

I woke up and ate a roll with butter and a tea while watching part of Desperate Housewives that Monica was watching.

I left to meet the Italy woman from work. We took a coffee together in Griffin’s. Yes, I gave up on my grudge. I had a Bailey’s cheesecake, more like mousse and a mini hot chocolate. It was actually quite large and I would have hated to order the big size.

We talked for an hour about how much Ireland is no good for living and neither is Italy evidentially… elaborate on Berlusconi.

I picked up some potatoes and headed home to make tortillas with Marta.

They had not come back from their exam when I returned, so I took a hot scrub bath. While I was drying my hair Marta had come back. Jordi and Roberto had gone for a celebratory drink at a pub.

Before we started the tortillas I suggested to Zach that we go tell Teresa goodbye. I gave her a loaf of bread and we took our picture together. She said she would let us know how Prague is because she gave me her e-mail address.

You can tell a lot about a person by the way they cross the street.

When we got back Zach and I started helping Marta by peeling potatoes. I opted out of slicing them to dice up the garlic instead. I was also unable to cut the onion, but Zach took care of it. The tortilla is not what Americans would call a tortilla. It is more like a cross between an omelet and a quiche with potatoes. We had garlic rice as a side. Marta said that they normally have it with a topping of ketchup mixed with mayo, but all we had was ketchup…thankfully!

I went over to Monica’s in the evening to try some of her curry soup she had made. It tasted very good. She was watching Vampire Diaries on her computer, so I wrapped up in blankets and joined her. When the episode was over she asked me to curl her hair with the new device she’d purchased.

It was a curler, but without a clamp. You just wrap the hair around the tube and it curls. I want one! I curled her hair, and then she did the same to mine. It makes the long wavy curls and not so much the tight ones – which I think look awful on my head.

I had to meet up with the Canadians at 8:50 to go to the storytelling. Due to the severe rains, the normal venue for storytelling is under repair, so it was being housed in the Nun’s Island Theater instead.

When I got to the meeting spot Zach was there too, so we all walked to the performance. It was good, but the other nights were better. I think most people were afraid of getting up to actually perform on a stage instead of the middle of a room. We all left at half time. Zach stopped to say hello to Shin who he saw across the street and I walked on with the girls. We said our goodbyes where it was time to part. I went on back to the apartment and Zach caught up with me to get in the door.

Jordi came to answer the door downstairs, and he seemed unusually giddy. Roberto answered the door to the apartment and started pushing us toward the living room where it was dark. I walked in and the lights were switched on while all our friends jumped out and yelled surprise!! It was my first surprise party!! I felt so loved and included! There was a table full of salty and sweet goodies, so we all stood around talking and taking pictures to preserve the memory. People kept disappearing and reappearing. I tried to go into the bedroom, but I was kept from entry. Something was up!

Eventually, another surprise was revealed and a scavenger hunt was in order! We went from the elevator to the snack machines to the patio to the oven to the hot water heater to the freezer to a map of the world. Finally, Zach and I found a bag in the closet with photo cards for each of us and presents. It was so creative and thoughtful. Everyone had signed the cards in-between and around photographs from our time here.