Beat It Journey

I walked to work Monday wearing a nice shirt with the short sleeves, gray jeans, my cute little black ankle boots, and my purple OPhiA zip up. I have misplaced my umbrella (later to be found in another friend’s apartment) but I figured, the walk isn’t long, and I have a hood so should it start to rain on my walk home, I could make it back without too much trouble. Besides, it was a beautiful sunny day with a comfortable temperature to match. After arriving at work, my coworker, Lead Researcher, Catherine, asks if I would like to go out on the shoot today. Do I want to leave the office to go be around the Director and a camera? That’s not even a question. The day goes by, still lovely outside until about an hour before we go to leave. The sky grows dark and it starts to drizzle. It rains off and on our whole drive over to the pitch. Once we get there, however, it just stays on. This was real Forrest Gump rain. There was light stinging rain. There was big old fat rain. There was rain that came in sideways. The only thing missing was rain that came up from underneath. And it was cold. Really cold. The coldest it has been since I arrived. There I was, short-sleeved shirt, gray jeans, black ankle boots, American Apparel zip-up. Not a single thing I was wearing was waterproof, or, as I discovered that night, warm. Luckily, the Irish are experienced in the ways of their weather and had an extra umbrella for me to use and a blanket for me to wrap up in. I sloshed around the field, clinging my blanket tightly around my shoulders, and chasing after the cameraman to keep him covered in an umbrella while he shot b-roll of the football training.

I suppose now you would expect me to go into a rant of how miserable I was, but I am sorry to disappoint. On the contrary, I could not have been happier. I was around a camera again. I was getting a breakdown from the Director of Photography on what he was doing and why he was doing it. Wet or dry, warm or cold, I knew I was at home, and it was impossible to not have craic.

Of course the next two days I wore my wellies and it doesn’t rain at all. Not even a quick drizzle to break up all the sunshine. Fortunately, they matched my outfit, and Catherine thought they were cute.

On Wednesday, a group of us head out in search of karaoke. Another girl has an internship at this company called Tower Records. One of their clients is the bar and restaurant called Captain America’s, after the comic, and they have karaoke on Wednesday nights. We found our karaoke night, but, unfortunately, we also found a large gathering of younger teenage Americans. After one too many Hannah Montana and Justin Beiber songs, two other girls and I decide to go up and show them how it is done. We go up to the computer and ask the guy how to pick a song. He asks what we are looking for. We tell him Journey. He asks who sings it (well that sounds promising). We tell him Journey. He instructs us to just type Journey into the top text box and nothing comes up, as to be expected after his response. We try again with LFO. No luck. We decide to just scroll through the list of songs instead of searching for one and come across Beat It by Michael Jackson. Sold. We are belting it out like the professional singers we are when suddenly instead of lyrics on the screen it says ’20 Beat Instrumental Break’. We would pick a song with an instrumental break. And let me tell you, 20 beats is a long time. We bust out our best Beat It dance moves, which coincidentally is as good as our singing. After what seemed like a ten-minute dance showcase, lyrics finally came back on and we finished on a high note, figuratively.

Thursday was a night of trivia at Lotts bar and restaurant. It is located across the River Liffey, which is about a half hour walk from my flat, but right next to where my roommate, Natalia, works. Rather than have her make the trek all the way back to the flat after work only to turn around and march right back out there a little later, my flatmate, Kajsia, and I decided to walk out to meet her to keep her company until trivia at 8. I admit, I did have ulterior motives. Natalia works in an area with a lot of shopping and discovered this store Penneys. It’s like a department store and everything is very inexpensive. I had been longing for an excuse to get out there and poke around. As soon as I entered I realized this might have been a mistake. The store was full of things too cute and cheap for my own good. I could easily do some serious damage in that store, but I had to keep my fully loaded and overweight suitcase in mind. I made it out with two pairs of shoes, a pair of sandals, and a black across-the-body bag I’d been searching for (be jealous Kathy) for only 26 euro! That’s less than what I spend on groceries! I was so pleased with myself that I resisted the urge to step into H&M or Forever 21, which were right next door. I have since made a pact with myself that I will no longer be making extraneous expenditures on myself (besides bus, train, or plane tickets) and will only be doing Christmas shopping for the rest of the trip. Let’s hope this lasts longer than New Year’s Resolutions do.

On our way to meet Natalia, we walked down the bustling Grafton Street, around Trinity College where we saw someone had filled a fountain with soap bubbles, through the cobblestone streets of Temple Bar, and over the Half Penny Bridge, though you’ll always hear it shortened to Ha Penny (pronounced like ‘Hey’).

It’s called the Half Penny Bridge because for the longest time that was the only way to get across the River Liffey in Dublin, and you would have to pay a toll of half a penny to cross. It was common for people to meet their friends at the Ha Penny Bridge back in the day, and that is just the place where we met up with Natalia (without having to pay a toll).

After shopping, we met up with some friends for trivia at Lotts. This trivia was nothing like the trivia I know and love at Roc-n-Doc’s. I can answer questions at Roc-n-Doc’s. I did not know anything they asked at Lotts. Some examples are, “What country did giant ashen clouds come from that stopped flights to Australia this week?” or “Recently, the record was set for the number of twins and triplets born in a year in (a town a can’t remember). What was the number?” or “What is the closest blue flag beach to the Dublin airport?” (Chile, 252, and Malahide if you were wondering). Whatever happened to ‘what is the largest animal in the world?’ or ‘what is the largest organ in the human body’ or even ‘what are the first three books of the bible?’ Ireland is a Catholic country after all. We did get, ‘what is wet on the inside, hairy on the outside, and has the letters u, n, and t in it?’. It was a coconut.

Today, Friday, there was nothing to do at work. When I arrived Catherine said Triona was looking over the treatments we made up for the upcoming documentaries. Since we wouldn’t have anything to do really until Monday, she said I could take a half-day for my birthday weekend. I love Catherine! In the meantime, we played with this HD camera that turned on when you flipped the screen out and had incredible picture quality. When the editor came in to transfer files to Final Cut, we chatted about his life as a freelance editor. He recently spent a year in Canada and said it was a truly life-altering experience, admitting he has officially been bitten by the travel bug (sounds familiar). He plans to spend the next year in New York. Talking to him got me thinking about my plans after graduation. Traveling from country to country freelance editing sounded like a great way to get a start, and what better time to do it than while I’m young?

Catherine came back from her lunch break with a delicious chocolate delight for me that looked like a muffin because it had a white drizzling as opposed to icing on the top, but tasted like a cupcake. Have I mentioned I love Catherine? I would post a picture for you to decide what it is, but I’ve already devoured most of it beyond recognition.

This weekend, a group of us are setting off for the western mountains of Connamara. I can’t wait for more incredible pictures to show you. Oh yeah, and to be 20!