St. Patrick's Day and Alana/Aaron

Hi everyone (if anyone is still reading this... haha)

So I figured I'd recap St. Patrick's Day in Ireland and my friend Alana visiting with her boyfriend, Aaron. Both events were pretty epic and I've decided I need a solid week of sleep and detoxification before I can even think about sleeping less than 8 hours a night or drinking again.

So for St. Patrick's Day, my friend Kiel was in town. Kiel was originally my year at ND but is aiming to become the world's first quintuple Domer. So, for non-ND readers, the term "double Domer" is frequently used to mean someone who got more than one degree at Notre Dame. A bachelor's and a master's, bachelor's and a JD, whatever. Kiel discovered that although there have been many double Domers and a reasonable amount of triple Domers (I'm thinking probably bachelor's/JD/MBA or something along those lines) there have been only four quadruple Domers and NO quintuples. So this is his goal now. He has two bachelor's (one bachelor's of science and one of arts) and is currently working on his first master's. After this, he's thinking another master's, followed by an MBA. See, here's the thing. He's completely not kidding about any of this. This is actually his life goal. It's not like, "Ha! You know what would be funny? If I got five degrees from Notre Dame." No, it's like, "I AM GOING TO GET FIVE DEGREES FROM NOTRE DAME, END OF STORY."

So anyway, for this master's (something to do with engineering... I was totally paying attention) ND flew his entire program over to Ireland for spring break. Apparently the program is funded by one of the wealthiest families in Ireland, the Naughton family or some nonsense. So over they came, and it coincided with St. Patrick's Day, which was awesome. He was in Dublin, so I went into the city to hang out with him. Here are the things I did (for FREE... the instant I arrived, I got swept up into the Notre Dame "we have more money than GOD bubble" and I didn't have to pay for anything):

1) We stayed at the Merrion, the nicest hotel in Dublin. (http://www.merrionhotel.com/) It is the kind of place where, when you order two coffees in the morning, it costs you 40 euro. How do we know this? Well, we may have accidentally done it. But then ND reimbursed us, so no harm, no foul.

2) Kiel got us: free tickets in a grandstand to the SPD parade, free tickets in a box to the All-Ireland hurling and GAA championships, and free tickets to a Jameson's-sponsored party in the Lord Mayor's house.

3) Everything we ate, Notre Dame comped. Everything we drank, Notre Dame comped. Basically I spent no money once I got off the bus.

4) I got to hang out with Domers and just talk about Notre Dame. It was awesome. Oh yeah, and I got to see Kiel. Minor detail, ha.

So when he left, I stayed in Dublin on Friday night because my old roommate from NYC, Alana, was coming in on Saturday morning. I needed somewhere to just sit and study on Friday, so I showed up at the Notre Dame Center in Dublin. I basically just showed up and was like, "yo. I'm an alum. I live in Galway but need a place to chill in Dublin for the day," and the receptionist was like, "of course, honey, this happens all the time." Seriously, Notre Dame. Also the Notre Dame Center is in Daniel O'Connell's old house. How do we do this nonsense? It is absurd and I LOVE it.

So Saturday Alana showed up with Aaron! It was so incredibly wonderful. We spent Saturday and Sunday in Dublin and then they were in Galway from Mon-Thurs. We just had really good times. I sent them out to the Connemara and the Cliffs of Moher on the days I had classes, but when I didn't have class we hung out and cooked and ate and drank and I showed them around Galway and took them to my favorite places and it was really, really fun. I can't think of anything in particular that was especially amazing, but it was just so good to have friends around and to get to show off my new city. I never love Galway as much as when I'm showing it off to someone who has never been. (HINT TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVEN'T VISITED ME YET)

So they left this morning and that was sad. But I have Kyle Barrettsmith and Australia coming up! Life is still pretty sweet.