Faith, Friends, and Food

(From Lauren)

Oh dear, how time flies. It's been more than ten days since our last blog update and I can't believe how fast time has flown by! This whole month has gone so incredibly fast, and that's one of the downsides to having a routine I guess. Finally being busy again has made us reminisce a little for the first few weeks we were here, when we could wake up and say "so... what do you want to do today? Stay in and watch movies/play video games? Is it a job hunting day? Is it a museum day?" Of course we are incredibly glad to be where we are. We feel much less like tourists and much more like we really live in Dublin every day. And we have made some amazing relationships that just keep getting better with every excursion, every class, every day at work.

There are several things to update you on: school, Aaron's work, and some fun events that have happened to us in the past week. School is going incredibly well for me. The only homework I ever have is to read and that's plenty enough for me. My workload is constant, but enjoyable. Even the books that I don't really like, I will stop and read pieces out loud to Aaron so we can both laugh at the absurdity of it, or shake our heads at the very blatant racism of the Victorian era. Most of the time I read these without giving Aaron any context, which makes it seem even more ridiculous. :) To give you an idea of how much I have to read every week, it's three novels. Two for my core class to discuss--one on Tuesday and one on Thursday--and one for my options class, the Victorian Child, which meets on Thursday morning. Needless to say Wednesday is usually a day spent frantically reading to get everything done for Thursday but so far it's worked out well! The novels I have to read for this week are A String of Pearls, which is the story of Sweeney Todd, and The Pickwick Papers, which is Charles Dickens' first novel. They are 378 and 863 pages, respectively... I know right!

Aaron has really been enjoying his work, and this week, he had the most awesome schedule. He didn't go in before noon, and didn't stay later than 6:30, and didn't have to work more than two or three days in a row AND he had the whole of last weekend off. Which meant we had the same weekend, which made me really happy. He said he liked it so much because he still had good hours at Game, but also had time to write some articles for some extra income. I've been really proud of how hard he is working. It's really weird for me not to be able to contribute financially, since I've spent the last two years (since we were engaged up to now) working to save money for us and now all I do is spend it. But Aaron is determined to provide for us so I can have my time to read and focus on school, and for that I'm incredibly grateful. I have a really awesome husband, but if you know Aaron that's no news to you :)

Ok, on to the events! Last Sunday, Aaron and I went with our married couple friends, codenamed the Bees, to Christ Church Cathedral for their Sunday morning service. We were all excited to attend a big service in one of the older churches in Dublin, and in a cathedral no less! It was awesome. We absolutely loved it. The church is a Church of Ireland, which is very similar to Episcopalian churches in America, so there was a lot of standing up, sitting down, standing again, singing in between scripture readings, and a lot of speaking together. I'm beginning to get used to the prompts and what my response should be, and I really enjoy having the hymns sort of scattered throughout the service, rather than a long line of them at the beginning. The teaching was on the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee who go up to the temple (the Pharisee says I'm sooo glad I'm not like a tax collector, Lord, thanks, and the tax collector who says I'm such a sinner, have mercy on me, and the tax collector walks away justified.) It was an interesting perspective on the story, since I never realized it's told right in between when Christ has a meal with a Pharisee and when he eats with Zacharias, who climbed the tree to see him. I wish I could recreate the whole sermon for you right now, it was really wonderful. Just know that this church was not just a pretty face. We were fed too!

Here are some photos of the cathedral itself!

Tah-dah! The building on the right is the Cathedral, the building on the left was added in the 1870s when the church was restored by a wealthy distiller, and it's called the Senate Hall. The bridge over the street that connects the two was also built at this time. The church's original foundations are about 1,000 years old, put in place by the Vikings that first settled in Dublin. Isn't that crazy?? 1,000 years old! It was begun in the Romanesque style with rounded arches and was finished in the Gothic style with pointy arches.

Here's the organ player's box with his cool spiral staircase. The organ was beautiful, but unfortunately, we went on a Sunday when the choir had a break. Looks like we'll have to go back later to hear them! Speaking of music, another neat fact about the church was that it provided the choir (along with St. Patrick's Cathedral) that first sang the very first performance of Handel's Messiah, in the music hall across the street from the very building we had church in. 

It's sort of a running joke in our family that whenever my Mom was in Italy, she was simply amazed by the mosaic tile floors everywhere she went. "The floors, the floors! Look how pretty the floors are!!" Well, I guess she rubbed off on me, because I couldn't help but look down (and cathedrals are supposed to make you look up right??) and notice the beautiful tiles of the floors. Enjoy these next two photos, Mom. :)

And here we are, standing in front of the church after the service.

 

And here are our friends, the Bees!

We hang out with them a lot. We have started a sort of dinner club where we alternate having each other over for a fancy meal once or twice a week. Whoever cooks hosts at their apartment, and whoever comes over, brings dessert! It's worked out really well :) Their friendship is a definite answer to prayer. Another American married couple, and one of them in the same program as me? A Godsend for sure.

And the second event: last night's Postgraduate Halloween Ball, and here we are as black eyed peas! This was a pretty cheap costume set to pull together. I bought some gold fabric for a good deal at a place in North Dublin and threw together a skirt for me and a bow tie for Aaron. Before I get any undue credit, it's not a real bow tie. It's a rectangle of fabric squished together in the middle. I was hand-sewing the skirt during lecture and everyone loved it. Our costumes were a pretty big hit and only cost 8 euro to make! Aaron wrangled the cardboard for our P's and the face paint from work so it was a joint effort. Don't we look classy?

Speaking of classy, the Ball we dressed up for was excellent. Usually I'm pretty wary of adult Halloween parties because it seems like the holiday has become an excuse for ladies to unbutton their shirts, throw on a themed hat and call it a costume--"I'm a sexy (fill in the blank)" That was not the case with my friends last night, however. The party was an unexpected affirmation of the caliber of people I hang out with, at least they are a group that respects themselves and their bodies. We all had a great time dancing and there's another great thing!--the dancing wasn't all the bumping and grinding I've seen at other dances, it was real dancing! The kind with "moves." It was a great time, spent with a really wonderful group of people. I really wish I had taken more pictures, but once I got there I forgot we even brought our camera. You can see more photos of us in our costumes on facebook that other people have taken.

So that's the update! Up next for us is another Halloween party tomorrow night, hosted by Aaron's boss, and attending a friend's volleyball game (besides a lot of necessary reading of course!) We hope you're all doing well and enjoying fall as much as we are!