Chapter 4: Trinity Ball, The Canary Islands & Lucky Charms Tattoos

So much for my vow to be a more diligent blogger, emailer, communicator extraordinaire in 2010.

Despite a handful of relatively amusing hiccups in the last two months, I’m excited to report that Ireland Round #2 has already outdone itself. At the moment, I’m listening to one of the many artists I’ve never before heard of who are headlining Trinity Ball 2010—the biggest musical event in Europe! Of the sampling I’ve already done, I have to say that the artist known as Dizzee Rascal has proven the most amusing, made all the better by Wikipedia’s description of his tunes as “a blend of garage MCing, conventional rap, grime, ragga, and electronic music, with extremely eclectic samples and more exotic styles.” Not to be a deb, but I’d have to say that’s a very diplomatic review. On a positive note, there’s also a pretty significant amount of techno and electronic beats, which should be extra sick given the glow stick warehouse I’ve recently opened in my closet.

The Ball is scheduled for mid-April and I’m looking forward to enjoying it with the cousins, Sarah and Laura, and Clairebear. The experience Claire and I shared trying to buy the tickets (which, at the moment are still not physically in our hands, but rather, are promised with a certain degree of conviction), was one for the books, complete with several hours standing in the rain, busy signals, insignificant reference numbers, and lots of wrong answers. But alas, we prevailed! An outsider might even think we’re getting the hang of this bureaucracy thang.

For those of you with weak hearts, I urge you to skip on to the next paragraph, as not only will I be wearing a hot pink dress, I also plan to wear black heels to the event. Yes, you read that correctly. I’ve even been practicing parading around the apartment in borrowed heels while I work up the courage to buy my own (thanks Katie!). If you’re not familiar with WikiHow, I recommend checking it out, as it was with the website’s fine instructions that I began the learning process. However, according to my good friend Jackie Rosa, their 6-step instruction guide left out the all-important 7th step, which is to bite it in front of a large audience and then meekly scamper off. Maybe I can avoid that one, but I doubt it—I’m well aware that I owe karma for all the pleasure I’ve taken in watching oh so many others spill on the cobblestones these last couple months.

But anyway, enough on the Ball, let me tell you first about my trip to the Canary Islands with Sessie, and second, about a joyous St. Patrick’s Day spent with Julien!

Seeing as I accomplished so very little during fall semester’s reading week, this time around, I went all out and abandoned the possibility of any productivity, packing up only the necessities—a bathing suit and books—and flew to Lanzarote with Sessie. We weren’t on the main island, nor were we in the main city; we were about a twenty-minute cab ride from the airport in a small town called Arietta. To say it was a one-light town would be an overstatement, but to say it was perfect, would be an understatement in the extreme. The hotel we stayed in, El Mar Y Tu, was a new place, and interesting in that it was formerly just a big home that had recently been purchased by a Swiss man, Phillip, and his Columbian wife, Carolina. The second story, where we were staying, had been transformed into three apartment-style suites; husband and wife lived below, and hotel guests all shared a beautiful roof deck, looking out over the bluest water I’ve ever seen. At night, the sea became so rough that both Sessie and both woke up to the sounds of waves crashing against the hotel’s outer walls. Not surprisingly, being stirred by waves offers a much different sensation than that of a car alarm or fire truck.

In some ways, the hotel was more like a bed and breakfast. One afternoon, after a morning swim, Sessie and I were invited to join Phillip and Carolina, their infant son, her best friend, the village priest, and another hotel guest, a lovely British woman named Sue, for a late lunch on the roof. And boy, did we make the right decision in accepting their invitation. We dined on an appetizer of cheeses and meats I’d never heard of, and then moved on to a main course of the most scrumptious paella ever dreamed up. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water. After three hours of beautiful conversation, delicious food, and local wine, we moved on to dessert and the sun began to set. How’s that for an authentic experience?

By the end of our five days in Arietta, Sessie (aka “la gringa”) and I felt like we belonged. We knew the sweet man in the café where each morning we ate our chocolate croissants, and we looked forward to hitting the beach and seeing the Argentinean man who was traveling the world, selling beautiful glass jewelry wherever the winds led him.

Even the one rotten onion from my Lanzarote experience turned into a juicy apple! It must have been the second day and Sessie and I were playing in the water, Sessie doing flips and me nervously scanning for potentially evil (read: hungry) fish, when out of nowhere a gigundo wave snuck up on us. Silly Mary, water camera in hand, thought it absolutely critical to capture a photo of the wave, leaving her entirely unprepared when it—duh—took her down. (Sorry, I just couldn’t admit that was my decision, and talking about myself in the third person provided just enough distance to make it bearable.) But back to the story.

We were both taken out big-time, feet up in the air, not sure which way is up-style, and I remember while being under the water, probably not having been knocked down by a wave since I was five or six, feeling a huge—and for me, uncharacteristic—calmness. I wasn’t freaking out or reminding myself of my weak swimming abilities, nor was I worried about the next breath of air I was to take in. I was exaggeratedly aware that fighting against the current, the undercurrent, whatever, was not going to help my case, and I was confident that I would emerge, right way up, with plenty of time. There was no rush and no panic and the overwhelming feeling of calm was one I was able to carry with me for the rest of the trip. Now I just need to bottle it. So that was the apple-y bit. The onion was losing my beloved silver bracelet in the tumble and not noticing soon enough to track it down. But as Sessie reminded me at the time, as nice a thing as it was, it was only ever just a thing.

So that was Lanzarote. Before you sprout grey hairs and wrinkles though, I’ll wrap this bad boy up with a recap of Paddy’s Day weekend. On Wednesday morning, BFF Julien arrived in Dublin, entirely unwilling to wear the green, white, and orange lay I bought for him! He did redeem himself, but more on that later. After a quick tour of Trinity and a nap, he was ready for the party.

My lovely suitemates, Margaret and Katie, and I hosted several of our nearest and dearest for a festive breakfast, complete with green eggs and ham, scones, and some choice green beverages, before hitting the parade. I had been warned it was nothing to compare with New York’s parade, but for what Dublin’s parade lacked in floats, it made up for in authenticity and, more importantly, in people-watching. Julien photographed a series of puking girls and overly festive Americans. As a side note, don’t believe what anyone else says: we stand out even when we think we’re blending. Actually, I take that back—Americans stand out especially when we think we’re blending.

After a stint at the parade, a visit to one or two landmark Dublin pubs (strictly for Julien’s benefit, Mom), we made our way out to fish with cousin Tom and several of his friends on the River Dodder. For me to claim we were actually fishing would be unfair; there was a single rod in sight and it was most definitely unmanned, but Tom wore a fishing hat and another boy was in a proper vest, so we’ll count it anyway.

But compared to Julien’s 21st birthday, which was March 20th, St. Patrick’s Day was relatively civil. We began the day with crepes, hit the Jameson Distillery, where the birthday boy earned an official diploma in whiskey tasting (what a scholar!), and then—drum roll please—we visited Zulu Tattoo, where Julien had seven of the Lucky Charms marshmallows tattooed up his calf. I do not lie. The whole experience was remarkable. We befriended the tattoo artists and the receptionist, who entertained us with funny tattoo stories and questioned whether Julien’s tattoo was just a “little bit racist.” Compared to Julien’s antics of the day, my new belly button piercing (a huge deal for me!) was entirely tame. All in all, having Julien in town was a huge treat! I haven’t laughed so hard, so much, in months.

Oh! And one last thing: on Sunday night, just in time for my big week of essay writing, my poor computer beeped, burped, and crashed. No biggie though, because I brought it to the Apple store and they had it fixed in two days. When I went today to pick Little Mac up at the shop, I announced myself, saying, as one does, “Hi, I’m Mary Corcoran—“ but couldn’t get more out before I was interrupted by a voice from the backroom, a motherly voice, that said: “I wouldn’t admit to that here!” She then appeared, scolded me for all the damage I had done to my machine, and went on to recruit a co-worker to continue reprimanding me. Not terribly stung by their words, I was pleased to have a working computer back in my life, and then entertained by the abuse they unleashed on a boy about my age, handing him back his computer and roaring, “Now, I don’t want to ever see you in here with a broken computer again!” Oh, the power.

On that note, I should probably get to bed if I’m ever going to make it through tutorials tomorrow.


PS. Have you ever heard what Freud said about the Irish? "This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever." I like it.