Jingle Bell Rock

The countdown to coming home for Christmas begins! 3 more sleeps! For serious! I'm pretty excited. Since Kalen and I fly home on the same day, we began our last week in Dublin on Saturday with our very own Christmas party. It was pretty super sweet. Here's some highlights:

I tried taking some pictures of the blinding lights on Grafton Street. Unfortunately, it wasn't dark enough, so the full effect is kind of lost.





Here's some neat-o pictures of the lights on Henry Street, on the way to Kalen's.





The rec room at Kalen's place has been decorated for Christmas for the last month because they've been having their Christmas parties there for work. Kalen describes the room as, "It looks like Santa's workshop threw up in here." And she's right. It's pretty hilarious. My favourite part, by far, is my tacky fuzzy friends who live on the Christmas tree. I found them once, lying face down on the branches, so I set them upright and we've been good buddies ever since. True story. Here they are...

The squirrel



And the Owl



We're hella tight.

We baked cookies! It's just not Christmas until you've baked some cookies. And eaten them.

Getting set up...



I baked dairy-free chocolate chip cookies, and Kalen made some chocolate-mint cookies, but they had dairy in them, so I couldn't eat them. They smelled really good though.

Here's the melted chocolate she used. Mmmmm....



The best part about baking cookies is eating them before you bake them!









Some of the cookies actually made it to the oven! Amazing!





Hurry up, damnit!



Warm cookies out of the oven! Hooray!





Then it was time for hot apple cider! "Very special" hot apple cider. :)



Heating up the cider in a rather festive pot.



Cider and cookies! Yum!





Then we watched one of the few Christmas movies that I can handle. It's pretty funny.



We also watched Shrek, but I didn't take any pictures because it was a rental, so the cover was boring.

Kalen has these pillows in her living room. I call them the "yak pillows" because they look like they're made of yaks. They're so hairy, my hands get lost in them. I have a love/hate relationship with the yak pillows.



We also did a lot of knitting, as we're both madly trying to get things done before Christmas. Obviously, no pictures since they're Christmas presents.

The next day, we went and did some yarn dyeing at This is Knit with Elana. It was totally rad. Unfortunately, no pictures of that will be posted either, since Christmas presents may or may not be involved.

3 more sleeps, though! Yay! :D

Holy Crap!

It's amazing! It's a miracle! I actually have the time to sit down and post to the blog! Wow.

The last few weeks for me have been C-R-A-Z-Y. In November: I had an essay due on the 11th, and an essay due on the 25th. Also, there was one week when I went out on 3 of the 7 nights. Shouldn't have done that. Haha. However, on one of those nights, Claire and I did end up in The Evening Herald, just for being awesome barstars who were out clubbing on a Wednesday night. Sweet! I've only lived here 3 months and I've already been in the newspaper. Haha.





It's not a bad picture, either. The funniest part is that they spelled Claire's name wrong, but not mine. Her last name is McBride, not McBrice.

Earlier in November, Kalen and I found the time to walk up Killiney Hill while some of the trees still had their leaves in brilliant autumnal colours. It was very pretty.









We hiked up to the obelisk.



The view of Co. Wicklow was lovely, as usual (even though it wasn't as green this time).



And the view of Dalkey Hill and beyond...







Dalkey Island doesn't really look any different at all.



We came across this little stone house. We couldn't figure out what it was or why it was built on the side of the hill. (Elana...you seem to know about all this stuff. What is this?)



We couldn't make out what it said over the door because it was so faded.



The building itself is not very big.



We named it the Hidey Hole, and that's what it will be until we find out what it actually is. :)

Kalen had never been to the Guinness brewery, so we took a little trip down there yesterday.

On the way there, I took a few snaps of the Christmas lights on O'Connell Street. They built a giant bobble tree out of LED lights. It's quite cute. Unfortunately, it doesn't look as impressive as it could because they built it next to the spire. So I left the spire out of my shots.



It's not just white lights. It changes colour every few seconds...







Don't ask me what this means. I couldn't tell you.



They hung some big bobbly LED wreaths on Henry Street to match the tree. It's a shame it wasn't darker outside when I went to take these pictures.



This week I'll have to go take pictures of the lights on Grafton Street. You could see them from space. It's actually ridiculous.

In the brewery! I didn't take a lot of pictures, because I already had a bunch from when James and I were there in March. For anyone who hasn't been, you should really check it out when you're in Dublin. It's pretty freaking cool. And the cost of admission also gets you a free pint of Guinness at the end. Sweeeeet.

Mmmm...Tasting Lab. Tasting just happens to be my favourite thing to do with Guinness! Just send all those kegs to my apartment, kthnx.



Kalen under the waterfall.



Me under the waterfall.



Lots of neat Guinness bottles from different countries and different years.



Well if it says so on a poster, then it must be true!



There are no words to express how much I love this plate.



Have yourself a Guinness little Christmas!



Cheers! The best part...getting the free pint. And then drinking it.



Yummy! These didn't last long.



In other news, I've been doing a little bit of decorating for winter. Nothing special, just little things.

Some sparkly branches shoved in a vase. I immediately regretted this decision. There is glitter EVERYWHERE.



Mum sent me a little bird. He's quite cute.





I found this really cheap at the hardware store. I heart it.



I wanted something sort of snowy-looking, so I made a garland out of white and icey blue pom poms. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. Like little snowballs.





I also bought a blender last week, and made some really awesome wintery vegetable soup over the weekend. Butternut squash, sweet potato, carrots, parsnip, onion, garlic, organic vegetable stock, spices, ground flaxseed, and soy yogurt. Thick and creamy and warm. Perfect for cold days. Yum yum!



December will not be any less busy. I've got a paper due tomorrow (finished already, obviously), and a presentation on Tuesday (also finished) and a presentation on Wednesday (almost finished) and a presentation on the 10th (not finished). Blarg! I'm going to be so exhausted by the time school finishes for the break!

But on the plus side, 21 sleeps till I get to come home! I wonder if I can just sleep through the next 21 days...