The Great Blizzard of 2010

'Tis true, I am writing to you from a country paralyzed under a grand total of - are you ready? - half an inch of snow. It's been flurrying on and off since Thanksgiving, and the Brits are going absolutely bonkers. I woke up one morning, looked out my window and thought, "Oh, a layer of frost!" England thought, "AAAAAAH!!!! Close all of the airports! Delay as many trains as possible! Cancel classes! Go into hibernation!!!!" Basically, this is what happened. Now, to be fair, the Brits' fear of inclement winter weather is only crippling whereas their fear of fire is absolutely paralyzing. But you would assume that a country that has been settled and dealing with winter for some three thousand years, give or take, would have learned how to cope with a flurry. This is not the case. There are no snow plows in this country, and shovels seem to be scarce. The great British solution to slippery sidewalks is to dump a ton of salt at the top of the sidewalk and hope that people will walk over it and track it along with them as they go, thus melting more ice. Maybe it's just because I'm a New Englander, but this seems incredibly inefficient and silly, and therefore, British. I love snow, though, and it was lovely to walk around Norwich looking at all of the Chritmas lights as snowflakes drifted gently down from the sky. There's something so quintessentially English about it, which is ironic because it doesn't usually snow here until January or February, and then it's not very much at all.
What else has happened since I last wrote? We had our Dickinson Thanksgiving dinner, which was full of wonderful food, so everyone ate too much. It wasn't like being at home, but it was really nice. I had to correct my flatmates, who believed that Thanksgiving is the day that we celebrate killing all of the Native Americans. Oh dear. Buddy Jesse and I are organizing a "Chranksgiving" dinner for our floor next week, which is basically going to be Thanksgiving dinner (with cold-cut turkey sandwiches because we're poor college students) with Christmas crackers and decorations split between turkeys and Santa Claus. It will be excellent.
The day after Thanksgiving, Buddy Jesse, Laura, Amy, Mel, and I set off on what we believed to be our Dublin adventure, but what actually turned out to be our Gatwick Airport adventure. This was in the midst of the Great Blizzard of 2010, so Dublin Airport just up and closed, which meant that we sat in Gatwick Airport for a very long time instead of frolicking through the streets of Dublin. Sad. Thankfully, the airport did reopen, so we arrived in Dublin exactly as the sun was setting. Again, sad, although sunset over the River Liffey was beautiful. Just a side note: there was hardly any snow as we were coming into Dublin. I think that the airport was just trying to screw us over.
Laura's friend from Belfast met us at our hostel and was nice enough to show us around Temple Bar (cultural center of Dublin, full of restaurants and pubs that all advertise "Live Irish Music"). Fun fact: he is one of two Irish people whom I met in Dublin. The other was our tour guide. I met more Irish people in Scotland. End fun fact. We had a pint at a pub actually called Temple Bar, which was a really fun place.
Later that night, fighting travel-induced grouchiness and sleepiness, we ventured out to a random pub and just happened across an amazing pub band comprised of three moderately attractive and very talented Irish men. They were really good and played a lot of popular music, although I must say that it was slightly surreal to sing "Born in the U.S.A." in a pub in Ireland, surrounded by people who were not in fact born in the U.S.A. In the middle of one song the singer went into "Let it Snow," which is when we realized that big, fat flakes were actually falling outside of the windows. It was really beautiful, and Amy and I got it into our heads that we could get stranded in Dublin for another day. Basically, we had watched too much P.S. I Love You, because in hindsight this would have been expensive and terrible. Basic necessities, such as eating and drinking, are amazingly expensive in Dublin. This might be because Ireland has no money right now, but I didn't either by the time that I left.
The next morning dawned sunny but absolutely freezing, and there was just under an inch of snow on the ground. Dublin is a beautiful city, and Mel and I took advantage of the morning to take pictures and window shop. That afternoon Amy and I shivered our way through a walking tour by the same company who did the amazing Edinburgh tour. We learned a lot, but there are no fun stories like Ninja Scot or Mission Impossible bagpipers to report. Irish history is very bloody and very sad, and the contest over their national identity is still going on, so they haven't reached the point where they can laugh at themselves like the Scots can. When the Irish insult England, they really, really, really mean it. But Dublin does boast some very fascinating history and some famous literary figures such as James Joyce and Oscar Wilde. Oh, I do have a fun fact from the tour, actually. The harp on the Guinness logo (which is not French, Grandma, sorry to break it to you) is the harp of Brian Boru, which dates to the fourteenth century and is one of the few gaelic harps left in existence. It's a very important Irish symbol, and when the Irish Republic was declared in 1947 the new government wanted to use the harp as the national emblem. Well, Guinness had already trademarked it, so the government has to use the mirror image. Random picture: Trinity College.
We left Dublin the next day around noon, so I spent a grand total of 46 hours in that fair city, several of which were inside the airport. Not nearly enough time! There's so much more that I want to see. It was like when I came to Europe with USYE and we did a marathon tour of six countries in nineteen days - taster sessions, all of them. I would really like to see more of Ireland, as well, and I must test my Irish/Hollywood theory. In romantic comedies, whenever a young American woman goes to Ireland, she inevitably gets lost or her mode of transportation fails her somehow, leaving her lost in the gorgeous Irish countryside. Then, suddenly, the most beautiful man in existence comes along with his endearing accent and helps her out, and he plays guitar and is too nice to be real, and they fall in love, experience a little bit of adversity, and then get married and live happily ever after. Amy and I plan on conducting a very thorough and scientific study of this phenomenon in the spring.
Alas, I feel that I can procrastinate no longer - final papers are calling. I must away, back to my analysis of motherhood as a means of bridging social and racial gaps in condition of England novels. Thrilling, isn't it? Good luck with finals to everyone back home! Listen to some Christmas music.