Time for a short lesson in Irish Culture & Language :)

Sooooo, since I've been here for quite a while now I know pretty much everything about Ireland and thought, why not share it with the world? :P
First of all a few general things:
1.) I (very reluctantly) agree with Viki that there are no, I repeat, NO HANDSOME BOYS in Ireland! Absolutely NONE. What a shame :P This whole year seems like a waste haha No, seriously, it was quite frustrating finding out that I was to spend nine months without anything pretty to look at xD
That brings us to point 2.) The girls are not much better looking^^ First of all, most Irish girls are quite un-pretty as well and secondly, They. Dress. Unbelievably. Slutty. Not all of them but definitely the vast majority. One example: Deepest winter, -15° C, me even reluctant to go out at all, them: No tights, dresses that could barely be called shirts and heels too high to be able to even stand upright^^ There's no other word to describe that, I'm sorry ladies^^
3.) The Irish drink way too much. Okay, that's not a secret but it has made my life here quite difficult. Why? Well, with the majority of the Irish population tending to be drunk A LOT, everyone is REALLY strict about not letting you in ANYWHERE if you're not eighteen. They are obviously trying to keep the youngsters from drinking as long as they can, which is, in my opinion, not such a bad thing, IF it would actually work. But the thing is, with such strict rules and everyone enforcing it so adamantly, "drinking" has become some kind of really forbidden thing that everyone wants to do regardless. Or even BECAUSE it is forbidden. We all now, the forbidden things are a lot more tempting that the ones we could do without fear of any repercussions. And there always IS a way to get your hands on alcohol, if you really want to. So, ultimately, the whole "You're not eighteen, you don't have ID, get out of here"-act has kind of backfired. Terribly.

Now, the Irish language - meaning, the Irish English - is a funny thing :) Here are the words and phrases that are used about as frequently as the auxiliary verbs:

1) LIKE haha this word is being used ALL THE TIME. Even by me ;) If it fits into the sentence or not, it is not only used to compare things or to express approval but also if you just need something to make your sentence longer. I'll give you a short conversation to demonstrate the above statement:
A: Hey, what do you want to do today? Like you know, for your birthday.
B: Like I was thinking about like going to the Forum (quick note: the Forum is the only disco in Monaghan). Like I hear that it's really cool, but like I've never been there myself so like I don't know for sure.
A: Yeees, that's like a really good idea!
B: And afterwards we could like go get some chips! Like at the pizza shop or something.
A: Is it like still open at that time?
B: Sure. The forum ends at like three and I was at that shop once like at two in the morning. You know like on St. Patrick's Day.
Do I really need to continue? :P
2.) WEE ;) since it's the Irish synonym for "little" or "small" it's being used constantly. BUT since it also means to pee, it's kind of weird XD
3.) FAIR ENOUGH this expression means something similar to "very well then" and is used ALL THE TIME ;) Man, I'm going to miss hearing this xD
4.) HAPPY ENOUGH if you want to ask someone like "are you content with that" or "is that okay with you" you just say "happy enough?" ;)
5.) GOOD ENOUGH I know, the "enough"-phrases are quite a few ;) This one is simply used when you get asked somthing like: "How are you?" or "How was that party?" etc. - "Oh, it was good enough" ;)

For now, that's about it but I probably forgot quite a few. I'll upload a second part as soon as I think of something :D
Love youS all (btw another thing: the Irish use an additional s to the second person plural: instead of "how are you?" you use "how are yous?" if it's directed at a group of people. How awesome is that? xD I think that's actually my favourite <3
Besitos
Resa

St. Patrick's Day :)

Hey everyone!
I know I know I know, St. Patrick's Day was a few weeks ago but I thought I'm just gonna upload a post about it to kinda let you know what it was like for me.

Me and about 20 of my friends had rented a bus in advance so we didn't have to rely on the public transport. We wanted to get a good place so we could watch the Parades properly and therefore arranged the bus to start from Monaghan at 7:30. Getting up that day was quite hard but it turned out to be totally worth it! We arrived in Dublin around 4 hours before the Parades started and were able to secure places in the very first rows! The Parade itself were absolutely amazing! I put some pictures up on the side to give you taste but I took many more and I'll show the them to you when I come back! (in less than ten weeks, by the way ;))
The Parade was over surprisingly soon an EVERYBODY went... to get drunk. At three in the afternoon. All the pubs were completely packed, the streets were crowded with people dressed in green, orange and white and as I said, everyone was wasted. A lot. Even 14-year-olds and younger "children" had drunk more than just a pint and were actually lying on the ground, unable to get up anyomre. It seems the Irish use their national holiday simply as an excuse to be drunk the whole day. No matter the age.
Me and some of my friends (Stella, Edu, Tazio, Barbara, Tazio's friend Jakob and Marc) went to St. Stephen's Green Park to hang out. The park was packed as well and they had actual security guards positioned there to check the people's bags for alcohol^^ Inside the park they had guards patrolling and checking groups of people at random for alcohol. They are not that paranoid for no reason...
We stayed in that park until it was time to go home around six o'clock. The bus driver dropped us off at the Shopping Centre in Monaghan and we went to a local pub. Only that it was completely deserted! At first I was surprised but my guess is that all the people were already too drunk to be out any more and had already gone home :P
We stayed out quite long that night because our host mum had said we could stay at home from school the next day anyway! A great night after a great day :D I'm definitely coming back to Ireland for St.Patrick's Day sometime!!!
Definitely worth the trip!

Féach leat níos déanaí! :D
<3