hello day!

Today is just one of those absolutely great days. It's almost SIXTY degrees and SUNNY here in Belfast, which is completely unheard of. It's been cold, foggy, drizzling for days now so I had pretty much given up on seeing the sun again until my return to the good ol US of A. But au contraire:

jessymcl (3:15:11 PM): today is fucking freezing. never come back to new england

jessymcl (3:15:21 PM): howling winds and fuhreezing temps

oof.

I didn't wake up this morning with expectations of it being a great day. Last night was a late one. Some of us Americans introduced some European kids to the great American sport of "beer pong". Let's just say it was a hit. I've never seen people get so riled up over the game...making up ridiculous rules, and bad mouthing each other like I've never heard. (see pic of angry irish.)
It was hilarious. However it put a lot of pressure on us American kids to hold our own since we had been talking up all of our experience in the matter for weeks. Team Casey and Adar managed to hold it down. .

So post partay, some of us peaced out and headed over to the Globe for some dancing and good craic. Sean and I had some good convos about beer, and I met a couple of new Irish kids as well. Anyways, that ended late and bedtime didn't come until post 3am. oof.

7am. I'm up again and off to work in the lab! I'll do a whole post on what I'm doing there in a few days...when I have more of a good idea of what im actually doing there. Long story short: genetics research, and it's awesome. While some of my cells were spinning down (don't ask), I took a walk downtown to check out the St. George's market. So much fresh produce/meat/cheese/spices/etc! I love that place. I grabbed some grapes then headed back down to campus for my core workout class. Holy crap, that thing is a doozey, but totally worth it. Who knew I'd be cutting down on the beer belly in Ireland instead of building it up.

Back to the lab I went to do a few more things. I'm currently on a 2 hour break, waiting for more reactions to happen in the incubator. On the walk home, I was walking and came across my greatest discovery in Belfast thus far. Okay. That's an extreme overstatement because it's nothing that out of the ordinary for the US. But I found a small mom and pop health food store, with all the goodies of whole foods and trader joes, plus some other locally grown Irish things as well. I'm in love. This cute little old man helped me pick out some homemade almond butter :) and quinoa (to make this, I'll report back when it's accomplished). He even gave me a complimentary slice of amazing spinach pie, which I'm currently devouring. I gotta head back to the lab in about 20 to transfer my samples to the big freezer, and then im done for the weekend!!!!!

I can't believe I'm still running on less than 4 hours of sleep, but this day has just turned out to be so beautiful and productive that I'm just running on good vibes. I wish I had my camera today :(
Tonight Anna, Anna, Teddy, Sean, and I are going to see Terry Gilliam's Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassius. This is the movie that Heath Ledger died in the middle of making so Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Ferrell took over the part. I'll let ya know how it is.

And tomorrow I'm going to see SEANUS HEANEY. It's really an amazing opportunity to see a living literary great.

I'm pretty sad that I'm missing out on yet another great beerfest in Boston (although Oktoberfest did fulfill my beerfest quota for a while...). I hope all you crazy kids have fun and take good pics

That's all for now, I'm headed back to the lab to be a voluntary genetics nerd for a little bit. Bye :)