International Night 2017!

November 15, 2017 was International Night at my school. Every year, my school hosts an International Night where there are stalls for different parts of the world such as the US, Columbia, Canada, South Korea, Australia, etc. There is also a parade, where people from different places walk through the senior hall and onto the stage. I was in the parade representing the United States. I wore jeans and a green hoodie, and Jenna joined the parade with me. It started at 7:30 PM, and the US was the last country to walk through the hall for the parade. Jenna and I had the American flag around our back while we walked through the huge crowd of people. 

After each country walked through the hall, they stood with their flag on the stage. 



My mom brought over a ton of candy and snacks from the USA that we used for the stand. There was a lot of people helping with the America stall, including Chance and my brother. 



Boan was wearing Chinese traditional clothing from China, and it looked really cool. Juho and Yonghwa were also wearing traditional south Korean clothing. 

Juho, Boan, and Yonghwa

I got to try a lot of different foods from different stalls, and I got my face painted by Izzie also. It was a very fun night, but I got home very late. 

On Saturday and Sunday, I had rehearsals for the Musical. Saturday, we went through the musical, and Ms. Sawyer played the songs that I did not know, the ones Jean was going to play. Jean was originally suppose to be playing half of the songs on the Piano, but she was only able to come in the last half of rehearsal on Sunday. Ms. Sawyer asked me to learn all of the pieces on Sunday, and I said that I would. For the past couple of days, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night I have been practicing piano most of the night so I can finish learning all of the songs. I wanted to get them all learned by Wednesdays rehearsal so that I can know the songs for the rehearsals on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. 

Monday, I skipped Badminton and my Piano lesson so that I could spend the whole night practicing music for the Musical. Tuesday was very fun. I went into school for registration, and then took the bus with Molly to the city center where we got some food, then went to the National Concert Hall. We listened to a man analyse Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture, then after that we got to listen to the Orchestra play it through from start to finish, it was very fun to listen to, it was very dramatic. Molly and I went to Starbucks after the performance, then went back to school. 

Wednesday, I spent the day practicing piano for the Musical. Molly and I met up and went to school for rehearsal around 1:30 PM. Rehearsal lasted until about 7 PM. I left around that time to go straight to the Run in the Dark which was that night at 8 PM I planned to meet up with Dominik and Carolina. They were the only people I knew were doing the Run still, at the time. Many people backed out of the Run because it was raining very hard. It had been raining for most of the day, which caused flooding in different parts of Dublin, luckily the rain stopped right as the Run in the Dark began. After we finished the Run, Dominik and I went to a restaurant to get some food. Then we each went home.  


-November 15-25, 2017

More graffiti - Grandma and Papa Adventures!!

Thursday November 2nd my Dad, Grandma, Levi and I went to get breakfast at Beanhive coffee. To start out, I got a blueberry muffin, which was much bigger than I thought it would be. 

The Giant Blueberry Muffin!

For breakfast I ordered the full Irish breakfast. It was a ton of food, but I pretty much ate all of it. It was very delicious, a great way to start the day. 

 

After we were all finished eating our food that we ordered, my Dad and Grandma went to visit Trinity College Dublin, while Levi and I planned to go back to the Graffiti place. We went home before we went to the graffiti place so I could grab my spray paint, and we could get more layers on because it was a bit cold. We took the 145, and got off and walked to the place. I had made a ton of stencils the night before because I planned to go back to the place today with Levi. I had bought some cans of this temporary adhesive spray that helped me stick my stencils to the walls so I could to multiple at once. I had a ton of stencils to do so it helped me multitask. 

I made this really cool Totoro stencil that I thought would be to tricky to cut out, but it actually turned out much better than I thought it would. I also had a lot of other cool stencils that were designs or just symbols. We got to the graffiti place around 2 PM. I did all of the stencils that I made the night before, which was 6. 

Levi helped me a bit with holding some of the stencils down that were to small to spray with the adhesive. He had fun walking on top of the walls and metal bars. 

Thursday night, my Dad and I went to the movie theater to see 'It'. It was really good, different than any other horror movies that I have seen. In other horror movies, most of the scary things are things that happen by surprise, but in this movie, the characters are actually scary, even without the surprise element. It was excellent! 

Friday was a chill day, we did not go anywhere, but Saturday was very eventful. Around 11 AM, we all walked down to the Pearse dart station to take the dart to Dalkey because Dalkey is a cool town to visit. We went to a restaurant called the 1909 Restaurant & Wine bar. It was very close to the dart station, so we did not have to walk far. For a starter, I got a baked portobello mushroom on a crouton with a white wine parsley sauce on it. It was very delicious, and for my main course I got the Prime Hereford Fillet Steak.

Mushroom starter

Levi found a perfect item on the menu for him which was French Toast. He got that, my dad got a dish with 2 different types of fish and my Grandma got the same thing I did. The steak was perfectly done, and I liked Levis fries that he ordered as a side. They came with this special mayonnaise that was really good, I love mayonnaise. 

Saturday night, I went to a surprise birthday party for Miranda at Leighs house. Miranda joined St. Andrews this year, and she is from Puerto Rico. She is really nice, and a lot of people came to the party and it was very fun!

 After the party, Alec and I went to his house and we got some Chinese food and started to watch Stranger Things 2. I had seen it already but I wanted to watch it again with him. We watched 3 episodes, then I went home around 2:30 AM. 

Sunday November 5th, I used that day to finish a lot of homework for the upcoming week that I needed to finish. That night my Dad, Levi and I went to see another movie. We went to see 'The murder on the orient express'. It was a very different kind of movie than the movies that I am used to watching. I think that it was kind of boring in the middle, but overall it was pretty good. The end was the best part because we saw how everything came together and we find out who committed the murder. 

We took the bus home, but we had not had dinner yet. We decided to have Indian food at the Indian restaurant right next to my house. We met Grandma at the restaurant. I tried a new dish at the Indian restaurant that included chicken meat and lamb meat. It was very good, along with the garlic naan bread that I ordered also. 

Sunday night was the last night that my Dad and Grandma had with us, so that night my Dad and I hung out until around 11 PM. I had school the next day so I had to get to sleep. Monday morning, I said goodbye to both of them before I left for school. It was very fun having them over during the break. 

Monday after school I had badminton, but I had no piano lesson because my teacher had to help with the junior choirs performance at the National Concert Hall that night. We rescheduled my lesson to Wednesday. Wednesday was a half day, so I sat in the cafeteria from 1:20-4:00 PM. I worked on my history essay. I also worked on some math with Molly.

I had my lesson at 4 PM, and after my lesson I took the bus to 'All City' which is a shop that sells spray paint because I needed some more different colors for a poster that I was making. I was going to make the cover of the book 'Oh the places you'll go' by Dr. Seuss. 

After dinner Wednesday night, I started working on it. I printed out the cover multiple times and made a stencil of each color. I worked pretty late that night, and got most of the poster done. Thursday, I found out that the poster due date was moved to Monday, so I could have the weekend to finish it. That was nice so that Thursday, I could practice piano for the musical. I had rehearsals Saturday from 5:30 PM to 8 PM, and then on Sunday from 10-5 PM. 

Friday November 10th after school, I went home to practice piano for the Musical. Around 6 PM I went over to Alecs house. We got pizza from Pizza Hut and watched a few more episodes of Stranger Things 2. I would say we have 3 or 4 more to go until we have season 2 finished. It was very fun, and we looked at cool clothes and stuff. We devoured that pizza, it was so delicious especially with ranch. I took a taxi home around midnight. 

Saturday, I had to be at St. Andrews at 10 AM for another beach cleanup with the marine conservation club. It was our second beach clean up, and it was more successful than the first one. We walked down from the school to the beach, and got a ton of trash on the way. We got a lot of trash on the beach also. Jenna, Chance and I walked straight away from the beach into the Dublin Bay. It was low tide, so we could walk very far into the bay. 

This is what the water looks like at low tide

After we were finished with our beach cleanup, we put our supplies back in the school. While we were doing that, Chance was getting us garlic bread. We sat on a bench near the park by the Dart station and had garlic bread with ranch, and it was delicious. We then continued to walk to Starbucks to meet the other people that went straight there after we were done with the beach clean up. I got a Mango Black Tea Lemonade, and it was very refreshing. I then walked with Carolina and Chance to the Dart station so that we could get home. 

Once I got home, I practiced piano for the rehearsal, then took the bus to rehearsal with Molly. It was from 5-8:30 PM. After it was over, Me, Juho, Yonghwa, Sophie and I all went to Gleesons to get some dinner. We stayed there until about 10:30 PM, then I walked with Yonghwa to the bus then went home.

-November 2-11, 2017

Dad and Grandma Visit - Halloween - Graffiti Place

Wednesday October 25th after school, Boan, Juho and I went to a restaurant to get Lunch. The restaurant was called 'Eatokyo' and it is right on the river liffey. I had a dish that was rice with shrimp and chicken. I also got a side of Miso soup.

Wednesday night, My Mom and I made some Puppy chow for Friday. On Friday, I was having a party with the other Spanish class. We made enough puppy chow for a lot of people Wednesday night.

 

Thursday at school in English class, we all were suppose to have 3 points or ideas to talk about from the book Out Stealing Horses. We each got a title a couple weeks ago to prepare, and basically for 80 minutes straight, we talked about different elements of the book Out Stealing Horses, and Mr. Reidy recorded the whole thing. We are all going to write a reflective statement on the recording about the culture of the book. 

Friday was a half day, and we had a non uniform day also. I wore to school a new Comme Des Garçons shirt that I got a while ago, and my white adidas shoes. 

Friday at 7:30 PM, I had a party. I met up with Carolina and Kim before the party, then Carolinas dad drove us to the party at 7:30 PM. It was at an apartment, and it was a very fun party. Boan made his face into the Joker, and it looked really good. 

After the party was finished around 11:30 PM, it was pretty messy so I stayed to help and clean up because I know how hard it is to clean up after parties since my Mom has had parties at our house. 

Saturday morning, my Dad and Grandma arrived in Ireland. They got to our house around 11:00 AM and I was so glad that they were here. I carried their bags to their rooms, and they had a little rest since they were a bit tired. They seemed to get over the jet lag very well, because they did not seem as tired as I would probably have been. 

For the first dinner in Dublin, I took them to Brothers Dosirak which is a very good Korean restaurant right across the Liffey. We (Oma, Grandma, Levi, my Dad and I) took a bus to the Liffey, then walked the rest of the way to the restaurant, which is kind of hidden in a Korean shop. It was very crowded, but some people were just leaving so we got to take their seats. We all ordered our food, and we got chicken wings to share, the Korean chicken wings are so delicious!



Levi and I bought some Korean snacks before we left. 



After we finished eating, we walked to the nearest bus stop to take the bus home. Sunday was a chill day. All we did was walk down to Grafton street, and in the St. Stevens Green shopping center to go shopping. Monday, Levi, Grandma, My Dad and I walked down to Temple Bar.



 We walked around temple bar for a while, and at 3:15 PM, I randomly bumped into my friend Max. My brother and I went with Max to Brown Thomas with his friends because he was going to buy a new pair of shoes. Grandma and My Dad were going to meet us an hour later in Temple Bar. 

Max's new shoes

After Max bought his awesome new Comme des Garçons shoes, Levi and I went to Dunnes so I could buy some T-Shirts. I bought 2 plain black T-Shirts, along with 1 white one and 1 blue one.



 I was going to use them to try to do some cool designs on them with stencils later on. We eventually met back up with my Dad and Grandma around 4:15 PM and started to walk towards city hall because my dad wanted to see it. We took a Taxi home because it started to rain, and for dinner we had burritos from the burrito place on the corner. At 7 PM, we got in our costumes and took a bus down near Grafton street because my dad had a surprise for us. It turns out it was the Ghostbus tour, which is very fun. We did it last year with my Mom and it was really fun, and spooky. 

Our guide on this tour was really funny which made the tour really fun. We went to different places then we went last year, including Kilmainham Jail and Glasnevin cemetary. The tour ended at the Gravediggers pub right next to the cemetary. Then the bus took us back to where we got on and dropped us off. It was a very fun night. 

Tuesday was halloween, and Alec, Chance and I had plans to go out to eat Tuesday night. Chance and Alec came over to my house around 5 PM, and Chance brought his morph suit. He had a red one and I had an orange one, and we wore them to the restaurant we were going to which was called Crackbird. 

Chance, Alec and I all in our costumes. 

At Crackbird, they had a lot of different kinds of Lemonade and I got the 'cranberry cooler'.



We walked back to my house after we were finished eating, then Alec and Chance went home. Levi and my Dad had carved 4 pumpkins and they were out on our steps and they looked very nice.



Wednesday (today), I decided to take Levi, my Dad and my Grandma to the cool Graffiti place. It was a very nice day out, very warm and very sunny. I made some stencils before we went to the place, and once we got there I did some cool designs. My favorite one was this rainbow skull thing I did. 

Final product

Next, we took the bus to Dun Laoghaire where we walked along the Pier. 

We were going to take the Dart back home, but we soon found out that they were on strike, so we had to take the bus back home, which was fine. We went to eat dinner at a bar close to our house called "McGrattans Café Bar". It was very close to the Tesco we always go to. Levi and I got cheeseburgers with bacon for dinner. In the bar, they had 2 pool tables, so Levi and I played pool. I also played my Dad but he beat me easily. The food was very delicious and filling. We walked back home, and watched 3 episodes of Stranger Things 2 before Levi and my Dad went to bed. That is where I finally get to the present time, 11:33 PM on Wednesday night. 

-October 25- November 1, 2017

- The Blarney Blogger -