Conossieur of Warm Liquids

I have become an eternal seeker of warm things. I spend quite a bit of time hunting for my next hot coffee, burning hours sitting in La Boca consuming gallons of free hot tea. I even spent 2 pound 50 on a hot chocolate at the Europa Hotel on Saturday, to stem the flow of the ever present wet chill in Belfast. "Would you like tea or coffee?" is the often the first question asked of you when entering a new place. My reply is always "Oh, coffee would be AMAZING." I clutch my ceramic mug, trying to pull every inch of warmth from it. Friday, at a meeting, I was served lukewarm coffee. I couldn't believe it. This climate demands steaming hot coffee and tea, especially because no one seems to know how to turn on the regular heating indoors. I am a connossieur of warm liquids. And I need another cup of coffee.

Ah, that's better. Anyway, it has come to my attention that no matter where you are, no matter how much you love what you are doing, weekends are never long enough. This Saturday the weather was actually quite lovely, especially for Belfast in February and especially given the crap-tastic weather we'd been having lately. Tomas had to work all day (shocker, I know) so I made plans with Zulema, the Spanish EVS intern at Public Achievement. We met at St. George's Market at 2pm, not realizing that was actually when it closed. She had a friend with her, Udi, who was visiting from Barcelona, and we also met Noemie, who is Belgian (!). After sharing 2 pig sandwiches (literally, the spit was right behind our table; I had to concert really hard on not thinking about exactly where my delicious sandwich originated from) we went to the Europa Hotel, because Zulema had heard there was a free jazz concert. Well, I guess there was... if you mean 4 old guys in a hotel bar. They weren't too bad, actually. We were the youngest people in the place by about 30 years, easily. We also met up with Clarisse, an EVS intern from France, Milos, EVS from Poland, and Musti, who's from Turkey. Musti annoys me. He's one of those who just won't let it go that I'm here of my own volition and not getting paid. I swear to God, the next person who says to me "What, you're not getting paid? WOOOOW" I'm gonna smack them. Seriously. Back off, already.

After the 'concert' we went back to Zulema's for dinner (after much deliberation from myself; Musti was annoying the crap out of me and I knew Tomas had a break from 6-7 before he started working the concert that we had intended to go to. Eventually I decided that while I was tired of Musti, I was REALLY tired of sitting around in bars waiting for Tomas. So, there ya go). We drank wine, her Catalonian friend Udi made tortilla patata, more EVS people came, pan tomate was made along with soup and potato gratin by Abdi (from France), and before you knew it, there were about 15 people there, from about 7 different countries - Spain, France, Italy, Belgium, Ireland, Turkey, Poland, America, and Armenia. Holy. Crap.

It was so amazing, like a big dysfunctional family. We were the younger, alcoholic version of the UN. Only with less shouting. Ok, maybe more shouting. My favorite person of the night by far was Cailin (pronounced Cahl-yeen), who had just returned from EVS Israel, and who actually lives right up the street from me in Andytown. Fantastic! We have a ton in common and I'm really excited to have a friend that doesn't require a taxi ride to get to. Yay.

At about 10pm Cailin, Jo (from Belgium, we spoke Flemish together!) and Alessandro (Italy) all got in a taxi and went to the John Hewitt, because I was supposed to meet my friend Rebecca at 10:30, and eventually Tomas. Somehow we managed to get a table, which is in itself an absolute miracle on a Saturday night at the Hewitt. It would be like going to the Library on a Saturday night and not being hit on by a pretentious frat house jock nasty cologney man. Near impossible, right? Yeah. We had a really good time, aside from Jo and Cailin getting into a pseudo-political discussion, which would be fine aside from the fact that Jo is super dramatic and was flailing her arms about and practically shouting and making everyone uncomfortable... enter Tomas, and the gay guy he works with Anthony, whom I love! Whew. Everything was much better after that. Tomas brought Anthony, Anthony's boyfriend Matt, and Nicole, another girl he works with, to the pub. So Cailin and Nicole and I had some girl time (yay! I have girlfriends!), so next weekend I won't have to depend on Tomas for my social life. That, I think, will be a huge step in my feeling like this is really my home, to feeling independent and in charge of my life here. I don't like to be or even just to feel like I'm dependent on Tomas. He's been really fantastic, but I didn't come here for him, I came here for myself, and I need to stay true to that.

So after the Hewitt closed at about quarter past one, Cailin, Nicole, Tomas and I went back to the Castle (aka our apartment) and had rum (sidenote: Megan, you know what this is all about. Also, Tomas decided not to throw out your mattress, because Nicole slept on it and said it's amazingly comfortable). Went to bed at half past 4, and did absolutely nothing yesterday. Lovely.

written by

ebienelson on February 9, 2009 from Belfast, United Kingdom

from the travel blog: "She is the Belle of Belfast City..."

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lol at your UN comment, so cute :-) I'm so glad you are having a blast!!

written by erika berg on February 9, 2009

Yay! The air-mattress (and 3 a.m. rum-fueled talks!) live on! Can you live with the exploding from the closet for 25 more days?!? Can't wait to see you!!

written by Megan Hupp on February 10, 2009

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