That's some good craic

Classes started today here at Dublin City University, and the first item on the agenda was teaching us American kids some helpful Gaelic words so that we know things like which bathroom, or I'm sorry, loo, to use when we're out. (Mná is ladies, Fir is gents.) Every Irish child takes both Gaelic and English in school, so all the signs are in both languages and they use Irish words in everyday speech. We also got a crash course in slang. Craic, pronounced "crack," is Irish for "fun."

Where's the craic?

We had great craic the other night.

Want to have some craic?

We had been hearing this in the clubs and pubs this past weekend and while we were pretty sure everyone in Ireland wasn't into hardcore drugs, we couldn't be sure. It was good to know that we were mistaken, though we still need to watch out for people wanting to have craic with crack.

Today was pretty uneventful besides starting classes and doing some grocery shopping. So instead of describing in detail the ham sandwich I ate for lunch, I'm going to list some things I've observed since coming here.

1. The eggs have feathers on them. Talk about fresh.

2. I haven't had time to bite my nails so they're actually growing a bit, ever so slowly.

3. Self tanning seems to be quite a popular trend here with the pale Irish girls. The reason I bring it up is because it's so blatantly obvious that the orange girl amongst those with near transparently white skin is using some artificial methods. Usually, these girls have also died their hair jet black, like they are auditioning for the next season of Jersey Shore. I don't understand tanning salons in the first place, but who's going to notice your pasty white skin when everyone has pasty white skin? And you assume they won't notice you were Oompa Loompa-fied overnight? Baffling.

4. The Irish love American television. Friends is on every night in our common room. The guys I live with clap to the theme song.

5. The milk is delicious. I can't stop drinking it.