Did we go to a gay bar?

Saturday night after we got back from Bath, most of us were pretty energized from the nap we took on the bus. The French girls came over again for dinner. Peter cooked this time. It was the third dinner in a row where we had vegetables. Hooray for us. After dinner we decided to go out to pub called the Charterhouse a little south of the flats for a girl on the program's 21st. It was a slab shaped building since it was on a street corner. We were all a little drunk when we got there, so nobody noticed some of the interesting characters in the back. Nevertheless, we all went upstairs to a bigger room.

Peter describes the technique we use when large groups of ND kids go to pubs together as "Domer-bombing." To quote his blog: " (Domer-bombing is the term I use to describe the multitudes of Fightin' Irish descending upon a drinking establishment like the biblical plague of locusts: just as noisy, twice as messy, and very hard to get out of your hair)" This pub stop is a perfect example. Most pubs don't seem to care, though, since we give them exorbitant amounts of business. Apparently none of us realized at the time that we were at a gay bar (not that there's anything wrong with that). We all had a good laugh when pretty much the entire program found out the next day. Good times were had by all.

On Sunday TJ and I went back down to Farm street to the same Jesuit church I went to last week. Again, mass was short and quick. We walked back home down Oxford street looking in vain for a City of London flag, which is a St. George's flag with a sword in the upper left corner (also called the Canton, for all you fellow vexilologists out there). Alas, I will probably have to buy most of my flags online when I get home to save money. On Sunday, Lizzie, Coleen, and Kate came over and cooked us fajitas and we had our official spring break flight booking party. The internet was being frustratingly slow, so we didn't get as far as we expected. We all had to take a few deep breaths (and drink a few beers), because the websites kept kicking us off the server after we put our credit card info in. But things worked out on Monday morning, and our travel plans are finally set. Lucca, Pisa, Florence, Barcelona, Paris! My job is to find us a good hostel in Barca, the only place where we will have to pay full price for lodging. I am very excited for break now and to see all the cool places there.

In class today we learned how to "read" a painting in our fine arts seminar. I'm glad I had this class before I go to any art museums, since usually I look at paintings for like two seconds and then move on. I feel more cultured now after we examined Hogarth's Roast Beef of Old England together. Although some of the stuff, like vanishing points, we learned from Mrs. Sturm in grade school, which some of the class seemed like they didn't know about. Maybe St. C was a good school after all. In Poli Sci we talked about the Prime Minister position and how it differs from the Presidential position, and in the parliament class we talked about partisanship and how it differs from the US. Our prof in those classes is an interesting man with some interesting stories. He got kicked out of the Nixon library for doing the peace sign in front of the doors. He does know his stuff though. It sort of scares me how the majority party in parliament controls the ENTIRE government here. There is no such thing as compromise (the senate Dems would looove this place!). But really, we learned about the jobs of the minority parties in parliament. I will ask tomorrow at work what exactly it is the minority party does when they aren't in power.