Ah, Dawson, how I love thee

This is part one of a series on the streets of Dublin. Not like 'on the streets' (aka in da hood), but the streets or areas I frequently find myself in. Each area has a crazily different feel, no matter how close they really are, and this is my attempt to show you my favorite spots in the city.

Those of you who read my entry about Hodges Figgis, as well as the short blurb about Lemon a few posts back, are already familiar with my two very favorite things about Dawson. But there is soooo much more, so much more in fact that I've decided this street deserves its own post.

Dawson is the street directly across from the side Nassau Street entrance of Trinity's campus. Nassau itself has certain connotations (mostly involving tourists, Germans, and various sexual acts performed against Trinity's hallowed walls) that Dawson is inherently free from. For me, when I turn onto Dawson, it's like reaching a safe haven -- the Comfort Object of Dublin city life, if you will.

First, there are trees on this street. Amazing. Though they're bare now, being the middle of January, they are going to be beautiful come spring. Combined with the relative quiet of Dawson--since it's surrounded by Nassau and Grafton, it naturally seems almost peaceful--and the fancy lampoles I seem to recall, it's eay to see why this is my favorite street to walk down.

But it's a fun street to hang out, too. Dawson is home to a branch of Cafe Sol (the ubiquitous Irish coffee and sandwich place) and Lemon, home of the amazing magic crepes. The second Starbucks is here, too, only blocks away from its more-crowded and harder-to-find predecessor on Grafton. A duck down a side street takes you to Davy Byrne's, a famous pub that I think is mentioned in Ulysses, and on the corner stands Carluccio's, where you can find amazing soup, bread, lattes and Italian-accented waiters.

As for bookstores, Dawson has been hailed as the book-buying center of Dublin, because of its proximity to Trinity and relative proximity to UCD. Hodges Figgis is by far the best, filled with bargain tables in addition to a bargain basement, pretty fair prices, and amazingly friendly staff who will not laugh at you when you ask them who the author of Beowulf is.

I go in here so often that Jillian asked if there is a sex camp of some sort hidden in the basement. There's not, but I really don't think I could go more often even if there was. The company is also amazingly old (18th century -- older than our country, kids), and I believe it is still Ireland's largest independent bookstore (sources differ on this point).

There is also Waterstone's across the street. I have only been in there once, partly out of loyalty, but I hear there is a cafe upstairs that I think I am going to have to try someday soon. Murder, Ink is another fun bookstore, with a specialty in murder mysteries, mysteries, and detective fiction.

I have two other favorite shops in this area. The first is Farrell and Brown, which I have only been in once, but the building is so beautiful that I feel happy everytime I walk past its greystone exterior. It's kind of like an Irish Abercrombie, with similarly outrageous prices, snooty sales people, and loud rock music. Still, they have nice scarves and I'd rather shop there for a sweater than at one of the tourist traps on Nassau.

The second is the WONDERFUL toy store whose name I don't remember. (Edit: It's just called The Toy Store.) You know those stores where you walk in and feel like a kid again, surrounded by Playmobil and Klutz and various other toys you would have possibly killed for as a child? This is it. There were books on how to make friendship bracelets. There were plastic knights and dragons. There was a turtle in a knit hat and a Long John Silver puppet. Does life get better?

Of course, after shopping and reading and coffee-drinking, you can always walk straight down Dawson to St. Stephen's Green and walk off that venti caramel macchiato with extra caramel. That's where I saw the horse and cart rentals on a Sunday morning a few months ago, and this is a much more pleasant walk down to the Green than trying to fight your way down Grafton. Dawson is pretty much the best possible place to start a day from -- grab a coffee, read a book, and head off to one of the other awesome places nearby. Perfect.

NB: Can't find any pictures not under copyright. Will try to take some in the near future and post them as I get them...sorry! Also, map courtesy of Ordance Survey Ireland.

Forget elections, BOOKS are my porn

Just wanted to let you all know that I am, in fact, not suicidal. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to post that in my tired/jetlagged/homesick state.

Today, in an effort to get over myself and enjoy life again, I wore my favorite sweater and went to Hodges Figgis, my favorite bookstore in Dublin. It's not the cheapest, but it's the easiest to find things in, they cater to Trinity students, and the service people are always so helpful.

It's amazing the effect bookstores have on me. Seriously, it's a little scary. First thing this morning, I thought to myself, "I'm going to Hodges Figgis. Full stop. I need a bookstore." I even got up early to make sure to miss the crowds.

And miss the crowds I did. It was basically just me, my latte (oh, I forgot how good they are here) and the entire fiction section. For I while I just wandered and stared at the covers, picking up books at random and flipping through.

Then I pulled out my list. Big mistake. Apparently the book list for my Tolkien class is not so much a list of books as a list of topics we will be discussing. My panicked look and my sheet of paper drew a very concerned salesman, who asked me if I needed help in a way that suggested perhaps I might need someone to take me back to the place with the padded walls and the white jackets.

But eventually, after about ten or fifteen minutes of going through the list topic by topic, we sorted out what was what, and I was promised they would order my books and call ASAP. I then tripped lightly through the rest of the store, grabbing Tolkein, Cecila Ahern, Nora Roberts, chick lit for Thursday's class, and even a treat for myself -- Phillip Pullman's The Subtle Knife.

A stop at Lemon (the crepe place from two posts ago) for a BLT made my morning complete. And while I still have to get groceries and read Nora Robert's Hidden Riches for my class tonight, I think, overall, today will be a pretty decent day. It's amazing what a good bookstore will do for one's state of mind.

Little Miss Disaster

"Honey, can I make you anything? How about some buttered noodles?"

My mom was trying to feed me again. So far today, I had been offered goulash, Italian sausage, macaroni and cheese, and leftover Chinese food. Quite the cornucopia, considering I could barely choke down some coffee this morning.

"Hey, do you need any more of those sinus pills? Remember how you were half dead when you got here and that one pill cleared you right up? Here, take like half of them. Do you want the whole bottle? Here, honey, just take the whole bottle."

My dad, on the other hand, was busy pushing pills. He had dragged his basket o' medication out of the kitchen cupboard and was offering me everything -- well, except the Vicodin.

Why were my parents acting like this? Because it was the day I had to fly back to Dublin, and needless to say I was having a nervous breakdown. Those of you who read the entry a while back about my conduct in airports are familiar with the kind of state I was in.

Back when I first left, I thought my problems were caused by the fact that I inherited my father's wanderlust and my mother's homebody tendencies. But now, really thinking about it, I am pretty sure I didn't inherit the wanderlust. If I had, the thought of getting on a plane and flying to another country (which, by the way, is my second home) would probably not make me want to puke.

At least I didn't cry through any airports this time. I did have to re-pack my carefully arranged suitcase at LAX, since it was over the limit. I did have a minor panic attack when they delayed my flight to Heathrow, then when I missed my flight out of Heathrow, and then when I discovered it was canceled anyway. I got airsick for the first time in a long time on my ten-hour flight, sandwiched between the window and two French (Swiss?) men, one of whom I had to climb on a seat to get over in an attempt to make it to the washroom before passing out. I sat on the runway for an hour in London, praying my bags would at least make it to the right plane after all the confusion.

Truth be told, even without the crying, I am clearly not a graceful traveler.

I also realized something, somewhere between the cab ride and the unpacking. I am so over traveling. I'm over going somewhere new, getting used to it, uprooting myself, and having to do it all over again.

And I'm over this whole living in another country business. Ireland is great, sure, and obviously I've been able to stick it out so far. But frankly, it's weird living someplace where everything is different. Every single thing. You don't know which side to pass someone on the sidewalk. You don't know how to dress for the weather. You live in fear that, since you don't have a car, you will walk one block too far and find yourself stuck in a horrible neighborhood with no way out. When you go grocery shopping, you never know what you will find, how expensive it will be, and whether it will taste like it's supposed to. Tipping rules are different and confusing. The laundry is different. Paying rent is different. And every single person you pass on the street has an accent. Oh wait, no -- you're the one with the accent, and the one who has to feel stupid every time someone says something you don't understand.

I'm also over feeling this homesick every time I go somewhere. And I'm really over knowing that even if I did just stay in the States, nothing would be the same anyway, because no way would my parents let their grad school dropout sponge off of them.

So in conclusion, living abroad sucks, and since I'm locked in for another six months, I'm screwed.

Oh, and Happy freaking New Year.

Want to go to [fill in the blank]?

My friend Corey wrote a blog entry a while ago about central meeting places; you know, those places in the sitcoms where everyone just kind of goes when they're not doing something else, like Central Perk on Friends. Corey was saying that generally, we really envy how the characters on these shows have a place where they can go where everyone knows their name, but sometimes we're actually doing the same thing, just we don't realize it.

This got me to thinking. Where would my central meeting places be in Dublin? There's not just one, I knew that, but the more I thought about it, I was able to pick out three of our most-loved haunts that just might qualify.

The Ginger Man: This is a pub just north of Merrion Square, about a block away from our apartment building. Jillian was the one to first discover it a few years ago on a previous trip to Dublin, and she was so eager to return to it this time around that we figured it must be be kind of special. The G-Man, as it is affectionately known, has been the site of many class-related bitch fests, several 'bombscares' and more than one petty theft (generally these coincided with the bombscares). Every night at the G-Man is worth a blog entry in and of itself, but suffice to say, there have been some good times there. Also, the drink is much cheaper than it is at Lombard's (across the street from us).

Lemon: Oh my god, Lemon. Lemon is a crepe place on Dawson Street, right outside the Nassau Street entrance to Trinity. Usually this is where we find ourselves the night after the Ginger Man or some other hangover-inducing night out, scarfing down a Vegetarian Power Plus (with Chicken), French Toast, or whatever else happens to look good that day. There's lots of rehashing the night before, talking about how much work we have to do that day, and just a general gathering of our collective energy and motivation before facing another day spent inside the Postgrad Reading Room. Also, they give you little squares of chocolate with your coffee, and many of the male members of the staff have Aussie accents. Yum.

The Italian Place: This is not its real name. We just never call it by its insanely long and Italian name (which is Il Caffe di Napoli or something like that). This is actually the sandwich place that guy in the laundrette recommended to me, and it makes the best and cheapest cup of coffee in the entire city, which is pretty impressive because there are several Starbucks(es?) around. This is generally where we go when we need a quick pick-me-up, are too lazy to make lunch and don't feel like another frozen pizza from Centra, or just need to get out of the freaking apartment already.

This place is adorable in every single way, especially when decorated for Christmas as it was when I left, and I am beginning to believe the coffee has actual magical powers. With Italian women baristas who look like they could kick your ass in a heartbeat, and killer ciabattas, this place's only flaw is that the main seating is outside. Ew.

There are other places we go, of course, but I would say these are the three best and also most-frequented. There should be another entry sometime on the best places to go if you're visiting Dublin, but that's going to have to be another post for another time.

Happy Christmas, everyone, and have a great New Year!

Ginger Man Pub photo courtesy of Amy.

An ex-patriate Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a hassle at the best of times. There's the freaking turkey, which involves lots of plucking, rinsing, gagging, and yanking of various organs out of various orifices. There's the stuffing, which involves a huge inside-or-outside-the-turkey debate, and then there's the question of pecan or pumpkin pie, who is bringing the yams, and how in God's name you're going to deal with the fact that your crazy uncle is bound to bring up either politics or religion at the table, and that your sister will probably go for his throat.

However, if you subtract the crazy uncle and add in problems like how to find and afford a turkey in the most expensive city in Ireland, whether to beg your mother to send canned pumpkin from home or just suck it up and get a fresh pumpkin, and where to get French fried onions, you'll get an idea of just how insane Thanksgiving abroad can be.

When we all started planning for our Irish Thanksgiving, Jillian and I knew all of this. We figured it would a nice way to introduce Thanksgiving to our non-American friends, and a good way to assuage the homesickness that would be brought on by spending this quintessentially Yank holiday in a country that hadn't heard of it. Lists were made, dishes were assigned, and guests were invited. We were ready to throw ourselves a Thanksgiving extravaganza.

Three weeks, five essay-related breakdowns and more than a few turkey-related arguments later, Jillian turned to me and said something along the lines of, "Screw it. Let's cancel Thanksgiving."

Of course, we didn't seriously cancel it. No matter how tired or frustrated we were, the fact was, it was still Thanksgiving, and we couldn't not celebrate it. Finally, after much thought and a power trip to the crepe place down the street for some brain food, Jillian, A and I came up with the best possible way to celebrate Thanksgiving abroad -- without ending up flipping our collective shit on our guests.

Thursday night, we found ourselves seated around a table in front of a fireplace in a nice bar, Christmas decorations all around and wine on the table. The three of us were joined by our law-student flatmate, A’s Irish flatmate, one of our Irish friends from our program, and two of the guys who live across the hall from us (one of whom was Canadian and kind of apathetic about the whole thing, and the other with whom we had had several heated turkey discussions in the preceding week).

“Here, will you tell us the Thanksgiving story now?” said A as the food arrived. I had promised her the kid-friendly version of the tale weeks ago, and began it now as everyone dug in.

“A long time ago, roughly in the sixteen hundreds, a group of people called the Pilgrims, motivated by a desire to worship freely and get away from the British, sailed to America on a big-ass ship called the Mayflower. The journey was long and hard…”

I continued the story, making sure to mention Squanto the Friendly Indian (whoops, Native American) who taught the Pilgrims to plant corn. “And that’s the story of the first Thanksgiving,” I finished triumphantly, practically expecting a round of applause.

Everyone stared at me like I had grown three heads.

“Here,” A said after a few seconds. “I thought Columbus was there.”

“Right, the Spanish came and settled it first,” added her roommate.

“Columbus wasn’t Spanish,” someone else said, which was followed by a comment about Vikings and quickly the whole table dissolved into one loud discussion over who, exactly, founded America and when.

“OKAY, OKAY, OKAY,” shouted Jillian a few minutes later. “Can I tell you all the real story now?”

This quieted everyone down, as they turned to Jillian to settle the score. She pulled out a few post-its and began to read.

“First, instead of one Thanksgiving, there used to be a lot of different celebrations of all the major massacres that the settlers inflicted on the Indians. Lincoln was the first one to proclaim one national day of Thanksgiving, so up until the 1860s Americans celebrated several Indian massacres during different times of the year.”

“Massacres?” A muttered.

“There was lots of scalping and beheading and the women and children were raped and thrown into slavery. After one such massacre, the settlers played soccer with heads of defeated Native Americans. Oh,” she added, “and Pocahontas was fat.”

There was a stunned silence as the non-Americans at the table tried to process this information. The Pilgrims weren’t so nice to the Indians? Pocahantas was FAT? What is this freaking holiday? I could see them wondering.

Finally, A broke the ice. “I knew there had to be rape and pillage,” she said, grabbing the wine bottle out of the bucket in the middle of the table and waving it around. “Can I top anyone up?”

The rest of the evening, needless to say, is a bit of a blur. I remember a text message to Jillian saying, “Abt to bombscare must leave”, more than a few drinks at The Ginger Man (the pub down the street) where we toasted America and bombscaring Thanksgiving, and a long conversation about my chest that lasted long after the bartenders had kicked everyone else out but us and a woman who looked like she had been bombscaring for about 100 years.

Then there was the peanut butter and jelly party back at my apartment where somehow I ended up with peanut butter everywhere, and collapsing into bed only to wake up the next morning and wonder, “Crap, did I really tell the story about how I was flat-chested until college?” Which, in fact, I had.

Turkey, pillage and bombscaring notwithstanding, I’d have say that my second Irish Thanksgiving was a major success. :)

Words, words, words

I had a weird turning point in my life abroad today. I was packing up my backpack to go to the supermarket when I noticed a little tag near the bottom, on the part that keeps the waist buckle out of the way. This label informed me that the little part was called a "Buckle Garage."

That's not the weird part. The weird part is that, in my head as I read the tag, I said "Buckle GAR-age" as opposed to "Buckle Guh-RAHGE," in a complete rejection of the 22 years of my life that I have been speaking American English.

So far, in my time here, I haven't quite gotten over how different pronunciation is. Sure, there are words like "queue" (line) or "tin" (can) that I have started using. I will always, and without thinking, use the term "half" after an hour to tell time, such as "half six" rather than "six-thirty." I have also enthusiastically embraced the phrase "taking the piss," which does not involve a bodily function, but rather means making fun of something, usually good-naturedly. But pronouncing certain words "tom-AH-to" or "ore-GAH-no" has been out of the question thus far.

One thing I have half-heartedly gotten on board with is this nonsense of calling everything that's sweet or dessert-like, "pudding." It's in Ireland that I first learned what was meant by "plum pudding," by the way -- it's this little round sort of fruitcake thing with plums in it that you're supposed to cover in brandy sauce and set alight, apparently. Usually it comes out around October, wrapped up in red cellophane right next to the Cadbury Milk Trays, just in case you're getting your Christmas food shopping done early. I'm not positive what they call American-style pudding, then, unless they do as they do for pancakes or brownies and simply put "American-style" in front of the name and leave it at that.

Because I talk more with the Amy, queen of Scots, than I do many of the Irish people in my class, I've found myself picking up strange Scottish phrases that will be completely incomprehensible to people back home. Words like "jammy" (an adjective meaning "lucky when you don't deserve to be") and phrases like "get yourself to fuck" (pretty self-explanatory) just pop out when I least expect it.

One such word is the word "bombscare," which will not only be incomprehensible, but completely inappropriate back in the States. It means, roughly, a disaster, but usually that a person is a complete disaster, i.e., "I drank so much last night, I was a total bombscare," or "Look at her hair, she's a bit of a bombscare, eh?" It can also be used as a transitive or intransitive verb, as in, "Ugh, I was totally bombscaring last night" or, "We're totally going to bombscare C next week" (C being the roommate who regularly leaves the country without letting us know, and who we would love to see drunk some night).

Apart from the buckle receptacle anomaly and the vocabulary additions, though, I despair of ever losing or even softening my Buffalo-Canuck-Cali accent. Though I have gotten to the point where I feel like no one picks me out as American based on looks alone (after all, most of my clothes were bought here), the second I say "Hi," they know I'm a Yank.

My new goal, admittedly small, is to be able to order coffee entirely in an Irish accent - "Hi, small latte for takeaway, please? Thanks a million." I know it's going to take some practice and dedication, but that's a sacrifice I am totally willing to make...no matter how many times I have to go to that amazing coffee shop down the street in order to get it right. How does one say "croissant" in Irish?

Election Night in Eire

Courtesy of xkcd.com*

"Oh my god," said my apartment mate. "This is like, Katie's porn."

To be fair, I was on the edge of my seat, fingernails in my mouth, shouting at the TV for more, and practically having a political orgasm every time more polls closed. But it must be said that this was a night I would remember for the rest of my life -- the night America stepped up, chose the best man for the job, and voted Barack Obama not only for president, but as the first black president of the United States.

The day didn't start out well. I had been nervous and jumpy all day, trying to get reading done while frantically refreshing the New York Times webpage. It was around 2 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time when I finally did the math and realized that the earliest we'd hear anything was 11 p.m., and even then the results would be spotty at best.

It was like waiting for Christmas -- except this time, there was a chance that Santa would decide to bomb Iran, overturn Roe vs. Wade and amend the constitution to ban gay marriage before croaking and handing the country over to an unknown maverick-y maverick from Alaska.

I tried to keep myself occupied. I read. I went to lunch. I went to class. I did laundry. But it was hopeless, as all I could really concentrate on was the voice in my head screaming, "I WANT TO KNOW WHO WINS." I became more bitter over the five-hour time difference than ever before.

Finally, around 10 p.m., my apartment-mate J and I decided to head over to the Graduate Memorial Building, where we had heard that the College Historical Society (or The Hist) would be broadcasting the election results all through the night. The Graduates Memorial Building is absolutely beautiful, and to spend the night there with about a hundred other political dorks and Americans was pretty much the ideal situation, as far as I was concerned. And since we didn't have a TV and our only friend with a TV was otherwise occupied, it seemed like our best bet.

When we arrived, the lights were off and the door locked, without a political dork in sight. J and I looked at each other, crestfallen. Then one of us brokered the typical Irish solution:

"You want to try to find a bar?"

There are about four typical 'old-man bars' around our apartment, all of which would be quiet on a Tuesday night and all of which would be happy to accommodate two young American girls who just wanted to know what was going on in their country. That is, they would have been, had they had televisions, or had they stayed open past 11:30 p.m.

First we tried Kennedy's: No TV. Then the hotel bar: No TV. Then Foley's. There was a TV, but they were only open until half eleven, the barman told us, and suggested we try the Shelbourne Hotel bar down the street.

"Sure, there'll be lots of Americans there," he said, "and if you sneak in, they should turn a blind eye to whether you're actually staying there or not."

We thanked him profusely, and turned to head out. But he called us back, shouting, "But do you want me to tell you the results now?"

J shouted back, "Sure, what do you think?"

The barman smiled, utterly confident. "Obama. It's definitely going to be Obama."

It was around this point that I started praying that the Irish confidence in America's ability to choose the right man for the job wouldn't somehow jinx the results.

We pressed on, down the three blocks or so to the Shelbourne. It's important to know that the Shelbourne is where all the old, rich, American tourists stay -- a huge, really nice and extremely expensive hotel right on St. Stephen's Green. Naturally, we were intimidated, and a little apprehenisve about sneaking in. J decided that the best way to do it would be to keep cool, smoke a cigarette in the little smoking area, then walk into the bar like we belonged there.

We were putting this plan into action when an extremely drunk businessman walked by, blearily gave us the eye and muttered something that might have been, "Hello there" but also might have been a lewd invitation, before walking straight into the hotel bar. This was not looking good. Still, we had nowhere else to go, really, and so J finished her cigarette and we sauntered into the bar, trying to look as though we could totally afford to stay there.

Immediately, two things became blatantly clear: one, that there was not a TV, and two, the bar was full of lewd old men. Our friend from outside even made a detour in order to brush against J on his way to order what must have been pint number ten. I am pretty sure that we never really stopped moving; we just walked to one end of the bar, turned tail, and walked out.

For a while after, we weren't sure what to do. How could it be possible to not be able to find a late-closing bar in Dublin on election night? We decided to wander up Grafton Street and into Temple Bar, figuring we were sure to stumble on something there, what with all the tourists up that way. Surely some pub would be open late, and would be kind enough to put on the election for the American expatriates.

There was one bar that was, but sadly they were only open until midnight, and we were forced to continue our meander through Temple Bar until I spotted something in passing --

"Wait! Is that Hungry Harry's with the election on?"

It was. Hungry Harry's is a delightful little fast food place where the food is decent, but really fantastic after a few pints. For the moment, it was completely empty, and we ordered mounds of greasy food and planted ourselves in front of the BBC coverage of the vote. So far, it was Obama's 8 to McCain's 3, which (while I felt it was too close to call as of yet), seemed to exhilarate anyone who passed by.

Except, of course, the mad bunch of Italians who barged in, blocked our view, and began speaking very loudly about something I couldn't understand. Soon they were joined by five high-school-aged Irish boys, who (as Irish boys do), started to get a little rowdy. I was beginning to consider just going home and gluing myself to the New York Times web page, when suddenly--

Beep beep. Beep beep. J's phone, with a message from our Scottish friend A: "Hey ladies! U can come watch the election if you want cos the boy is gone and ill be up 4 ages yet!"

Within the half hour, we were happily installed on A's couch, where I was trying to explain the electoral college to both J and A. Not very effectively, I might add, as I'm a little shaky on the concept myself, but that didn't really seem to matter.

"Here, explain something to me," said A. "The whole middle of the map looks red, yeah? Which means McCain, right? So how is it possible for him not to win?"

I explained that it was based on population, and that in essence, California's 55 electoral votes combined with New York, the rest of New England and the Pacific Northwest, was enough to carry Obama. A lively discussion of states, populations, the likelihood of McCain winning, punctuated with a rehash of A's date that night and a rousing round of the States Game (during which A learned that Cincinnati was not, in fact, a state), lasted us until almost 4 a.m., at which point, I interrupted the festivities with a shout --

"WAIT. CALIFORNIA'S ABOUT TO CLOSE."

"What does that mean?" cried a startled A, while J responded with a laugh and the porn comment.

"It means we'll know who the president is in maybe fifteen minutes," I answered. I had barely gotten the sentence out before CNN blasted their "breaking news" theme, blocked out all the graphics that had been up with a big blue screen, on which was written: "CNN PROJECTON: BARACK OBAMA WINS PRESIDENCY."

I am pretty sure you could hear our screams on the other side of the River. After we settled a bit, we flipped to BBC to see them announce it, then to ITV to see them tell Ireland that America had elected their first African-American president.

I can barely remember what happened after, except that we waited forever for McCain to concede, and when he finally did, his speech was so dripping with condescension that even if I had wanted him to win before, I was now certain that Obama was the one for the US. (For the record, McCain is not my friend, and he might as well have just said, "Thanks for letting the black man win for once. Way to go, guys.")

We didn't stay up to watch Obama's speech. It was 5 a.m. by the time I got to bed that night, and I watched the speech on YouTube the next morning. But even though we didn’t technically see it through to the bitter end, I feel like we truly lived the expatriate election to its fullest, early-closing bars and empty fast-food restaurants just being part of the whole experience.

(* Cartoon above courtesy of xkcd, an awesome webcomic that you should all check out. Above image is cropped: full cartoon can be viewed here.)