Nollaig Shona Duit!

I am slowly, and not so surely, learning Irish. Nollaig Shona Duit means Merry Christmas (just don't ask me to pronounce it). The last two days have been so fun and relaxing, and also very Christmasy. My roommates and I have been decorating our apartment for Christmas. It looks like Buddy the Elf just moved in, considering all our decorations are made out of paper. We have a Christmas tree as tall as me, complete with ornaments, lights, and presents, we have a fireplace with stockings, and we even have a left over hand turkey dressed like Santa. After baking and cutting up a storm yesterday, we went out for a "last supper" with our CEA group. We started out with ice skating, which was so so fun! All my geeky rollerblading days paid off at last. After we were all tired and sore-footed (is that a word?) we went to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant downtown. There's nothing like living in expensive Ireland to make you appreciate going out to dinner! Not only did we eat to our hearts content, and a little more, but they put little Christmas boxes on the table. Inside were poppers, paper crowns, and those little New Years horn things. Needless to say, this kept us quite entertained. It's been so nice, I almost don't want to leave. But home sounds so good, as do my wonderful family and friends!