Shopping, conversation, and my digestive system

It's been a week of ups and downs - in reflection, I think the ups have outweighed the downs, and the weekend is just coming up! Not a bad effort. Things started well last Saturday as I decided (in a very non-Lucia-like manner) to go shopping. I needed a new pair of jeans really badly, as my current ones were starting to look quite ridiculous. Thankfully I found a pair in the first store I tried, so the pain was over and I could enjoy the rest of the shopping excursion. And enjoy it I did. I found this absolutely fabulous retro vintage shop selling original clothes, accessories and furniture from the 60s and 70s, all at reasonable prices! They had this awesome clock, some cool glasses, and some fabulous purple flares, among piles of other cool stuff. When I have money I am so going back there and buying everything not nailed down.

Next up I found a second-hand St. Vincent de Paul type charity shop, in which I bought a t-shirt for 1 euro (bargain) and also something which I have been looking for for a long time - a badass (fake) leather jacket that actually looks good on me and doesn't have a million pockets, zips or other paraphernalia. Also a steal at eight euro.

Saturday night I painted the town red with Antonia and her friend Alex from work. We went to Q bar and danced the night away. We had an awesome time, but my good mood was short-lived as I woke on Sunday with horrible stomach cramps. These later turned out to be gastroenteritis (yay), but all I could do was lay in bed and groan, thinking, "Great. This is the day we decided to spring-clean the flat". Dragging myself out of bed at 1, we began the long and arduous chucking out and cleaning process. I must admit I quit half-way through when the others insisted I go back to bed and I wasn't really in a position to argue much. I put up with the gastro until Tuesday afternoon, when I finally went to see a GP (45 euro). She prescribed Buscopan and Motilitum, both of which I took and they proceeded to have no effect whatsoever. Modern Medicine: 0, Just wait until it goes away: 1. I did get Wednesday off out of it though, and can I just say what a difference it makes to have a day off in the middle of the week. Suddenly the time spent at work seems merely long rather than interminable.

On Wednesday at about 4pm, Maria rang and informed me she was having a barbeque that night, and to meet at the Spire at six. We bought a whole load of food and went back to Allan's place where about 10 of us proceeded to have such a great time that although I had promised myself I would be in bed by 10:30 at the latest, we left the house at about 1am. All we were doing was talking and listening to music, but there was a great vibe, and we had lots of fun. There was one scary moment when I accidentally ate some raw meat(it looked cooked, I swear!) but I didn't have a gastro relapse thankfully. To be honest I was more worried about the fact that I looked like a total idiot for eating raw meat than about my stomach. Shallow but true. Plus we arranged to go to the free "Ojos de Brujo" concert in Dun Laoghaire on Saturday, which is going to rock everyone's socks off.

You would think after that I would have a quiet night on Thursday, but no. I had invited Emily, the girl I met in Belfast, to the barbeque the previous night, but she couldn't come, so she invited me for drinks on the Thursday. I didn't know when she was going back to Philly so I gathered up what was left of my energy and went out. We met up with Alison, a friend of hers, and her boyfriend Sean (fom Donegal - coolest accent!). We chatted for hours and pretty soon Alison and I were fast friends - she's from Galway and she promised to take me there and show me all the cool places. I'm excited by the prospect but also because I'm finally making friends "by myself" - I mean, not through my flatmates. It's a pretty big deal for me to get over my shyness enough to even swap numbers with someone (ridiculous, I know, and at 23!). Then it took me almost two weeks to even get up the courage to text Emily! I guess I just feel like they'll be like, "Lucia who? Oh, er, I'm busy". Either that or we'll meet up again and have nothing to say to each other or nothing in common. But of course that's completely irrational and in real life I get on with most people like a house on fire, so if I just remember that, I'll get over this shyness thing.

Anyway so I went to bed after 1 for the second "school night" in a row - very, very bad. Today at work was ok, stomach pains nearly gone (after six days, about time). I didn't know how I was going to make it when I first got here, but I woke up a bit as the day progressed, and actually achieved things. I'm still at work now writing this (after 5 of course) but I'm going to head off now as (surprise surprise) it looks like it's going to rain. The weather's not too bad actually until I remember that it's summer here. Then I realise winter is not going to be much fun at all.

The concert tomorrow is going to be a blast. Fill you all in then. I just had a thought - what if it rains? My rain jacket so does not go with the outfit I planned to wear! Hmmm, better dig out the brolly.