Day Three
Everyone slept late Monday morning, and we spent most of the day in the apartment, hanging out, unpacking boxes, etc. This led to B trying to teach me Irish--or at least pronunciation of Irish--and a lot of jokes. Listening to my flatmates attempt to pronounce Irish names that B wrote down was pretty damn amusing, especially when it came to the name
Daithí, the Irish version of David. B was explaining that
ds are often pronounced like
js in Irish. "Except Daithí because that would just be silly." You'll be, um, pleased to know that you have been immortalized into our private vocabulary, B. I heard Eric proclaim "that would just be silly" a couple minutes ago while I was typing this.
That afternoon we completed another important errand: taking B to the bookstore to get her Case hoodie. We got Lindsey a gift there, too, but I'm not allowed to say what it is because she hasn't gotten it yet. I'll just say that it was appropriate.
Jessica and Eric left midday for a camping trip, so it was only Mark, B, and I who made the trip to Coventry that night to eat at
BD's Mongolian Barbeque (which, B informed us, is completely unlike food in Mongolia. Not that we were surprised.) As an aside, I'd like to point out that the
first picture in their site's
photo gallery is definitely a picture of the BD's my family and I used to eat at when we lived in Michigan.
This photo, on the other hand, looks a lot like the Cleveland restaurant.
Dinner was pretty good, even though they've changed the place a lot since we went there last. We freaked the waiter out a bit, I think, when he asked us what we were studying and we answered that we were studying medicine, computer science, and aerospace engineering. Light topics all around, as I like to say!
After dinner we popped in
Big Fun for a little while. That place never ceases to be filled with the most bizarre, eclectic mix of stuff. We're talking everything from
Futurama paper dolls to Jesus Christ action figures. I picked up a couple of figurines from
The Nightmare Before Christmas for my sister's birthday, and B got several copies of one of the most bizarre guidebooks I've ever seen. If I remember correctly, the title was something along the lines of
The Gay Man's Guide to Heterosexuals. "Do you think they'll think I'm odd if I buy three copies?"
As we walked home from the Greenie stop, we had the greatest B moment ever. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk with a perplexed look on her face and asked, "Is the telegraph pole deaf?" Sure enough, the sign hanging on the pole says "Deaf person", not "Deaf person in area" or anything like that. I imagine it was one of those moments that's funniest when you witness it, but I can't help but laugh when I pass that pole now.
Most of our evening was spent sitting on the floor of the Greyhound station waiting for her 12:40 bus to NYC. We spent our time discussing places we'd been and places we wanted to go. Unsurprisingly, she's got me beat on all places-we've-been accounts except one: I've climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, and that's still on her list. Maybe I'll be insane one of these days and go climb that mountain again. (One of the reasons I actually made it to the top was that I swore I'd never climb the rest of it over again, so I'd best get to the top the first time.) Eventually, the time came for B to get on her bus; I was sorry to see her go.
My flatmates apparently felt the same. Everyone has said at least once that they wish she'd stayed longer. Or, in the terminology of my flatmates, "We should have kidnapped her and forced her to stay." So, basically, you're welcome back any time, B. Thanks for coming!
As a final note, the pictures I took during B's visit (including photos of my flatmates) have been
posted.
Time for number 2 in important backlogged entries. This one concerns my lab's trip to the incomparable Cedar Point the week before classes started (i.e. August 24). Being a rollercoaster and zero-g fiend, the three years since I'd been there were far too many. The park wasn't too full and wasn't too empty, which means we got a lot of riding in, and I was thoroughly exhausted when I made it home after midnight. My ride count, with links to each ride's official page, stands thus:
Sunday was concerned entirely with moving, which is why we tried to hit the major sights on Saturday. Among innumerable trips between the north and south sides of campus, B and I had a few moments where we could just hang out and talk. Waiting for the moving company the university hired to bring a lot of our stuff left B and I sitting out on the front steps for quite awhile. It was a gorgeous day, though, and neither too hot nor too cold, so we didn't mind much. We listened to Burn the Maps (from 
Toward the end of the day, as we worked to get the last of the things from Southside to Northside, I received a comprehensive lesson in modern Irish history, particularly with respect to the conflict between the Republic and the North. Even with only that little bit of insight, I probably qualify now as one of them most knowledgeable Americans in existence on the topic. Frightening, but probably not too far from the truth.
The only way to follow up such a long and tiring day of moving was to head to 
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