scraps and scribbles, PARTE DEUX

--Dear Leigh, if you're still reading this, I'm meeting you in 20 minutes for dinner. We will meet by Molly Malone, 'The Tart with the Cart' as my cousin gleefully calls her. If I'm lucky, we'll get to go to Salamanca the tapas bar for dinner. If I'm not, we might end up at...That Place again.

--I'm back in Dublin after two and a half days in London. English prepubescents are just dreadful.

--Ireland is full of an immigrant Polish population who've come to work in the booming economy. This reminds me of Under the Tuscan Sun, when the Poles are the laborers who fix her villa up. I refer to this as factual evidence of a massive Polish diaspora. My mother calls me on this. I sulk.

--Maybe if the Irish gave corporations incentive to write advertisements in Irish, it would prompt a swifter increase in Irish language usage. At the moment, it's not looking so good.

--Britain is a funny place to fly out of. I think Stansted might even be more multicultural than Dulles. It's also kind of ugly and fascinating to fly over, and is definitely very smoggy. I haven't flown out of such a dirty area since I left L.A.. The napkin I used to wipe perspiration (or, rather, 'a glow') off my face came away dirty, which has never happened to me.

--The weather in England has been far superior to that in Ireland, except for the flooding in Sheffield and Hull.

--Ambre is very well, thanks for asking. She was in her element, surrounded by other socialists and demonstrators. The conference was fascinating. I'll talk about that later.

--On a rather sobering note, the US Army uses Shannon Airport as a transportation stopover for ALL of its international flights and shipments, including that of troops and armaments. A percentage of the Irish population are not very happy about this, as it technically means the Irish are no longer neutral, which is in violation of their constitution.

--There are indeed Irish people who do not know about The Boondock Saints. I'm not sure whether or not to tell them about it.