Awesome things of the week

            This week at work, I had some pretty epic surprises. There’s another intern from America, specifically from Texas, who works upstairs with the CEO, Killian. Chloe leaves before me, so some of us decided to go out to lunch to hang out with her. It was nice because I hadn’t really got to meet her yet. Helena, Brian, Chloe and I went to what we thought would be a little restaurant that served fresh food from Ireland. We got inside and found it to be a ritzy little place, but it had really good food. I finally had ‘bangers and mash’ – sausages and mashed potatoes with caramelized onions – it was really good! My coworkers are really congenial people, they’re very easy to get along with and very welcoming. I really enjoy hanging out with them. I’m glad we got to do a group lunch as people usually tend to go off and do their own thing.

            Quite possibly the best surprise of the week happened at work. A friend of the organization, I believe the head of an African Irish society, dropped by to say hello. Not just say hello, but also to let us see the Olympic torch he had the honor of bringing through the city earlier in June when the torches made their way through Ireland!!!!!! HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!?!?!!?!? He let us all hold the torch and take photos! I’VE HELD AN OLYMPIC TORCH!!! Mind blowing!!! It was surprisingly light – it was fashioned out of two thin strips of gold with holes, thousands of holes. 8000 to be exact, as there have been 8000 torch bearers in history. It was top heavy because the gas can at the top where the fire was. Really – completely unexpected, but totally epic!! And then, just like that, he left so that his other friends could also see the torch. How amazing!

OLYMPIC TORCH!! OLYMPIC TORCH!! (and Arthur!)

Me, Ian, awesome guy with torch, Brian, Helena

            I’d decided to make cookies for my coworkers because they thought cookie only referred to chocolate chip cookies and they call everything else biscuits. Unfortunately, I don’t have an oven, but I was determined. After scowering through about 30 different no-bake recipes, I found one I could pull off and used some yummy things – chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal and coconut – how can you not like those?! Well, they turned out great, though they never truly hardened into cookies – was more like chocolate oatmeal but no one cared. In fact, I made a second batch for my fellow Cavs and we all enjoyed sticky goodness. But really, I had a very hard time finding baking things in Ireland – baking soda, cocoa powder (I had to buy chocolate to melt), wax paper just doesn’t exist, etc. It seems Irish people don’t bake often, which I find weird. But it doesn’t matter, it was a success!