Fancy Dress = costume

So the big fun this Saturday night is the Carndonagh Monster Truck Rally, which is actually not what it sounds. Rather, teams of three "kidults" race around the center of town (called The Diamond as it is diamond shaped) riding on tricycles in what everyone kept telling me was "fancy dress." I was gung-ho from the start, and even though I wondered why one would want to wear their fancy clothes to an outdoor race at night, I kept making a note in my head to go out one day and find a posh looking fancy outfit to wear. So last night I was mentioning to my housemate and her friend that I didn't have anything to wear for the event, and the two of them assured me that they had plenty I could wear - a hippie coustume, an Elvis costume, a cat costume... It was at this point that I began to suspect that something was fishy, and the connections began to leap together in my brain. "I'm going to take a wild stab here," I ventured. "Does "fancy dress" mean costume?" At which point they looked at me like I'd just asked what a potato was. Turns out, yes, the term "fancy dress" refers not to swanky posh outfits, but rather to costumes. And now I know.

Tonight is traditional Irish music night at one of the local pubs, The Persian. Trust me, I've had endless revelry and delight from the irony of traditional Irish music being played in a pub called The Persian. Most of the group that plays every wed. night are sisters of the two amazing women who own the cafe, and I got to hear a little of it when last I was here but it was late by then I was already a few sheets to the wind, so it'll be extra nice hearing them tonight from the very beginning and *realitivly* sober.

Yesterday was the first fairly nice day since I've arrived, and I thought how nice it would be to sit out in the sun with a book and get some fresh air and read. So after my shift eating cereal was over I wandered down to the local little bookshop and proceded to waste almost the rest of the day wandering around the shop, getting totally lost in all the great stuff they had that you don't normally see in an American book store. My quest to buy one book ended with me leaving burdened with the weight of ten, and the anticipation of many grey days spent by the fire with a cup of tea and my imagination. Always a dangerous combo.

And my last thoughts of the day have been about how strange it's been to basically pull up out of one life and replace it with such a similar one thousands of miles away. It's like a Twilight Zone episode. Everything is so oddly similar and yet so vastly different - even the weather! Like I've woken up in a parallel universe. Everything seems like a rough copy of my life back in Seattle, which, sigh, does not bode well for my love life! Ah well, at least I've got my books... and my poetry to protect me ;)