kisses

I loved the time that I spent with Betta, and I am loving the time I am currently spending with Veronica, but my two roommates are polar opposites. 

Betta would be in her pajamas by 8:00pm and I couldn't get her to do anything no matter how hard I begged.  She was disinterested in taking tours during the day and she definitely did not want to go anywhere after dark.  She was a sweetheart, but more of a stay-at-home person.  She rarely left the apartment, except to go to work.

"Betta, come on!  It's Friday night.  We should be out dancing!"

"No!  It's too dangerous and too expensive."

Meanwhile, Veronica is never in the apartment, except to sleep.  She has such a vibrant personality and wants to do something in the city center every night.  I think that she has spent more time in pubs than in the apartment.  I have to beg her to stay home! 

"Veronica, I'm really tired after work.  I just want to go to bed tonight." 

"No!  You are only in Dublin once!  You can sleep when you are home, but in Dublin, we go out."

---I definitely need a balance!  Betta and Veronica are both wonderful friends who are amazingly sweet and friendly individuals...but they couldn't be more different.

I have been hanging out out a few nights a week with Veronica's language school friends.  The whole European kiss-on-the-cheek custom is getting very complicated.  To greet people, Germans and Austrians seem to side kiss only once, French and Italians do it twice, and the Swiss go for three!  ("Leave it to the Swiss---always wanting more.") 

Then, there is the matter of which side to go for first...many times, I awkwardly move to the same direction as the other person, but by the time you realize it, you are already half an inch from their face.  Then, you have to back up and go for the other side, but they are doing the same thing, and you wind up doing a cheek-to-cheek dance.

Saying hello is exhausting!

"How many kisses in America?" someone asked me.  "None!" I replied. 

Some guys could get in trouble for doing this sort of thing back home! 

On Friday nights, everyone enjoys going to Fitzsimons---a four story dance place at the end of the Temple Bar area.  Each level plays a different type of music: blaring techno with disco lights in the basement, acoustic guitar and soulful singing on the main level, pop music to get your eighties groove on in the middle, and an open air rooftop (which is set up mostly for smokers, but on a clear night, it is still wonderful). 

Recently, I've learned that, when a guy from Rome asks you to dance, then you should expect your personal space to be a little invaded.  And, when I say "a little,"  I mean A LOT.  Talk about getting to know someone---yowza!

We were in quite a close dance embrace to begin with, but then he started to nuzzle my neck.

"Okay, that's odd," I think to myself.

But I'm a little slow.  It took me a while to figure out what was going on. 

He starts to slowly move upwards towards my jawline.  Meanwhile, I am stretching my neck further away and squirming like an awkward turtle sticking its head out of its shell.  But, unless I was going to grow some extra vertebrae soon, these attempts were quickly going to become futile. 

I look to Claudia, my Swiss friend dancing next to me, and shoot her a plaintive distress signal, but she remains decidedly neutral.
Before he reaches my lips, I try to pull away.  "Oh Hey, Wow, would you look at the time.  You know I forgot that I have this pressing engagement to get to...so yeeeaahh, I'm gonna have to be going now. Catch ya later."
As you can tell, the adjective "suave" does not apply to me at all. 

I have been here for two months and I have barely met any guys, let alone a guy that I like enough to date.  Veronica has been here for two weeks, and she already has a boyfriend.  It must be something in the Italian blood (which was definitely not passed on in my genes haha).  But if guys are going to act like this, then I would rather be single!