Hell in the Kitchen, Kitchen in the Hell

Kitchen is very interesting phenomena in student's life. For example in my accommodation, there is one kitchen for 16 people. 16 responsible, adult people, without their parents, but with cleaning responsibility on their own. So of course, there are some troubles coordinating all of the cleaning processes.
Kitchen is connected with common room. It is the place where all of the people from their single rooms have the opportunity to meet each other, to talk, to watch TV, to invite friends, have dinner together and just enjoy free time. So it is lovely place with huge potential. On the other hand, it would require us to keep it nice and clean for such usage. And that's a hard job :D.
Once a week a cleaning lady came, washed floor and surfaces, but to get to surface, she needed to take all of the clean and dirty dishes from all the 3 sinks and 3 ovens and put them on our dining table. There it kept piling and it took often whole week to make the table empty again. But in the meantime dishes were piling up also in sinks and then "cleaning lady" came :D. It was like Don Quijote is fighting the wind mills. Probably the only working system would be if everybody would wash the dishes immediately and also dry it and put back to place. But many people didn't have their own dish towel for very long time, including me and then the work ended with just washing dishes, but not putting them back in their place. That meant there were some clean dishes, but every newly washed dish was put on top of the old ones, which made them wet again and it kept piling up again. In the meantime there were still dirty dishes in the sinks, which weren't washed at all. When you wanted to cook, you needed to go through all of these piles and dirty dishes in sinks to find the things you needed to cook your dinner.

One of the smaller piles

Part of the dish pile is also fancy plant

Interesting strategy to do their dishes used by some was washing dishes, but putting them in place without drying them, or just putting them back into cupboards still dirty. Some people were trying to fight the desperate situation and sometimes wash at least few more pieces of dishes than their own. Others even washed everything in the kitchen, just to enjoy the place cleaned until next meal time came.  Well.. there was 16 different people, 7 different nationalities. And that means very different approaches to practically anything. And nobody wants to behave like mom of 16 adult people. So communication about our situation was not sufficient.
When I firstly came to my university accommodation, the kitchen was filled with funny pictures and memes. Like Martin Luther King saying "I have a dream that one day people will wash their dishes" and similar visionary pictures and quotes. That was funny. After few days and first complete cleaning by some anonymous savior whole kitchen was cleaned also from these pictures and we were just instructed not to be shame for our country and to behave like adults. It is sad that neither of these strategies was working. And it was getting worse and worse throughout semester. One of the worst days I took my parents for dinner to my accommodation. And it was a bit sad feeling, seeing my mom watching me to go through the piles, looking for pot, plates and cutlery, washing everything and only then starting to cook. My mom was really surprised we can survive this in long term and that we don't have problems with infections :D. What to say.. we are young and strong :D.

Motto of the day:
1. Martin Luther King had dreams.
2. Some of them were fulfilled.
3. Obviously it is easier to fight racism than dirty dishes.

What's the Craic? aka Pubs and Live Music in Belfast

The best thing about Belfast and generally Ireland is pub life. I will miss it so much! Firstly when we got to the city, we were of opinion, that we will find the best pubs by getting lost. And we found in a side abandoned alley a pub with definitely the cheapest beer ever - 2.5 pounds for Guiness. Normally it is 3.5 to 4 pounds per pint (130 to 150 czk). And on Tuesdays they have beer for 2 pounds! It was a little miracle. The Central Catholic Club, alias CCC is mostly filled with locals, older generation, very nice and talkative. Anyway, in all the pubs locals just start to talk to you freely and mostly it turns into very nice and enriching conversation.
If you would like to find a nice pub to go, I would recommend Cathedral Quarter. It is center of nice pubs, music and all kinds of art. Every year there is a Cathedral Quarter Festival, which is full of concerts, theatre plays and colours. The only problem with Cathedral Quarter is that it is really far away from university area and even if we would like to go there, there is too many great pubs on the way. There is lots of them and they have many things to offer. One of the main attraction of Irish pubs is live music. Another is that they are unbelievably cozy and comfy.

Cathedral Quarter life

One Irish friend enlightened me and told me that you know you're in true Irish pub when you feel like home. And I found mine in Kelly's Cellars and Fibber Magee's. Both in a city center, both with really amazing music. Kelly's Cellars is said to be the oldest continuously functioning pub in Belfast and you can feel that. There are old pots on the ceiling, funny cool old posters, the best choice of beers I found in Belfast. And the music is also the best, even though mostly it is not the Irish folk music I admire so much. On the other hand Fibber Magee's has plenty of Irish music and you can also dance. So we were there traditionally nearly every Thursday. After first beer some people there put aside their shyness and start to enjoy life. Often it ends with all the people in pub dancing and when Irish people dance, they don't care with who, so you are just still meeting new people. After a quite long dance with an older guy I received the most epic compliment ever. He asked me where I am from. So I told him I'm from Czech Republic. And he replied: "O' fock, I thought you're from Donegal!" Actually a day after St.Patrick's Day Fibber Magee's was filled with dancing people, but as the dance and talking went on, finally we discovered, the only survivors after St. Patrick's are Czech, Danish, Scottish, Belgian, Indonesian, Spanish, Serbian and one Irish person.

My beloved Kelly's Cellars

My favourite corner in Fibber Magee's where normally the band plays

The traditional Irish music is very specific, with lots of decorative additions to plain melody, which are dependent on the player himself. So in a way you need really great playing technique and creative soul to be good in Irish music. Traditional instruments are harp, tin whistle (flute), fiddles, bodhran (a drum), banjo, guitar and bagpipes. When you put these all together, the result is surprisingly cool. If you would like to listen to something more traditional and spontaneous I recommend Madden's Bar. It is nice, tiny place, really close to Kelly's Cellars. People just come there with their own instruments, play songs and drink beer.

Traditional Irish instruments

Madden's Bar

Just to make this post complete I need to share with you songs, which everybody in Ireland knows and any event is incomplete without playing these at least once. So enjoy and imagine whole pub singing out loud together with these melodies.

Wild Rover and Whiskey in the Jar - Irish classics of classics

Galway Girl and Tell Me Ma (also known as Belle of Belfast City - you know why this one is so much played in Belast :-P) - Songs to melt every girls heart

And my favourite song - The Lonesome Boatman played by the band we are going for dancing nearly every week. The young guy with bigger tin whistle looks like Spanish leprechaun according to a Spanish friend. Stylish poster of FC Celtic can be seen in the background.

Motto of the day: The true (Irish) pub is the one where you feel like home :)