Farewell dinner.

I regret that this entry doesn't contain any particularly stunning images. The weather this week has been quite disagreeable and I have spent most of my time sitting indoors looking forlorn. Oh, and reading.

On the whole I've been extremely distractible; I'm gearing up to leave in a mere five days. I haven't been bringing my camera with me (again), although this has been in an attempt to protect the books that I've been reading. They get beaten up rather badly by the presence of my camera and it makes me feel bad.

With the weather being rainy, windy and finger-freezing, coupled with my linear focus on my departure to LA this Friday, I've hardly spared a thought for blog content. Truly any photo thoughts have been dedicated to what my entry will look like next Sunday once I'm in LA with Andrew. Expect self-portraits of me smiling.

All of these factors combined couldn't completely halt the flow of, 'but what about this week's post?' thoughts. And so, as a better than nothing entry, I present cell phone images of last night. These serve as a documentary of the lovely evening I had with my co-workers. I believe I have referred to them as Philip and Aurora in the past, so I will continue to do so.

Bummed I only get one dinner here, but it was a spectacular one!

On Tuesday of this week, Aurora and I simultaneously asked one another if the three of us (three being Philip, but he wasn't present at this time) wanted to have dinner Saturday night. What a serendipitous moment! I told her that I loved Italian food, and hadn't forgotten that she mentioned there was a great place in Salthill called Da Roberta's. So she made a reservation for seven p.m. Saturday (last night) :D

The menus impressed me.

The three of us proceeded to have a wonderful time! Da Roberta's was a nice Italian place, crowded and friendly and a little on the expensive side. The two of them insisted on buying my meal, which was incredibly nice of them. The whole night was quite leisurely; we ate slowly, had plenty of conversation and even bought dessert!

I'm going to learn to make bruschetta. 

I had quite a bit of fun poked at me from them, seeing as I'm a very plain and simple eater. The menu was rich, varied and intricate. While looking over the options I thought of how many people I knew would revel in the decadence, and really I just wanted something simple :] I teetered briefly on ordering a pizza, but in the end decided on lasagna. I also had some spectacular bruschetta. It was worth feeling like vomiting afterward.

Huge fancy plates!

Dinner culminated in dessert, which I already mentioned, and that very rarely happens for me. When we entered the restaurant I saw the dessert case and spied a particularly succulent looking piece of chocolate fudge cake. It was at that moment that I decided I needed to order a dessert, no matter what I had for dinner. Once the dessert menu was looked over, I became super excited because I saw that they offered profiteroles.

This lasagna was amazing.

I have never had profiteroles, but I've wanted to try them since last summer. There's a scene in Half-Blood Prince where the characters are eating delicious looking desserts, and I assumed that it was vanilla ice cream covered in chocolate syrup. I was informed that they were, in fact, eating profiteroles; a French dessert consisting of puff pastries filled with cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup.

Aurora's seafood pasta had a teeny tiny octopus. T_T

They. were. amazing. One of the most satisfactory desserts I have ever eaten in my life. I hope I find a place that serves them in LA. I don't imagine that should be too tall of a request.

Profiteroles as they were presented to me.

Covered in chocolate. I went to take a picture of the empty container after I had 

devoured all of them, but the waitress took it away before I could!

After the hefty and excellent meal, we took Philip's bike to Aurora's house so that he didn't have to chain it up on the street, and then we went to have a drink at a place called Oslo's. At least I'm pretty sure that's what it was called. The rest of the evening was just as pleasant and enjoyable as dinner was. After one drink we went across the street to an 'amusement center' consisting of a large-ish arcade and a casino. Philip really wanted to play pinball (he kept singing 'Pinball Wizard', which was fantastic).

We played the middle Spider-man one.

We played head-to-head pinball, well I guess technically head-to-head-to-head (ha!) and Philip won by a rather large margin. I, in turn, lost by a rather large margin. *shame* But that's OK! Afterwards Aurora and I played two rounds of air hockey and we both won once. I love air hockey so much! Philip had a bad run-in with a busted Guitar Hero machine, and then we all played a game of pool.

You can see Aurora's arm there. Yay pool!

Unfortunately, I caused a spectacular loss for Aurora and myself. It had been an extremely long time since I'd played pool (I really can't remember the last time) and it was a sad show. The loss was entirely my fault, seeing as I sunk the eight ball while both teams had two balls left. Ah well. It was still fun!

The night ended with a few more drinks back at Oslo's and continued fun conversation. It was great to finally get an evening out with my co-workers who I have spent the last three months with. So, in that tiny way, this entry is slightly relevant to my photo life. Ha!

-MJ