I'm sorry, what?

So I promise to write a flowery, poetic and inspired (and probably rather purple) post later today about Rome, my last day there and my general thoughts and ponderings on the city. Cross my heart and hope to die.

But just a few things before I leave for class:
I have had the hardest time understanding Irish accents in the past couple of days. I mean, my professors are all perfectly understandable. Maybe it has something to do with lecturing and the lifestyle of the academia and all... but everyone else has just been ridiculously difficult.
Maybe it's because I'm having actual conversations with actual Irish youth for the first time in the two months I've been here (honestly, it's like I'm living in Little America up in here...), maybe it's because I just got back from Rome where it took me three days to get a handle on the language again and now I'm phasing back out of Italian/English and into Irish/English.

But whatever it is, it's ridiculous. I mean, do you realize how much longer a conversation is when you have to say "Wait, I'm sorry, what?" after every other sentence? Or how hard it is to keep the continuity when, after asking "what?" three times I still can't understand the statement and so just nod vaguely and smile.

Then again, I could just be distracted and hard of hearing because I'm pretty sure I had a similar conversation with a girl from Minnesota yesterday.


...hmm... maybe there's a bit of a hitch in my master plan of listening to loud music while I'm young and then taking advantage of the advanced hearing technology that will develop by the time I get old...