Galway and last days in Dublin

Galway was amazing. It's a couple hours west of Dublin and is home to a small, artsy, college town. We went there for the Galway Arts Festival. Unfortunately, a lot of the shows were sold out, but we did get to see many street performers and street bands. There were these really cool street performers with puppets from Belgium that were amazing and could rival Syracuse's Open Hand Theatre. I stayed in this really cool hostel in a twelve bed co-ed room, where I met two French girls, one hot Australian guy , one really hot Brazilian guy, who was also friendly and was flirting with me in bad English. If only I knew Portugese, like in Love Actually. There were also two people, a guy and his girlfriend from Switzerland. They gave me the heads up on Switzerland and said that Bern is very beautiful.
We had amazing fish and chips. There was also this really awesome market in the morning that we went to where they had open stalls of everything from jewelry, clothes, fruits and veggies, a crepe food vender (yum!), Indian, Middle-Eastern, fresh juices, etc. I loved it and bought a bag there made out of hemp and silk, because sadly, my birthright bag died. And there was some cool Celtic jewelry and Galway glass. Galway is famous for its woolen sweaters, but I couldn't afford them, unfortunately. The night of the first day we arrived there was the premiere of the last Harry Potter book, so up until midnight, the streets were also packed with Harry Potter fans. I saw two kids wand dueling. It was pretty intense. I ended up buying later a copy of the book in Dublin, because it's cheap here and it has Anglocisms in it. I know Aunt Laurie just got an American version for free, but we can have both. The British version is a lot smaller in size than the American version, for some reason. So it's not that heavy to schlep.

The last few days in Dublin were hectic with papers, but they were also bittersweet. I started wishing I could be here longer to see all the things I didn't get to see. Maybe a family vacation or a group reunion will happen in the near-distant future? Hopefully. And Kilby, my roommate, said she might be able to come down from Toronto to my seder and see Esther's fashion show. Everyone here wants to meet Esther, lol, between the whole twin thing and the fashion. She's famous with her skills and fashion saaviness with all my friends, and she hasn't even met them...Hehe, I bragged a lot about you, Esthi. Anyway, I gotta go to bed, was up late packing, and have to get up early to go to the airport, but thanks for reading my blog. I'll try to update at home on my post-Ireland adventures in London, Switzerland, and hopefully Paris, if I can contact Laurence and if she's available.

Cheers!
Hannah

Glendolough

Pics: Top is picture of the valley where some monastery/church ruins are located. Bottom is a very old book that St. Kevin was supposed to have written.

Before I mention Glendolough, I should mention an adventure that happened right before it. My friends Liz and Kilby and I went into Dundum village one night for dinner, and we ended up going to this tapas place, Buena Sera. It was really good, but the best part was the really hot, newly arrived Spanish waiter. He came over to our table when we were finishing and asked us if we could teach him English. His English was broken and he wanted to improve. He was looking at Liz when he said this. Liz is very pretty and gets hit on a lot here. I think he wanted more than just English lessons from her, hehe. So, of course we couldn't communicate with him, and I tried remembering my Spanish from highschool, but blanked out. Needless to say, David, our Spaniard, gave us his number. He was actually genuine about wanting to better his English, because he kept on saying he wanted to. So we might go back another night and practice English with him.

Okay, onto Glendolough, last weekend's day trip. Glendolough is a small village and hour and a half southwest from Dublin. It is home to St. Kevin's monastery, or at least the ruins of the monastery. Apparently, St. Kevin is very famous among Christians and this is actually a pilgrimage site to go to. There's a museum with all the information. Outside of the village is a cutsie little town Bray, which is very intriguing. Anyway, the funny aspect to this story has to do with how my friends Liz, Kilby and Simone arrived, with Martin (Roper). I took a bus and they took a car (I couldn't go with them because there's a law here where only three passengers can ride in a car, because there are only three seatbelts. So it was my former writing professor (for the first three weeks) and three friends. Well, needless to say, even though I had to pay for my ride, I definitely had the better of the deal with the transportation. My prof, who is a Dubliner, took a wrong turn and they ended up back in Dublin. He's just like you with directions, no offense. But it did make me laugh at how a native Irishman got lost. Anyway, I arrive and call them and they say they are back in Dublin and are still coming, but now an hour and a half late. So I bought a ticket for the museum, looked around, had some lunch, and stayed in the museum to eavesdrop on the French tour group, to see if my French was good enough. The tourguide was speaking a little too fast for me, but I was able to get phrases and words here and there. I withheld the monastery part so that I could see it with my friends. Meanwhile, while I'm eating lunch and enjoying the museum, my friends and Martin are getting pulled over by the Garda (police). They drove up to a checkpoint station to ask for directions and were caught with an uninsured car (in his defense, Martin was driving his friend's car), uninsured driver, and three foreign, uninsured (Irish uninsured) passengers. In short, to be uninsured is highly illegal here. I couldn't help but laugh, because not that Daddy is uninsured, but this is the type of thing he would do, no offense. It's a professor thing.
When they finally arrived, we went to meet a friend of my prof's who lives in the only privately owned house left near the monastery. (We ended up not being able to see the actual monastery :o( ). But it was still cool because this guy built his cottage from scratch. Yep, the gorgeous cottage, which has a B&B attached to it, by the way, was built by this guy. It was incredible. He has a cottage and B&B that overlooks the valley, a lake, and just miles of landscape. He built his own greenhouse and has an immense strawberry and cucumber patch. I was blown away. These people had a cottage, that they built out in the middle of nowhere, and it was so peaceful. My friends and prof took off down one of the trails and walked around the lake (the prof's friend had to cook dinner), where we saw the cave that St. Kevin used to live in when he was a hermit. I was snapping pictures and wishing I could live there. A perfect place to write. We all wished we could live there. Except for the frequent rain and midges, this place was perfect. You would've loved it. It was a nice escape from the city. And on the way back on the bus, an old Irish man was sitting next to me and I found out that he was a writer. It was pretty cool.

Anyway, hoping to go to Galway this weekend, so I have to pack, but tune in for more Irish adventures.

Love,
Hannah

Go team, go!

This Sunday, while most of Ireland was closed and in church, I went to a semifinals Gaelic football and finals hurling game. It kind of reminds me of people skipping synagogue/church to go to an American football game back home on...Not going to mention any names, but you know who you are...Anyway, Gaelic football is different the regular European football, because you can not only kick the ball, but catch it or throw it with your hands. This creates a higher scoring game and more teamwork. In fact, there was so much teamwork that I was wondering if we could somehow get Irish sportsman to go over to the States and tell the American sportsman that teamwork is actually better for the team, and you win more often that way. Nobody tries to hog the ball or show off their individual skills.
Meanwhile, hurling is a mixture of lacrosse, baseball, and violence. The football was violent, some people "accidentally" tripping others, but in the hurling game, people hit each other with their sticks like barbarians, in a stylized manner, of course. It's very fast paced and the stick doesn't have a net, but a large pad. I saw a man catch a fastball with his bare hand. In both games, there were various medics coming onto the field a lot, while the other players (unless it was a grave injury) continued playing as if they didn't notice a man down and a doctor with a medical bag in the middle of the field. I guess this isn't like the army--people are left behind. Meanwhile, in the stands, people were civilized and fans of opposing teams sat next to each other. Even though Ireland is the drinking capital of Europe, at the stadium, people didn't seem to be drunk, as they realized they could focus on the game better when sober. And it didn't hurt that the President of the country was there for the hurling finals. All in all, I had a good time...almost.
I found out that stadium food is bad for you no matter which country you buy it in. After everyone else said that their hotdogs tasted unusual, I chose to have chicken nuggets and fries instead. The fries were bland, so I fed most of them to the pigeons. Twenty minutes post-meal, I started feeling sick and so did everyone else. I tried to hold out for the game, but during the last ten minutes (they actually follow the time here for games), I couldn't hold it any longer and had to rush to the bathroom to get sick. Missed the end of the football game. Then, in the middle of the hurling game, I felt sick again, and let me tell you, getting sick is hard work, because I was pooped afterwards. I could barely keep my eyes open and since some other people wanted to go home, I went home with them. It was pretty obvious that one team was going to win anyway, since they were up by so much.

My embarrassing story of the weekend:
On Sunday morning, I woke up at 5:00am and I was extremely hungry. So, I went to the kitchen and ate the following, by myself, too embarrassed to show myself to a roomie in the living room: three slices of turkey ham, a carrot, three teaspoons of peanut butter, two small yogurts, and an apple, I think. It was pretty unusual.

Other than that, life's the same here, including the weather, which hasn't gone over 65 the whole time here. Usually it feels like the 50s. And we're far north, so our days last really long. Anyhow, I have to go to bed, but talk to you later!

Cheers,
Hannah