Ireland: Consume Me!

Greetings from the Emerald Isle! And that is definitely not a misnomer, let me tell you—green is definitely in abundance, even in January!

You'll be glad to know I survived the long voyage to Europe, I'm sure. Our plane was delayed for a few hours, but we eventually hit the runway...and then another one...and then the road (by bus) to get to Galway, Ireland.

It took a while for my brain to register that I was actually here...it was too unreal a concept to grasp, apparently! I can't even express how much this trip means to me...

As we flew into Shannon, I was originally surprised by how very plain it seemed...At first glance, from up above in the plane, it appeared to resemble any number of average, American cities. As the plane descended, however, I started to notice the little differences that made it so very un-American, and so irreversibly Irish; the cars on a bridge driving on the left side of the road. The brilliant green of the grass between stone fences, still verdant as ever in winter. And then I saw the sheep grazing right along the outskirts of the airfield, and I knew I'd stumbled onto something special.

We got onto a bus in Shannon, headed for Galway. I saw some of the Irish countryside, and it was lovely. Some impressions of Ireland, thus far:

So green! It’s even de rigueur for rooftops, it seems—as if Ireland herself simply won’t accept a thing if it isn’t spruced up with a bit of green, and therefore feels the need to place moss, lichens, and clover into every nook and cranny. Even gutters seem more ornamental than functional; a sizeable amount of those I’ve seen had sprouts growing in them.

And I love those moldering stone walls! No mortar, rarely completely straight, and very rugged and reminiscent of ages gone by. Apparently when Ireland was first made ready for agriculture, those rocks were pulled from the soil and, for lack of a better place to put them, they were stacked and used as fencing material. Now that’s being resourceful!

The driving, in my mind, doesn’t seem as difficult to grasp as one might think…Granted, there were a few harrowing moments in the tour bus on that narrow, winding switchback road to the Burren…but I’ll save that story for a bit later.

The Irish are definitely not afraid of color, especially in their architecture. It’s completely acceptable to have a purple house with hot pink trim. Why not, right? The tacky colors give the row houses a cheerfulness that beige has no hope of attaining.

And why have I generally been under the impression, until now, that walls in houses ought to be straight and flat? They certainly don’t necessarily think so here; and in fact, I rather prefer the curvy, textured variety.

In fact, I love pretty much everything I’m seeing. There’s an oldness here unrivaled by anything in the states, yet it’s still bursting forth with newness and life. Here, I can see an immaculately maintained garden, obviously toiled over for hours, fenced in by rickety, rusted gates that seem to be falling apart at the hinges. Ireland, to me, has perfected a unique blend of quaint, cozy, slightly shabby, and dignified—combined, it is utterly charming.

And that's not even saying anything, yet, about the people! My first impression of them: very smart dressers. I feel kind of un-put-together in comparison! But so far, the Irish have more than lived up to their supposed friendliness. When we first got to Shannon airport, we bought bus tickets to Galway, and the wonderful lady behind the counter offered to let us put our huge, unwieldy luggage in the back room of her office. And if you would have seen our luggage, you'd understand why we were so very thankful! After we left the counter, Laura said, "Wow, they really are friendly!" Ha ha! So there's a true-to-life stereotype!

So now it's time for the blow-by-blow of my trip. Perhaps not as exciting for the reader, but for sake of memory, I want to put it all down...so bear with me…

On the first day, we made it in to Dublin around 11, but stayed on the plane. We got to Shannon around noon, had a quick glass of water at the airport cafeteria, and bought our tickets to Galway. At the bus stop, we met our first Irish person, haha: a nice older lady who was quite talkative. That tends to be pretty standard, as we later found out! The bus took us through several small towns, with names like Ennis, Gort, Tully, and An Roathim, as well as some beautiful countryside. The trip had been long, and both Amber and Laura fell asleep for bits of the bus ride.

We got to Galway, and immediately started making spectacles of ourselves. Actually, we've become quite good at it. Laura even has a running tally of places we've made asses of ourselves, haha...no lie. The list is growing...

Anyways, the luggage was our problem on this particular outing. We had so much! I consoled myself with the fact that I wasn't just an overpacking tourist, I was moving here for 8 months. Regardless, we received some weird glances as we paraded down the streets, quite lost in this new city, with my bright red bags bouncing all over the brick roads. I refused to make eye contact with the locals. This would soon become my M.O. during embarassing moments...makes the humiliation much more bearable, haha!

So we found the hostel, Sleepzone, on Bothar na mBan. It's really nice here--very clean, comfortable, and modern. We spent the first night with 6 others. We met Steffe and Ana, two girls from Hanover, Germany. Steffe is studying in Belfast, and Ana met up with her here in Ireland for a little holiday—they are both so nice, and we had a lot of fun comparing notes on our respective countries. And we also met Mina, a nice, soft spoken girl from Korea, who has a lot of guts--she's traveling around Europe solo for 35 days! Later that night, three girls from Dublin checked into our room, but we didn't see much of them, since they were partying all the time.

So, children, it’s time for a story…I’ll now recount a humorous tale from the ongoing comedy which I lovingly call a life, haha. I’m entitling it “The Box Debacle.”

Alas, as I’ve explained to some of you, I brought about 80 pounds of checked luggage—which is well within the international American limit. European weight limits, however, are considerably smaller…as in 20 kgs. Which is bad for us, considering we have to follow these new limits on the second leg of our journey from Shannon to London. And so our brilliant plan was to ship the extra weight to our friend, Steve, in the UK from Ireland. We thought we could waltz in to the GPO, slap an address and some postage on our suitcases, or at least buy a box off them so we could send them that way…how wrong we were.

We first discovered that they wouldn’t take unboxed luggage…and then found out they didn’t have boxes for sale. So the lady at the counter kindly suggested we walk down the street to the 2 Euro store and ask the good folks of the storeroom if we could borrow some old boxes. (Mind you, we had huge, heavy suitcases with us this entire time.) So we did, and the woman there was exceedingly helpful. We did, however, feel like complete asses for taking up practically the entire back half of the store, taping together boxes (with their tape, which means additional mortification) while curious shoppers stared on (this was one of those instances where refusing to make eye contact helped me immensely). After the boxes were sufficiently taped up, we encountered the issue of getting said boxes to the post office…and the lady obligingly loaned us her two-wheeler for this task, just telling us to bring it back when we were done. Very trusting…

So Doyle and I carted her suitcase and three large cardboard boxes down the streets of Galway that night, much to the amusement of the Irish, no doubt. Stupid American tourists.

We made it to the GPO, only to find out they only took cash. And that they were closing in 15 minutes. So Doyle left me at the post office, frantically addressing the boxes and filling out forms, whilst she sought out an ATM machine. Fortunately, she found a bank of three on a nearby street. Unfortunately, all three were broken. By the time she returned with the sad news, I’m convinced everyone in the post office wanted to kill me. Especially that pinched-faced lady behind the counter who seemed pretty appalled by our antics.

Thus we could only mail out two of the boxes. And it was my unhappy job to carry the third back to the hostel. Again, no eye contact…

And of course, The Box Debacle, Part II: carrying that same damn box through the streets again, in the light of day, to the post office. And getting stared at again. Ah well, such is life, haha..

But anyways, back to the first night, after returning to the hostel:

That night we invited Steffe, Ana, and Mina out with us to eat, and ended up (ironically) at an Italian restaurant called Buona Appetito. The conversation at first was stilted, but we found our own ways to communicate--hand gestures work quite well! After we went to Murphy's Bar for a pint, and made spectacles of ourselves yet again. It was more of a local, non-touristy place, and we were in the back of the room, annoying everyone with the flashes of our cameras...

The first Irish pint was great, but honestly: I can't tell the difference! I've heard the Guinness over here is supposed to be different, but it seems exactly the same as it is in America.

We had a great time, though--very l'Auberge Espagnole-ish. I loved the cultural exchange. How small our world has become!

The next morning Laura, Amber, and I went to Paddy's for a traditional Irish breakfast. And yes, I did try the black and white pudding--not too bad! Most of the day was spent walking around town, down the River Corrib and up along Quay Street, taking it all in. We saw the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, where Christopher Columbus went to pray before embarking on his voyage to the New World. We stopped by the Spanish Arches, which were the old gates through the city walls. We took a seat along the quays and saw the Ancient Celtic Fork. Alright, that last bit wasn't quite true--we just found a plastic fork in the grass of the park, and thought the name apt. :)

Amber and Laura bought Claddagh rings, from the original makers. Fun Fact: The Claddagh was actually a fishing village, on the outskirts of Galway where, in days gone by, the Gaelic-speaking people lived. As the story goes, a man named Joyce, en route to the West Indies, was taken hostage by pirates and sold into slavery to a Moorish goldsmith, where he learned the craft of making rings. His freedom was demanded by William III of England however, and Joyce, despite attempts by his master to lure him to stay (with the generous offer of his daughter) returned home to Galway, and promptly started making the unique rings we wear to this day...

We also saw the Lynch window memorial where, in 1493, the mayor James Lynch Fitzsteven hanged his own son for the murder of a Spanish man. There is now a skull and crossbones carved out of stone in that very spot.

We stopped at Sonny's, in the Front Door Bar on Quay Street, where I had Guinness for lunch...great atmosphere. Absolutely bustling with people. Took a few more turns around Quay Street, and after a brief stop at the hostel, went out to Tesco's for groceries in the rain. How I wish I'd brought an umbrella! Although it wouldn't have done me too much good, with all the wind.

We searched for a pub to stop in at, and ended up at Taaffe's, where we ran into Mina and some good luck—a session was set to start in a bit. So we sat it out over a few pints, but as the time passed the crowds grew, until poor Laura and Amber were pretty much getting sat on...They each had their own admirer, though--the tall skinny one who must have had too much to drink kept stopping by the table to chat up Doyle—who couldn't understand half of what he said. Amber was being eyed by the pimply-faced kid at the table next to ours, but thankfully he never made it over to chat. All in all though, just looking around the pub, I noticed that as a general rule, Irish men are extremely attractive...or maybe I'm just biased! :)

We had to get out of the crowd, so we walked along the streets until we came to O'Connell's, right off the square. We met Padraig (read: Poh-rig), your stereotypical Irishman, haha...stoutly built, extremely gregarious and chatty, chivalrous as can be...and fond of Guinness. He's a chef at the Forster Court Hotel, and his two coworkers, both Pakistanis name Noman, were at the pub, too. We all got to drinking and talking, and when O'Connell's closed we headed off to Kennedy's. Having Padraig as a friend has an unexpected and rather awesome side effect: entry into all of the bars and nightclubs that otherwise might require me to stand in line until a bouncer deemed me fit for entry. At Kennedy's we had a few more drinks, and danced some. Afterwards, we dropped Mina back off at the hostel and the rest of us headed back to Padraig's apartment, where I played some guitar (it sounded horrible, I'm sure!) and visited some more. We left shortly though, and made it back to the hostel by a whopping 4 a.m. Yikes.

Waking up in the morning (at 9 a.m., no less) was not one of the easier things I've ever done. We had already bought tickets for a bus tour that day, and hit the road at 11:30. Let me tell you, kids, that taking a harrowing bus tour in the bouncy back seat of a huge bus down twisting roads through the Irish countryside while nursing a hangover and on an empty stomach is not a good idea. Do not try it. And that is final.

Despite our less than perfect state, the tour did take us to some interesting places. I’ve discovered I’m not much of a bus tour person—too confining by far—but I’ll admit that we saw things we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to see without hiring a car. We drove out to the Burren, an area of interesting rock formations caused by Karst topography, and the only one like it in Europe. Lots of thatched cottages were along the way, and we passed through Lisdoonvarna before we eventually made it to the Cliffs of Moher. Absoluely breathtaking. A strong wind was coming off the sea, and the climb to the top was long, but entirely worth it. Pictures do not do it justice.

On the way back we stopped in Doolin for lunch, a town known for its traditional Irish music scene, of which we heard none, sadly. It was a hurried affair, since we had to be back on the bus so quickly, and thus I didn’t have a chance to explore. But I’ll be back!

We also stopped a few times along the coast of Galway Bay, for photos. And I managed to slip and fall into the mud, making an ass of myself, during a stop at Dunguaire Castle, a 16^th century castle now used for medieval banquets in the summer months.

The bus ride back from Dunguaire Castle to Galway was a sleepy one for Laura and Amber, but I valiantly tried to stay awake for it. When we returned to the hostel, we took a much needed nap. After waking, we went to Couch Potatas, a cute little place that served (would you guess it?) potato dishes. After we met up again with Padraig and some more of his friends, including an interesting Malaysian kid who liked to wear Doyle’s scarf and Amber’s glasses. We also met Paul…perfect Irishman.  Tall, sort of scruffy, had a toolbelt from some work he did in the back of the pub earlier, and little laugh lines around the eyes. Also extremely nice and talkative, too. (Too bad he's a bit old for me, haha!)  He told me I didn’t strike him as being an American, which I was pleased to hear…made me feel like I fit in a bit! Amber left for the hostel early, but Laura, Padraig, and I closed down O’Connell’s, and headed off to Club 903, where we had instant entry, yet again, and I danced and had loads of fun. We had a later night than planned, and woke up really late. We went shopping for a bit, where I fell in love with a too-expensive-for-me coat at Marks and Spencer, and stopped in at Paddy’s Bar again for some Irish stew—best I’ve had yet. Who knows what tonight shall bring—but I have a feeling Guinness will be involved…

Love you all, and hope all is well with you!

Slainte!

Chris