It’s been another really long week. I finally got a little time to settle in (yet not quite enough time to write here more often), and it’s easier to get into a routine with classes going on. Sunday was the Ironman, which was really cool, though I got about an hour of sleep the night before, since all the Irish kids came into town that day and were partying all night long in the apartment across the hall from us. They’re crazy here. The students go home almost every weekend, so they party every night during the week instead. It hasn’t been that bad at our place after the first night, thankfully, but the roommates of one kid here were so wild that he had to move to another building. They were two girls who had apparently just turned 18. He said he woke up one morning and there was an uprooted bush in the middle of the kitchen table. Yikes. Anyway, the triathlon was cold and rainy all day, but we had fun. We got there a couple hours before it started, so we were hanging around the bikes and basically just collected the plastic covers off them once the triathletes got there. Once it started we were sent to the tent where swimmers changed into their bike stuff. All I had to do was stand at the entrance and point to where they could grab their bags. I also had to say “good job” every so often. The other girls in my group got the short straw, and had to actually help the people change out of their wetsuits into their bike clothes. So though I was cold from just standing there not moving for so long, at least I don’t have the image of several naked old men burned into my memory. After the race we got back and I crashed for like an hour, then there was an after party for all the athletes and volunteers. Everyone was so tired, but there was free food and drinks, so we all ended up going, and it was pretty nice. At one point I left the group for a second to get a drink and I ended up talking for almost an hour to a couple old guys at the bar who had been at the race too. Being from Texas is a huge conversation piece here. Not only does everyone know exactly where it is, but most people I’ve talked to have been themselves or known someone who’s lived there for a bit.
About an hour before the race started
Classes started Monday, and so far I really like them all. I’m in 2 English classes, one on Shakespeare and one on Theatre, then I have a class called “Society and Social Institutions of the Celts” which is really interesting. So far we’re just talking about kin groups and the how class system works. I also have a class called “Imagining Modern Ireland” which doesn’t actually start until tomorrow, but sounds promising. My last class is a 10 credit Irish language class, which I’m really excited for. In November that class is going on a field trip for a weekend to a Gaeltacht where they still speak Irish and we’ll have to speak it too.
Sculpture on campus
I went to the Galway Cathedral in between classes the other day. The church is huge, it had it’s own bookstore in the corner. The whole place was beautiful. The daily mass was only 10 minutes long, and half of it was in Irish, and for communion everyone went up to rails around the altar. The priest’s name is Peter Rabbitte, no joke. He must’ve had some parents.
There are a few types of pubs here. Some have traditional live music every night, some have a live band that plays cover songs of varying artists, and some are basically just clubs set in bars that play terrible dance music and are deafeningly loud and incredibly crowded. Of course the third kind is the most popular with people my own age, but finally a few nights ago some of my friends agreed to come with me to Taaffe’s, which is known for traditional live music, so I got to hear that for a couple hours at least before they moved on to the Quays, which had a live band playing more popular music, but wasn’t bad since they stuck mostly to classic rock. Actually the inside of the place was really cool. They had illuminated stained glass in parts of the floor, and they had an upstairs with the band on a balcony playing down to the rest of the pub.
Delicious fish and chips before the pub
Music at Taaffe's
Molly’s and my other roommate finally moved in on Saturday. He’s a first year so his classes didn’t start until today. His name’s Anthony, he’s from Limerick but he has an English accent because his dad is from London and that’s where they lived until he was six. He was a real help when Molly and I were going through the inventory checklist of the apartment because he could tell us the differences between dessert, tea, and soup spoons, he knew what the “hob” was (it’s the stove), and he knew how to work the electric kettle. He was blown away when I told him we didn’t have one at home. He’s really nice, and I talked to him for a while yesterday about some of the differences between here and home. The biggest two were the fact that people drink so much tea here and that they don’t like peanut butter. The other is the way college works. Over here you pick your major (module) then take only those types of classes, no general education classes, so they graduate in 3 years instead of 4 for most degrees. International students get to pick classes from any of the modules, so we have a lot more freedom with our schedules (too much freedom for me, actually, since I wanted to take about 10 classes and only had room for 5). Anthony says he’ll probably go home almost every weekend, like most of the Irish kids do.
On Saturday our whole API group decided to go to the Aran Islands for the night. We took the ferry over to the big island, Inis Mór, in the morning, and explored all day. The whole island is only about 9 miles by 3 miles so we rented bikes and rode all along the coast. It was beautiful there so I took it slow and saw about half the island, thinking I could see the rest the next day, but when I met back up with my friends for dinner they told me that a hurricane was coming in and all the afternoon ferries would be cancelled the next day. If we didn’t leave on the 8am then we would be stuck there until Tuesday. I had been thinking that the torrential downpour and gale-force winds were typical Aran Island weather, but with the reports of the hurricane we all agreed it would probably be best to leave early the next morning. We still had a lot of fun out that night at a pub who’s name I’ve forgotten, and at our hostel that had giant roosters and crazy stuff painted on the walls. Maybe I’ll be back again sometime.
Not the bar we went to
World's smallest church
Us inside
This one's for Gail
This morning I woke up to the sound of 90mph winds against the window, and got to walk straight into them the entire 2-mile trek to campus. Thank goodness there was no rain for once, because I’d have been caught like a kite if I’d had a raincoat on. Thanks for a fantastic reminder of home, Hurricane Katia.
This week I basically just have classes, then we’re going to Connemara for the day on Saturday, and I think the All Ireland Gaelic Football Final is on Sunday.
Here's a link to more pictures, I didn't want to bombard you with them all here.
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