Back from Ireland

Ireland was fantastic. I have pictures posted on my Shutterfly site, but it is being obstinate and won't show the captions. I'm working on it. Here's a brief run-down of my time there:

Thursday: I got into Dublin late and took a bus to Galway. The drive was about four hours, but that's with several stops along the way. Driving straight through is closer the three hours. The hotel in Galway was lovely. A small guesthouse, very cozy. My room there was very comfortable, and there was even a palm tree outside the window! Ireland has an ideal climate for palm trees, it turns out. Especially in a small city like Galway, the effect is rather odd. It felt like Cape May meets Northampton meets Florida.

Friday: My main mission was to pick up my ticket for the concert. This meant going downtown. Wow! Galway is beautiful. My hotel was about fifteen minutes walking from center city. At first it was horrifying crossing streets. The Irish drive on the left side of the road and sit on the right side of the car. I kept looking in the wrong direction when I wanted to cross, or waiting for a car to wave me across the street only to look for the driver, puzzled as to why I couldn't see anyone. And oh! It's really scary watching a car turn and thinking, "Oh no.... he can't turn there.... that's the wrong lane.... shit shit shit.... don't crash... don'tcrashdon'tcrash!!" Once I made it, safe and sound, to the center of town, my breath was stolen. There is a river, the River Corrib, that runs through the middle of Galway and into a bay, and eventually the sea. And then the small cobble stone streets! And the rain! Did I mention the rain? I don't like rain, but in Galway it's unavoidable. It rains almost constantly, with short intermitences in which the sky clears and the sun shines. I wouldn't say that I enjoyed the rain in Galway, but it fit somehow. The concert itself that evening was scurmptious. As was the Guinness. :-)

Saturday: I spent Saturday walking around and exploring Galway. I would mention at this point that I am enamoured of the city, and can see a year abroad during MHC, but Jeanne already told me that was a no-go...

Sunday: My original plan for Sunday was to go on one or two guided tours of the Connemara countryside, but that fell through when I overslept. So, entrepid adventuress that I am, I stopped at a hotel downtown and asked the receptionist to recommend an activity for the day. She's from Limerick and suggested I take a bus down there. Nice city, good for a day trip, and the bus ride is about two hours of pretty countryside. Well... The bus trip sure was nice. There are small little stone walls held together by nothing but their weight, green hills and fields, cows and sheep and horses. Limerick was not as lovely. I was unimpressed and took the bus back pretty soon after, but because it was still light out, I got to enjoy the country side panorama again. When I got back to Galway, I bought tickets to go to the Aran Islands the following day.

Monday: I readied myself for my Island Excursion with rain gear. The forecast was, predictably, rain. And rain it did. Thank gosh I wore rain pants and a jacket, or else I would have been soaked by the time I reached the bus to Rosseveal, from where you get a ferry to the islands. In Rosseveal, the weather was still overcast and dark, but it had stopped raining. As we got closer to the islands, it became almost sunny. The sight of Ireland's coast drawing further away from us, the sky brightening, the rich purples and blues and greens... Wow. On Inis Mor, I ... drumroll please ... rented a bicycle! And actually biked, too! Crazy, huh? Me, voluntarilly *paying* for the privilage of riding a bike. I can't really describe Inis Mor. Beautiful. Old. Raw, somehow. I wanted to see all the famous things, especially the Dun Aonghasa cliffs and the fort. I couldn't figure out how to get up there, though, even with the maps. I saw where I needed to go, and I saw where I was and where the roads were, but somehow it just didn't work. So I spent the time biking and walking around the coast and further inland. I met a cat and a dog. That evening, back in Galway, I was far too tired to go out and celebrate New Year's Eve, so I watched reruns of Gaelic Football matches on TV. Gaelic Football is an incredible mix of soccer, football, rugby, and basketball.

Tuesday: Check out from Galway, bus to Dublin. Driving from Galway to Dublin is depressing. It starts out gorgeous. Those stone walls and green grass and animals... but about an hour and a half away from Dublin, the stone walls turn to wood fences, and then to chain-link. The grass turns yellow and brown and the animals are scarce. I was overwhelmed by this feeling of city. Big and dirty and impersonal. The only nice thing I saw in Dublin that day was the River Liffy, which runs right through the city. There are many bridges going over it, and at night they are all illuminated, making the river an ideal place to take an evening stroll. Anyways, the hotel in Dublin was a dump compared to the one in Galway. In retrospect, it really wasn't so bad, but it seemed like it at the time. On the plus side, it was cheap and safe, being located in the heart of the tourist-yuppie pub district. I noticed this a tiny bit in Galway, but in Dublin it was very widespread: security guards. Whether it was at a shopping center or at bars, they are everywhere. And not your elevator lobby security guards, either. Bouncer type guards. They weren't friendly, per se, but it made me feel very secure.

Wednesday: Walk around Dublin, especially the Viking/Medieval section of the city and Trinity College. I saw some of a rugby match at Trinity, but compared to Gaelic Football, it was boring. When I went back to the hotel, I noticed two things: 1) across the street was the Irish Film Institue, which was showing All About Eve, and 2) down the street was a Quaker Meeting House, which meets twice a week - Sunday morning and Thursday evening. So I bought a ticket to the movie, and made plans to attend meeting the following evening. All About Eve was wonderful and creepy and oh-so-good.

Thursday: I made my way down to Saint Stephen's Green. The weather was perfect: sunny, warm enough to sit outside. I sat and read for a while, and just wandered. The meeting that evening was nice. The room was small - it wasn't a meeting house, exactly, but rather a floor of a building with a meeting room and a small gathering area, etc. The benches were the same dark brown as the benches at home, and the carpet! The carpet was exactly the same as the carpet at Cherry Street. It was surreal. I felt myself slipping back into 14 years' worth of memories of Meeting. There were about five regulars there, and two other visitors. One was a student from Croatia, and the other was a young woman originally from New Jersey. She was very interesting. Talking to her, I felt like she must have walked out of a movie or a book. She was so... different, in a Luna Lovegood way. Very unique and dreamy and unattached to "normal" concerns, or at she interpreted these concerns differently than others would. Let's see... she comes from a small town, and loves music. She always instructed church music, and went to school for that. She decided after college that she wanted something new, and looked online for church music instruction positions available in Ireland. She found one in Dublin and moved here, about three years ago. Then, she fell in love with her boyfriend, but sadly lost her job and had to move back to the States after two years. Now she's back, on a holiday visa, and is looking for a job while living with an Indian family. She had to get a bus after the Meeting, so I walked with her. We walked past O'Connell Street, and she took me to get te best doughnuts in Dublin, made fresh right there. It had been raining, but it turned into this snow-rain. Not what I had wished for when I said I wanted to see O'Connell Street in the snow, but it was simply magical. I couldn't have wished for a better end to my stay in Dublin.

Coming back to Germany was a shock. It had snowed there, and the people are so very... German. It was deflating to return.

I want to learn Gaelic. It's an odd language, so unlike anything else. I heard it a lot in Galway and on Inis Mor, and I miss it. Compared to it, German is much prettier, but very plain. Gaelic wasn't ugly, but not pleasant, either. I still want to learn it. I'll be going back to Ireland at some point, I'm sure. I miss it a lot, even the Galway rain.