Eire

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Now that I am out of Ireland, I'll make a short summary of my trip there, though the fact that I am using a French keyboard will keep it short. I left from New York and landed in Dublin, intending to stay a few days before moving on to France and West Africa, or wherever, though I stayed one month. First thing I noticed, of course, was the huge amount of cranes that now dominate the skyline of Dublin. The first few days I spend in any country are usually very silent, and I just listen, watch the way people walk and dress, and disrupt my own uniquely American traits, or at least try to. That was all I did in Dublin. I bought some clothes at a second hand store; since I hadn't brought any with me. I prefer Galway to Dublin though. Galway is the biggest city on the West coast of Ireland, and that is where I went next. I ended up spending almost 2 weeks in Galway; but the first visit lasted only 2 days. This was when I first became brave enough to go out drinking. I stayed in a hostel and walked to Salt Hill Beach down the way with a German boy and an Irish girl I met there and drank cheap cans of beer and talked about things. We went out listening to music and eventually met up with some Australians I'd met earlier, and I enjoyed getting a bit drunk and really enjoyed talking to a caustically gay Australian boy who shares my passion for international relations and being smarmy.
I had been shocked by how expensive Ireland is... not just the typical American € surprise, but India having been the last place I'd been abroad, it seemed really bad, and since what I was really interested in in Ireland was Irish culture, I wanted to stay with some Irish people(for free), so I tried to cash in on a connection... a good friend of my good good friend Jeanne, Marie, was in Ireland at that time, so I got her contact info and called her up... she told me to come up and I did. But first I stopped in Westport. I was in Westport again last night in my dream. It's a great town, and while I was there, I climbed Crough Patrick, a big hill(mountain) where St. Patrick fasted for 40 days and nights. Actually q good climb. It was on the face of this mountain I began to learn the realities of Irish weather. It was a beautiful sunny day, but as I was off clambering on some rocks on the side of the south face, freezing rain and sleet started pounding down. This was exceptional only in that it was the first time it happened.
I really enjoyed staying on Achill Island( that's where Marie lives). As soon as I got there Marie's sister Noreen invited me to stay with her in her spare room. Hah, I just thought of my experience there as great craic(pronounced crack) and figured I out to mention that possibility for miscommunication. Craic is Irish for 'fun', so if you ask someone if they had a good time last night, and they tell you that the crack was unbelievable, they mean that they had a lot of fun, not that they smoked high quality rock cocaine. This caused me some confusion at first, but it was explained to me quick enough. Irish language is really difficult... the people I met in Achill seemed more knowledgeable about the language than elsewhere, but the only place I actually heard people speak the language in an everyday context was Donegal... pronounced Don-E-gahl. I'm usually really good zwith pronunciation- spanish, dari, french, and even russian I figured out most pronunication pretty quickly, but Irish continues to baffle me. Noreen's kids, Graham and Chantel had a good laugh listening to me trying to read an Irish childrens primer.
Other activities I particularly enjoyed on Achill were going for drives with Marie, playing with her 22 month old daughter, Anoria, chopping down rhubarb with her 8 year old nephew, Howard, and sharing dead baby jokes with Noreen's daughter Ashleigh(speaking of that, I hope Noreen never reads this, because I don't know if she'd approve of me corrupting poor Ashleighs mind with that flith) and being brutally taunted for being American at every sentence by Chantel was entertaining. Irish food was really good too, though I don't know how healthy. Marie's mother was quite a cook. I especially enjoyed black pudding; savage though it may be. I don't know exactly what it is, but it involves boiling pig blood, though I prefer not to think about that. After a week on Achill Noreen and Maries friend from Germany came to visit, and things got a bit crowded, and I headed back to Westport. That was the week I went out drinking every night until Friday... loads of craic, and I met lots of interesting people from all over, but most importantly, Spain. I decided to save money by hitchhiking(much easier than in the US), and did some really spectacular walks through the Connemara and the Burren. Also went to the Cliffs of Moher, wow. I'm not usually much for extremely touristic things like that, but it's really incredible. Cant describe it really, just huge cliffs. Also enjoyed hitchhiking around, the highlight of which was getting picked up by a lettuce delivery man and getting dropped in the middle of the country side with my arms filled with lettuce to snack on. I also got picked up by one of Maries teachers from secondary school, Mr. O'keafe, who sent his regards along. So my trip was confined mostly to the West coast, and I think I prefer it that way... the west, as I understand, is more rugged than the east. I suppose reading all off this you should have the image of the typical Irish idyllic green fields with stone fences and lots of sheep, lots of old graveyards around ruined churches, and the occassional castle.
Friday night was a bit of a breaking point, I had been drinking between 2 and 4 pints of guinness a night while listening to good music(often Irish) and having a generally jolly time. Friday I met two boys from Cork, and we all resolved to get really drunk. We started by drinking 2 bottled of wine by the beach, and then added on to that at least 6 pints, plus I don't remember how many shots... but what a laugh... after antics at the bar(involving quite a few unfortunate girls who, if you ever happen to read this, I sincerely apologise to), we staggered back about 2, hungry, and the younger kid dumped at least 4€ into a hostel vendind machine trying to get taytos(chips) but drunkenly kept pressing the same button, and then threw started howling about the machine being broken until the night guard gave him a euro, which he used to purchase another one of the foul tasting candy bars he'd gotten in the first place by pressing '1' over and over again. He never did get those taytos... the night guard washed his hands of the affair, and after a few chairs were knocked over, I decided to as well. Just a note about alcohol... in Ireland I really have gotten to feel like a light weight, though in puritanical America I find myself constantly biting my nails about potential alcoholism and feeling guilty if I have three glasses of wine with dinner instead of one or two. And this afternoon with lunch; when I saw that my friend Emerics little sister, about 10 years old, was allowed a small glass of rosé, I thought about it. I don't know where I'm going with this... suffice to say I really enjoy being in Europe, especially on the continent.
The next morning I decided to opt out of saturday night drinking, and took the first bus to Doolin, in the country side. This is in the Burren; a really lovely area, and also where the cliffs are, I had a great time wandering around here, and I met a Catalonian girl named Marta who I really enjoyed spending time with, and who invited me to stay with her in Galway, where she is living to study English. I went back to Achill to say a goodbye to everyone, and went on tuesday to stay with Marta... my flight was on Wednesday, but I decided to skip it and stay for a week with Marta. With Ryanair, it's possible to do that, since my flight to Paris only cost €25. I really enjoyed spending that week in Galway, I don't know how to describe what I did, but I feel like it was there that I really began to learn how to dine. It's not that the dinner's we prepared together were elaborate, they were simple, but just the feeling, the anticipation, the beer or wine accompanying it. It seemed to me uniquely Spanish, but it was more than that. I think about the way I used to typically eat in America and I don't want to go back to that. Lunch with Emeric today, for example, lasted almost 3 hours, and consisted of small portions of salad, quiche, smoked salmon with bread and butter and lemon, rabbit stew with rice, a selection of really nice cheeses, sausage, an apricot tart and a fruit salad, with wine and water, and it wasn't anything special, just a normal meal. I'm glad to have a Parisienne friend this time in Paris, it's really cutting down on costs, not to mention being good fun. I met Emeric in Pakistan last year, by the way, and he invited me to come and visit. But anyway, I enjoyed going for walks, lying in the sun, going out drinking and dancing(though a fire thwarted or clubbing effort in Galway) and listening to music and meeting people, like Marie from Beaujolais(near Paris) who has now also invited me to come and visit when she gets back from Ireland. I also enjoyed climbing trees, looking at baby swans, and eatting mushrooms. I left Ireland with quite a bit of regret, but I know I'll be back, so it's no bother. I made so many invaluable contacts... wow. Okay, I should end it there, I've probably bankrupted myself with the internet, though I've gotten pretty good with the french keyboard in this session. To any regular readers of this journal, I recommend you subscribe... I looked at the list of subscribers, and it's really short, and instead of checking all the time to see if I've written, if you subscribe, you will get an email when I write. I don't know exqctly how you do it but if you look around on the site it should be easy to figure out. Okay, goodbye
Love,
Alex

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Photos

Dublin Skyline
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