Purely Pictures

At Blarney Castle, I dropped my camera and now the lens won't shut all the way, but the silver lining is that in the meantime, before buying a new one or fixing it, I am required to use my tablet for pictures, and it's really easy to upload to blogger. Here's some pictures from the Ring of Kerry, between Cork and Dingle. Enjoy!

Kisses, Castles, and a Free Day in the Rebel City

For your information about Cork, Cork is considered the rebel county of Ireland.  Dublin was England's second city of the monarchy, and within the walls of what was called The Pale (from which we derive the phrase, beyond the pale, for anything that is beyond the civilized Pale is too unruly and wild to be allowed.).  Cork City was the next biggest city, outside the Pale, and hence the true seat of power of the Gaelic Irish.  In a related story, Michael Collins, mentioned previously, is from Co Cork, and was considered a major rebel for his work during the Easter Rising of 1916.  Cork regularly threatens to succeed from the nation, and like Texas, it is forever plotting to do just that.

I woke up rather slowly after my long night with the revelers, and took a brisk shower to make it to breakfast with Dale, Lauren and Marnie, who were going to see some cathedrals and ring the bells of the Shandon church.  Breakfast was good, and I added the baked beans, which are not quite like beans I am familiar with at home.  They were good, but definitely not American.  Marnie got her food later than the rest of us, so we had to wait in the little parlor that smelled of fresh lilies until she was ready. 

The first stop was at the English Market, which is much like Pike Place in many ways.  It was a structure with many vendors, and lots of food and gift.  I almost bought a metal Guinness sign with the toucan that I like on it, but I decided against it (and, foreshadowing, that was a good idea to wait).  Since we had just eaten, we didn't buy anything, but it was nice to look around.  They had something called buttered eggs, which looked like regular eggs to me, but perhaps they have been marinated in butter.  I didn't ask, but I should look it up.

We ambled on to a giant and gorgeous cathedral built in the 1860s.  I took a picture of the map that describes the facade, and I think I got a few good pictures of it.  We didn't go in because it cost three euro, and we were saving our money to ring the bells in the other church.  We took a looping walk through a nice park on the river, before arriving at our church destination.

The organization of Cork is actually pretty cool, the River Lee splits and forms a little island, aptly called Little Island, where the city center of Cork is located.  On either side of the river and many suburbs of Cork, and we crossed the northern bank of the River Lee to get to the church with the bells.  We ambled through a few neighborhoods, and I can't imagine living that close to my neighbors, nor attempting to drive through the incredibly narrow streets of these suburbs.  In my mind, these alleged suburbs are much too urban.

We found our way to the church of choice, which was little more than a steeple with a place to sit behind it.  Inside, I found a model of the church made out of Popsicle sticks in the 50's.  We paid our four euro and took industrial earmuffs to make our way upstairs into the belfry.  We arrived at the top of the first set of stairs in the room in which we could pull the cords to play songs.  Several song options were suggested, and we played around with them.  It was hard to tell if we were really making music or not, because with the earmuffs on, we obviously couldn't hear much.  We proceeded onward and upward, into narrower and narrower, steeper and steeper, flights of stone steps, until we came to the place where the inner workings of the clock were available for view.  Further still, and we came to the actual belfry, which was full of actual bells and actual pigeons, and were able to pass through and stand on the top of the steeple.  I have a few panoramic pictures from up there, where you can see all of Cork City spread out in every direction.  It was a really remarkable place to be.  Very windy, but gorgeous.

On the way back to the B&B, I got a little homesick.  Dale and Marnie in particular kind of get on a roll with each other, and it becomes rather difficult to cut in.  Leta says that homesick days are most often day 8, 15, and 22, and it just happened to be day 8.  I moped a little, but got myself a sandwich, a coke and a smoothie, and had a little alone time, and that was just what the doctor ordered.

We met the whole group at 3:15, and took off for Blarney Castle.  Spoiler alert, yes, I kissed the stone, and no I don't care, and it was awesome.  Blarney Castle was incredibly cool, just because castles are incredibly cool.  All the halls and stairways are so narrow, I can't imagine how someone could have ever lived there.  And I don't know what practical use the keyholes in the turret walls could be, since the archers would have had to stand at points along a very narrow and steep circular stairway, where passing each other to resupply ammunition would have been near to impossible.  When you first walk in, you can see that there was once a wooden floor separating the ground floor from the second, because the fireplace is about 12 feet off the ground.

Well, those windy narrow stairs are very remarkable, and I wanted to document them, and that was when tragedy struck.  I dropped my camera down approximately four steps, while the lens was out and open.  All the internal workings seem to be ok, because I can look at the pictures on the card, and everything displays ok.  The problem is that the lens is not able to fully retract.  I don't want to just push it and break something worse, so I don't know what to do about that.  If I find a camera shop anywhere nearby in the near future, I'll see if they can take a look, but it might have to wait til I get back to the states.  My tablet is obviously bulkier (and it would be a SIGNIFICANTLY bigger tragedy if I dropped it), but it takes fairly good pictures and is easy to upload to the blog or Facebook.  Silver linings, people.

After some wandering in the gardens near Blarney Castle, and a disappointingly unopen Blarney House, we (my usual crowd) headed for the Woolen Mills.  Woolen Mills is a chain of all-Irish-product gift stores, but the one near Blarney Castle in Co Cork is the largest, a veritable Wal-Mart of Irish tourism.  I just about died in there.

Especially when I discovered that if I spent more than 250 euro, people, they would ship it to my house for free, and file the VAT tax exemption for me.  Since the store closed at 6, and we had to be back to the bus at the same time, I had about 25 minutes to ring up at least 250 euro of things.  $434 later, we are shaking with the enjoyment of a high-speed, unlimited shopping spree of fabulous goods.  It will still be exciting when it arrives, probably after I return home (between their shipping and US customs), so I will list my purchases:

I got two, 10 skein packages of new Donegal yarn (Donegal being the sheep farming capital in the country) in cream, and in tweedy grey.  A giant grey and cream wool afghan for the couch/my first apartment, Guinness t-shirts for Aspen and Chris (I figure the yarn is really a gift for Dad and Mom), I got Chris the pocket watch I had been eyeing at another store, an Ireland map 500 piece puzzle, one or two books of Irish music for piano, 6 Guinness pint glasses with the logo, a toucan bottle opener, a cream infinity scarf for myself, and a St. Bridget's Cross Christmas ornament to commemorate this trip.  I think that's it, so the surprise will be when it arrives.

Kerry and Mayo were having the rematch of their semi-final football match, so Gabriel was in Christie's watching the match.  When he was torn away to take us back on the bus, he put it on on the radio.  We piled in quickly, and arrived at the hurling match just after it started.  Leta got us in to an intra-county Cork match, and it was quite the nail biter!  I can't quite describe it as well as that first football game, but just to give you an idea, it is much like football except with sticks and a smaller ball, and oh my god, they catch the ball out of the air with their BARE HANDS.  Scoring is the same as football, and on the same pitch, so when they tied at 3-11, you know it was a good match.

(Apparently, at the end of the Kerry-Mayo match regulation time, they were also all tied up.  But you can't tie more than once, and it was the semi finals, so things needed to be moved along, so they played overtime until Kerry finally scored.  While we were at PwC in Dublin, Maeve, who showed us around, had said that Mayo has a curse on them.  They have been a very good team for a very long time, but they keep getting to the semi finals or so, and then they lose dramatically.  She says the curse started 30 years ago, the last time Mayo won, when they drove their team bus past a funeral procession and didn't stop celebrating as they passed.  They haven't won an All-Ireland finals yet.)

We were on our own for dinner, and Lauren and I, after seeing that no one had any idea what they wanted or where to go, got food at a local grocer (more like a gas station, but not near a gas station), and grabbed some bits of food there.  We both decided to get some Ben and Jerry's cookies and cream long before we had decided what to eat.  She got a bunch of fruit, and I got a sandwich, and interestingly, they put hard boiled eggs on their ham sandwiches in this country.

After that, it was fairly quickly off to bed, because everyone else was waking up at 3 am for the Huskie game.

Friday in Cork

Let's see, Friday was fairly busy, but it will take a minute to remember everything.

Alright, I'm ready.  So we got up pretty early and had a little breakfast.  With our B and B status, we got to have a full Irish breakfast for free with our rooms.  Mom didn't actually know what went into a "full Irish breakfast" so I will explain.  A full Irish breakfast includes two eggs made how you like, bacon (which is more like ham with the flavor of bacon), link sausages, black and white pudding, fried potato cakes, mushrooms with gravy, baked beans, a fried tomato and toast with coffee or tea.

So, that's a lot of food, and they keep giving it to us for free.  I had bacon and tea, and then we packed into the bus. 

(Interesting aside, we started having bus issues on the way to Cork, and it was making this alarm noise but nothing seemed to be amiss.  It was a great bus, with seats like a plane with fold down tables, and foot rests, and lights and air conditioner vents for each seat.  It was very sweet, and it had a bathroom in the middle of the bus (but we were required not to use it.).  Anyway, because it was making that noise, we got a new bus once we got to Cork, which was nice, but not as nice, and didn't have tables or foot rests.  Finally, today -- Saturday -- we got the bus we will probably keep, which does have foot rests, but no tables.  Curse the little tables!  I loved them.)

Anyway, we took off in our second bus for the Clonakilty Black Pudding factory.  We met with the execs, and talked about black pudding.  Apparently there is actually more blood in a rare steak than in black pudding.  The recipe is fairly heavy on milled oats and onions, as well as beef or pork, and some dehydrated beef blood in the black pudding.  It is mixed much like the surimi that we make from the fish protein at Westward Seafoods, so it was fairly familiar for me.  The spices are mailed directly to the CEO, Collette, who mixes them secretly according to the Harrington's recipe (which is a 1920's variation on the 1880's original family recipe).  Other than that, all that goes into the pudding is meat, oats, onions, spices, and some dehydrated blood.  Then it gets squeezed into either a plastic casing (which will last for a few months) or into a natural intestine casing.  They hand pack all the boxes for the sausages, and hand label the sausages that are in the natural casings because of their nonstandard shape and size.

It was fun talking to the executives, and they are looking to move their factory closer to the original butcher shop in Clonakilty.  The current factory is near Cork City.  We walked through their whole operation, which was incredibly small, considering.  I think some pudding might be made in other cities in the world, but I'm not sure.  The more interesting thing is that this Collette character is also the mayor of the city of Clonakilty, and she called up the model train museum to schedule a tour of the city and a trip to the original butcher shop.  Cause when you're the mayor, you can just do stuff like that.  The model train place was really cute, and the train ride was hokey but adorable, and it dropped us off right outside the original shop.  We talked to the butcher inside for a minute, and she gave us a bunch of canvas Clonakilty tote bags, so I'll be bringing those home, if anyone wants some.

For lunch, we all grabbed food at the farmer's market that was across the street.  I got a chicken and leek meat pie, and it would have been better if it was warm, but it was still good.  We had to hustle off to catch our bus (to get to our other visit), so we only had a brief conversation with some guys playing backgammon in the park.  It was cute, because when we said we went to the black pudding factory, and the CEO brought us over here, they knew her by her first name.  We had a moment to see the Michael Collins monument, because he lived in Clonakilty and was assassinated not far from his home.  He and Eamon de Valera were on opposite sides of the civil war (Collins was ok with the treaty with a few counties being in the UK, and de Valera was not.).  I think it was the British who assassinated him.

Anyway, we made it back to the B&B in time for a spot of high tea, and even though I didn't get to finish my second cup, it was quite tasty.  Lauren and Tanner, who I sat with, were both sick, so they were both appreciative of the tea, but not such sparkling of conversationalists.  We were slightly late leaving for Carma, which bothered Leta very much.  Getting to Carma involved winding through narrow streets in Cork, and we arrived at the back door, and had to negotiate our entrance.  Once we were buzzed in, and trudged up the stairs, we entered the still expanding offices of Carma.

Carma is an actual ridesharing app (unlike Uber or Lyft, where you are making money as a taxi service, which is technically illegal), where people coordinate their commutes and make back the cost of their drive.  It is meant to reimburse the costs of infrastructure paid in taxes, and insurance and gas.  Since you aren't technically making money, it falls under the law that was passed in the 70's during the energy crisis that made carpooling legal.  The other benefit is that each rider pays their driver for driving, Carma takes 15%, and you get credit for driving that you can use later to ride.  So at a certain point, regular riders are only paying Carma 15% of the cost of driving, which often is close to 50 cents, and just trading off the responsibility of driving.  Right now, the app only works in Austin, Bergen Norway, and Cork Ireland.  They are working on expanding into Seattle and DC in the foreseeable future.

The guy, Shawn O'Sullivan, who invented the app has been more involved in your digital life than you realize.  He invented a program called Map Info, that is the basis of all the online mapping services in the world.  Google runs on his platform and idea.  He also coined the term "cloud computing" about 20 years ago.  He says that if you look for megatrends, and come up with solutions to problems that haven't reached their critical mass yet, you can make millions.  Because the world is generally looking for the best solution to a problem, and most of being the best in the world is being the first.  I'm not sure I could ever have a brilliant idea like that, and even if I did, I don't know what I would do with that idea.  But if I can just be a cog in the system that turns that guy's mind, that would be pretty incredible.

It was far more interesting meeting with him than I expected, and we all had plenty of questions for him.  It was fairly inspiring to meet with him, and he seemed very cool.  He is clearly not in it for the money, as much as for the science experiment of solving problems.  He seemed like he was definitely thinking of about 8 million other things while he was talking with us.  Not a bad thing, because I'm sure those things are way more important anyway.

We went to a pub for dinner, the Thomand Bar, (possibly Thormand...) and I had cabbage and bacon, and a big girl sized glass of Guinness not a baby one.  Dinner was very good, but they need to put more vinegar on things.  My Germanic heritage was showing, and I doused the whole pile in malt vinegar.  In a related story, I am bringing home a bottle of malt vinegar from the fish and chips place in Dublin, I don't remember if I mentioned it. 

Well, everyone was dying to go out, and they were having musicians in to sing at 9:30, so Dale and Marnie and a few others left to go home, and Lauren was sick so she went too.  I stayed out, and had another Guinness (in truth, I had maybe half of another Guinness before I almost fell over while I was dancing to the music, and decided to stop drinking.).  Everyone was very happy to have me there, and several people were concerned that Lauren was feeling excluded because she didn't come out with them.  I put the bug in people's ear that we should do more of our drinking together beforehand, and that way she and I can feel more included, and then they can go back out to the pubs while we go to bed.

The two musicians sang American covers, which is apparently very typical.  They sang Wagon Wheel and Sweet Caroline and Lose Yourself by Eminem, which was kind of cool.  We sang and danced for a while, and I made a new friend in Corbin, who was being pretty cool.  Eventually, we decided to leave for another bar, which was quite the hassle.  There is a strip of bars where they really do check ID, and the entrance requirement was over 21.  That was a problem for a couple of girls who were under 21, so there was some ID switching, and just as everyone finally made it in, someone dropped a glass on the floor and the bartender was already giving us the stink-eye, so we left again.  By this time I was quite hot and feeling a little sick, so while the fairly balmy fresh air was a relief, I was looking to go home.

The part of the drinking that I like least is definitely the wandering around and the bad attitude.  We looked for another bar, and this bouncer very nicely said that they were full.  Whether they were full, or didn't want Americans, or college students, or already drunk people, is irrelevant, because he was very nice about it.  But Byron wanted to stand and argue with the guy, and I tried to grab him but he shook me off.  After drunkenly babbling at him, he finally moved on, and proceeded to grumble about how big an asshole the guy was.  I was just thinking that there was definitely an asshole in that conversation, but the bouncer was not it.

I saw the street to head home, and in Dublin I would have just taken off by myself.  But everything is much further apart in Cork, and even though it was a straight street to the house, I didn't feel like going alone.  I feel like there are more homeless people here in Cork than in Dublin, but they might just be more visible.  Anyway, I asked Tanner if he wanted to go home, and he did, so we headed back together.  It was good for him, because he had an excuse to leave, and good for me because Tanner is gigantic and looks like my brother.

We had a good chat on the way back, before realizing that Lauren had the key to our room, and thus, to the universal lock on the front door.  I assumed she was probably asleep, so I rang the bell, but she didn't answer.  After pushing the bell button repeatedly,  Tanner thought to try his key, which worked, and I got in.  Basically, Tanner got me home safe, which was very nice of him.

When I got upstairs, Lauren was still awake, and had just had a shower.  Mom and Dad skyped me as soon as they realized I was online, so I talked to them. ("How are you Sierra?"  "Good, I'm drunk."  "... I thought you said you wouldn't get drunk while you were in Ireland?"  "I'm not very drunk.")  I apparently looked like I was either going to burp or throw up, and I felt like it too.

I skyped with Chris immediately afterward, so by the time we got off, everyone had returned from the pubs.  I headed to bed as quick as I could, and was only interrupted by Corbin asking what happened that night.  I said that nothing happened, and I don't know what he meant by "catching me out", but he didn't elaborate, only drunkenly stared at me and announced that we were even, and left.  Apparently dancing at a pub that happens totally sober is significantly more mentally confusing once inebriated, and one of us is in pajamas.

Anyway, it was a pretty good night, and it wasn't that bad going out with everyone else.

Thursday with Gabriel on the Road to Cork

We got up very casually this morning, and I took a shower when the shower became available.  I got dressed and started packing up.  Packing up is fairly easy, and since I decided to wear a dress today, it was much more comfortable moving around.  Seriously people, I need to lose some weight.  I broke the hook and eye closure that holds my pants together, and it makes the zipper come undone.  As soon as I get back from Ireland and stop eating heavy food, it's diet time.

I packed up pretty quickly and took all my things downstairs to this luggage room where they keep people's luggage locked up if they have checked in or checked out and are not in their rooms.  Lauren and I went with most of the other girls to the Queen of Tarts on Dame Street (the main drag where every place we went to in Dublin was located), and we went upstairs for breakfast.  Every restaurant in this place has had multiple stories, and we are almost always stuck upstairs.  It's cool, but always pretty sweaty because heat rises.  We sat upstairs, and I got the light breakfast, of a scone, orange juice and tea, and Lauren wanted a cup to have some of my tea.  Well, our waitress was a doofus, and instead of bringing Lauren just a cup, she brought everything but a cup, like, the exact opposite of what we asked for.

***  I wrote this once, while I was on the bus, and I finished a really really long post, and apparently forgot to hit save, so I lost it all.  I'm writing it again, but this time much more annoyed, so, forgive me.  ***

We headed back to the hotel and packed up, got on the bus with Gabriel and took off for Cork.  We said good bye to Todd, who was heading off to England for other work things, and gained a really great and funny Irishman instead.  Gabriel is from Co Kerry, and speaks Irish, and has an extremely thick brogue, and sometimes waxes poetic in Irish midthought in English.

The rolling hills of Ireland in this area, sort of the south east, remind me of Montana on the east side of the mountains but before the flat plains.  It felt very much like home, with cows and horses and sheep.  The edges of properties are demarcated with lines of shrubs, which may or may not be held up with fences of some kind.  We spent perhaps an hour and a half on the bus before we arrived at the Waterford Crystal factory in Waterford City.  Leta made us wear suits, but when we arrived, the executive had already left, and thus we were exceptionally over dressed.  We marched around the factory, and looked at much.  I took pictures of nearly every station, so I can reiterate the process more fully later.  It is fairly straightforward, but I didn't know that the pieces are blown glass, not made of actual crystals.  So that was news.

Fairly uneventfully, we piled back into the bus and took off for Cork.  Gabriel calls us his little chickens, and before Leta got on the bus, he told us all about the good pubs in Cork.  He said that no one in Ireland drinks and drives.  (long pause)  Because you'd spill your Guinness everywhere!  When he says fuck, it sounds more like feck, and he said it's a big fecking mess trying to clean Guinness off your dashboard.  I don't much care for how much the Irish love drinking, because they are certainly encouraging the debauchery.

Anyway, off to Cork, which is mainly a one street town where the sidewalks roll up at about 6, or as Gabriel says, "hhhhhaaapasht," which is half past.  Some of the pubs stay open later, but most close just after midnight.  The hotel we are staying at is called the Garnish House, and it has several standing buildings, that are each like three town houses butted up together.  All of the girls and one of the four-boy rooms are all in the middle of one building, and there are a couple more boys spread across another building or two.  Naturally, because of our central location and majority of people, our building is the meeting spot of choice.  There is a kitchen, dining room, parlor and laundry room, so it's a really sweet deal.

Leta ordered pizza when we arrived, but it was going to take a while, so most of us went to get food and also alcohol.  At least we are all buying cheap alcohol for our own house.  I got some cottage cheese and raspberries for breakfast, and for 4.79 I got a bottle of raspberry blackberry cider, which is really fruity and not too alcoholic.  By the time we all marched back from the store, it was absolutely pissing rain, and Lauren and I narrowly dodged getting soaked completely because we walk really fast.  The pizza had arrived as well, so we all ate and drank and evaporated in a semblance of silence for a while.  Then we started drinking and playing games.

First we played this great game on Colie's phone called Head's Up, where you pick a category, and hold the phone to your forehead and everyone tries to get you to say the correct thing.  You flip the phone down for a correct answer, and up to pass, and it's a pretty good game.  The harder categories were celebrities, because it's hard to get people to remember the name, and Act It Out and Accents, because we, as the people prompting, were not very good at only miming, or at doing accents.  It was a really great game though!

After that, we played one that Dale explained.  It's sort of like a lot of games, so here's the gist.  First, everyone makes up two or three noun kinds of things, and puts them in a bowl.  Divide into teams, but it's ok if the teams are mixed within the group (like counting off, 1, 2, 1, 2).  The first person drawing slips for their team will have one minute to get their team to guess the noun as possible, like Taboo, where you can say anything but the word.  The teams alternate until all the slips are gone.  You have to say the object verbatim as it is written on the card, so more complex ideas

You put all the same slips back into the bowl, and this time, you go play like charades, and act out the nouns.  It's slightly easier because there are a fixed number of objects which you have already had presented to you, but harder because now it's charades.

Third round, the person drawing slips can only use one word to describe the object.  This can be either easy or difficult, because if you don't remember all the possible objects, you end up with one person saying the same word over and over.  Fourth and final round, you draw the slips and have to use the person to your right as a mannequin to do the charades for you to articulate the object.  This is definitely the hardest and funniest round.

Ok, so we had some weird objects in our mix, because some people were already drunk when they started writing, and didn't realize how awkward the game would be if we had to describe certain things.  So our main categories became: Ireland related (Ireland, leprechaun, double decker bus, stupid American tourists, Michael's British socks -- he realized too late that British flag socks might not go over well with Irish executives, so he had to wear them inside out), animal related (dog, lamb, frog, gorilla, chewbacca, and other creatures that were difficult to discern in mime form), drinking related (Dutch Gold, Memo's on the Ave, Capitol Hill) and body part related (the gendered sex organs, boobs, butts, pubes, and worst of all was yeast infection.  WTF, drunk people!  When I said that this group are not pretty drunks, I meant it!).  There was a back story on "Alex and Todd", so Alex is one of Todd's graders at Foster, and Todd has sort of an awkwardly chummy personality?  So when someone would ask if Todd was going out to drink with them that night, he would say something like "I will if Alex is going out!" or other things that were slightly creepy in their affectionateness.  Throughout the four rounds, it was really funny to mime, people just kept pointing to Alex in the other room, and during the single word round, Reilly just said "gay" and everyone got it.

So, it all went fairly well and amusingly but mostly uneventfully until that dramatic last round with the vicarious charades.  I ended up being a charade model for a really long time, so first with Andre, he got me to gesture stripper, by trying to get me to take my own sweater off without knowing what it was that I was trying to do.  But it worked, and it was funny.  Shane also used me as a model, and I had to gesture penis, and everyone was amused by how big my imaginary penis was.

I used Shane as a model, and when I pulled "yeast infection", I was like, oh fuck, how am I going to explain this without it being super awkward and horrible?  Apparently my what the fuck face was really telling, because Andre shouted from the corner, yeast infection!  I didn't even have to act anything out.

Poor Tanner also used me as a model, and he first pulled boobs, and he just looks at me and is like, "sorry", and uses my hands to grab my own boobs.  Then immediately after that, he pulls bikini car wash, and he is like, "sorry again", and I had to pretend to wash a car and then grab my boobs again.  It was fairly hilarious, and he was a really good sport about it.

Once the game was over, which my team handily won, I went upstairs to go to bed.  The major disadvantage of being in the house where everyone congregates is that we basically moved into the frat house.  So Lauren and I listened as they continued partying, then decided to walk the ten minutes into town.  That was slightly ridiculous, because after days of bitching about wearing suits, they all wanted to put on their suits and suit up to go out.  So, whatever, you lame-os.  But Lauren and I got a great night sleep, and she's the best sleeping partner ever.

Tuesday Music Night

*** If you get all of this in the morning (for you people), make sure you read the other Tuesday post first. ***

I don't know if I can add the audio, so I might have to send out a mass e-mail with the audio from our pub crawl.

When we got back from PwC, the guys were giving me crap about something, so I went to my default reaction to give an overly dramatic threat against their lives.  I honestly don't know what they were teasing me for, but I threatened to cut off half of Byron's hair, and someone said that I needed a drink and to chill out, and I said, "what, so I can lopsidedly cut off half your hair?"

Flashforward, and I have completely forgotten that this happened, but Byron didn't and he thought I was really going to cut off his hair.  He came up to me on the way to dinner, and asked if he could buy me a drink to apologize.  I said he didn't have to, but he bought me a glass of white wine anyway.  (Funnily enough, the waitress accidentally gave it to Leta instead, so at the pub, he bought me a shot instead.)

After dinner, we took off for Chaplin's, to meet with the musicians who would lead us through the pub crawl.  I recorded nearly every song they sang, and it was incredible.  She played the violin, and he played the guitar and the drums and sang.  They were hilarious, and I had a fabulous time.

After a while, we moved on to the Parlor Room of the Stag's Head, to finish our night.  They asked for volunteers, and you'll hear it on the audio that Leta very loudly volunteers me to sing.  So by now, I've had a shot, a whiskey ginger, and am half way through a half pint of Guinness in the last hour and a half.  I'm not drunk, but I am very well lubricated, and willingly sang.  Listening back, I was very pitchy, but I sang a Capella, and I did a pretty good job.  Emy and Dale sang as well, but no one else sang a Capella like I did.  I was incredibly proud of myself, and I believe I have officially broken through my fear of singing in front of adults.  No promises, but I might actually go to a karaoke bar in the future.  Maybe.

Our tour was over at nine, and I was suggested a good music shop to buy the two musicians.  Lauren, Tanner, Dale, Marnie and I wanted to hear more music, and were recommended the Temple Bar, where live musicians play nearly every night.  We found it fairly quickly, and just as we arrived, the three guys who were playing were finishing up their set.  Lauren and I were very excited that we could tell the difference between the reels and the jigs.  A reel is in 4/4 time, and jigs are in 6/8, which is double speed of a waltz (and obviously, not very waltzy).

These two guys came up next, who could have been brothers or cousins, with a guitar and a banjo.  They obviously knew their audience well, because they played great Celtic covers of well known American songs.  It was a really wonderful end to the night, from hearing the really authentic stuff, to things to sing along to.  They played Wagon Wheel by Darius Rucker.  It was amazing.

So that, in two parts, is all of my Tuesday.  While I was listening to the music, it was honestly, the happiest I've ever been.  It was exactly all the things I ever thought Ireland would be.  We roamed back around 11:30, amid promises to start an Irish band in Seattle, and to stay close friends forever.

Wednesday; GAA, EY, and Other, All-Letter Organizations

If the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) visit had been on a different day than the EY (Ernst and Young) visit, we wouldn't have had to march around the stadium wearing suits.  But, it was not so bad.  We briefly met with the executive from GAA, then toured the stadium with this really cute, if slightly hunchbacked 21 year old hurling player. 

When I saw the GAA on our schedule, I initially thought, oh, well that's cool and cultural, but not a super cool spot.  Well, after watching Gaelic football on tv, and with a hurling match coming up on Saturday, we all had endless questions for this kid.  And, OH EM GEE, ESPN is going to start playing football and hurling.  Probably at really late hours, but I'm going to dvr it so we can watch and learn.  It's my new favorite blood sport.  Hurling seems a little too rough, but football is amazing.

Hurling has the same kind of Viking quality as football.  But it is much, much rougher.  Google search a hurley stick.  They are like hockey sticks mixed with bludgeons.  The top edge of the hurley paddle is slightly pointed, and the bottom end is wide like a mallet.  They are made of ash wood, but are edged with metal, which makes their points and mallets even more dangerous.  Players can slash with these hurleys, and hit the living crap out of each other.  Only two years ago, they made it a rule to wear a helmet.  It is absolutely brutal.  The little ball is like a baseball with the edges of the seams sticking out instead of tucked inside.  It's called a sliougher.  A "slit-her".  Right.

The boys played with the hurleys and slioughers, to see how good they could get.  Within the game, the players serve to themselves and hit the ball like baseball.  It's similar to lacrosse and baseball and battle all at once.  I asked Shane, our tour guide, about the pronunciation of Cuchillain.  It was written on the wall, and I had been saying it phonetically, but he said it was pronounced "coo-Kill-in."  Not coo-chill-ay-ne.  Shane also said that the GAA replaces hurleys for free, and they get broken a lot.  His team went through 26 hurleys in 12 games.

We went to EY afterward, and had lunch with them.  We socialized for a while over sandwiches, which was fun.  Everyone at EY loved the states, and had been several times, so we talked about travel for a good portion of the time.  the presentation about EY unfortunately occurred in very comfortable chairs after lunch, so I was a bit drowsy.  But fairly quickly they moved on to the mini case competition.  I saved the paperwork, so we can look at the task.  We had about an hour to decide on a recommendation for Delicious chocolates, a fictional company that sells luxury chocolates in the UK and US.  We could choose from one of four recommendations, either to expand into Europe, into Australia, into a new product line, or sell out to a larger firm.

We didn't get to choose our groups, but our group was fairly business heavy, and we did a pretty good job.  We decided to expand into new product lines.  Nearly everyone suggested slight modifications to the provided options, and no one suggested that Delicious sells out.  Dale's team won, and they did a really good job.

After EY, we changed out of our suits, and Lauren, Dale, Evalina and I went to find a music store to buy a drum and a tin whistle.  I really hesitated over getting a drum, and decided against it for the short run, to keep from toting it all over.  I did buy a tin whistle, which is much like a recorder.  It's a bit hokey, but I like it.  I also bought an Irish song book, and I'll buy the other copies in the US to be cheaper.  I think I've decided not to get the drum, because it's not really the kind of instrument you can play alone.  If I was going to take up an Irish sport, it would much more likely be the harp, or in the meantime, take up the guitar and piano again.

We hustled over to dinner at Jo' Burger near Jameson.  I didn't sit near anyone I liked, which was challenging, and always kind of kills my mood.  Leta was picking up on my bad mood, and we had a little chat about it alone after dinner.  It was not the most helpful conversation, because telling me to change my perspective and to go out with everyone else, is not really useful.  No one here is a particularly beautiful drunk, and I just don't want to have to see it.  So, after my unproductive meltdown with Leta, I went back to the hostel.

The majority of the group was having another lock in, where everyone sits together in one of the rooms and drinks together, which is nicer than pubs because at least it's cheaper.  Byron is I think just generally very nice, because he ran down stairs to get me a cup for my wine, so that I don't get sick.  I had a little wine, and I looked around, and did what I always do, which is count people, and I realized that there were 21 people in the room.  I looked around the room and realized that the only people who were missing were my friends.

So I went to find Lauren and Marnie, and they were with Dale and Tanner playing cards.  So we played rummy for a while, and Marnie won a lot, but I think only because she cheated a lot and drew twice, and her and Dale were fixing all the games.  Then we switched to spoons, which I proceeded to lose every single time, and I was a bit of a poor sport about it.

I'm not sure how we transitioned to that table game where everyone overlaps their hands, and you try to keep the tap going around the table (two taps reverses the direction, and a fist skips the next hand, mistakes and you lose that hand), and it was the best game ever.  We had a wonderfully stereotypical hostel moment when these three French kids joined our game and played too.

Tanner was really getting into this game, and Dale really wanted to keep a decent beat going, and it was down to only a few hands left.  It was Dale's left hand, Tanner's right, Lauren's right, and Tanner's left still in play.  Dale passed it to Tanner, who skipped the next hand (which was Lauren's).  He was trying to keep the beat going for Dale, and hit his fist down hard and locked eyes with Dale.  Lauren knew that her hand was skipped, but Tanner didn't realize that his hand was next.  He looked down at his left hand, and waited for it to tap until he realized that it was HIS hand.  We all cracked up, it was so funny, and when Tanner and Dale laugh really hard, they both get really red faces and cry.  So here were these two boys, looking at each other, laughing and crying, and Lauren, Marnie and me laughing at the pair of them.

We wrapped it up about 11:30, and I headed straight to bed, after a very great finish to the day with my four really good friends.

Tuesday at Kilmainham, PwC, Manis, and Music

Yesterday was possibly one of the best days ever in Dublin, so, accordingly, I was far too busy to actually write about it.  I will start with one final update from Monday (which is fast becoming the most revised day of the week), and then proceed to document the adventures of Tuesday (the most neglected day of the week.)  I apologize profusely for not writing yesterday, especially for those of you who are not my parents, and who therefore did not get a comical and crazy Skype update.

So, firstly, Dublin is wonderful, and there are lots of foreign people here, either visiting or immigrated.  One of those groups, which I have already mentioned, is the large Polish population.  So, one last note on Monday; while Tanner, Dale, Toto, Lauren and I were walking back to the hostel before one of those sundry adventures from Monday, this swarm of Polish women was coming up the sidewalk toward us.  They were dressed in old fashioned costumes, so it must be a holiday or something right now.  We saw them mob these other people on the sidewalk, and they were bearing down on us fast.  It looked like they were prepping for a giant group hug, and indeed, they enveloped us.  We were caught tight in the bosoms of so many Polish women, and as we were breaking up, we saw a guy getting back into his taxi.

People, this man said to himself, "Oh my God, that's a group hug, I better tell my taxi driver to pull over so that I can join that group hug that's happening on the sidewalk."

And that is just what he did, ladies and gentlemen, and then he got back in his taxi, the Polish left to be Poles somewhere, and we continued on our merry way.

Happy Monday, everyone.

TUESDAY:  I got up quickly and dressed in my business clothes, because Todd had hired a taxi to take us (him, me, Alex, Dale, Marnie and Lauren) to the Kilmainham jail.  We stood around a while, because we got there a little early, and the Rick Steve's tour group showed up, and we were very certain that they were going to try to cut us in line, but they didn't.  Rick was unfortunately not with the tour, which is not terribly uncommon, apparently.

We stepped inside to wait for the tour to start, and looked at the exhibits on the 1916 uprising, and the history of the jail as a Georgian and then Victorian structure.  The tour was really cool, and I of course did not have my camera with me, but I think Facebook will help me out in the future.  It was honestly fairly standard old jail fare, with really narrow limestone walls and tiny cells, and horror stories of overcrowding with 5 or 7 people in a cell that was designed for one.  The west wing is the oldest section, from the 1700s?  I can't recall exactly.  The east wing is the newer section, featured in such films as Michael Collins, and an Italian gangster film.  The Victorians believed that the light of God would clean the souls of those who were criminally ill, so there were lots of big windows.

In the older section were the cells where the 1916 leaders were kept before they were executed, and the east wing is where Eamon de Valera (spoiler alert: he was spared execution in 1916, brought back to jail by his former comrade, Michael Collins, during the civil war in the 20's because he wanted an all-Irish state and no Protestant north colony, and then went on to be president of Ireland for the majority of the 20th century.  So, joke's on you Britain, you could have killed him but you didn't.) was kept during the civil war that I already mentioned parenthetically.

We didn't get to stay to see the room where the executions occurred, or the real letters that the rebels wrote home, because we had to make sure we got to Leta's hotel in time for the trip to PwC.  Pricewaterhouse Cooper is one of the big four accounting firms.  The office building was one of the tallest, all of seven stories, and it was very fresh and modern.  It was like being inside one of the new iPhones, all white and modern and sleek, and full of pops of very bright colors like hot pink and teal and lime green.  We got name badges (which we get to keep later), and they lead us up to the conference rooms for lunch.

There was a short presentation to talk about the company, then a tour of the building while they set up lunch.  Maeve, who took a subset of our group on a tour of the building.  They have a five star chef in house, and a gym that only costs 50 euro for a lifetime membership.  They also have a clinic that has posted hours in the office, and a beautician who comes in and does hair and nails.  People would never leave.  It was like Facebook in that way, but you had to buy your own food.

After that we had a lovely chat over lunch with a couple of employees, and it was nice to have a one-to-few conversation with someone.  Zara talked with Dale and me at length, and I think we convinced her to come visit us in Seattle.  If she does come, we will tour her around.  She was really fun and informative, and I was really glad to talk to her.

When we stepped out of PwC, someone had turned on the gale force fans, and we fought the wind to get back into our taxis.  Upon return to the hostel, I decided that I wanted to venture out and get a manicure, and pick up an SD card for my camera, so while many people headed out for Penney's with Leta, I ventured out alone.

My manicure was done by a Chinese woman, so not Vietnamese, but pretty close to home.  I got a shellac, so we'll see how it holds up in the rolling hills of Ireland.  So far so good.  I stopped and got 4 gigs, so I should be set for a good long time.  I took a nap in our hostel alone, which was fantastic.

At 5:30, we went to dinner in the upper room of this little Italian restaurant.

*   *   *

I'll finish this later, we're piling onto the bus, and I don't want people to worry about me.  More later!

FB and Jameson

I meant to mention in my last post two things about the Gaelic football match.  First, this little boy came over and was asking for money to get a better sports field at his school, but he never took his shirt out of his mouth while he was talking, and I had to read the pamphlet to find out what he wanted.  I don't know if he was nervous, or just yet another unruly Irish child.  Anyway, I can't not give money to kids asking for money, so I gave him 5 euro and wrote my address as America.  He was nonplussed about the broke American college student who just forked over a bunch of her allowance for you kid.

Secondly, Gaelic football is a strange mix of random sports, but mostly, it is absolutely brutal.  One guy got his collarbone stepped on by a cleat, and one guy got his feet swept out from underneath him and face planted.  If someone is rude to you, you just push him over.  There's no stopping for injury time either, they never stop the clock.  If you lay there and bellyache, it's a bit of a faux pas.  It's a gentleman's agreement to be rough but not hold a grudge.

Anyway, onto today.  We dressed up and headed out for Facebook first thing.  We couldn't take pictures while we were there, but there are a few floating around I'm sure.  The building is this big glass building, that's 6 stories high, which is one of the highest buildings in the city.  From the sixth floor rooftop porch, we could see the offices for several other tech companies such as Google.  It is so cool inside, and we were obviously overdressed.  They offered us tons of food, they have food everywhere. 

Most of the stuff Rick Kelly (the marketing director for the games section) told us was proprietary and I can't repeat, but I can say that they are blaming Android for the Messenger privacy app confusion, because Android's terms and conditions are really general, and of course, if new Messenger will let you chat with non-Facebook friends from your contacts, it will have to access your contacts.  And if new Messenger will let you make phone calls, it will have to turn on your microphone.

Anyway, he talked about how the ads in our newsfeed is because the giant growth in mobile device use has made right side banner ads fairly obsolete.  And he said that they filter your feed by people you interact with often first, and then postings that are particularly commented on or liked from people you rarely talk to will get forced into your feed; all of that filtering is because we still have the same amount of disposable time but everyone is posting 9 times more stuff per day than they did even two years ago.

The whole office is really chill, and they have lots of food because the corporate mentality is that if you're at work, you should be at work, and not worrying about getting food for breakfast or lunch.  I wonder how much time people spend there, because he said you can get dinner too, and there are toothbrushes and toothpaste in the bathrooms.

The building was designed by the same guy who built the German Googenheim (sp?) museum.  We could see a Lego wall on the second floor, and there was a meditation room and a nap room.  It's definitely one of those progressive, new age work places.  It was really cool and invigorating to talk to Kelly.  He was from Boston originally, and then came to Barcelona to work for Yahoo, and then got picked up by Facebook five years ago, and is moving here permanently.  He thinks he's held on to his Boston accent, but as fresh Americans, we can hear that he has none left.  He sounds American at best.

After Facebook (which required a slightly harrowing and dangerous taxi ride both ways.  I rode in the front with Todd -- UW teacher who also wanted to come on this trip -- on the way to Facebook, and the taxi driver wanted to talk about Ferguson.  He said he knows more about American current events than Irish.), Tanner, Toto, Dale, Lauren, and I found a sandwich place to eat.  I got a panini because my slacks are INCREDIBLY tight, and I need them to be slightly less tight if I want to not be the world's first living black pudding (aha!  You see, it's funny because black pudding is a blood sausage, and I feel like a sausage, but also, my suit is black.).  I also got this really cute juice that was black currant and apple flavored.  It was tart and fruity, and a rosy purplish color.

After food, we had about an hour and a half, so we went on a quest to find Penny's, the little department store that Leta loves so much.  We're all in our suits, and I wore heels because I'm stubborn, and it was raining, but we found it, and it was very awesome.  Things are exceptionally cheap, and within minutes of arrival, I found a bag to replace the one I spilled coffee on at home (10 euro), and some darling flats to replace the heels I stubbornly wore (8 euro), and a loofa to replace the loofa I didn't remember to stick in my suitcase (1.50 euro).  In and out for less than 20, and I am totally satisfied.  The shoes are basically made of plastic, which is perfect because it was rainy and they were like little rain boots.  But maroon Mary Jane flats, not boots.  The bag is just a canvas-y white and blue striped weekender bag.  The loofa is just a loofa.

We booked it back really quick, and marched right back out into the rain to go to the Jameson tour.  Jameson is just over the river a few blocks, so we all walked (no taxi!).  The tour was slightly hokey, the turned the original distillery into a museum because they couldn't produce their global production in the original site anymore, as of 1980, so the main distillery is now in Cork.  Rick Steves recommended the tour in Cork because you can actually go through the factory, but apparently Leta didn't ask me.

We had a snarky little guide named Adam, who found us all very silly in our suits, and seemed a bit bitter about the whole "Prohibition killed Irish Whiskey" thing.  We ended the tour with a tasting, and he explained the difference between Irish triple distilled whiskey, twice distilled Scotch whiskey, and once distilled American whisky.  Flavor-wise, Irish whiskey is smooth, and a little vanilla and honey flavored from aged barrels.  Scotch dries the barley over peat fires, which gives the whiskey a smoky, hot flavor, and American whisky is corn based, and single distilled, so it's sweeter and fresher from new oak barrels.

Then this lady from marketing came to talk to us about the brand and positioning of Jameson.  America is the biggest market, and the fastest growing, and she talked really fast, but I took notes.  You can look up the Legends of John Jameson ad on youtube, the Iron Horse one is the best.

After Jameson, Lauren and I were going to go to Butler's, which is a hot chocolate house, but we wanted to change out of our suits first so they weren't completely soaked.  Then we realized that the nearest Butler's was a bit of a ways away, so we, along with Dale and Tanner, went to the Peacock Green tea and coffee house instead, and sat in the little upstairs parlor and talked.  I really like them a lot, and I think they are a good group to have with us.  Lauren and I can speak very candidly about how glad we are to have each other, but the boys are less expressive?  So we can only assume, since they always stand with us and go with us to places, that they want to hang out with us.

Anyway, there are just a few other things.  Dinner was ok at this really cool pub that was at least four stories high, with winding wooden staircases among the dining floors.  We ate upstairs, and just as Lauren and I were heading out, we found these musicians were playing on the ground floor.  There were three Irish flautists, two violinists, a banjo player and a guitar player, and they were just jamming.  The flautists were going so fast!  It takes such stamina to play like that.  I said to Lauren that I would rather spend 50 euro on an Irish flute than a bottle of Jameson, so now we're on a quest to find one.

At the table near the musicians, this little girl started eye balling me, and I tried to talk to her, but she obviously spoke a different language.  I started talking to Lauren and Marnie again, and I got a little tug on my sleeve.  She wanted to show me this video of her and her dad swimming at the pool in their hotel, and that's when I noticed that the commands on the camera were in Spanish, and I talked with her dad in the greatest Spanglish ever.  It was a really cute, because when I started to talk to her in Spanish, she was suddenly really surprised that I was talking to her in a language she understood.

Back at the hostel, there was some kind of lock-in, and it was a little too crowded for me, so I left and went to shower.  Lauren and I chilled in the hostel social room downstairs, which included me totally eavesdropping on her Skype call to her parents...  Sorry Lauren.

The Holy Trinity: College, Fish and Chips, and Gaelic Football

Something happened overnight, after everyone got to bed.  The girls were admittedly only out til 12:30, which is not that bad.  But that might have been self-limiting, because most of the pubs close pretty early relative to most parts of the world.  Anyway, right about 3, we all woke up.  I Facebook messaged with Chris for a while, because I was completely awake, and I watched as every single girl got up to go to the bathroom, between 2:30 and 3:30.  It got suddenly really hot.

Anyway, at 8 we all got up and started dressing.  I was convinced we were supposed to meet Leta at her hotel before 9, so I grabbed some coffee, forced down a little cereal, and headed out.  I sat with the boys for breakfast, and when I came back from busing my own table, they were all gone, so I thought they had left.  I went out to try to catch up, and found my own way to Leta's hotel.  I figured, who gets raped at 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning?

I made it to Leta's, the Hardinge hotel, without incident.  Marnie and Leta were having breakfast, so I sat down.  She did listen to the really awkward phone message I left her (to RSVP to that fated barbecue), and Marnie gets to be an assistant because she is a UW student employee.  So if I want to go next year, I need to be a student or an employee.  Ideas are already in mind.

We met with the rest of the group at ten, and headed off for Trinity College.  It's the oldest university in Ireland, founded in 1592, and before that, a monastery, it's a great place to be.  Our tour guide was Mumford from Mumford and Sons, and he was so adorable and Dublin Irish, that I think every one of us girls fell in love.  He said that you can get married at the chapel on campus up to five years after you graduate.  There is a lot of symbolism in their traditions: They give final exams in this one corner of the big building, and the bell in the belfry only get rung when they do final exams or funerals in the chapel: when you are being judged by man, and by God.

They allowed women into the college in 1904, and while they allowed Catholics in, the Catholics weren't allowed to attend Trinity (by the Vatican) until 1970.  The Provost (Dean) who finally allowed women in was called something Salmon, and he denied women entry for 15 years, and finally relented in his sixteenth year.  He said that he was signing with his hand but not his heart, and 2 months later he died of a heart attack.

The oldest student society was the debate society (although it was called a historical society), and Oscar Wilde was once a member.  Also, in the 1700's, the professor in charge of discipline was extremely hated, and students would stop at his residence room to tell him so.  Well, a triad of drunk students decided at 2 am to tell him all the ways in which he was ruining their lives, and began throwing rocks at his window.  He came out, and they threw rocks and also insults, and he went to get his gun.  He fired on the students, and so they ran to their dorms to get their own guns.  They returned, and in the volley, the professor was shot and died within two hours.  At the trial, the judge ruled not guilty, and said it was likely just a prank that got out of hand.  He once was in the same fraternity as those students, so we are suspicious about that ruling.

Up until the 70's, enrollment was small, around 3000 total students, but after that, they expanded rapidly, and tons of horrible ugly blockly buildings were built around the pretty Georgian ones to house the other students and classes.  The last stop was the Book of Kells in the library.  There were only two pages open, and the remarkable thing was really that, after walking through the blown up images of details, you see the pages and realize that those details are shockingly, incredibly tiny.  The much more impressive thing was the fabulous library.  The guide, Ross, described it as being marvelous.  It was.  The books are arranged, completely arbitrarily, by size.  He said that the catalog lists books by size, and that it still takes up to 2 days to find your requested book, and when you want to read it, they lay it out for you in an isolated room upstairs, and you can't take notes or touch it, and a guard watches you while you read it.

But OH MY GOD, IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL.  I have pictures.  I loved it.  I want one too.

After that, we hopped on the Hop On, Hop Off bus tour of Dublin, which drives around and stops at points of interest, and you can get on and off as you go around.  They narrate the whole thing, either on audio or vocally.  We first got on one that as recorded, and took pictures and whatnot, then bailed off to get fish and chips for lunch.

I ate the fish and chips, and it was delicious!  It wasn't too fishy, and it was flaky and hot.  Very good.  We sat at Christchurch Cathedral to eat.  There were tons of pigeons, and down the sidewalk, we see this cat starting to stalk the birds.  This was video taped from at least two places, and if I try to explain it, it will be lame, so you can imagine what happened, and later I'll forward the video.  It was adorable.

We piled back on the bus, and this driver was a live narrator.  He told us a few good stories, including one about the origin of "cap in hand", the Irish WWI soldiers who would wear their military fatigues to panhandle because the veteran's office didn't provide enough.  Also, Arthur Guinness, who created Guinness, lived with his wife and 21 kids in the apartment near the brewery.  Allegedly, Mrs. Guinness was a little deaf, and every night Arthur would ask, "so are you going to sleep or what?" And every night Mrs. Guinness would say "what?" and 21 kids later, the rest, they say is history.

Some girls got off the bus at the jail where the 1916 rebels were executed, and the rest of us rode the bus back to our hostel.  We split up, and some people napped or whatever, and Tanner, Dale, Lauren (my three best friends, so far, because they are funny and cool and don't want to get drunk all the time), Toto (we'll see his status, he only arrived this morning), and Evalina and Marnie and I went to Dublin Castle.  We totally slipped in on a tour to listen without paying...  It was gorgeous.

The throne room was most interesting, the throne was built for one of the four English Georges, who was 6' 4", and weighed at least 380 pounds (by our shitty math) or 188 kilos.  They added a step stool for the short queens who came after him.  The chandelier was adorned with roses (England), the thistle (Scotland) and the shamrock (Ireland).  Wales was too small to be on it, because it was more like an English principality.  Also, their contribution would have been the daffodil.  In a related story, the national symbol of Ireland is the harp, of England is the lion, of Scotland is the unicorn, and of Wales is the leek.

As Tanner pointed out, America's symbol is the eagle, and Wales' is the leek, and guess who is the superpower nation.

After the Dublin Castle tour, we ran over to a pub to catch the County Kerry v County Mayo Gaelic football game.  When we arrived, the game was ten minutes in, and the pub was mostly empty, so we took a seat.  The rest of the group met us there, but they thought it was too lame, so they left.  Their mistake was our opportunity though!  Dale chatted up this older guy, who explained this whole thing.

The game is kind of like every sport.  The players are all volunteer, and all the revenue from the game goes to the stadium costs, and then back to the counties for the kid's programs in each county.  They have a bunch of crazy rules, but being nice is not one of them.  They can run with the ball, and kick it, and throw it, and pass it, and dribble it, and it's like a little of every sport ever.  The uprights are extensions of the front, vertical posts of a normal soccer goal.  One point for going between the uprights, 3 for going into the soccer goal.  Scoring looks like 0-00, the points for the smaller goal being counted by ones on the left (but being worth three points each) and the goals for the uprights counted on the right, one for one.  Kerry was the winner of the all-Ireland finals last year, and the favorite to win, and Mayo got a player red carded (kicked out) so they were down a player.  The game is 70 minutes long, and they have half time at 35 minutes. We were rooting for Kerry because our driver for the rest of the trip is from Kerry.

So it was back and forth, a few points either way, and the pub stayed mostly empty, except for the three Mayo fans, so we felt awkward cheering for Kerry.  After half time, however, the pub filled up, and Mayo started to catch up the lead that Kerry had built before halftime.  Soon, it was neck and neck, and there were Kerry and Mayo fans cheering either way.  0-12, 0-12, 0-13, 0-13.  Then Mayo scored in the soccer net.  1-13, 0-13.  A three point lead is hard to overcome, and Mayo quickly followed with three more goals.  1-16, 0-13.

Kerry finally got the ball, and in a magically long kick, caught and tossed and Beckham kicked into the soccer net, and the game was not over!  1-16, 1-13.  They scored once more, and then Mayo did, and there were minutes left in the game, and Kerry scored again!  It was 1-16, 1-15, and the officiators added three minutes to the game (because they do that?), and Kerry scored once more, and it ended as a tie.

They will play again in a few days.

Because that's what you do in Ireland, you just play it over if no one wins.

Lastly, we went to dinner at a really cute Italian place that was inside these brickwork tunnels.  I forgot to get pictures, but it was pretty neat.  The food was really good, but the service was terribly slow, and while we had a great conversation around the table, three hours of shouting at each other inside a tunnel made me very hoarse.  All of us were exhausted, so no one went out tonight.  It's probably for the best...

I am completely exhausted, and I can't believe I was able to document everything.  It's not the fullest detail, but thank the Lord I remembered everything that happened today.  Oh, also, it drizzled today, which was wonderful.  I seriously enjoyed grabbing an umbrella.

Totally wiped, heading to bed, see y'all in the morning!  Your middle of the night!

Arrival Dinner

So, my adventure with the bus from Dublin airport was not as fool-proof as I had hoped.  The Dublin bus system is horrendous.  This is their big tourist transit bus, and no stops were called out, the screen in the front of the bus said nothing informative, and it was good luck that I got a bus that actually listed the most common points of interest near each stop. 

What I mean to say is that I missed my stop. 

The next stop was the end of the line, and I was able to leap off the bus and grab the returning one, and convince the driver to let me go one stop back.  But nothing is ever easy in life, and I am trying not to start out my experience in Europe as an Asshole American.  He lets me know that this is my stop, so I get up and gather my things, while he lets people on the bus.  He talks at some length to two Spanish women about getting to and from the airport, and then he pulls away.

I'M STILL ON THE BUS.  I ask him to stop, and he says, "I let seven people on this bus and you didn't get off?"  And all I could say was sorry, I was waiting for people to stop coming on, but what I was thinking was that in America, you let the people departing the bus off before you let more people on the bus.  And/or you look to see if anyone (with a giant backpack, and purse and a massive suitcase) got off, and/or you make sure the one person who definitely needed to get off at this stop, gets off at this stop.

I guess all bus drivers are cut from the same cloth.  We have these unsympathetic jackasses in Seattle too.

Anyway, I ran into some helpful Philadelphian-turned-Dubliners, who pointed me over the bridge to my hostel, where I checked in entirely without incident.  There are 8 girls in my room (one has a late flight in), and it was fairly packed with lady body parts and accoutrements.  There are four bunk beds, and I'm on a top bunk by the door.  I have claimed every hook behind the door as mine.  It's a hostel, so it's not magic or anything, but the rooms are clean and big, with high ceilings, tall windows and wood floors.  I have yet to see anyone over the age of 25, but they might be holed up in one of the private rooms.

Initially when I was asked if I wanted to go drink before the welcome dinner, I said no.  But I thought that seemed a bit boring of me, so I went, and the 6 girls in our room ended up finding several more girls and three boys, so the now 11 of us took to the narrow sidewalks of Dublin in search of somewhere to get a Guinness.

Which was of course, perfectly easy.  We found one, and Will (the sheep guy) said he got a weird vibe, so we followed Tanner through this Polish street fair and into a satisfactory pub called Badbob's.  It was also filled with Poles who were singing really cool harmony songs and clapping.  There is a large Polish population because of the Celtic Tiger, dot com thing, and Poles came to replace young Dubliners in the low wage jobs.  So now they have street festivals.

I had a half pint of Guinness with black currant (as instructed), and luckily Guinness is a filling not a spilling kind of drink, because I hadn't really eaten anything since that ham and cheese croissant at 10:30.  I was a little warm headed, but ok as we headed off to get another Gunness at that pub that we had initially rejected.

In the rejected and unrejected pub, we found a three man stag party in progress, in which the lucky stag was made to wear a leprechaun costume.  He was an extremely drunk leprechaun, and when he and his friend wanted to have a drinking contest with Will and Alex, the barkeep cut him off.

Meanwhile, Lauren (my new buddy, who is also a teetotaler and a non-Greek) and I were cornered by the third wheel, an Englishman they found in the extras for Monty Python.  Everything about him was wonderfully English -- sweater, skinny jeans, Matt Smith hair style -- and he said he loved Americans for their personalities and their good teeth, and that he had all his out a few years ago.  Also, he hates Canadians, apparently.  He said he had had 12 pints of Guinness today, and shouldn't be standing up.

About this time, the stag was being cut off by the barkeep, so he was collecting his friends to leave.  He said hello to Lauren and I, hugged and kissed us, and left.  That's how a leprechaun makes an exit.

We all reassembled at the hostel, and found Leta for our meeting before dinner.  Leanna had to quit the trip because she broke her foot the week before, and Toto and Zoe and Emmaline and Marnie (the student advisor) would be arriving over the evening and next day.  We were given our 50 euro allowance for the beginning of the trip, with no promise for when we will be paid again (so be frugal!), and took of for The Brazen Head.

The Brazen Head is the oldest pub in Ireland, founded in 1180.  It is very quaint, and it looks like they variously attempted to wall in greater and greater sections of the street corner on which it was constructed.  There are several interior walls that appear to have once served as exterior.  I have pictures, which will make it even cuter.

At dinner, we took up two large tables, and reintroduced ourselves.  We had a two course supper of tomato and basil soup (or a Greek salad), and one of four quintessential entrees: beef stew, fish and chips, chicken breast wrapped in bacon, or bangers and mash.  I started with the stew, which was thick, tomato-ey and delicious.  I also had a piece of chocolate fudge cake, which was good because it was a dry crumbly cake with frosting that wasn't too sweet.  Unlike the moist, sugary cakes in America, it was actually a really pleasant finish to dinner.  Could have used some milk though.

Everyone else was gearing up to go party, and I didn't want to, so when we got back to the hostel, I came and took a shower, and wrote home to my family.  I am completely alone in this hostel room, but it is very comfortable and I don't mind being alone for a while after all the people and tight spaces I've been in recently.

I would like to think that it would be fun drinking with the rest of the group, but alcohol is expensive (in general, in Europe, and particularly in Temple Bar, where they ply the artsy, college student type for every cent they have).  And Lauren and I have decided to be non drinkers together, and it is always easier not to drink when someone else is doing it with you.  A half pint sets me back about 3 euros 50, which is much better than the 5 euros 20 that everyone else is paying.  The other nice thing is that when we go to dinner with Leta, she pays for everything but our drinks.  So I had a piece of cake instead of more alcohol, and I still came out on top.  I'm making myself keep track of how much I"m spending so that I can go to college this fall.

On the Flight to Dublin

Our flight was delayed (no surprises there) so we boarded when we were supposed to take off.  I found my seat alright, had a coke, pictures will follow, it was both tiny and had strange dietary labeling, well worth documenting in the field of strange travel differences.

I'm seated next to an American man, and he seems alright, but has had three Heineken's and a glass of red wine so far.  Although, he gave me his arugala salad during the dinner service, so he can't be all bad.  I had the beef stroganoff with p-A-sta, peas and carrots, a little bowl of iceberg lettuce with a cucumber slice, a brownie, a roll, and some cheese and crackers.  It was actually really good, and blisteringly hot.  The Fight Club joke about the single-serving air travel life, with the Cordon Bleu Hobby Kit seems particularly appropriate right now.

If I thought I had great amenities on Virgin America, Aer Lingus takes the cake.  They have the same personal entertainment system, similar games and such, but they also have all the main Irish radio stations as play lists.  I very demurely listened to Classical Irish selections while reading Rick Steve's.  They also have tv and movies, that are free to watch.  They have the entire Batman trilogy (aaaahhhh!!!!  I do love me some Batman, and if I wasn't sleepy, I would watch The Dark Knight Rises.).  And a nice selection of Irish movies, and I watched Big Bang Theory over dinner.  It was the episode when Howie gets back from space and Penny and Amy Farrah Fowler and Sheldon and Leonard are playing Pictionary. 

Our flight route took us north west to the Nevada border, north-northwest over Boise, north-west again over the corner of Montana, and when we hit Canada, we rose from 10,000 to 30,000 feet, and we've proceeded fairly straight northwest over the mainland.  We're approaching a body of water, and later we will go over Greenland.  Mom was right, we are coming near the Arctic Circle.  It is local time 5:10 at my destination, and I took off my glasses, so I'm not sure which Canadian province we are currently over, but it's the one to the right of Saskachuan.  Someone just snored a cartoon snore, I hope their stocking cap got in their mouth.

We're about 1/3 done with our journey, I think the Province is Manitoba, and I'm pooped, so I'm not going to stay up for the in flight, duty free purchasing of watches, fragrances, nor cigarettes.  They are also permitting us to fetch our own sodas, and I can only imagine the anarchy that will ensue.

*   *   *

After five hours of uncomfortable, fretful stage one sleep, someone decided it was morning now, and an hour before we landed , they turned on all the lights and started handing out ham and cheese croissants and orange juice. I woke up feeling very pouty and with a severe crick in my neck; at least twice I was awoken from a fairly good sleep by hot pins and needles in my arm. And there is no where to put one's foot without touching someone or getting in the way.

We flew south over Northern Ireland, and overshot Dublin into the Irish Ocean. We hung a sharp right, and I saw the deep blue water, and made a westerly landing. The highways look normal, but the road signs are blue. The car park for the Aer Lingus travel agency is gigantic, and along the edges of the asymmetrical fields, the farmers have left fluffy shrubbery grow. The fields are neither circular nor rectangular, and not even hexagonal or a traditional shape. I will have to ask someone why.  For now I'm on the tarmac, waiting to taxi to the terminal.

The guy with the Heineken's is here for an amateur golf tournament, and in no way am I surprised. We said some pleasantries, and now we're anxiously waiting to never see each other again except at the luggage trolley. 

I promised that I would write when I got to the hostel, and even if I rush to get online, it will be about 5 in the morning when I finally post. So, good morning family, I'm alive and you're asleep.

*   *   *

I went straight through customs and found my luggage, mom, you were right, the dam Irish broke my address tag. I recognized my bag none the less. I wandered out following signs, found an exchange station and got 20 euro, found the bus stop, and immediately spent six. The girl at the ticket counter was exceedingly pleasant, and helped me to find a place for my bag on the bus.

If you thought Seattle was bad for renaming streets at every bend, come to Dublin, where each block of the street has a different name. The hostel is on Merchant's Quay (key), and also Usher Quay, and various other names in varying degrees of Gaelic. The merging of very all described pictorially at each entrance to the freeway, L-permit drivers are not allowed on the highway (I suspect a staggered license system), and there was a signal indicated roundabout, which seems to defeat the purpose.

It's Go-Time, People!

Hopefully everyone got my e-mail last night, approximately 11 pm because I'm crazy, and the rest of you have heard via Facebook.  I'll briefly update before we board for Ireland (ERMAGHERD.), and see you on the other side -- of the world.

I got to SEATAC without incident, in the chariot of my wonderful boyfriend Chris who took a whole day off of work to take me to the airport.  Mom and Dad and Copper stood on the porch to watch me go, and even Aspen stumbled downstairs to mumble a good bye.

I made it through check in, TSA, and Starbucks surprisingly quickly, and immediately began a conversation with the curly girl across the aisle at the terminal.  Her name is Daisy Jane Darling -- holy crap, best name ever! -- and she had the fabulous curls of my dreams, like mom's tight corkscrews, but very very long.  We immediately hit it off, and talked about curls and many other things.  She's sixteen, so obviously much braver than I am, and she goes to high school in Tacoma.

There was no one else in my row, an exit row, so she sat beside me.  I took a Virgin America flight, and it was a fantastic flight.  Every seat has a tv and remote control with a credit card swiper, and the safety speech is a music video with people like Phillip Cheeb and Cyrus Spencer (if you watch So You Think You Can Dance, you'll know).  There were games to play, and music to listen to, and you can order food right from your seat, and even send food or drinks to other passengers.  If Daisy Jane hadn't been able to move near me, I was going to send her a coke.

We talked and had a great time the whole flight, which was about an hour and 45 minutes.  I had a checked bag, but she didn't, so we said a very warm good bye for new instant friends, and went our separate ways.  I found my luggage, rearranged some books etc, and headed off to find Aer Lingus.

This involved three escalators and an airtrack train, and some pacing, and almost going through security without a boarding pass, before I found out that Aer Lingus doesn't open their desk for check ins until 2.  So I grabbed a burger, read, texted my family, and waited around.

I had nightmares all last night that they were not going to let me on the plane, and waiting in anticipation did NOT help this situation.  Supportive texts from mom/boyfriend kept me from losing it.  I eventually made it into a line of mostly non-Irish European foreigners, and stood for a very long time.

I discovered that, whatever classlessness Europeans assume of Americans must only apply to the adults.  I have never seen such uncivil children.  Among the most serious offenses, 1) Euro-Justin Beiber (a criminal offense in every country), 2) a rather loud boy who would not stop hanging off of his father, and trying to kiss him, 3) loud phone calls in non-English languages and slow texting that held up the line, 4) pushing into an existing line, 5) a German or Dutch boy picked his nose AND ATE IT, PEOPLE.

Anyway, after those idiots at the airline let me through, and no one at TSA sent me home with a stern word, I wandered, dazed, into my terminal.  I found a stand and bought a giant water bottle, some Gardetto's, and some SweetTarts.  I am now waiting patiently for them to let me on the plane.

Then the real adventure will begin!

Extraneous Details for Your Perusal

I realized that there are several little tidbits of information that are just interesting to know, and that might be helpful in understanding what's happening.  I'll try to go in roughly chronological order.

I initially heard about the study abroad opportunities while sitting in the advising office waiting for my appointment to add marketing as my second major.  At the time, I was an accounting major who was falling haplessly in love with my marketing class, which was the subject that had initially turned me toward business in the first place.  How I decided to go with accounting instead, I genuinely can't remember.  I believe it had something to do with wanting to prove that I'm a big smarty pants, and to do something hard just because I wanted to win at doing hard things.  This is rarely a good reason to do things.

An informational meeting was coming up soon, and I decided to go.  The meeting was very interesting -- other trips were mentioned, one to England and one to India.  England was a close second for me, but I was told that Leta likes to take people who are desperate to take only her trip.  If I really want it, it should be the only trip for which I apply.  I walked away from that meeting feeling incredibly confident that I would be accepted.  It was an inexplicable feeling that I was definitely destined to go on this trip.

In my preparations for the application, I happened to mention it to my friend from accounting.  Now, she's got what I would call, really good luck.  She is currently on a scholarship with the AICPA, which is an academic accounting fraternity of some sort, and she got this really cool internship with the King County Courthouse as a forensic accountant (I had no idea that was even a thing).  She's got some added demographic benefits, such as being Latina, and being a non-traditional returning student, etc.  Anyway, when she found out that I was applying, she decided to apply as well.  The goal was to take the trip together.

My confidence immediately dropped.  On one hand, it would be incredible to have an existing friend for the trip.  Ireland wouldn't be ready for the two of us.  But, on the other hand, I was very seriously concerned that rather than take us as a boxed set, Leta would pick my friend over me.  I delayed very seriously in finishing my application, and finally completed it a week or so before the deadline.  I wrote my personal statement honestly, naturally, and from the heart, and decided to let it play out as it would.

Well, the spoiler is that obviously I was accepted.  Unfortunately, my friend was not.  Now that I know the other members of the group, I really wish she was coming, so that I would have a decent friend with a viperish sense of humor to tour Ireland with me.  But it is probably best for my personal growth that I make this trip alone.  But I will sorely miss her.

*   *   *

I found out I was accepted to the trip via phone call.  Now, what is funny is that my phone is forever attached to the side of my face.  The fact that Leta was able to call three separate times when I did not have my phone on my person is remarkable.  I didn't recognize the number, and she didn't leave a message, so I had no idea who this person was who kept calling me at 9:30 at night.  I wasn't going to call them back and interrogate them -- "Hello, why do you keep calling me, I think you have the wrong number, who are you so I can tell you that you have the wrong number?  You didn't leave a message so I don't know who you are, or who you were trying to reach, but I'm pretty sure you have the wrong number, so I'm calling you back to follow up, and make sure you get a hold of whoever you're supposed to be calling, because it's definitely not me, because I think you have the wrong number."

Finally, I was on the phone with Chris when the number started to call me.  I was, by now, quite perplexed about this very insistent person who never left a message.  I hung up with Chris to take the call, and it was Leta.  She said hello, and asked for me, and then she spent a little time admonishing me for not answering my phone.  Then she said that I'm on the team, and I swear to God, I said "what team?"  And she said "The trip to Ireland!  You're going to Ireland."  And then I screamed at her.

Once I was done screaming, I thanked her profusely, and apologized profusely, and thanked her again.  I ran downstairs to tell my parents, and then I cried for a little while because I was so damn excited.  I called Chris back, and he was also excited, and at this point I had stopped crying, so I tried to act nonchalant.

*   *   *

Flash forward to our first meeting of the group, in mid-April.  We did some typical ice-breaker activities, and did mini-interviews with each other to introduce our partner to the rest of the group.  Leta loves what she called "juicy details," so I mentioned to my partner, Toto (Cambodian) that I used to speed-read for debate, and could talk at about 400 words per minute.  When this was announced to the group, I was required to perform this skill.  I did ok, for someone who was severely out of practice, but I got hung up on the word "economics" and stuttered until I got going again, which is always embarrassing.  I was also the only person to be required to perform for my juicy detail.

A few people were not in attendance for work or class, and one of those people was Will.  Leta said that Will was coming late, and alluded to something about him and sheep.  When he arrived, after my stuttering display, she turned to welcome him and said "It's Will!  The sheep guy!"  We all looked between Leta and Will, and he started to explain, but Leta waved him off and said "it's a story."  As he sat down, he assured those of us nearest to him that it was NOT a story.

We talked about the trip, and the companies we would visit.  I asked about the sheep farm, because on the trip brochure it mentioned a sheep farm.  She asked if I had raised sheep, but I said that my mom and I both knit.  Apparently that was more than enough interest for her, and she declared that my company profile should be on the sheep farm.  In a stunning moment of revelation, she realized that Will could be my partner, because he was the sheep guy, so we'll be partners, and we'll be the sheep people.

Oh God, trip hasn't even started yet, and already branded as a Sheep Person.

I met with Will when the group broke up a little later, and asked him about "the story" related to the sheep.  He said that he was raised on a farm in Eastern Washington, and that, among other animals, sheep were on the farm.  That's all.

Still, we are branded for life as The Sheep People.

*   *   *

On an insufferably hot day, our group met to learn about the history of Ireland from Leta's husband, Mark.  He has a PhD (?) in history, and despite the education, he spent a decent portion of time trying to operate YouTube to show us a video about the IRA.  One should never laugh at a person for struggling with things, but he was being exceptionally comical about it.  I am going to believe that he was doing a caricature of a person who can't find the mouse on the screen.

He was, however, a fantastic story-teller, who gave a brief history of Ireland in about 45 minutes.  He will be meeting up with our group for a week in Ireland, for his and Leta's wedding anniversary.

During this same meeting, we all put our names on little tickets, to be drawn from a hat later.  I always feel some dread associated with being up to "win" anything, because 75% of the time, the "award" is a task (in my experience).  Just as she was about to draw, she informed us that she had 5 Rick Steve's Ireland travel books that she was giving away.  I very nearly declared that she could take my name out of the running, because I had already bought the Lonely Planet Ireland book.  But before I could speak, my name was the first one to come out of the hat, and I suddenly decided that I desperately wanted it, so I kept my mouth shut, and graciously took my award.  Best drawing ever!