Visits of Titanic Proportions

Leta warned us of a surprise company visit, and I was dubious of what it could be, since she didn't tell us to wear anything particularly special.  The day before, Emily, thinking much as I have that her surprises nearly always leave me inappropriately dressed for the occasion, interrogated Leta about the casualness of our casual dress code.  Not walking heavy, no hiking, we were promised.  But cute casual, not athletic casual.

I had heard competing information for Leta and Gabriel, 9:30 company visit, 2 hour company visit, two hours to get to a company visit, visit in Dublin, visit in Belfast.  When we first took a little look around the dockland areas of Belfast, before heading out of the city, I was suspicious that we would come so close to the Titanic museum without going inside.  The H&W, Harland and Wolff, cranes that once lifted the Titanic were impossibly large.  The museum is large, four pointed, to look like the prow of the ship from every direction.  The building is as tall as the ship was, from keel to gunwales. 

Of course, we were indeed going to the museum.  Never underestimate Leta's ability to surprise us with the thing we were guessing we would do...  Anyway, inside the museum, we went directly to the sixth floor, and worked our way downward through the history of the vessel.  Information about the history of Belfast and shipping in Belfast got us started, and I confess, I rushed through the first three floors too quickly, and ended up in the bottom three, which were primarily devoted to modern depictions of the Titanic in media, and to deep sea explorations to better understand the ship, which I did not find quite so compelling.  So, the short story is that I rushed through the good parts, and then stood around for an hour, while more sensible people dragged their feet through the exhibit.

(Bear with me on this, for my mind, it makes more sense to go first floor, second floor etc, but you have to just remember that I am moving reverse chronologically down the stories of the building.  Pretend it is Star Wars, and just go with it, and argue amongst yourselves about which floor I am really talking about.)  The first floor was the history of Belfast as a linen manufacturing city, as the bustling northern port in Ireland for the British, and for Harland and Wolff, the operators of many many cranes.  The most notable, and most relevant to the story, are Samson and Goliath.  They are still standing today, and I got pictures of them before we went into the museum.  They look perfectly modern still. 

The second floor was about the construction of the ship, and while the ride was a bit hokey, they had an actual moving ride, where you could move along as though on the side of the ship, and watch recreations and see displays of the various parts that went into building the boat.  I would hate to be on the crew who hammered the steel bolts in from both sides to keep the metal plates together.  I'm sure there was an entire generation of completely deaf Belfaster men.  (For your interest, there is no official name for people from Belfast.  I googled it.  No one has settled on anything.  Belfastians has been thrown around, purely academically, but no one likes it.)  After my little lift ride, I continued on to the next floor, to see recreations of the outfitting of the inside of the Titanic.  There was one display, in which you could virtually move up the stairs through five levels of the ship.  You stood in the center of this three sided room of tv screens, and get extreme vertigo as it completely feels like you are moving around within the room.  It was really that good.  I feel like it might have been easier if I had pretended to walk while I was in it, to ease some of the vertigo.

The outfitting of the rooms was quite marvelous, especially the state rooms, but even the smaller rooms were clever and quaint in their use of space.  I could not get over how tiny the beds were though.  I am not an especially large woman, but there is absolutely no way I could have slept in even the largest, and most palatial of state rooms.  If I thought hostel beds were terrible and tiny, sleeping in second class bunks must have been horrendous.  I read that for all but the state rooms, the showers ran salt water.  Salt water.  What would even be the point of showering?  You would come out just as gross as you went in. 

The next floor (the fourth?  I think?), we heard audio recordings of survivors, or readings of things written by survivors, of the crash.  All along the walls were the Morse code and text versions of all the distress calls and responses from other boats.  The most tragic thing is the obvious desperation in the voice of the guy tapping out the calls.  "OK, we will hold on as long as we can."  It said that from the moment they saw the berg to when they hit it was just over 34 seconds.  Virtually instantaneous.  When you realize how truly massive this boat was, and the confidence that people had in it, it is absolutely astounding that it went down.  There was a bridge built in Dublin by H&W, and for several years after the tragedy, no one would cross it.  What is nearly as remarkable as that, is that Titanic was only 406 of over 1000 ships that Harland and Wolff built.  Despite the tragedy, they went right back to making boats, and eventually people got over the whole bridge thing.  (Haha, see what I did there, it's a bridge, you have to get over it.  Very clever, Sierra.)

After that, as stated before, I sort of lost interest.  The final levels featured a theater playing video and some very rehearsed audio of the deep sea searching of the wreckage underwater.  The only thing of note at this stage was that they have identified a microorganism that can break down metal, that is slowly eating the Titanic, that might be usable for breaking down more of our waste on the surface.  The final sections were on the representations of the Titanic sinking in media (apparently the mid century movie depiction is the most historically accurate), and of further deep sea diving to the Titanic on the ocean floor.

After my tour, I needed some coffee rather desperately, and got a cup at The Galley coffee shop, where the crew wore very cute turn of the century outfits.  The poor Americans behind me in line literally held their money out, and he took what he needed from them.  They said that that was not the first time they have done that.  In fact, they were nearly robbed blind in Morocco because Moroccan merchants are not as honest as the Irish.  I mean, I hate the money too, it's all silly sizes and colors, and there are literally eight million different coins.  (1 cent, 2 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent, 50 cent, 1 euro, 2 euro.  You could very nearly give exact change with these coins so that someone could conceivably get one of each.  3.88 in change, and you would get one of everything.  It's preposterous.)  But I am literate, and I can figure out how to count out my own change, however slowly.  I figure that it is my right as an obnoxious American, who -- second to the Germans, who are holding up the euro right now -- are the main source of foreign direct investment in their stupid little country, to get to take as long as I damn well please counting out my money.

Anyway, I sipped my coffee, got on the free wifi, assured my mother and boyfriend that I am alive, and googled how to say "how are you" in Irish.  Not only had Tony the cart driver tried to tell me, but Gabriel had too, and this time, I was going to learn this phrase.  Google Translate, in fairness, is retarded.  It did not offer to pronounce the Irish translation, only my English phrase that I just typed.  Thank you Google, I do, in fact, speak English already.  The phrase is "Conas atà tù?" and happily pronounced very much the same way that it is written.  (Contrast with the Irish language word for cheers, for drinking, spelled Slaintè! but pronounced s-lawn-cha!)

We piled on the bus, and began heading for Dublin.  I was very much looking forward to returning to the Republic, and because this was our last day with Gabriel, I rode with him in the front seat.  It was quite warm in the sun, and there were fairly forgettable hillsides on the way to Dublin, so I did some blogging, and some staring out the window.  When we passed into the Republic, I felt like I could exhale again.  By the time we arrived in Dublin, I felt quite comfortable again, but was prepping to have to say good bye to Gabriel.  Someone else in the group had bought a card, and everyone had signed it.  I took a second to write to him, and told him that I will miss him terribly, and if he ever needs a live-in nanny to care for his kids, I won't be hard to find.  I thanked him for letting me be the co-pilot he never asked for, and for learning my name, and I told him that I would miss him very very much.  I hugged him as I got out of the bus, and again before I had to check in in the hostel.  He said that he might be coming to visit in Seattle, and I hope that he does, and if he does, I hope that we can have a massive reunion of all the kids he has driven around Ireland over the years.  He has been doing this trip with Leta for at least five years, so by now, there must be nearly 150 kids who have fallen in love with Gabriel too, and would like to see him.  If I ever make it back to Ireland, I will go visit Gabriel.

We checked back in at the Four Courts hostel, and I contemplated what I would do about the weekend.  Since everyone else is leaving on Saturday morning, I will have to find accommodation for Saturday and Sunday night, which are honestly the two worst nights to be looking for accommodation in Dublin.  I would love to say that I planned ahead and organized it in advance, but I didn't, so I would need to do a little research.  But that was going to be an issue for future Sierra, because soon after we arrived, we decided to go to Penney's one more time.  Literally every single girl, including Leta, and Kathleen who came to replace Marnie, went to Penney's.  I didn't need anything, and I wasn't prepared to buy anything unless there was something incredibly good.  I was interested in seeing how different pants were here from in America.  The first thing I discovered is that the boot cut has not crossed the ocean.  There were 5 different varieties of skinny.  Skinny jegging, skinny slim fit, skinny high waist, boyfriend (which is hardly an improvement over skinny, because the narrow hips and wide legs make me look about seven feet across.), and another variety of skinny that I think was cropped.  Not a boot cut or flare jean to be found.  So, that was tragic.  I stumbled upon a maxi dress, to which I am strongly addicted, but passed because, despite being 3 euro, it was at least one size too big, and thin as cheese cloth.  I don't know what you are supposed to wear under it, but I've noticed that most of the Irish don't seem to know either.  So that's not good.

As my beloved and patient mother will attest, I am having a very hard time with the fact that I gained some weight recently, and had to buy all new pants, and I can no longer throw on whatever and still get a flattering cut.  I have come to associate high waisted pants with greater success though.  I found an intriguing pair that came with little suspenders and were skinny, but had plenty of hip room, so I decided to give it a shot.  This was a terrible idea.  I don't know what these pants were made of, but it was not real denim.  They were very very stretchy, and had the top flaps of pockets, but no pockets, so that the flaps just stuck out straight back from my butt, which looked much like someone had put two balloons on top of ice cream cones.  And not good balloons, but day old balloons.  It was very bad.  I apologize for the mental image, but I was thoroughly horrified by putting on these pants, and in fact felt quite terrible about my abnormal, American shaped body for the rest of the day.  Clothes shopping has gone from one of my favorite hobbies to the absolutely worst activity ever, and I don't ever want to go back.  Eff you, Penney's, and your weird, bad self-esteem pants.

Leta, as usual, had a fantastic time, and several much skinnier girls made some purchases.  We met outside and took off for another Thai restaurant.  I should have decided to find my own food.  I don't like Thai, and it was giving me a weird vibe (see, Thai food after the Aran Islands).  But I went because everyone else was going, and I am not good with peer pressure.  It ended up being quite good, beef red curry with bamboo shoots and coconut milk, if very expensive.  I think I ended up paying somewhere in the family of 13 euro, including the service charge for large groups.  We were all quite motivated to shed our coinage, so the pile of change on that table was a bit over the top.  As we set up to leave, Leta was taking a cab, and Lauren and I were going to go with her, but there weren't enough seats with all the people who wanted to join the taxi, so we decided to walk instead because Lauren wanted some gelato.  She asked very nicely if I wanted some gelato, and I said I had spent quite enough money already that day, so no, and besides I don't really eat dessert.  She said, well, then you can watch me while I get some gelato. 

We took a different route from the other girls who were walking back, and ended up crossing paths with them on O'Connell street, and from there found our gelato place of choice.  She got a rich, dark, chocolate brownie gelato, and was extremely satisfied with her purchase.  We found the river, our easiest landmark, as it runs up the center of the part of town that we inhabit, and proceeded on to the hostel.  Once inside, I spent quite a bit of time on Facebook messenger, chatting with everyone at home, and she took a shower, and I had one before bed.  As usual, everyone else got in quite late.  I will admit that other than when Reilly and Will came in looking for something, and Reilly rode Will piggy back out of the room, I did not hear anyone return.

Northern Ireland, in the Land of Giants

We had our only Northern Irish company visit in the morning, and were told to dress business casual, with change of clothes for later explorations.  I wore a button up and my nice-ish green jeans, with my suit jacket, and the plan to simply trade small heels for sneakers and a sweater for the jacket.  Our visit was to Bushmills, the other Irish whiskey.  On the way, Gabriel had us stop to see a castle that had once been quite large, until a piece of the hillside released underneath it, and all the servants in the kitchen fell into the ocean with a chunk of the castle. 

Bushmills is the oldest distillery in the world, and received its license to distill in the 1600's and has been in operation ever since.  Their bottling capacity is actually greater than their production, and since Jameson's production is greater than their bottling capacity, Bushmills has a lease to do much of the excess bottling.  According to Niall, the representative with whom we talked for a while, it is better to be your competitor's bottler than to let anyone else bottle for your competitor.  Might as well get some of that greater Jameson money anyway.  Bushmills has benefited tangentially from the revival in popularity of Irish whiskey, so Jameson and Bushmills are much in the same boat on those things, despite Jameson doing better overall.  As is unsurprising after talking to Jameson, the target market for their rebranding is of course, young people.  They have created a honey whiskey to compete with brands like Jack Daniel's, to go after women as well.

After a fairly brief meeting with Niall, we took a tour of the distillery.  It was much more interesting to go into a working factory than to see recreations like at the Jameson tour.  It was quite warm in nearly ever step of the process, from the mash to the distillation, to casking.  They use many different barrels, including bourbon barrels and madera wine barrels.  The girl who lead us on the tour was only 18, and was headed in the fall for Bristol to go to university.  She was quite excited to meet us, and talk about college-ish things with us.  So there was learning going in both directions.

After the tour, we were given free samples of their drinks, and I had the honey whiskey.  It was quite good, but no better or worse than the Jack Daniel's honey whiskey that we have at home.  The girls headed out to the bus first, to change into our casual clothes.  I switched shoes and put on my sweater.  Then the boys changed, and we all prepared to head for Giant's Causeway.  If you are familiar with Devil's Tower in Wyoming, you will know about how volcanic matter turns into hexagonal columns when it cools and the surrounding soil eventually erodes away.  Giant's Causeway is much like walking around on the top of that.  Gabriel told us the story about Cuchillain (koo killin, as we learned from our hurling playing friend), which he finds significantly more probable than the story about the volcano.

There once were giants in Scotland, and this part of Ulster, the northern province of Ireland, was ruled by Cuchillain, the great warrior.  The giants heard of Cuchillain, and were incredibly motivated to go and kill him, as is the habit of giants.  Cuchillain's wife heard of this plan, and advised her husband that it would be best that he does not fight these giants, for he would most certainly lose the battle.  She devised an alternative plan.  When the giants came, Cuchillain would lay down in the baby basinet.  He did just that, and when the giants crossed the land bridge between Ireland and Scotland, and came knocking at Cuchillain's castle door, Cuchillain's wife let them in, and asked them to sit and wait while she fetched her husband, who was cutting wood out in the fields behind the castle.  The giants, left alone in the room with Cuchillain (a rather large man) laying in the basinet and pretending to be a baby, realized that if this was the size of the baby, what must be the size of the man?  In their haste to remove themselves from the castle and from all of Ireland, their heavy footfalls broke up the land bridge between Ireland and Scotland, shaking the remaining stone in the north until it undulated behind them and uneven stepping stones in their wake.

Either way, it was a long, hot walk in the sun along the cliff edge, and a much cooler and shadier trek down the steep trail on the cliff face (no guardrails, because this ain't America), and a cool ocean breeze blowing across the actual Causeway.  This is yet another of my stops that will make significantly more sense with pictures.  There were large boulders tossed by the ocean onto the shore, and interestingly, distinct edges of rock, where one side was light and one side was nearly black.  I don't know if that was a feature of algae or some other phenomenon.  The hexagonal rocks, like surprisingly geometric stepping stones, rose unevenly out of the sea, and were excellent climbing spots.  Since I have never been to the top of Devil's tower, I can only assume that this is what it looks like from the top.  We took a family picture on a particularly pointed outpost.  A photographer was doing some kind of Irish potato ad campaign, and Emy and Zoe became potato models for the brand.  Why they were photographing bags of potatoes at Giant's Causeway, I'll never know.  And how Leta came to decide that two of her girls needed to go become potato models is perhaps just as much of a mystery.

It was veritably blistering in the sun, with the heat bouncing up off the rocks.  The hike back up the hill to get back to Gabriel and the van was exhausting.  I was still wearing my button up and long pants, and carrying my sweater, which Gabriel had admonished me to bring.  I ran the last few steps up the final stairway, and very nearly collapsed on the grass at the top.  A convenience store was nearby, and I was desperate for a coke.  I found one named Margaret, which is Marnie's full name, and I bought it because I miss her.  I thought I heard her laugh on the bus, and I turned and then was sad.  She was part of my little crew, and I always hung out with her.  I'm going to miss her these last couple of days.

We stopped for lunch along our way, at a place whose name I forget, but it featured on the Game of Thrones tour that leaves from Dublin.  I charged my tablet, which was near death, and had some soup.  I am fairly exhausted of eating out all the time, and eating so heavily all the time.  Several of the boys played pool, and I watched and finished the last blog post I posted.

After Giant's Causeway, we continued further into the hinterland, to a rope bridge.  I forget the name, which looked an awful lot like Irish for a place that professes to be more English than Irish.  It is allegedly quite famous, and it cost us six euro to go.  This became another massive hike in the sun, and still I was incredibly inappropriately dressed.  I like that Leta surprises us with excellent visits, but slightly more warning (extensive hiking coming soon!) would be nice.  I personally hate surprises anyway, so...  Massive hike notwithstanding, we made our way out to a fabulously beautiful Irish cove that looked so picturesque, and the water so clear, it could have been tropical.  The rope bridge was, in fairness, a bit of a disappointment.  It was far too short and far too sturdy to be truly terrifying.  The cliffs on the other side of the bridge were quite beautiful, although I'm sure that most of my pictures could be mistaken for The Cliffs of Moher, Aran Islands, the Burren, or Giant's Causeway.  Not to be jaded, but they are all starting to look the same. 

We trekked back, over hill and dale and through much farmland, to get back to the van, sweaty again for the second time that day.  By then it was quite late afternoon, and not much more to do in Belfast.  Since we were leaving in the morning, we were advised to spend most of our money tonight.  This became a challenge I took very much to heart.  Lauren eats earlier in the day than our group generally does, and I was absolutely famished.  We tried in vane to rally some boys to go with us, and ended up wandering the streets of Belfast in search of food.  It didn't take terribly long, and Belfast is certainly not as scary as I was initially feeling.  We ended up at Scalini, an Italian place.

I had the bruschetta, she had a Caesar salad, we shared a Hawaian (missing an I, amusingly) pizza and remarked on the name of the bacon on the pizza, since it was obviously not Canadian, and shared a piece of chocolate cake and ice cream.  I had a glass of wine as well, because as I told Lauren, the fastest way to burn through your cash is with alcohol.  We had delightful dinner conversation, and I got to know her quite well.  It was very nice being out just the two of us, and indeed, we spent nearly every pence we had been given.  We meandered back to the hostel, and did most of our packing.  I would love to say that at this point, we went to bed, but we didn't.

Unfortunately, when you only spend two nights in a city, the first one is your first night in the city, and the second one is your last night in the city.  So there is really no excuse to avoid going out back to back nights.  We dodged our arrival night, but around 9 we decided that, if the crowd could decide where to go -- and get there -- by 9:30, we would go out as well.  The boys' room, which had all the boys in it, became the pre-funking room.  Every single person left in our group was inside, and people (Emily) were already getting misty eyed about the end of the trip.  We stood around in the fairly oppressive heat for a while, and around 9:30, everyone began collecting themselves to go out.

The only pub that I was particularly interested in was The Crown, so named by a husband and wife pair.  The husband was Catholic, the wife Protestant.  He agreed to let her name the pub The Crown, after the monarchy, if he could decide where the logo would be depicted.  He selected the mosaic tile on the front step.  So as you enter The Crown, you're also wiping your feet on the crown.  Touche, my friend.

Inside, it was very shiny, which is the best way I can describe all the mirrors and generally reflective metal panels around the very ornate bar and seating.  Instead of haphazard collections of tables and chairs, this pub was mainly dominated by a dozen or so wooden booths, with doors, and leather seats inside around generous tables.  Carved animals with Latin phrases ornamented the columns of each corner of these booths.  It was certainly an adults' pub, and we came off as quite raucous upon our arrival.  Most people had a drink, and a few girls found some Aussies to talk to (it seems there are nearly as many tourists from Down Under as from America around here.).  Lauren, Dale and I had our fill fairly quickly, popped our heads into Robinson's next door to see if anything remarkable was going on there, which nothing was, and left for home.  I liked it very much that Dale was also ready to go home, Tanner is awesome, and makes me feel better about how much I swear and my lack of faith, but he is much more willing to go out, and won't come back until later at night usually.  Dale is on the same wavelength as Lauren and I.  I think, actually, that he might have been still battling with his cold.  So, perhaps his desire to go back to the hostel is not so remarkable.

A Vagabond in a War-Weary City

We departed from Galway fairly early, and began driving toward Belfast.  As we were loading, I was telling Gabriel about Tony the cart driver, and how he tried to teach me some Irish while we were driving, but that I couldn't remember how to say it.  The phrase was just How are you?, and Gabriel said that I could sit in the jump seat next to him and he would teach me.  So, leaving Galway, I got to be Gabriel's copilot.  (The phrase is Conas ata tu.  It is interesting how many languages use tu to refer to you.  Since Gaelic is a language of the Celts, who came from Europe, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some shared roots among those languages.)  I was happy as a little clam in the front seat with Gabriel.  There is not remarkably a lot to see between Galway and Belfast, so it was fairly easy, farmland driving.  We chatted a lot, and I got some blogging done as well.  Apparently the second rocks (as they have become colloquially known, for our stop at a second set of rocks that looked exactly like The Burren) was a stop we were required to take, because much like American commercial driving, the chip in the dashboard requires that bus drivers take a certain number of breaks after certain amounts of time, and we were required to take that stop for his chip to be legal.  So there you go.

We rode along quite happily, he and I, singing Irish songs (he played Johnny Jump Up on his iPod, which is one of the songs we learned at the musical pub crawl in Dublin, and he liked that I sang it with him.).  We drove for perhaps an hour and a half before making a pitstop in County Kildare.  Gabriel let me use the microphone to wake everyone up, so I spent the ten minutes before the wake up call prepping what I was going to say.  Everyone hates how aggressively he wakes us up "Hello my little chickeeens!  Wakey wakey at the zoooo!".  So I put on my best Irish accent, and my best flight attendant voice, and I said "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for flying Aer Lingus.  It is haapasht 11 local time, here in beautiful County Kildare.  The captain has advised me that we will be landing shortly, for coffee and tea service, and we recommend that all passengers take the opportunity to strain the spuds.  We ask at this time that you please return your seat to its full upright, and locked position as we prepare for landing.  As always, thanks again for flying Aer Lingus."  It went over very well, and everyone was quite amused.

The pitstop was fairly nice, a good little reststop of which there are fairly few in Ireland.  The bathrooms were nice, and a few people got Burger King or coffee before returning to the bus.  I rode with Gabriel for much of the rest of the ride into Belfast.  We stopped for lunch soon after, maybe another half hour on, and I got a little pannini and some apple juice.  I brought Gabriel a cup of soup, because we are best friends now, and also because I wanted to avoid a repeat of the other day.  The man does so much, it is not hard to bring him a little hot soup.

As soon as we crossed the border into Northern Ireland, I felt like there was a shift of energy.  There was nothing marked about the change in scenery, but I just felt like I had left the Republic.  I hadn't thought of Ireland as being the Republic of Ireland until I was in the north.  The little cafe where we got lunch felt different, and after two weeks of adapting to accents, I was surprised at how hard it was to understand them.  Firstly they mumbled, which is always a problem, as my mother is wont to remind me.  But secondly, their accents were definitely different.  The Cork or Dingle accents were thicker, but I understood everyone.  As soon as I was in the north, I had to start asking what.  Anyway, they seemed to find me quite a bother for my stupidity, so it contributed to my feeling that the north was not the Ireland that I came to be in.

Gabriel gave us a crash course on Belfast and Northern Irish history as we approached, and I confess, it is difficult to follow the many different factions of the competing groups.  The IRA, the Orangemen, the Ulster Unionists, the Sinn (shin) Fein party, all of that I could probably explain, but it would take a little time to get them all straight, and their respective allegances.  The highlights are that when the people of Northern Ireland voted to decide which counties were staying with England, and which were becoming part of the Republic, they had unequal representation.  Catholic houses were granted one vote per house, regardless of how many voting age people lived in the house (and since the Catholics often lived in the slums, their homes were often quite full.), while the Protestants were given one vote per voting age person.  Thus, the Protestants, a clear population minority, pushed the vote so that four of the six counties that wanted to be in the Republic, became part of the UK instead. 

Driving across the border was less intimidating than we expected.  There was less protection than at the Canadian border, and not even a guard station.  Toto, who had only gotten a visa to go to the Republic, was concerned that he wouldn't be let into Northern Ireland, but no one at all checked.  As recently as ten years ago, though, there would have been full and elaborate check points at the major roads.

Belfast is an interesting enough city, but I felt on edge upon arrival.  Gabriel gave us a quick drive around, and we saw city hall, and a few churches, and he pointed out the road down which we were not to go.  British flags adorned nearly every building, and he said that it would be politically unsafe to go there, especially at night.  He wanted to remind us that, like every city, there are places where you just don't go, but it still felt very creepy to look down the road and know that that was a street thumbing its nose at all the Catholic Irish in the area.  There was far more graffiti here than in any of the cities I have seen so far.  It feels simultaneously more metropolitan, more English even, and more third world.  This place is so recently on the brink of very real civil conflict, and death in the streets, that you feel the tension in the air.

We dropped our things off at the hostel, Vagabonds.  The room that six of us girls were in was incredibly tight, and there were unfortunately no en suite bathrooms.  The nearest and nicest bathroom was up a half flight of stairs, where in one corner, there were three doors.  One had a full bath, sink, toilet and shower.  One was a half bath, with sink and toilet, and the other door had just the shower.  Making the best of the space, I suppose.  With all of our giant bags, which have gotten quite fat and crazy with all the buying of things and whatnot for the last two weeks, it was very cramped in our room.  At least this place had proper sheets and blankets, unlike the other hostels which have had only comforters.

We just dropped our things, and headed back out to the bus to meet up with Ken Harper, of Black Cab Tours, to show us the main sights and tell the history of the city.  We walked along beside the international mural wall, which is a section of the mural walls dedicated to Irish support for international causes that they deem important enough to require large scale artistic support.  These included murals for a Native American held in jail for 20 years, Palestine, and other such topics.  Around the corner were more, including one featuring dozens of African Americans (among them, a rather roundfaced depiction of Obama), in solidarity with the plight and oppression of the Irish by the English.  There was also one about global climate change. 

We also got to walk through one of the gates of the peace wall.  It's like the Berlin wall, and they sometimes call it that.  The gates close at night, keeping the Protestants in and the Catholics out.  Inside, the curbs are painted red, white and blue, and pennant banners with the British colors fly across the roads between houses.  Among many of the neighborhoods, murals are painted on the sides of tennant housing.  One was called the Irish Mona Lisa, because the barrel of the rebel's gun follows you when you walk by.  It is a very disarming mural, and people live in these houses nearby.  There are new townhomes going in directly across from this morbid Mona Lisa.  We drove past a caravan park of Protestants who were having a silent protest because they are no longer allowed to march through the Catholic neighborhoods, proclaiming their British and Protestant pride.  It was terrifying being in these neighborhoods.  I can't imagine living anywhere near there.  It is honestly as close to a war zone as I hope to ever come.

Ken explained the other flag that flew beside the Union flag, a white flag with a six pointed star and a red hand on it.  He said that it was the red hand of Ulster, the northern province that contains all six of the Northern Irish counties, and a few ones from the Republic.  The red hand of Ulster, or the right hand of Ulster, is the symbol of the Ulster Unionists.  The six pointed star represents the six counties, and the hand is a reference to one of the last high kings of Ulster.  In a competition for the kingship between MacDermott and O'Neill, they proposed a race.  The first person whose right hand crossed the line would be king.  MacDermott, seeing that he was certainly going to lose the race, cut off his own right hand and threw it over the finish line.  Thus, the right, or bloody red, hand of Ulster.

After our tour, which left us all feeling a little shook up, Gabriel led us to a chicken wing place called Ryan's.  It was a bit of a walk, and we separated into quite the long trail along the way.  Leta, who walks rather slowly because of her knee, was second to last to arrive.  Byron got some kind of news the day before via e-mail, and had been in a sober mood all day, and he was the last to arrive at dinner.  He got a phone call from home, and apparently, without going into too much of his grief, one of his very close friends had passed away.  He made some arrangements for distressed traveler, and ended up leaving very early in the morning on Tuesday.  At dinner though, all we knew was that something had happened to Byron, because it was like all the life had been sucked out of him.  It was really very sad, and I didn't realize until then how much of a driving positive force Byron had been in our group.  It was very sad to see him so deflated.

I had dinner with Lauren, Corbin, Kelly and Brayden, and somehow the topic of my being homeschooled came up.  That led, as it often does, to a discussion on how one meets people and dates when homeschooled.  They asked a simple enough question, how many boyfriends have I had, which turned into a very long attempt to remember them all.  Anyway, by the end of it, people had heard more dating horror stories than any of them had ever expected from me, and I don't know if they were traumatized or amused.  I have had some pretty bad dating horror stories.  I won't name names here, but ask me some time about Rocky, Colin, Tony, Kevin (1 or 2), and Alex.  There are some very funny stories, and the Colin story always goes over well, with plenty of cringes.

From there, we just went back to the hostel, and I had a shower in the bathroom that was just a shower, and did battle with the shower head device.  I don't know if the red button actually made warm water or not, and I couldn't figure out how to turn down the water pressure, so my skin was nearly peeled off by the water, which fluctuated between warm, hot, and chilly within moments, and seemingly independent of the status of any nearby showers or toilets.  All in all, probably the strangest shower experience, and I will be grateful for the return to a shower that stays on, and stays one temperature.

Baptized in Galway Bay: Farewell

Sunday was meant to be a free day in the city, and so no one had any particular direction for the morning.  Leta was leading a group down to the Thomas Dillon certified Claddaugh ring jeweler, and probably more shopping at Penney's after that.  I didn't go on their shopping adventure, because my stag party adventure from the night before had only just begun.

When I finally rolled out of bed around 10, it was due in part to the obnoxious noise coming from next door.  I went over to say good bye to my new friends, and discovered that they were actually heading out swimming after they checked out.  It begged the question, where the hell does one go swimming in Ireland, and they all replied, the ocean.  After a bit of cajoling, I decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it.  I think I am the only person on this trip who thought to bring a bathing suit (because a swimming pool seemed on my horizon for some reason when I was packing).  I threw on my togs, a skirt and my Penney's sandals (7 euro well spent!), and met the guys downstairs.

At first I was a little peeved; the seven of them were as bad as 25 of us trying to decide where to go.  Eventually, we elected taking the bus down to the Prom, because it would be much too far to walk.  I was teased for being a rich American who never has to take the bus, which required refutation.  Not only do I take the bus, but I spent probably more hours on the bus every day than they would in a week of travel.  Just saying.  It was a worthwhile experience, if purely to see how other buses work in other countries.  They give no indication of what stop you are coming to, where it is going to stop when it finally does, and the ticket they give you for boarding is a printed single use, date-stamped receipt.  In Seattle, I would be able to get back from swimming on the same fare, but, not so in Ireland.  The idea that I spent so much time commuting seemed horrendous to them, but the idea of a bus fare that you pay once for unlimited transfers within two hours did seem interesting.

So those damn shoes get me again, because as we marched down the Prom toward the lifeguard station -- Good God, a lifeguard was actually on duty! -- I was at least one inch taller than every other guy with whom I was walking.  I was the perennial American giantess.

At the beach, several people had cleverly brought wetsuits to go into the ocean.  It didn't seem so bad in the sun, but stepping into the shade made it obvious that it was just this side of a fine day.  It was low tide, so we couldn't just jump in, we had to walk in, which would have been my preference anyway, but was certainly a more prolonged form of torture.  A few guys just charged into the ocean and got soaked in the process.  Connor was among those brave if foolish souls.  James and I, and a few of the skinnier ones, went for the slow descent with loudly proclaimed commentary.  The wind was quite stiff on the water, further punishing us.

I crept in a few inches at a time.  Apparently boys/men are the same everywhere.  The entire conversation revolved around a) shrinkage by percentage, b) tiny dicks, or c) how far up inside their torsos all their balls had moved.  I thought these people were Irish, I mean, shouldn't they be used to this?  Wasn't this their idea anyway?

The ginger -- whose name I can't remember, and who called me Sarah anyway, so who cares about his name -- had managed to get all the way into the water, and was splashing all the rest of us who were still moving slowly.  Bear in mind, there are 3 and 4 year olds in their little full-body swim suits with the floaties built into the arms who are playing in the same ocean.  And a very round man in a speedo.  Just for context.

Anyway, as we were yet again remarking that this must be how one gets a vagina, it became obvious that I (the only such original owner of one) hadn't gotten wet yet past the top of my knees.  In a flash of comedic genius, I said that if I got all the way in the water, they would never be able to get the smell out of the fish.

Look, this is a joke that was once told to me by my grandfather.  In case you think I am horrible for saying it.  And they thought I was profoundly funny for saying it, and one of them laughed so hard that he tripped on a rock and fell headlong into the water.  It served him right, because he had been tiptoeing around holding his chest and complaining about how cold it was.  And he calls himself Irish.

Eventually the ginger walked backward with me until I was up to my neck, and I ducked under.  In the small moment of panic that followed, I remembered that the last time I had been in the ocean was in Huntington Beach, California.  Wiping salt from my eyes, I was met with a smattering of applause from those assembled, for I had been baptised in the waters of the Atlantic.  James pointed out the Connemara on the other side of Galway Bay, and he said that beyond that, it is a straight shot to America.  Not to get sentimental or anything, but it was actually kind of moving to "see" America from the entirely other side.  To imagine going there from a place like Ireland, and to know that the ocean water I swam in on the Prom is the same water that touches New York.  I know it's all the same ocean water all over the world, but, it seemed very symbolic at the time. 

After perhaps 20 minutes of freezing our little white asses off, we headed for the shore to collect our things and dry off.  In the sun, it was remarkably comfortable.  Then the wind blew again, and all your heat was whipped off of you.  Oh my God, my skin was so sensitive from the cold that it seriously hurt to rub my towel on my legs.  It genuinely hurt.  It was horrible.

We put on our clothes, and everyone very maturely and deftly removed their wet togs from under their dry clothes.  We began walking toward town, and the hostel, because waiting for a bus would take too long.  Thanks again, Ireland, for your impressive bus system.  We stopped and considered getting lunch, but everyone needed a rinse off, so we hailed a taxi and took that the rest of the way.  I still had a room, so while they showered in the communal showers one floor below me, I rinsed off in peace in my own room. 

We met for lunch before they all drove home to Dublin at a place called The Cellar.  Nearly everyone was having the full Irish breakfast.  I had some tea and toast, and sort of ate pieces off other people's plates.  Not one of those Irish men finished their Irish breakfasts.  Yet further evidence that these were no Irishmen at all.

Of course we had to talk about guns, drugs, the tax policy, and Ferguson, in America, and the idea that people can open carry a gun and just walk around with it was almost as terrifying as the idea that they could conceal carry.  I think I heard a few borderline Libertarians among them, but it is hard to know.  I was impressed, because one of the skinny ones had actually watched Fox News, and seemed to find Ann Coulter to be a vaugely interesting person.  I did get a little frustrated at one point, and I spilled a little tea, but no one seemed quite as worked up as I was, so I tried to let it go.  We talked a while longer, but the hurling match was starting soon, and they needed to leave for Dublin.

Helpfully, James gave me directions to Taaffes, the pub where I was meeting my group to watch the game.  I nearly walked right by it, but Toto grabbed me.  Inside, I found who but my usual group of people: Dale, Marnie, Lauren, Tanner, and Toto.  The rest of the group was going to a bigger bar.  Dale had bought a jersey that he liked while we were at Croke Park meeting the GAA, which just happened to be Kilkenny.  Kilkenny was playing Tipperary in the All-Ireland Hurling finals, and apparently, Galway is a big Tipperary-backing town.  So, needless to say, Dale was a bit ostentatious.  Everyone is very kind about their rivalry, but he was teased none the less.

I think I explained some about hurling when we went to the live match in Cork.  I have definitely decided that I prefer football to hurling, but this was a decidedly good game.  As have all of the games that we have watch, it ended in a tie, but it was a very close, very high scoring game.  There was an old man behind us whose only cheer was apparently "Come ooon, Tip!"  very loud.  Tipperary would have won, but they missed the final point by an absolute hair's margin.  Other than that one miss, Tipperary was overall a very good team.  Kilkenny had been the favorite to win, and Tipperary winning would have been a big upset.

As we left, we let Dale part the seas, and several people asked him where he is from in Kilkenny.  They were all being facetious, of course, because it is very abundantly obvious that we are not Irish.  The stag guys said that I am very obviously American, and I don't know exactly what it is about me that makes it so obvious, but I can tell when people are Irish or English or German as well, so I suppose it's something about our faces.

After the game, Marnie needed a few gift items before she flew out -- she is leaving from Belfast to get back to Seattle for something work related, I think -- so we stopped at a shop on Shop street.  I got my Claddagh ring, and for only 20 euro, not 60, like Leta's place would have been.  It is cute, instead of hands, it has little Celtic trinity knots.  It is precisely what I wanted, at exactly the price I wanted to pay.  So now, other than my hotel, taxi, food and possibly some entertainment in Dublin before I leave on Monday, I am done spending money.  (Which is the equivalent of saying, I have several hundred more dollars to spend before I go home.  Thank the Lord that the credit card company doubled my limit!)

Our group found another faction of the group, and we went in search of McSwiggins for dinner. Since this was Marnie's last meal with us all before we went to Belfast, we had our farewell to Marnie and thank you to Gabriel dinner. Nearly every restaurant we have been to in Ireland had had multiple storeys, and moreover, we are always upstairs. McSwiggen's was gigantic on the inside, and we went up at least two floors to get to our space. Dinner was delicious, and I'm trying not to eat so much, so I paced myself and had the melon and fruit appetizer and most of my chicken cordon bleu.  Somehow I was nominated to give our gift to Gabriel, which seemed to both him and I to be very appropriate, given that he only knows my name.

We had bought him a bottle of the select reserve Jameson. I think this might be on video, but I started my speech "On behalf of the University of Washington, Foster School of Business..." And Leta, who can't just relax and wait for the joke, started to correct me to give a more personal speech.  This to the girl who is basically like Gabriel's best friend that he never asked for.

I said, on behalf of all of his little chickens, we want to thank him for all that he does for us, his mannerisms and his blarney, and going above and beyond the requirements of a coach driver to really give us the best experience possible. He coordinated Trad on the Prom, and the pub crawl.  Anyway, I thanked him for everything, and he gave me a high and everybody clapped.

Then we had to give our thank you to Marnie, and Byron stepped up to deliver that one. He did a really funny job, and that one is definitely on video, because he got down on one knee to give her the Claddagh ring we bought her. I think the people near us really thought he was proposing, so the hug at the end must have seemed a little tame.  We also got Marnie some cake, and Gabriel some mousse for dessert. All in all, it was a very good send off for Marnie, and I will be very sad the day we go back to Dublin, and we really have to say good bye to him. I found out that Gabriel's son and daughter are the two little redheads in the Rick Steves travel book.  They are darling. I can't believe Gabriel made them.

After dinner, Dale and Marnie and I went to a few pubs to change 50 euros for 10s for a light payday in the morning. After that, I just went home to pack and get ready to leave in the morning.

Aran Islands, Sweaters and Stag Parties

Saturday was a great morning for sleeping in.  We had a great long shlep, and I slept off my horrible night with some lazing and being too hot and too cold and too uncomfortable.  I finally rolled out of bed around 10:30, in preparation for our departure for the Aran Islands at hhaaaaapasht, generally stiff and still feeling quite queasy.  The shower helped, and brushing your teeth always makes you feel better, but I was certainly not repaired.  I made it down stairs, resolved to drink water often.  I bought a bottle in the hostel, and met everyone at the bus downstairs.

I said hello to Gabriel, and he said hello to me, and I took my seat on the bus.  I was meant to go for a walk with Lauren down to the Prom at nine, but I had to roam around the hostel looking like hell trying to find her and tell her that I wasn't going.  She was fairly sympathetic, and very kindly sat next to me on the bus while we rode to the ferry.  I put my head against the head rest in front of me for most of the ride, which did seem to help, and I wore my face mask because it is sort of comforting to breath my own air.  It's like the paper bag thing when you are hyperventilating.

It was incredibly brisk at the dock for the ferry, and I was glad that I had been sent upstairs for a sweater and my windbreaker.  The ferry was passenger only, so poor Gabriel did not get to go to the islands with us.  As are most things with Leta, she rushed us out the door just to hurry up and wait at the dock for the boat.  Better us waiting for our appointed ferry than waiting for the next one to turn up, I suppose.

I would tell you more about the ferry ride, but I must confess, it was glassy smooth water, and an hour long ride out to the island, and I slept most of it.  By the time we pulled into the island, I genuinely felt rejuvinated, despite spending much of the time very barely asleep and trying to keep my mouth closed.

If it was chilly on the dock on the mainland side, it was positively freezing on the Aran island side.  Leta had asked who wanted to bike and who wanted to take a van, and I was certainly not repeating my horrendous performance on the bicycles by going out while feeling terrible, so I was taking the van.  This ended up being a fabulous decision.  Since it was just Leta, Mark and I, she hired Tony the cart driver, and his poor animal Jimmy to drive us.  Tony speaks much better Irish than English, thus, he called me Sarah from Alaska (because Seattle is Alaska?), and I think honestly he was this close to carrying me off into the wild hills of Aran to keep me forever.  He had snow white hair and a face whipped by age, but he had a certain puckish quality that made him spunky in his gnarled ways.  But, like Gabriel, he was good natured and informative, and offered up plenty of blarney with his facts.

The bikers made it to the fort before we did, but I was far more informed.  Tony let me ride beside him in the front seat, and regaled me with all sorts of commentary.  Apparently the Aran islands have seen a wave of immigration, especially of Poles and Filipinos.  (This became certainly evident when we arrived at the fort and cafe.)  There once were sheep on the island, but there are no more, because, as Tony says, the young kids get on the Googles instead of tending to the sheep.  They do however have goats, and a cheese making farm, and lots of cattle, which spend all their time out of doors even in the winter, and are very tough cattle.  Aran Island is made of the same stone as The Burren, and there is no naturally occuring top soil.  All the grass lands have been constructed from years of hauling the seaweed off the coast and spreading it to rot on the land until it turns to compost, mixing it with sand, and planting things in that.  Tony said that a farmer will lay out seaweed over his potato fields three weeks before he plants the potatoes.  He also claims no change to flavor, but that Aran potatoes are the healthiest and heartiest potatoes in Ireland.

There are no naturally occurring predators on the island, and only rabbits and pheasants are native.  We saw two pheasant on our way back to the dock.  I could honestly count the animals on the pair of my hands: cattle, goats, horses, rabbits, pheasants, crows and black birds.  That is the extent of the fauna on Aran.  Our route took us along the brisk seashore ("Do you like the ocean air, Sarah dear?  Are you near the sea in Alaska, Sarah?"  "Sarah, you won't get color from the sun, here on the island, the color in your cheeks will be from the wind!  It's good for the body, that sea air.  Are you near the ocean in Alaska, Sarah?"  "What is Christmas like at home Sarah dear?  Oh!  You have Thanksgiving in Alaska, that must be quite the holiday!  Thanksgiving and Christmas!  Oh how lovely Sarah dear.").  It was fabulously beautiful, bleak and austere, but in a formidable way.  Tony spoke Irish to everyone who passed, and quite often I think he knew that the other driver couldn't hear him, but he talked anyway, I think to hear the sound of his own voice.  He said that everyone on the island lives and tills the same land of the last six or eight generations, and that each family has 60 or 70 acres of land.  The poor place is completely made of rock, so, of course, there were stone walls crawling all over the island.

Poor Jimmy, the horse, poor old Jimmy dear was constantly being chided to go faster, and the poor old boy was sweaty and tired when we got him.  I mean no offense to Leta or Mark when I say that poor Jimmy was toting quite a load with all four of us together on that cart.  Presently we arrived at the visitor center, to take the trail up to the fort.  I have already forgotten the name of the fort, of course, but it was absolutely astounding.  It was good that I made it up at the time I did, because someone had brought a UW flag, and we were taking a group picture.  I ran up to meet them, and thus, am in the center of the picture, sitting on the cliff edge (sorry mom).  We are entering our group pictures into a competition at UW when we return, and I hope that we win, and I hope that picture does it.  It was a great shot of us all together, showing our Huskie pride.  Nearly everyone wore purple, grey or black, and so we all matched very well.

After that, we perused the fort for a while, and everyone terrified me by getting close to the cliff edge.  (Joke's on you people, the aforementioned cliff edge was more like the edge of one rock in the middle of an otherwise non-cliffy section of the hillside.  So, it looks cliffy, but it is not.  Don't worry mom!)  Lindsay, Michael and I did lay down on the edge of the cliff and take a fabulously scary cliff-edge selfie, and this one was a legit cliff edge, but we layed down on our stomachs, and our heads can't just fall off, after all.

Mark and I had to hoof it back to the cart, to make it back to the dock in time for the boat at 5.  On the ride back, we had a stiff headwind, and I wish I had gotten a picture of poor Leta, with her hood pulled up tight around her face, and a blanket up to her chin.  It was very stiff, but, as Tony says, it puts good color in my cheeks, and it is good for the body.  I did feel great by the time we got to the Aran sweater shop near the dock.  As soon as I walked in, and laid eyes on this wonderful forest green light Aran sweater, I knew I wanted it, and good God, it was only 50 euro.  I pretended to peruse the other sweaters, but this was the one.  I bought it, and found that Leta and Mark had left me, so I marched my way down to the dock.  I then discovered that everyone was back at the pub I had already walked past, so I walked back there, and immediately turned around to come back to the dock with everyone else.  There was a lovely border collie, and I petted him each time I past.  He had a lovely silky head.

I wrote a bit on the boat back, and then slept for a while with my sweater for a pillow, and woke up with cables imprinted on my face.

We had a reservation at a Thai restaurant in Galway, which was actually both fancy and delicious.  I have been told that in Ireland they only use paper napkins, but I have come across a few fabric napkins while I have been here, and this was one of those places.  I ate mostly rice, and a spring roll that Leta very graciously gave me, and some vegetable spring rolls and lots of water.  I was still eating cautiously of course.

The Huskie game was on that night, and Gabriel had connected us with a pub on shop street that would live stream the game for us, and had already set up the computers and cables and everything for us to have a private viewing room with our own bar.  Evalina (who was having much the same symptoms as I was having) and I were not feeling up to going to the game, and stayed in.  This became it's own adventure for me, and while I didn't really stay in, it was absolutely worth it.

Nextdoor to my room was a stag party, and they were assembled in the hall, accosting every one of our girls as they were collecting to go watch the game.  There was one particularly drunk, particularly large, particularly hairy, particularly shirtless man named Peter was sort of spearheading the accosting.  Everyone else was sort of watching to hear what he had to say.  Well, I got sucked into talking with them.  There were a few ones who seemed ok, James, Connor, and a few others whose names I didn't catch.  They desperately wanted me to go out with them, and they wanted Evalina to go out too.  They were convinced that she just needed some hot whiskey and she would be alright.  Well, we did some chatting, and I shook them for 20 minutes, but we still didn't want to go out when they returned.  The large hairy giant (the chest hair was certainly not helping the bald spot on the top of his head...) was desperate for a cuddle, and basically broke into our room and tried to get into my bed.  His friends hauled him out, and Evalina and I went down to the common area to socialize for a while.

I spent much of the night talking to James, who is apparently the only Irishman ever to not drink.  He is career military in Dublin, and we had an exhaustive conversation on politics, world affairs, the culture of being Irish, humor (his humor was nearly identical to mine.  I am convinced that I should have been all Irish.  Their humor is biting, just this side of being mean, but always witty, and undeniably intelligent.), Ireland now and then, America and Ireland now and then, and many other sundry topics.  Eventually he felt bad that he (the best man, after all) had been left at the hostel while everyone else took the parrot/groom out to drink.  He walked me back to my room, and departed for his stag party.  His name was James O'Hara, and honestly, I couldn't have imagined a better Irishman with whom to make friends.  (He was at one point getting rather close to me, so I let him know that I have a boyfriend at home, and it is a mark that we might actually be good friends that we still talked quite pleasantly for another hour after that, if with slightly more distance between us.)

Cisco, Dixon, and the Crawl

Our first morning in Galway was the only day with company visits.  We had to be on the bus by 9:30, and even though breakfast was being served down stairs, I only grabbed some orange juice to take my vitamins before getting on the bus.  While we were traveling to Galway, I had asked Gabriel if he knew anyone's name on the trip.  He said that no, he was good with face not names.  I told him my name was Sierra, and he thought of the GMC Sierra, and thus, mnemonic device, and now I am the only person beside Leta who's name he actually knows.  So now, whenever I get on the bus, Gabriel asks me, "how are we today, Sierra?"  I love it so much!!!

Our first visit was with Cisco, the tech company.  They really went above and beyond with this visit.  I didn't realize how integral Cisco is in leading the curve on technology improvements.  They are working on little bluetooth devices that will communicate with people's smartphones as they search for wifi, and provide information directly to your phone, like a map to the bathroom, or a video about the art piece you are looking at, or a discount for the product you are looking at in the store.  They also have mastered the full immersion board room, and have worked on all these improvements on cameras to make the digital board room seem more realistic.  They spent quite a bit of time with us, and we got to talk to executives in London and Oslo as well during the demonstration of the immersion boardroom.  They certainly brought out all the big toys, and aimed to impress.

The visit went over time a little, so we had a mere 20 minutes to get food.  My usual bunch and several others bee-lined it for the Burger King in the mall.  Interestingly, it was very much the same as Burger King at home.  Tanner, who has also eaten at McDonald's while in Ireland, says that Burger King is more like the American version, but that McDonald's is better tasting in Ireland than America.  Very interesting.

Upon returning to the bus just in the knick of time, we were immediately guilt tripped, because none of us thought to get anything for Gabriel.  I felt bad, because the poor dude does so much for us, and we completely forgot.  But we only had 20 minutes!  We all just completely forgot.

Our next stop was the Dixon Carpet company, which primarily does very expensive custom carpeting for yachts, private planes, and other very posh places.  Honestly, it was a remarkably interesting trip.  Much like the Clonakilty trip, it is surprising how much more impressive the cottage industry visits are than the big international companies.  They make all the carpets by hand, aided only by a yarn gun, which is hardly an improvement over the wooden hand devices that they used to use.  They make so many gorgeous carpets, and it was really impressive.  They dye their own yarn, and mix the luxurious merino yarns or silks with the tougher, more resilient Irish and Scottish yarns.  The level of intricacy is incredible.

Gabriel took us home, with very specific instructions to meet him at Murty Rabbitt's for dinner.  We were going on a pub crawl, and Lauren and I agreed to make an appearance, and a dignified exit at 11.  Dinner took forever, because food kept coming out one piece at a time.  I had a half pint, and ended up drinking nearly all of it, and eating almost all of everyone's chips because my chicken came out absolutely last.  Unfortunately, from the moment I finished my chicken, I felt weird.  Like, mildly upset stomach weird.  Well, I didn't want to be a poor sport, so I stayed out, but decided not to drink.  Funnily enough, even though Lauren, Marnie and I bought half price pub crawl wristbands (to not drink) we were offered drinks by the people who operated the crawl, at literally every single bar we went to.  Doubly funny, I tasted the "free shots" which were just sour apple mixer.  Literally just food dye and apple flavor.

The pub crawl started at Murty Rabbitt's, where Marnie, Lauren and I chatted up this kiwi.  His name was Simon, and he was here in Dublin on his whirl wind tour of the northern hemisphere, and has already visited several countries, and worked in London for three months when he ran out of money, and is in Dublin before he heads to Norway.  Over the course of the night, I found out that he was only 23.  The beard he had made him look much older.  He was pretty cool, and we flirted a bit.

Between the first and second pub, a poker chip game was added to the festivities, and we had to buddy up.  Well I wasn't near anyone I knew, so I ended up buddies with a stranger.  His name was Alex, and he was from D. C., here for the Penn State/UCF game that was last Saturday.  Interestingly, or rather, completely and utterly unsurprisingly, the vast majority of pub crawlers were not only tourists, but predominantly American.  So much for meeting locals.

We roamed across a total of four pubs before I lost interest.  Corbin almost got in a fight with the kiwi, but I don't think it was really going to be a fight.  He stomped over there to talk to Simon, but then they proceeded to talk about ways to get me drunk and into bed, which is rich, since that would never happen.  Simon had made a joke earlier about my shoes (ok, so those shoes I bought at Penney's were the only sandals that they had, which we gigantic four inch espadrils.  So I'm like 6 feet tall in these shoes.  And no road in Ireland is less than 100 years old, so I was a bit wobbly, and hence, the source of a few jokes from a lot of people.) about how if I fell and broke my ankle, he would gladly carry me home, over his shoulder, as a kiwi would do.  Corbin and Simon had a good little talk about the logistics of that, and the fight I was certain was imminent was, in fact, just a very slurred discussion about my fondness for Irish whiskey.

At the final pub, where they actually had music, Lauren, Marnie, Dale and I left for home.  This is where the story kind of turns, I went to be around midnight, after some facebook messaging with the boyfriend.  I ended up waking up at about 4 am feeling absolutely terrible, and when I got up to pee, I ended up chundering.  It was the most horrible kind of heaving too, because I was definitely food poisoned, not from alcohol.  To further corroborate this, Evalina, who also had the chicken, also felt sick the next morning.  But, yeah, that was not the way I wanted to spend 15 minutes at 4 am.

On the Road to Galway

Thursday began very early.  I had the option to have breakfast at 6:30 before we left for Galway, but I am so apathetic toward breakfast anyway that it didn't seem worth it.  Instead, I rolled around in bed and Facebook messaged for a while, because my things were already packed.  I got up and dressed around 7, and we were leaving at 7:30.  The bottle of malt vinegar that I had gotten at the fish and chips place in Dublin had been slowly leaking vinegar into my towel, so I decided that it would be best to leave it behind.  I wrote a very nice, if probably very puzzling, note to the management, informing them that they could keep the vinegar, because I didn't know what else to do with it.  So one slightly insane letter to housekeeping later, I was ready to head off for Galway.

We had a good long drive ahead of us, and I got plenty of writing done (as you can tell by the lengthy message titled Slea Head, Supper and Socialization, which was both written and lost during this drive.).  We drove past Gabriel's house, and since his last name is Finn, and all of his family live on the same street together, he calls it Finnland.  We saw the school where he and all of his brothers, and both of his two children, attended primary classes.  Gabriel is a really interesting person, and I really like him a lot.  Unfortunately, he was also born with the gift of gab, and is an almost constant liar.  He said that our ferry ride, which would shorten our drive to Galway, would take 2 hours.

After 20 minutes of observing the very calm waters between the Dingle Peninsula and the road to Galway, we all piled back into the bus to continue on our journey.

He also said that there was a glass bottom on the ferry where you could see the water below us, and the guy at the concession stand laughed at us.

We continued on for another hour or so, and stopped at The Cliffs of Moher.  It was a fabulously beautiful and clear day, and we had a very good view of the Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride.  To the right, you could see most of the cliffs, and to the left, you could hike out to see them from the other angle.  Despite admonishing others for jumping the stone guardrail to get closer to the cliffs, I eventually jumped the guardrail as well.  It made my stomach turn everytime people were leaning over to take pictures, but of course it was far less terrifying to be the person doing the walking.  It was excruitiatingly hot, and had to be at least 75 degrees out.  We all wore long pants and most of us brought our coats, so it was very hot by the time we got to the top. 

Near the top, we ran into this girl named Morgan who is also a UW sorority girl, and who knew nearly everyone on our trip.  She had done a month in Paris, and then went to London and Dublin before she flew home.  She complained that no one on her Paris trip wanted to go out and drink at night, and all I could think was that I wished I had applied for a month in Paris instead!  (Not really, of course.)

It was a long hot march back to the bus, but we made it and were all quite exhausted.  Gabriel drove us on a while longer, to a place called The Burren.  It is like the face of the moon.  It is a barren landscape entirely made of stone, and apparently it was formed when the tectonic plates were moving.  There is similar stone in the Mediterranean, and it is likely that The Burren moved north with the plate.  It was covered in glacier for most of it's existence, but was exposed when the ice melted.  Plants like orchids and other semi tropical plants grow at the Burren and no where else in Ireland.

After that, we had one more little stop at a place that looked exactly like The Burren (and I suspect we only stopped so Gabriel could take a phone call...), and were instructed to take pictures.  Everyone was fairly peeved with this unnecessary stop, so we obediently piled out only to immediately pile back in.

After that it was a straight shot to Galway.  We arrived fairly late in the afternoon, with time to tour the city via bus.  We were on our own for dinner (which I believe is quite unfair, since we are new to this city), and were meeting, dressed up, at the bus at 8:30.  The girls in my room, Evalina, Reilly, and Catrina, and I decided that we all hated all of our clothes, and needed to find the nearest Penney's.  Koryn ended up going with us instead of Catrina, but the four of us headed up the street to Penney's.  It was in the mall, which was on the same block as our hostel, Kinlay House, and we actually walked past it on our way to find it.  I was sick of wearing all close-toed shoes, and I had hoped to find some sandals.  Unfortunately, I forgot that it is technically fall here, despite the unseasonably hot weather, and they had absolutely no sandals.  Except a fabulously tall pair of espadrils for 7 euro.  Bought and paid for, my friends.

We were not sure what the surprise was, but after heading for Thai food and being too stingy to pay for it, we hypothesized that it might be riverdance or something similar.  Indeed, we were richly rewarded.  Gabriel got us a deal on tickets to Trad on the Prom, a night of traditional Irish music and dance on the Promenade, the street facing the beachfront in Galway.  In the movie P.S. I Love You, the Promenade is featured heavily (apparently). 

The night was fantastic, with lots of music, and girls and guys from Riverdance and Lord of the Dance, and live musicians, and Sean Costilo, the acclaimed voice of Ireland.  He sang a song called 15 years, about immigrating to America, and it genuinely brought me to tears.  The dancing was incredible, although I have to wonder why kicking with straight legs is not more important.  But that skinny legged girl could certainly fly across a stage!  There was one particularly cute male dancer, but after much ogling, I realized that he was probably about 17, which makes me a pedo.

Oh my God, guys, nothing that I am saying does justice to how great this performance was.  It was absolutely incredible, and I loved every minute of it.