Huzzah!

Jane (and her friend) arrived in Galway this afternoon! It's so bizarre having our worlds collide like this - but it's more fun than bizarre. Especially since all of my housemates have been gone and I've been alone in the apartment since Tuesday morning, doing pretty much nothing other than clean and work on my final paper for my castles (archaeology) class. I picked them up from the bus station and brought them to the campus so we could have lunch and so I could finish the paper and turn it in... and guess what guess what guess what?! I did finish it. So I am now officially all done with my semester at NUIG. (I just won't find out how I did in any of my courses until July at the earliest, and September at the latest. Oh well). We celebrated with a Guinness each at a trad bar and then out to dinner and then strawberry gelato for dessert. (Om nom nom.)

It hasn't quite hit me yet that I'm all done; that summer has actually begun and I'm now technically on vacation here in Europe. I guess my next major task will be packing everything up, and trying to spend as much time doing the things around Galway that I didn't make time to do earlier in the semester. It feels so nice to be free.

On a somewhat unrelated note - we had a high of 70 here in Galway today and it was absolutely gorgeous. Today has been a good day. A good day, indeed.

Wing Girl

Over the course of the semester, my housemate Alissa has slowly become my wing girl. I think it pretty much started when I said something about a lack of male dancing partners when we go to the clubs. She rolled her eyes at me and informed me that I had apparently been blowing off guys when we went out to clubs and I was remarkably unaware. What can I say; I didn't realize that I'm apparently supposed continually glance behind me while I dance so I'll actually know when there's a guy trying to dance right behind me. Apparently I'd been ignoring a bunch of them (oops). As a general rule, I'd say that the Irish guys have been a lot more forward/aggressive than the American guys at clubs... however, they still mostly try to initiate dancing by sneaking up behind and I guess expecting you to start bumping and grinding with them. Which, I must add, is something I do not care to do. Well anyway, Alissa decided that we needed to work out a signal so she could alert my unobservant self the next time she saw an attractive male specimen lurking about in the clubs. (It took a while to decide on something, but she finally determined that a subtle "Hey, Jimmy" accompanied by a little head nod would do the trick.) But then of course we took a bit of a clubbing hiatus and we didn't get to try it out much.

Last Monday though, she dragged Jessie, Katie, and me to a pub in town (and I do mean dragged - I was so cranky about leaving the apartment and embarking on a 30 minute walk at 11pm when I was already feeling sleepy). When we got to The Quays, she and I went up to the bar together and each ordered a Guinness - which, if you don't know, takes a while. They pour most of the pint, then let it settle for a few minutes, then top it off, and then it has to sit a little longer. Well, during that Guinness-settling time, a guy at the end of the bar called over the bartender, who then came back to us and handed us back our money (!). Alissa told me that the proper etiquette in such situations meant that we had to go over to him and strike up a conversation... and that's how she and I spent the next several hours in the pub toasting pints and talking with two guys from Columbus, Ohio. (Leave it to us to find possibly the only two American guys in the Irish pub.) It wound up being a fun night. On the walk home, I admittedly felt a little sheepish for the earlier crankiness. Good things seem to always happen when Alissa decides for us to go out on the town.

* Edit: Oh, I forgot to add that Alissa took all the credit for getting that guy to buy us the drinks. She told me later that when we first got to the bar, she spotted a guy who she said looked like Nigel Barker the "sexy noted fashion photographer..." (although she later decided that he also looked a bit like a bona fide New Jersey Guido when he took his sweatshirt off), and she gave him The Eyes. It's an impressive tactic, and she's been trying to teach me how to master them, too.

Springtime happiness

On a completely random note:

I'm sitting at my desk and I just looked out the window and... it's still light out at 9 pm. I'd just like to point out how totally awesome that is.

Hooray for the warmer seasons!

Adventure Weekend

Do you remember my post about the Belfast trip? Well, that was one of the two excursions that IFSA Butler scheduled for people on the program. The second excursion was to the Killary Adventure Center in Connemara, Co. Galway (over a month ago). And it was faaaaaabulous. I think everywhere should have an Adventure Center like this.

I had actually been really reluctant to go for the weekend. I kept making excuses for myself so I could justify not going, ie, it was supposed to be really cold and rainy, I didn't have the right outdoorsy/waterproof clothing, I had a lot of reading to catch up on, I was just feeling really exhausted... I know, I'm lame. Luckily, Katie managed to convince me to suck it up and go, and I was so glad she did.

I didn't take many pictures, so this is from their website

We stayed in a lodge-type place that had a dining area for the whole top floor with huge windows that looked out on a big lake and mountains. Incredibly beautiful. We got there kind of late on Friday, so we just signed up for activities for Saturday and then ate dinner (I had a delicious cod with rice and vegetables, and then chocolate tartlets for dessert). After dinner, we played cards and board games that the IFSA people brought us. My friends and I started with Janga, which I realized my nerves absolutely cannot handle anymore, and then we found an Irish board game that taught us all about Irish geography and trivia.

The happy winners: Salamander Express

We stopped the games for a Table Quiz (group trivia contest!). My group called itself "Salamander Express" (Don't ask - I don't know). It was four rounds of ten questions each, and they threw curve balls at us by making us race to accomplish weird tasks before submitting each answer. The tasks involved a lot of cross-dressing... For example, the first one said that the first group to get a guy wearing women's shoes, a bra, a hat, and holding a toothbrush would win. They also had us switch a guy's and girl's outfits and put them on backwards. The task I won for my team was the first person to do a split in front of the Question Master. I was so excited to have a task I could do that I ran from our table and dropped into the split while running. I didn't even know I could do that. Salamander Express wound up winning the whole game (yay!), so each member on my team received a €15 iTunes gift card.

The real adventures started the next day. The Salamander Express members happened to all sign up for the same first two activities: rock climbing and the giant swing. They strapped us into harnesses and stuck giant bright red helmets on our heads (and we pretty much wore them until we left Sunday afternoon...I spent most of the weekend far off the ground). I scurried up the first 3/4 of the wall pretty quickly before I started losing all sensation in my fingers because it was so cold (Bhí sé an-fhuar)! I told the woman supervising us that I was ready to come down since I couldn't grip the little nubby rocks anymore, but she told me no (!). She said I had gone too far to quit, so I should let go of the wall and just hang on the ropes for a few minutes until I got the feeling back in my fingers, and then decide if I wanted to keep going or not. I saw that I was a lot further up the wall than I had thought, so I did what she told me to do and figured I'd try to just finish it. Well, I was the very first person of the day to make it to the top of the rock climbing wall (50 meters high), followed by Katie a minute or so later.

After we all conquered the wall, we went to tackle the giant swing. I can't explain it too well, but it was basically a big swing for two people that goes up 50 meters high and then you have to pull a little cord that drops the swing and lets it go flying in regular pendulum-like fashion. It felt a little bit like a roller coasterBasically, it was terrifying awesome. And the view of surrounding mountains and lake while swinging was great.

Katie and me - getting ready to be lifted all the way up

Just about to pull the cord and go flying

After lunch (during which I had a delicious vegetable soup and homemade oatmeal bars), we had more activities. I decided to go with the high ropes and outdoor laser tag. Again, more time in a harness, dangling from ropes, climbing up things, and jumping into the air. I was absolutely terrible at laser tag (no surprise there), but it was fun to camouflage and chase after each other in woods, trying -and failing- to avoid the bog water. I totally destroyed my shoes in the bog, but hey, whatever. They were old anyway.

Saturday night after dinner (I had salmon and a rice pilaf with strawberry cheesecake for dessert), they hosted a dance party in the dining hall. The DJ was this totally awesome man who must've been in his 70s, but he knew how to pick some good tunes. Katie, Pam, and I were the first people to get up and dance, so we pretty much got the party started. It was so weird (but fun) to dance with our program leaders and the people who had been supervising us all day. It felt like partying with your camp counselors who got really drunk. After a while, they all hopped on the bar and kept dancing up there.

Come Sunday, we were all totally exhausted and sore, but we had time for one more activity before heading back to Galway. Katie and I went with the zip lining (Pam and Ian had gone on Saturday and told us it was amazing). While we were waiting for the other girls to go before us, it looked like a pretty nice day - not too cold or too windy. You have to remember though that in the west of Ireland, the weather changes really rapidly and really drastically. It started raining as Katie and I walked up to the tower to get hooked to the line and when we were standing at the top of the tower getting ready to jump, it started sleeting. The wind was so fierce, my teeth were actually chattering and my legs were shaking, and the guy tying all my knots was amused that I was shaking from the cold and not from fear. (Really, I wasn't scared about jumping. I felt pretty comfortable with the harness and knots). Well we jumped and went zip lining through the sleeting rain, which I will say was less than ideal - but still a totally awesome experience. And definitely quite memorable.

Props to IFSA for organizing another great weekend for us. Like I said before - I was really glad I wound up going.

Gaeilge

I'm very behind on my blogging, but I'll to try to catch up on the highlights of what's happened over the past month or so. It's been a whirlwind. And... I think I'll start with some Gaeilge (pronounced "Gale-guh").

I mentioned a while back (in my Modules post) that I decided to take an intensive beginner's Irish course this semester - because, ya know, why not? I'm here, and when else will I get the chance to learn to speak some Gaeilge? Well, I just finished the whole course on Monday when I took my written and oral exams (and I think they went well). I wouldn't say that I now know how to speak Irish, but I can more or less pronounce the crazy-looking words like "grianghrafadóireacht" (photography), and I know some stock phrases. I can tell you my name, where I'm from, what facilities are in my area, what the weather's like, what my house is like, who's in my family, what everyone's hobbies are, what I'm studying at school, what my job is, and the time. And I know about 35 verbs (but only in the past and present continuous tenses). For example:

Chelsea atá orm, agus is as Méiriceá ó dhuchas mé. Rugadh agus tógadh i bhFlorida mé, ach tá mé i mo chónaí i Nua Eabhrac le mo chlann anois. Tá muid ina gcónaí i mbaile beag, Rhinebeck, agus is ceantar alainn é. Tá ollmhargadh, pictiúrlann beag, siopá, agus go leor bialanna ann. Tá seacht seomra leapa, trí sheomra folctha, seomra bia, seomra suí, agus cistin i mo theach dha stór. Tá teach an-mhor mar tá ochtar i mo chlann: mise, mo thuisimitheorí, mo dhearháir amhain Jeremy, agus mo dheirfiúracha Chloé, Sophie, agus an cuplá Charlotte agus Brigitte. Réitim le mo dhearháir agus mo dheirfiúracha mar sin tá siad mo chairde freisin. Tá go leor caitheamh aimsire agam. Caithim go leor ama ag scríobh agus ag léabh, agus is maith liom a bheith ag snámh. Téim ag damhsa le mo chairde go minic, agus is aibhoinn liom a bheith ag cniotáil ó am go ham freisin. Is fearr liom a bheith ag cócaireacht mar déanim é le mo mhaithair agus le Chloé. Is brea liom a bheith ag ithe agus ag ól le mo chlann. Is mac léinn mé, agus tá me ag déanamh staidéar ar an mBearla agus ar an bhFrancís chun a bheith i mo mhuinteoir. Níl mé ag obair mar tá mé ag staidéar go lánaimseartha. Sin é!

I guess it's fun being able to know at least that much, but I was pretty frustrated with the way the whole course was taught. I really wish I had been able to learn even more than that. I think they need to do a major overhaul on their Irish language education. Kids here study it in schools for seven or eight years, and a lot of people told me this semester that they don't know anything. I heard a bunch of times that I can speak better Irish than they could, even after only two months of learning it. And that just makes me a little sad.

On a slightly different note, I realize that I never actually wrote about my weekend immersion in the Gaeltacht (an Irish-speaking village), called An Cheathrú Rua. As part of my class, they scheduled a weekend (3 days, 2 nights) for us to go stay with an Irish-speaking family and take classes to practice Irish during the day. I think it's a great idea for any language class...however...they scheduled us to go after only 3 weeks or so of class. So our Irish was pretty weak and we really couldn't understand our host family at all when they spoke in Irish. They ended up having to switch to English for us because they realized we couldn't speak anything, so then the weekend wound up being less about immersion and more about a great bonding experience with the other people in my class. I would love to be able to go back now that I feel a bit stronger with my Irish, and maybe I'd get a little more out of it. It was still so much fun, though.

The house (An teach)

The kitchen (An cistin)

Around 30 people went on the trip, but I stayed in a host house with 9 other kids. The couple was really friendly, and their home was lovely.

The dining room (Seomra bia)

The bedrooms were really comfortable, and the bathroom had a skylight and a really modern shower, and they fed us really well. They set up lots of toast, cereal, biscuits, and tea and coffee for breakfast. For lunch, they had us fill out a little form saying what we wanted for lunch and she had our personalized sandwiches ready for us to take with us to class during the day. For dinner, they made us so much food. The first night she made quiche and had salad and vegetables on the side, as well as french fries (chips) - they really do have some form of potato at every meal here. The second night, she made lasagna with the same sides and had apple pie for dessert.

Me, Natalie, Pam, and Alissa

They also had these two adorable dogs, called Paris and Nicole (and they were so FLUFFY! Seriously, I didn't know dogs could be such mini balls of pure fluff). We could ask them in Irish to give us a high five, and they were so well trained that they would stay on that little red bench in the kitchen and not jump off and run around the room at all the strange people. They made me miss Casper, even though he isn't nearly that obedient. I still think he's cuter. 

After dinner both nights, we walked the five minutes into the teeny little town (baile beag) and went to the pub, An Cistin. We decided it looked sort of like a pub you might imagine the hobbits would have. Everything inside was made of wood, and it was divided into four separate rooms. The bar was a big circle in the center that ran through each room so the bartenders could easily go from room to room from behind the bar. They taught us how to order a pint of Guinness in Irish and say thanks, which got some amused smiles from the bartenders: "Pionta Guinness, le do thoil. Go raibh maith agat." 

During lunch on one of the days, they brought in five local kids to perform some traditional Irish music and dancing. It was so much fun to watch and listen to, and they were really talented. I was so impressed, and it made me wish that I had learned to do anything nearly as awesome when I was a kid. Fortunately, they decided to offer us a class that night on either singing or dancing, and my friends and I decided to go with the dancing. They taught us three kinds of céilí, which meant we partnered up and did dance steps and hops clockwise and counterclockwise around the room. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun. When we went to the pub afterwards someone requested one of the songs ("Shoe the Donkey") from the live band that was playing, so everyone who had taken that class got up and started dancing in the middle of the pub - much to the amusement of all the locals. (It was fun, but I mean, we were really bad at it. At least we knew that we weren't good, though!) 

A week or so after we got back from the Gaeltacht, my friends and I went to Monroe's (one of the pubs in Galway) where they have céilís every Tuesday night. They didn't play any of the three songs we had learned, but it was great to just sit there and watch all the elderly couples get up and start dancing wildly together. I hope that when I'm in my 80s I can dance like that with someone. 

That's about all I have to say about Gaeilge for now. I'll get to working on some more updates. 

Slán go foill!