I got to Dublin first, so I had a rainy morning to wander around the city. I did Christ Church, Fleet Street, Stephen's Green, Trinity College, and St. Patrick's Cathedral. All of the Irish history I learned in third grade (or was it second?) was put to shame when I realized I'd forgotten everything I'd ever known about St. Patrick and how he was a slave and became a Christian during that time and then was basically the best missionary ever afterwards in Ireland. Or that Jonathon Swift (of A Modest Proposal) was Irish. Or that the guy who invented Dracula. WHO KNEW ALL THESE GREAT THINGS. The Cathedral is beautiful with colorful tiles all over the floor and ancient Irish war flags hanging from the ceilings and the place he baptized millions in the park outside. All of this is misty rainy green Ireland with fall leaves meant I pretty much cried of joy the whole time. At a particularly rainy moment, I popped into a little cafe run by this elderly Irish woman (going to Ireland makes you start saying things like "popped"). She made me scones and a NORMAL SIZED cup of coffee and everything became warm and fuzzy. Then I discovered two Christmas markets full of the world's best Christmas sweaters, better than SalVa thrift shop in Boulder, and Christmas sausage, and Christmas candy, and Christmas wine, and Christmas music. And I can't stop saying Christmas.
Then Matt came and we wandered our way to the Guinness Storehouse brewery. It's not like a normal brewery tour where you get to actually see the brewing things brewing, but it's still this pretty incredible museum. It's massive, you just keep going up and up and up and learning more weird facts about Guinness and experiencing more of the obsession Irish have with Arthur Guinness. Also who else didn't connect Guinness beer with Guinness World Records? I didn't, and I have a mother and sister who hold the Guinness World Record for being the most people dressed as gorillas at one time.
We then got to learn how to taste Guinness via a room of beer smells and baby pint glasses barely bigger than a standard measure. Apparently beer ester is a smell. I just pretended I could tell the difference between that and beer malt smell. Then we moved to the Academy, where we learned how to pour the perfect pint. Not gonna hold back the bragging here, I POURED THE PERFECT PINT. Like it's actually a newly discovered previously hidden skill. I'm so good at it. Then we brought our perfect pints and freshly issued certificates up to the Gravity Bar and drank Guinness looking over all of Dublin. How Irish is that.
Then we dined with the world's largest pile of fish and chips. I actually think it was the size of a large baby. I have almost never been that full in my life. But again, wow so Irish.
Upon finishing this absurd mountain of delicious food, we discovered that unfortunately we'd missed the beginning of the hostel sponsored pub crawl. It was apparently an exclusive event for only the old-aged and faint of heart because it started at 7:30. To give you all some perspective, I've never experienced anyone in Europe ever going out for the evening prior to 12 am. So that was a shocker. Easily remedied. Matt mapped out our own pub crawl on his phone and we had the lofty goal of going to four or five. Thirty minutes later we'd been to at least seven (no joke). Don't worry Mom, I only had one beer. Friday night in Dublin is the most confusing thing. Pretty much the only people we encountered were middle-aged men in large men groups doing large men group things. But finally we found a pub with a beautiful red-haired Irish band playing red-haired Irish music about lassies. And later another with an average age far closer to our own.Our pub dash was mostly just hilarious.
Then we hopped on a bright and early bus to Galway. It's a large straight line and a couple baby squiggles away from Dublin through Irish green hills. Galway is the best part of Ireland. It was such a struggle to not spend all my time wishing I had spent a whole week (or more) there. We stayed at one of the best hostels in existence. We walked down along the river with stone houses and colorful cottages and pubs everywhere. We found this fun market that sold everything colorful and glorious. We passed by the spelt bakery sample station twice before we were guilted into buying ginger pear spelt cake. MOM AND GRACE: I learned that spelt is a type of grain (?) that has significantly less gluten than wheat and is one of the oldest grains. It's easier on your stomach unless you're celiac AND I LOVE IT, so you can begin experimenting with spelt cake now.
We took a tour to the Cliffs of Moher. It was an all day thing that should be an all life thing. You get on a bus with an old Irish man who tells jokes and stories and exclaims with delight every time we pass a "happy cow" or a "happy sheep" or "look at that happy driver, he's so happy." Happy cows are now my favorite animal. First he told us about the oyster festival in some village I don't remember and then the annual matchmaking festival in the town over. Seems like those two go together. Basically we drove through land that looked like the moon on one side and rolling green hills on the other. He stopped us at castles and happy cows (I'M SORRY I CAN'T STOP) and beautiful vistas and things just kept getting better and better. Then we stopped at the village of Doolin. Literally all of this sounds like a made up joke, but it's not, it's IRELAND. So we got off the bus and ate the best goat cheese tartlet (TARTLET!) and bangers and mash. Just all of those words wow. We learned that Irish is it's own language and Gaelic refers to Irish culture or the Scottish language. And really everyone is named O'Callahan and O'Brien and O'.
Then we got back on the bus and looked at more castles. AND THEN WE SAW THE CLIFFS OF MOHER. We saw them from a distance at first and I panicked. LOL what a rookie. The distance view was the lamest one of the day. We'd be given the secret recommendation of going left first and it made everything perfect. I really will just let the pictures talk for me, but I think I just spent two straight hours screaming with excitement and running and jumping and panicking and running and jumping and panicking more. And trying not to slip in the mud or get blown off the cliff. And then we had time left so we went right and got to see the CLIFFS OF MOHER SUNSET. WOW. Ya that was kind of cool. And I stood on a rock that had nothing below it but the ocean and it was a piece of heaven. And there were happy sheep and happy cows. AS IF the cliffs weren't enough. And then we ate ginger pear spelt cake on top of the Cliffs of Moher.
Then we got back to Galway and ate Guinness beef stew and drank Guinness and watched rugby. YA AGAIN FELT SO IRISH. In other news, Christmas markets are the best thing to happen to humankind.They fill you with samples of Christmas cookies and gingerbread and marzipan (like anyone actually eats that). And have Christmas music and pastries and mulled wine. We tried the mulled wine and you get a choice of brandy or rum in it, except after hearing the Irish boy say rum, you don't really have a choice. Then we went to a few of the blessed pubs in Galway. The King's Head. The Quays. Taffes. The Front Door. Somewhere Else. They all have staircases and live bands that start red and Irish and end singing Lady Gaga which is a little weird. But everyone was dancing and singing and being Irish and my hair was caressed and I loved it. We tried Galway Hooker beer, which isn't great, and Bulmer's cider which IS great. I never wanted to leave. Almost compares to my worst heartbreak. I'm absolutely moving to Ireland. Because it's a land where freckles aren't abnormal and food is mashed potatoes and meat and beer is actually enjoyable. Galway was such a fun refreshment escape from big European cities and has so much character. Christmas lights and wreaths and garlands and trees everywhere.
The bus back to Dublin was even better because it was all frosty and misty and full of happy sheep and cows. I really can't stop. We went to the Chester Beatty lib and looked at all of these displays of this man's personal collection of some of the world's oldest manuscripts of the bible and the qur'an. It's insane the amount of history that one man collected, and so so cool to see the bible that old. We watched rugby at Trinity College and devoured the rest of our spelt cake. We finished up our Irish experience by discovering that we're blood buddies and perfectly suited to save each other in case of massive blood loss. The guy testing us actually terrified me for a minute because of his presentation of the Rhesus factor. Apparently it's a sugar on your blood cells, that if you don't have and if your baby has (for pregnant women) could cause problems. Highly unlikely. But he kept going on and on and on and on and the eleven seconds I had to wait to see if my blood drop produced enough grains to be Rhesus plus were the worst eleven seconds of my life. But the students running the thing filled us full of Irish history and taught us new words and it was so great and I couldn't stop staring at their beards.
Also, Grece, my last Irish meal was your curry chips eaten on a bus that took me an hour and a half to go eight kilometers on the way to the airport. BUT I LOVE IRELAND. All of the above joy is thanks to Grece's impeccable suggestions. Probably buying a home in Lisbon and a vacation cottage in Doolin.
Ok so post-France, pre-Ireland update:
Coming off my newly discovered enjoyment of museums in France, I went to Barcelona's Picasso Museum. Ok no. Didn't love it. Didn't understand any of it. Back to wondering why people understand art.
YoungLife.
I go to el instituto Tuesdays/Wednesdays in the morning to hang out with gals who STILL think that I'm an exchange student at their school. That STILL only goes up to age 16. At least one thought I was the new English teacher. Moving up in the world. But I love them. This is one of my favorite parts of the week. There are now about 5-6 girls in each age group who remember me and get excited to see me the days I come.
I also got roped into playing basketball. Girls v Boys. Kill me. It was the most chaotic experience of my life. Half because the boys who were less than half my height were infinitely better than me (remember that whole no athletic bone in my body? Still a thing). Half because we played basketball on the same court as a football game. Whose idea was that?
Friday night we had equipo meeting and the Western Europe directors for YL visited. We have mutual friends in YL across the world so that was fun. Saturday was the kedada, which was Peace themed so everyone dressed as hippies. My favorite thing in the world is Spaniards' impressions of Americans. Especially historical Americans. And, the confusion between hippie and hipster made me wish that everyone didn't know the difference. Omg. We played this game of what I thought was musical chairs. Until I realized they don't play that you get out when you don't get a chair. It's actually called Musical We Steal Chairs and You Sit On Top Of Each Other Until One Chair is Left for Forty People and the Chair Breaks.
School.
Still not the best thing in the world. I spent my first twelve hour day on campus though. LOL. It was four hours of class. Four hours of wining and dining with friends. But actually, drinking beer at 11 am will never stop being weird. Drinking beer at 11 am on campus, even weirder. Four hours of working on this horrible project we've been assigned for the Maritime Engineering Class, but it left me feeling nostalgic for all the fourteen hour days I've spent living in computer labs at Cal Poly.
Also, spontaneously went to a OneRepublic concert in Barcelona this week with the roomz. Total contrast to be in the fourth row on the floor of basically a gym to the previous concert at Red Rocks. But still. Gr8. And they did this whole tribute to Catalunya. Look whose a conscious band.
Plus it's my new thing to bike every day down to the beach and watch the sunset. Except for the days that Mariko and I climb hills to see the city sunset. She showed me this absurd place that's the best one in Barcelona. Plus there's a rooftop bar for city light viewing on the walk home. And a store named after my sister Groc. All those emotions and all that excitement exuding from my body I think scared several people, including Mariko.
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