Warning: horrendously long entry…

So I’m pretty sure I’m learning more about American pop culture here in Ireland than I regularly would do back home. I’ve watched more TV in the past couple of weeks than I’ve watched in the past couple of years, and not because I go out of my way to watch TV here, but because it seems to be something around which my Irish roommates—and my Irish homestay family from this past weekend—congregate and socialize. They never mind talking over it, but it always seems to be on, and is often the focal point of a family or sitting room.

And America seems only too happy to export all of its worst crap for Europeans to eat up—MTV’s “Sweet Sixteen,” “Desperate Housewives,” and too many crap movies to count. I tried to watch the news today, but there’s way too much coverage of this quintuple-murder case going on, so I opted for some soccer with my breakfast. I try to buy a newspaper most days (I think it’s The Irish Times I get), but you almost feel antisocial if you actually try to read it. Well, I’ll figure that problem out in time. Probably just start reading in cafes.

I had a great weekend with my Irish homestay family. They were Sean and Siobhan (pronounced like Sh’vonne) Lane of Bishop Street, Tuam (about 30-45 minutes from here), with two adorable daughters, Rebecca, seven years old, and Johanna, four-and-a-half. I was with two other American students from the program, and we stayed just Friday through Sunday. It was great to be with a family for a bit, though. Sean wasn’t around much, because he happened to be working the entire weekend we were there (he’s a technician). When he was there, though, he was very kind and remembered our names right away, then treated his girls to tickling and acrobatic games. Sioban is a stay-at-home mother who taught me how to use (and not be afraid of) Ebay. She watches lots of cooking and home remodeling shows, when not running her girls around or checking something on the computer. Rebecca and Johanna love “High School Musical 2” way too much (I was sad to see stereotypes and uber-conservative norms reinforced throughout the movie), and have more high-tech toys than I would know what to do with at their age… but they were also just small, sweet kids who were psyched to have “big-girl” company for the weekend, so we gave them all the attention we could. We exchanged contact info and lots of hugs, then headed back Sunday evening.

I have so far attended three classes, only two of which I’ll be taking. Most of my classes will start this week. “Population Geography” started last Tuesday, and I’ll definitely be keeping it. Same for “Agrarian Politics,” which I had today, though it made me realize the inevitable cultural knowledge gap that exists between myself and my Irish counterparts. The professor made plenty of references to American political trends, which I picked up no problem, but little questions he asked about Irish agriculture or history I had to leave mostly to the Irish students. It’s a class of only seven students, though (great!), four of whom are from rural Ireland. Also, we all had trouble finding the classroom first because the numbering system in the building makes no sense whatsoever, while buildings themselves are given obscure abbreviations you’re supposed to understand; and second, because our classroom had been double-booked, so I actually sat down in “Ethnic Conflict and Territory” before some kind, knowing, pitying fellow American turned to me and advised me of the mix-up. Ha, oh well. I don’t even think the Irish kids get it most of the time.

I am currently typing this in a Word document, by the way, because our internet doesn’t seem to be working. Just another fun detail of life here: undependable internet. What is dependable, though, is that if you have a maintenance problem in your apartment, you will get the help you need to fix it… just not at the hour that you might expect it. One afternoon, just after arriving here, I was napping. I woke up to the doorbell ringing, but before I could even recognize the sound, the door opened and heavy footsteps were bounding up the stairs. Without even a knock, the maintenance manager of the complex, Frank, bursts into my room. “Oh, sorry, love,” he says, but makes no motion to leave. He instead heads over to my roommate’s side of the room, where he is checking the outlets. “Are ye alright, then?” he asks me. I replied that I was fine, just a little dazed. “What? Ah, have ye got the farty winds?” he asks. Um, what?? No, no, I haven’t got the farty winds, I reply, just tired, just got in the day before, etc. “Mm-hmm,” he replies, probably unconvinced, then says that my roommate’s outlets are fine and should there be any more problems, we should just give Frank a ring. Sure…

This, of course, was before we had the shower caulkers at 8:30 a.m. two mornings in a row (and couldn’t use our showers for 24 hours following), three separate workers ringing the doorbell three separate times to come upstairs and make tons of noise. This was also before we had a front door whose key card lock reader’s battery died, leaving us to ring our own doorbell any time we wanted to get into the apartment—the technician arrived an easy two days after the problem was reported. Ha, I really just find it all funny more than anything. Our Irish roommates find little of it surprising.

Speaking of them… we’ve got three: Sarah, Ruth, and Ceola. They’re great, and took a little warming up to before I felt comfortable with them, but I really like them and they seem to like Emmy and me. They’re definitely a party crew, but not out-of-control every-night-party-at-the-house sorts. Mostly, they pre-game, then go clubbing around 10:30. I’m pretty sure they didn’t go to class at all last week, but last week was basically just introductions anyway, so it didn’t matter as much. But good god, do Irish kids party. I’m impressed with my roommates and they’re not nearly the craziest of them.

Basically, if kids host a house party (which we did last week, for Ruth’s twentieth birthday), it’s a license to trash the place. They said it wouldn’t be so bad, since theirs was a girls’ apartment, then proceeded to explain stuff that had taken place at other house parties recently… like one kid’s clothes iron getting catapulted two yards down his block, for no particular reason. For our house party, our roommates moved all furniture out of the main room, hid all food, pushed the kitchen table up to block access to cupboards… it felt like the most intense child-proofing ever done on a place.

The party was tons of fun, and I met a bunch of fun Irish kids. Again, with the learning more about American pop here—goes for music too… there are all the songs I’d expect and dread, but then there are also total surprises that are major hits really late for no apparent reason… like “There Can Be Miracles” from the “Prince of Egypt” animated movie? Yep. Or really bad country songs that have nothing to do with life here because all they sing about are pick-ups and cowboy hats… Pretty funny. And as for fashion (I’ve been meaning to write about it)—way more Euro-trendy than I would have expected and than I’m comfortable with, but hell, I guess that’s appealing for lots of young people. There seem to be two major fashion camps—the Euro-trendy/trashy-dispose-of-your-clothes-after-a-month camp and the considerably smaller and not yet accessible to me, chiller, more Euro-neo-bohemian crew that always manages to look very cool nonetheless.

Anyway, this party was made up I think almost solely of the former, and yes, the place was generally trashed. Kids just drop their drinks all over, break bottles, throw shit around, and take whatever alcohol is left over, though they’re all generally BYOB affairs. They’re insaaane! It was amazing. They all headed to a club around 11 p.m., then came back around 2:30 to sing karaoke and make more noise. Ridiculous…ly fun, though I took no part in the activities after they left the house—went off with some other friends. The next morning, our roommates insisted on doing the cleaning themselves, pouring boiling water mixed with bleach over the floor twice the following morning, and still ending up with a sticky floor (we just wear shoes all the time). Ha ha, oh well. Our roommates really are great, especially considering they cleaned the very next morning (so great in comparison with other students’ roommates), and they were such great hostesses, introducing us to all of their friends and constantly checking in to make sure we were comfortable and having fun. And these kids do this almost every weeknight! I really don’t know how they keep it up…

Well, this has been waaaay too long of an entry. I’ll try to be more regular from now on, with shorter, not so terribly overwhelming novellas for posts. Hope everyone is well! I miss you and can’t wait to see some of you in the not-too-distant future.