I am long behind on my updates. Sorry! There was the Northern Ireland weekend (now two weeks ago), the Maamtrasna hike last Sunday, and then various activities from this week while hosting fellow Scrippsie Amanda Klaus at my apartment. Maybe I should work backwards, since this week’s memories are most vivid… and then I can sort of lazily peter out from there.

Part I: Amanda’s visit: Both Emmy and I were having friends to stay this week, so we’ve had a full house from Tuesday through this Sunday. Emmy’s friend Isabelle is wonderful and fit right in with Emmy (obvi) and Rachel and me. Isabelle got here Tuesday early afternoon and Amanda arrived late Tuesday night on a bus from Dublin, carrying just a backpack and a purse (impressive). I met her at the bus/train station and walked her the ten or fifteen minutes back to my apartment while giving her the brief lowdown on my roommates and life here. She was pretty tired, so I filled her with pita and hummus, lentil curry, and banana cookies, over easy conversation and the background noise of my Irish housemates and friends watching “Ratatouille” (definitely a calm night in for them), then headed to bed around midnight.

I went to class the next morning, then got back to the house around two to take Amanda on a little Tour de Galway. I realized just how full of stories this city already is for me, as I basically talked non-stop for the duration of the couple of hours we were out walking. Every landmark had a memory attached to it, and when I thought about how hard it was when visiting Yael to think of all the things I’d wanted to tell her about my life here so far, I realized that it was because I didn’t have the physical touch points to trigger particular memories. In any case, I talked Amanda’s ear off and then we headed back to the house. Now, Emmy and I had been talking about throwing a party that night, but we’d kind of dropped the idea since our Irish housemates didn’t seem to be interested in helping to plan it. But we got back to discover that they completely expected to be hosting the party that night and were really disappointed, a little mad at us even, that we hadn’t followed through. Our bad, but Emmy was feeling a bit annoyed with them anyway and the party just wasn’t happening. The girls went elsewhere and Amanda, Emmy, Isabelle, Rachel, and I stayed in with an order of Chinese and sloth. It’s just how we do.

Thursday morning put me in class again (with Rachel) until two… wait, I need to pause to describe why this class is so wonderful. It’s my “Sociology of the Environment” class and not only do I get to share it with Rachel, but there are at least two other characters present who make the class especially entertaining. These two are known to us as “Bang-Some-Chicks” and “Beardy.” Bang-some-chicks (real name Sean) is an American on our program whose first statement to his roommate was, “You know, I just wanna get drunk and bang some chicks.” Yep. Since that moment, he has acquired almost mythical status in our (Rachel, Emmy, and me) book, and he’s managed to continually make us laugh with his almost adorable clumsiness. Bang-some-chicks has recently proven himself to have multiple dimensions beyond the chick-banging persona, however, and has won our hearts with his somewhat obliviousness to the weird, high-school-esque cliques that formed within our program from the first night. Aww, bang-some-chicks.

Then there’s Beardy (real name Dave), so dubbed for the beard that consumes perhaps two thirds of his face. He loves his beard and misses no opportunity to stretch his neck and show it off in its full chest-reaching glory. Beardy is an Irish student, quite intelligent and happy to show that off as well. He’s chatted me up outside class a number of times, letting slip details of his close ties with certain professors and his prestigious fellowship. Cool, Beardy. He gave a really suave presentation the other day (no sarcasm there—really) and is constantly contributing various expressions of bookish platitudes to class discussion. The other day, we had a fire drill, from which he returned five or so minutes later than the rest of the class because he’d been deep in conversation with a professor outside. But instead of entering quietly and taking his seat, he took the liberty of interrupting our female professor to announce that he had just saved us all from a ravaging fireball that had been working its way up the stairwell. Again, thanks, Beardy. He also enjoys (and enjoys telling about) his nude life in Germany, which he sorely misses. I’m sure Germany misses him too. In any case, I seriously appreciate those two guys…

Aaaanyway, Amanda met Rachel and me after class and we went for a long outing of coffee and scones at Rachel’s and my (and now Emmy’s too) favorite little café, where I’m pretty sure everyone working there is French and they are very serious about their tea. Emmy and Isabelle met up with us for a while, then headed to a movie, Rachel went home, and Amanda and I went shopping for dinner supplies. We made ourselves and Rachel some veggie-loaded pasta, garlic bread, and Caesar salad, then plonked down in front of the boob tube for a heart-wrenching episode of “Without a Trace” (a show that I almost can’t watch because I get too emotionally involved, but Emmy and Rachel are obsessed, so I go along). I was zonked and headed to bed shortly after.

Amanda and I woke up early Friday morning to catch a bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher and around the Burren. The tour guide we had had won best guide award in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006, after which the organization providing these awards stopped doing so as they figured he’d just keep winning. And for a reason: Desmond Murray is a great tour guide. He had a solid narrative for practically every rock we passed and made stops at various easily miss-able spots that proved to be beautiful/enchanting/interesting. Like this one mound built in a circle to protect a small community from outside discovery. Or this roadside patch of rock that lent the most stunning views of the ocean, rainbow included. The scenery, featuring dark, knotty trees, dense, soggy stands of grass, and curiously anthropomorphic rocks, made it evident why stories of fairies and other nature-based superstitions are prevalent in Irish folklore. Desmond also made several recommendations to the students on the bus of how they could save money at lunch and on future tours, citing “just how hard enough it is for a student to come by money, especially these days!” He was full of jokes and always stood outside the bus door to hold people’s hands as they stepped off. He was quick to point out a red tint in my hair (I’ve learned to love my chameleon hair) after telling us all of Muir Rua (sp?), “Madame Redhead,” a woman whose castle we stopped at as we learned the story of the mysterious deaths of her four wealthy husbands, from whom she inherited loads. It was a worthwhile tour and got us out for a nice long day, after which Desmond taught us how to say “I love you” in Irish (approximately, “Ta ma gra lin”) and then dropped us off right at our apartment complex. Moral of the tour bus story: I heart Desmond.

Friday night, Amanda, Rachel, and I went to a pub with live, though not “traditional” music. Monroe’s was a relaxed place and we struck up conversations with those sitting near us, an Irish-German woman and a woman from the Netherlands and their friends, one of whom was a cool guy from Georgia (Rachel’s from Georgia!), so he and Rachel chatted it up for a bit. (She keeps running into awesome people from Georgia. I keep meeting annoying people from Illinois.) I had a couple of beers and Rachel had a cider, and the music going that night was mostly covers of good 90s rock. Amanda suddenly asked if we could leave (I think she was disappointed with the scene), so we didn’t join our new friends at the next pub and instead headed back to the house.

I also thought Amanda was just tired and wanted to get more sleep before heading out on her own on either a bus tour or an Aran Islands trip the next day (I had to do homework for at least one of the days she was here), but I awoke the next morning to find her curled up on the couch with no plans to head out for the day. Instead, she, Emmy, Isabelle, Rachel, and I headed to the market, where we found all the glories I’d been looking forward to all week. I bought eggs, a dark-chocolate-covered flapjack, tomatoes, garlic, an onion, and a grapefruit, with some apples thrown in for free from one vendor. It wasn’t crowded, since the morning weather had been bad, but that also meant that my favorite little doughnut vendor wasn’t there to fill me with his cinnamon-doughy goodness… oh well.

Side story: homelessness is not common in Galway as I’ve observed. As I understand (though I have to do more research), the Irish welfare state is pretty good at keeping people off the street at least. So as I walked down the street where the market takes place, I was surprised to find a man, in his mid-forties or so, standing to the side of the walkway and rocking back and forth with his hands held out. He was dirty and focused his eyes straight ahead, perhaps for some neurological reason, but more likely just so he wouldn’t look anyone straight in the eye, and he kept mumbling, over and over, like a mantra, “I’m homeless and I’m hungry. Please, do you have change?” Of course, at those moments, you feel suddenly ridiculous for your bourgeois insistence on local if slightly more expensive produce, and for the indulgent treat of a flapjack or fresh feta cheese. Here was this man, surrounded by tens of food and artisan stands, hungry and without a shred of dignity left to him, just ten years younger than my dad and straight-up begging on the street. I just can’t imagine what that must feel like, how little self is left after just an hour of such activity, so many faces passing, masking or talking over their discomfort at the fellow human facing them. I shyly gave him money, at which he broke his mantra and his gaze to wish “God bless you.” I tried to quietly return the blessing over my shoulder without causing the friend walking with me to feel that I was pulling a “holier-than-thou” over her.

So… that was the market. I headed back to the house with Rachel shortly thereafter. Oh yeah! I had also retrieved my phone that afternoon from the repair shop after going without for a week (nice follow-up to the homeless story, eh?). I had accidentally drowned it while on the Maamtrasna hike last Sunday and so was out of touch from friends for the duration of the repair time—tragic. Anyway, I reprogrammed it, resaved numbers (having lost a few), and then got to work on the mass piles of reading and research I have to do for this week before spring break—a break I feel very grateful for and hope to use part of to catch up with life. We stayed in last night, especially since the pub had been such a bust for Amanda, and Amanda made a great dinner for us while I did lots of reading before hitting the hay.

I saw Amanda off this morning through sleepy eyes, then sent her through an hospitable Irish drizzle to catch her bus back to Dublin. I couldn’t fall back asleep for an hour afterwards so came back down to find the front door strangely wide open (brrr!), but fortunately no strangers in our common room. I ate breakfast, did more reading, and now here I am, at the bottom of a third page—now top of a fourth page—of blog update. Also, a circus has come to town and taken up residence just behind our apartment complex. Exciting! (And by exciting, I mean creepy.) Whew…

Part II: Maamtrasna hike. Last Sunday, I finally had everything together that I needed to be able to hiking with the Mountaineering Club here at NUIG. I had bought way expensive hiking boots that the club requires all hikers to wear (after waiting around for cheaper ones I’d bought online to arrive, which didn’t fit at all and would cost more than it was worth to ship them back); I was actually in town for the day of a hike (I’d been in Northern Ireland, Dublin, etc. other weekends); and was healthy enough to feel up for what I thought would be a good stroll through some Irish countryside.

We left at 9 a.m. on a large bus after I’d paid my €2 membership fee and my €8 bus fare. I recognized one other person from a class and otherwise knew no one. I must have been feeling shy because I didn’t talk to many people on the way up… and carsickness (some even with Dramamine) never makes me too sociable. Anyway, the first third of the hike was alright, first getting kicked off of some man’s land, then continuing on an alternative path up the mountainside, with light rain and quick wind here and there. That’s the interesting thing about hiking in Ireland: there are no national parks specifically set aside or trails maintained for the purposes of hiking. Hikers just move right through other people’s land, sometimes getting booted off, mostly just hopping fences and ripping one’s pants crotch on barbed wire (just one more reason to want to be taller). The leaders of our hike actually had to navigate, using various little tools over a detailed elevation map of the mountain and its surrounds.

We reached the top of the mountain and I had introduced myself to a few new individuals, who joined me in commenting on the pretty stark, expansive, and flat bog landscape we met on the top of the mountain. At least the views were nice. Well, for about ten or fifteen minutes. Then it started hailing… or were they tiny shards of glass eating into our faces and happy souls? I had my mitten up against my cheek to protect it from the painful little stabs as my feet sludged through the sucking bog. I was grateful for my too-expensive waterproof boots for those hours, and I was also grateful for my sense of humor and the company of all the other hikers in my group. I met several other students (one from France, one from Germany, one from Switzerland…) and talked with them at length as we dodged (and sometimes didn’t dodge) especially quick-boggy patches (yes, parts of the bog can suck you in like quicksand, up to your waist, if you don’t move from them for a while).

(Side note: there are strange noises currently coming from the circus. Sounds like crowds gasping, then oohing and ahhing, all over epic melodramatic music.)

Anyway, the weather, as Irish weather does, proceeds to change. By change, I mean alternate between rain, hail, and snow for the entire rest of our hike. Neither my pants nor my backpack was waterproof, so I trudged along pulling up my sticky pants every now and then and totally forgetting about all the items in my bag (which would screw me with regard to my phone—I paid dearly for that; my camera, fortunately, had a decent case—thanks, Mom!). I was Snotty McSnotterson except for periods of thirty seconds or so after I had managed to blow my nose on what turned out to be a very durable couple of tissues. And thank god I had a hat to contain my crazy hair. Water eventually seeped into my right boot and my mittens soaked right through to their furry little insides. My ears had popped with the elevation and I kept shouting things at unsuspecting companions before giving in to a silent, lonelier journey down the mountain.

Several fence-hops and a stream-crossing later, we reached the bottom of the mountain, just several hundred yards down the road from our bus (great navigating, Aisling!). I wasn’t much to look at, but I felt pretty good, pretty proud of myself, and impressed with the nature of Irish hiking. The bus stopped at a pub for an hour on the way back, where I changed into dry jeans and shoes, tamed my hair as far as was possible, then grabbed a cocoa and a Kit-Kat from the bar while talking to an older woman who’d been on a hike and then our leader, Aisling. It was a pretty quiet ride back, especially since I was sitting window-side and the older woman next to me fell asleep at some point. But that was fine. I was glad to be dry and somewhat fed, on my way home to loads of food and rest. I tossed all of my things into a dryer upon arriving back at Gort na Coiribe, ate a huge, quick dinner, then passed out with my hiking boots balanced upside-down over the heater in our room. A good day, for sure.

Part III: Northern Ireland: This will probably be the shortest section since it was so long ago and you’ve already endured so much (my bad…). My general impressions were ones of disbelief, wonder and just further curiosity about the nature of “The Troubles” that ended just such a short time ago. The Thursday to Sunday trip was sponsored by our program, so we had rooms (in Belfast) and most meals covered, with scheduled trips to Derry, Giant’s Causeway, some castle, etc. It was so fascinating to me to realize the nature of the Northern Irish Troubles and their direct connections to issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Iraq War, American political divisiveness and class inequality, and so forth….

Oh, I can’t do this right now… tour of Derry, Giant’s Causeway wind, Black Cab tour, castle with fallen kitchen, long bus rides and Snake, Brian finishing HP7… those are highlights I’ll just have to come back to later…