West Galway is a third-world country!

West Galway, where I live, has no water today. Not "no hot water," not "no drinkable water" (like all of Galway over the summer)... no water at all. None coming out of any taps. There was enough this morning for Virginie and I both to (unknowingly) take showers, but after that it ran out. I wish we'd known about the situation! I would have foregone a shower to save water if I'd known.

The Galway City Council website had this to say:
"Galway City Council’s Water Services wish to advise businesses and householders on the Western side of the City (West of Bishop O Donnell Road) who have been experiencing water outages over the last 24 hours, that the major leak has been detected and Galway City Council are currently working on repairing the leak, the problem should be repaired and a full water supply restored to the affected areas within 24hours."

Guess where I live? Bishop O'Donnell Road. The website published a map of the affected area, and I put a black X, circled in green, on where I live.

(It's quite a big image-- click on the small one above to see it more clearly.)
As you can see, I live right on the edge of the zone! I ran into a friend that lives less than a block east of me, and she has water.

This is very strange, and inconvenient. I went to the store and bought eight litres of water, which really does not go as far as you'd think-- I used up over two litres just doing a sinkful of dishes, and that in only about two inches of water. All the big jugs of water were gone by the time I got to the store. They say it should be back on by tomorrow, but that is a long time to go without any water at all.

I'll update again when the water is back on. This is weird.


Edit: The water came back on at around 8:30 pm. They still want us to be conservative with water use, so we're using the bottled water we bought for drinking and cooking and only using the tap water for cleaning. What a weird day.

in which I fail to think of a clever title

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. I really don't have a good excuse, other than laziness.

Sara left yesterday morning. I saw her off to the bus stop and gave her a couple more hugs than necessary... I always hate saying goodbye. It was wonderful having her here. I took a couple pictures, and so did she, and when both of us get around to uploading them I'll post 'em here.

Mostly we just wandered around Galway, shopping, drinking coffee, people watching. I was able to take her to a couple of shows-- local indie bands, for the most part, as well as poetry readings. I could talk about Galway's indie "scene", but I feel that's a topic for a separate post. On Tuesday we went to Dublin for the day-- took the train in, wandered around and went shopping, walked through St. Stephen's Green, and took the train back in the evening. On Friday we went to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher. On Saturday, we got tattoos.

Normally, my tattoo tradition, since I was 18, has been to get one at the end of each "academic year"-- usually in April or May. I have made exceptions to this rule, but not too often. However, when Sara arrived she said to me "I want to get a tattoo with you while I'm here!" I have had a design ready for months, and so I decided to bend my rule for my oldest friend. Sara got the phrase "Not all who wander are lost" (a J.R.R. Tolkien quotation) in a very lovely script around her ankle. I got...

on my right upper arm. (Click the picture for a slightly higher resolution.) "Téigh sa seans" is "Take a chance" in Irish. Specifically, "take" is in the 2nd person singular Imperative mood, so it's a command-- "You take a chance!" The script is the traditional Gaelic lettering. I am very happy with how it turned out, and I would recommend Irish Ink to anyone looking to get a tattoo in Galway. (The tattoo artist is a middle-aged French man. He's wonderful.)

Anyway, Sara is gone home now, and I have a whole 'nother week of Easter break. What will I do with my time? Write, or at least start, a final, I suppose. I actually tried to start my Irish Literature final today, but the library was closed, being Easter Monday. People keep referring to "Post-Christian" Ireland... yeah, right. Maybe "Post-Oppressively Christian", but there is a definite culture of religion here unlike anything I've seen in the 'States, even growing up as I did in a small conservative Dutch Reformed village.

The madness begins...

Sara has arrived, safe and sound! Unfortunately she arrived safe and sound a day later than was planned-- her flight from Detroit to Boston on Friday was delayed an hour, causing her to miss her flight from Boston to Shannon Friday night. She had to stay in Boston overnight and get a flight to Shannon the next day instead. I tell you, that damn city is cursed.

But she made it, in one piece and with all her baggage, which is all that matters. I got the bus down to the Shannon airport at way-too-early o'clock this morning to meet her, which despite the hour was really fun. (It's nice to walk off the plane and have someone to hug you, I think.) Right now she's showering, and then we'll be off to find some breakfast and see what trouble we can make in Galway on a Sunday morning!

Hooray for vacations!

belated update

I'm sorry I didn't post something yesterday. I wrote two essays in four days. I should be excused for pretty much any behavior at this point, as I'm pretty sure I'm legally insane by now. (I slept for 45 minutes last night, and I was in class from 11am to 7pm today... it's a wonder I'm still upright.)

But here is something amusing I found! Advice for evil graduate students. A lot of the advice hits very close to home... if you take out the word "evil" it's pretty much exactly what our thesis seminars sound like.

The next time I write here, I promise I will have much more to say. On Saturday, my oldest friend the lovely and talented Sara Krause will be here! She will be staying from the 15th to the 23rd... which, yes, includes St. Patrick's day. I've seen St. Patrick's day in Dublin, and I'm excited to see what Galway has to offer for it. (The parade is a lot shorter, I know.) Also, starting on Thursday I am on Easter break for two weeks! Exciting times are afoot...

an ceathrú rua, arís

First of all, I would like to wish my mother a very happy Mother's Day! It's Mother's Day in Ireland today, though I realize that we've a couple months to go before the U.S. version... I love you, mumsy!

Anyway, this past weekend was our MA group's second trip to Carraroe, or An Ceathrú Rua, in the Connemara gaeltacht, or Irish-speaking region. It went over much better than the last trip. The classes this time around were helpful, and really pushed us to use our Irish. My speaking was not very good, but I was surprised by how much I could comprehend. I probably understood about half of what was being said, just from the words I did know. We also weren't given a lot of pointless activities-- we watched some Irish language short films, got a tour of Raidió na Gaeltachta (the Irish-language radio station), and went to a concert. The concert, put on by the school, had quite a variety of acts, including a couple of folk/rock musicians, button accordian trad, sean-nós singing, and sean-nós dancing. The sean-nós dancing in particular was cool, and I think several of us (myself included) left the concert determined to take a class before leaving Ireland.

Of course, as before, the best part of the weekend was the socializing and bonding with our group. Our Bean an Tí made delicious food for us and I think I ate my weight in biscuits and tea over about 36 hours. Each evening, of course, ended up in An Cistin, one of Carraroe's three pubs, with a lot of laughter and music-- ceol agus craic.

Unfortunately I'm back in the real world, which means I have plenty of reading I wasn't able to do over the weekend. Still, it was nice to get away for a little bit.