Summer, all five days of it!

Since last we spoke, Ireland has seen some of the nicest weather it's ever had! This, coupled with the Volvo Ocean Race, has made the streets of Galway overflow with people. A chronological account of all the fun things I've been up to would take way too long, so I'll just leave you with some highlights.

-Boat races. This is, I suppose, rather obvious as the whole reason for the festivities is a 'round-the-world yacht race, but it wasn't just the official Ocean Race yachts. There were also curragh races and hooker races! Yes those are both types of boats. A curragh is a small canoe-like boat that is rowed by three people, and a hooker is a fishing sailboat. Anyway Jenn and I went down to Salthill and watched the boat races on Monday, which was also one of the nicest days. It was at least 80° F and sunny! (In addition to watching the boats racing, we waded in the ocean and skipped stones for an hour. Lovely.)

-The mass amounts of people and the Race Village. The Race Village was set up on the Docks, around the harbor where the boats were all docked, and consisted of rows of vendor tents. Mostly food and souvenir vendors, though there were some other random little local companies represented. In the evenings, all the pedestrian streets were barricaded off as "no glass zones," and the bars all threw opened their windows and sold beer in plastic cups right onto the street! It reminded me of nothing so much as Bourbon Street in New Orleans. I am not much for the bar scene, but one evening Jenn and I each got a plastic cup of Guinness and just walked around people-watching. I have never seen so many people in Galway! All the hotels must have been overflowing.

-An airshow. My father used to take my sister and I to the airshow in Muskegon every year, so it was rather nostalgic for me... but also, it was just cool. The Red Arrows are the U.K.'s Royal Air Force Aerobatics team, and they are awesome! It was a very exciting show.

-Free concerts! All types of bands, from trad to folk to rock, played for free all week. Jenn and I went to three evenings of music, and with the nice weather and the 10:15 pm sunset it was always fun.

-Swimming at the beach. Let me explain how significant this is. When I moved to Ireland, I saw people swimming in Galway Bay, and I thought they were crazy. It's not usually much above 60° F in midsummer, and the North Atlantic is always effing freezing, so I swore I would never swim in the ocean. And then, Tuesday, it was over 80° F. It was sunny and there was no wind-- also very unusual for Galway!- and so I packed up a beach bag and went down to the beach at Salthill. I lay in the sun reading until I got too hot, and then I waded into the bay. The water was cool, but it felt wonderful after being in the hot sunshine. It was also incredibly clear, even when it got deep... clear and green. I floated easily in the salt water until I got too cold, then returned to the beach to read. I ended up swimming three times, and then again on the walk home! Gorgeous.

-Just generally laying around in the sunshine. Last Sunday, I spent about five hours laying in the grass by the canal reading Pride and Prejudice, not to mention the three hours at the beach on Tuesday. I even managed to get a bit of a sunburn on the first day of sunshine! (After that I was quite careful with the sunscreen.) On Wednesday and Thursday, I decided that I really should get back to working, but I couldn't quite face sitting at my basement cubicle. So I brought my books to a coffee shop and read outside while drinking iced coffee. I love summer weather... it's the biggest thing (that isn't a person) that I miss about Michigan.


Of course, Friday it dropped back down to the low 60s, and yesterday was the last day of the Ocean Race. So Ireland is back to normal, cool and rainy and sparsely populated. Which isn't a bad thing, though I miss the warm weather already. (I wore skirts and tank tops for four days in a row! Fantastic!) It all makes me look forward even more to my upcoming summer adventures in the 'States... more on that later!


(Pictures forthcoming, whenever I get them uploaded.)

the Green Dragon

So the buzz in Galway this week is the Volvo Ocean Race. When Jim was here, we saw signs for it and he asked about it. I didn't know what it was, so I told him that it was a foot race across the ocean. Well, it's actually a sailboat race around the world! One leg of the race is from Boston to Galway, and that leg finished last night. Ireland's team in the race is on a boat called the Green Dragon, which I just think is a cool name. (So I bought a t-shirt! More on that below.)

Anyway the exciting part... last night, the Green Dragon finished third in this leg of the race! Very cool. The next leg of the race doesn't start for twelve days, so there are events on all week. Because of the race, Galway is all gussied up... and renamed in places, oddly.

(Click to embiggen!)

The tricolor and the stars & stripes, flying side-by-side!


Volvo Ocean Race banners and a new signpost. These new signposts have gone up all over Galway-- there's one at the entrance to the college-- and they point toward fairly touristy attractions. This one also points to NUIG and the hospital, for some reason.


More flags! Right to left: EU flag, County Galway flag, Ocean Race flag, Irish flag.


Map on the door of a pub. This is the new thing in Galway-- the shopping streets in the city centre are now called the "Latin Quarter." It amuses me that a city as small as Galway can have "areas" or "quarters." It would take maybe ten minutes, tops, to walk from the top to the bottom of the area highlighted as the "Latin Quarter" on that map.


So, since I figured this is a pretty rare and cool event, and since the shirts looked cool, I decided to buy a Green Dragon t-shirt. It's neat looking: the name on the top right, and on the side a dragon that wraps around from the front to the back.

belated pictures from Cork

A while ago, I went with the NUI Galway Orchestra to Cork. My friend Sarah just emailed the pictures she took of the weekend, so I thought I would share a couple!

(Click to enlarge!)

Me and Liz, a cellist. This is what Cork looks like-- very urban-- so I was surprised when we got to the University College Cork campus and it looked like this:


Very peaceful, with footbridges and lots of grassy areas and pretty flowering trees.


Me and Sarah, violinist, in front of the UCC quad.


The orchestra and one of the choirs, playing one of the Mozart pieces. I'm hiding behind my stand.


The orchestra in action! I'm again hidden behind my stand, but at least you get a good view of the conductor Hugh's awesome ponytail.


Orchestra standing. There I am, back row in the center!

hiberno-english

Having visitors from America always makes me see the little things that I take for granted about living in Ireland. Things that, to me, seem perfectly normal and which I might not even notice will stand out as particularly "Irish" to new visitors. Jim's recent visit, for example, has had me noticing slang more than usual. So I decided to include a few of my favorites...

Cheers: people say "cheers" to mean "thanks," informally or casually. This is one that Jim pointed out, after he held a door for three young Irish men and they all said "Cheers!" to him.

Lads: used the way an American might use "guys"-- as a gender-neutral informal form of address. My friend/fellow PhD James says this a lot, even when he's talking to a group of women. "All right, lads, what are we doing?"

Deadly: very good. I was hanging out with some Irish friends last night, and one was talking about taking his dog to a new vet. The other said "Oh, I've heard of that vet! I've heard she's deadly." Then they both started laughing, and clarified "deadly good."

How're you keeping? Instead of "How's it going?" I'm never quite sure how to respond to this one, actually, because my stock quip answers don't apply here! When someone asks me "how's it going?" I respond "It's going!" But saying "Oh, I'm keeping" doesn't quite work...

Jim's visit!

When last we spoke, a radiator had just fallen on my legs. (I still have very colorful bruises! And if I'm lucky I might end up with some scarring on my right ankle.) Since then, things have been considerably more exciting, because my lovely wonderful boyfriend Jim visited me!


Us in Salthill, above Galway Bay. I love this picture, despite my squinty-closed eyes!

Originally, he was only going to stay about four days. Then he made a Big Sale (or something) and his boss gave him the rest of the week off! So he changed his ticket and stayed a full week instead. With the extra time, we talked about going to Dublin or Cork for a day or two. We talked about taking a day tour to the Cliffs of Moher or Connemara. In the end, all we did was wander around Galway, go out to eat, and hang around in my apartment. And it was fabulous. Really, whenever I get to spend quality time with my love, it's a good time. ♥


I would ramble a lot more, but I have a history exam to study for... an exam. This actually really annoys me for a couple reasons. First, I'm a PhD! Ok, yes I took classes this semester, but we're not supposed to be actually evaluated on anything. That's what the PhD thesis is for. And, second, I'm a LITERATURE PhD. We don't take exams, we write papers! I wouldn't mind writing a final paper, I can bang that out in a day if you want. But taking an exam means I have to actually know things, like names and dates and places. As a literature person I'm used to looking up anything I might need to know, and then citing it appropriately. Actually memorizing things is just so foreign to me! Annoying.