St. Patrick's Day!

Yes, what could be a bigger party than St. Patrick's Day in Ireland?

A lot of things, actually. But lets go back to the beginning of the week . . .

 

The Boyfriend is in town! Yay! And what was the first thing he did while on break in Ireland?

Go to class with me. I'm pretty sure he made a facebook post about that. 

 

     He even took notes on a handout we got in class on Thursday - so studious. I realized (after a confused email from my mom back in February) that my Valentines date and "relationship status" may be unclear to some of you. Long and short of it is: I've known him since 7th grade and it took him until I left the country for 5 months to make a move. He got here on March 10th, our 2-month anniversary. It's a silly story. I tell it at parties.

     After classes, I showed him the local sites and gave him the students' tour of Galway: where we go, how we get there, our favorite pubs, nice walks, the really really REALLY good doughnuts we get on Saturdays and generally what it meant to be going to school as a student in Ireland.
     Including skipping the occasional day of class to go on a tour and take some lovely pictures of the Irish countryside. My sister and I have already taken a trip to Connemara, but this time around we took a different tour that included other stops. The first one was a Friary, which was much bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside. Below is a picture of one of the towers. It was surprisingly difficult to find a picture without any one in it.

     This tour (our bus driver was named Mike) focused a lot on The Quiet Man tradition, so we stopped in the town where much of it was filmed and found this jewel of a cafe: the Hungry Monk.

     The city of Cong has a beautiful river through it, and since its the first day of spring tomorrow, the rivers and lakes are in the process of being stocked. It made me want to grab my pole and tackle, but apparently the licenses to fish are crazy expensive. Some find it annoyingly contradictory that I enjoy fishing but hate eating fish. I just say, "hey - more for you, what's there to complain about?" or similar words to that effect.  

     At the end of the day, our bus driver Mike reminded us that Galway has an annual parade and that the theme was Irish heritage from the 14 tribes to the multicultural nation it is now. He also told us to look for him if we planned to attend - he'll be in the first row playing the trombone. And he was:

The circus was in town that week too (I think they might still be around until the 24th . . . ) so we saw horses, lamas, mini-horses, performers and clowns represented.

The parade had large trucks with open platforms (like the one to the left) where people would dance, play music and in one case, gave martial arts demonstrations. In this picture, you can see three boys on top of a building watching the parade. Couldn't decide if I should be impressed by their cleverness, or worried for their recklessness.

On St. Patrick's Day, Americans "more Irish than the Irish themselves" it seems. The majority of pubs were crowded by tourists first and the  tourists had the most flamboyant clothing - green tights, face paint, and large hats. If you weren't a tourist, and you were dressed like this, you were probably 10 years old or younger. My Irish roommates went home for the weekend and went out only that evening. But, I heard a story the next night from my friends about a guy who tripped and was so far gone he couldn't even get up until his wife found him and helped.
     A few of us wanted to spend the whole day in Dublin, but we didn't have enough interest to go as a large group, so stayed for the local parade. It was a good choice, I think, even though the general population didn't go out until after all the Americans left the pubs for the evening. I think it comes down to reality vs commercialized actuality. Reality is - its a bank holiday on Monday to go with the celebrations on Sunday, and a day to "be Irish" if you want. Yes, the day can be as commercial as people think it is, with the parades and good beer (er, I mean cheer), but its a celebration like any other. Huge spectrum, I guess.
      I realize it may be a bit pointless for me to avoid using names as much as possible, because most people who read this know everyone anyway, but I like to think I make an effort to keep identities private. I suppose I could just call everyone by there name but the semester is almost over, so why bother? We only have another 1 1/2 weeks left of class and . . .

What's that? Yes. Yes, classes here in Ireland end on March 28th.

     My calendar, however, becomes fuller by the day. This past week went by incredibly quick. Already it's Tuesday again and I know this week will go by equally fast. The cliche phrase "a picture is worth a 1000 words" is adequate in the sense that pictures record memories and catalogue the days. Writing does, too but for my purposes here, I'd like to note that all of the pictures I post on this blog are courtesy of my sister - all credit goes to her.
     Only 8 weeks left. The home sickness is starting to get to me a bit. It was hard saying "bye" to my boyfriend on Monday, and its slightly alarming that class is almost over, too. But, things to look forward to?

Spring break in Scotland.





♥C