Galway Weekend, Part II

Before we get back to the trip, the volleyball team played its first game today against Cork IT. We won in three games and had delicious sandwiches afterward :)

Saturday's weather was really nice, so it was a shame we had to spend seven on buses. There's no direct route from Wexford to Galway, so we had to connect through Dublin. Once we arrived, we were pretty hungry (it was about ten or twelve hours since we had breakfast.) We found a restaurant called Fat Freddy's, which turned out to be a nice Mexican / Italian place. Seriously. They served enchiladas with garlic bread. I would describe their Mexican-Italian mascot as a horribly offensive stereotyped charicture, if such a stereotype did exist. I ordered a Mexicano pizza (which was delicious). I don't remember what Arlette had.

After dinner, we almost immediately ran into some classmates of Arlette who happened to take the trip as well. We found a nice Irish pub and spent the night drinking in front of another trad band (you can't shake a stick without finding a pub with a trad band.) Don't worry, Mom - these guys were seminarians. We sat down next to an Irish kayaking / mountain climbing instructor and his English girlfriend. We were instant friends.


(From right to left: Me, Arlette, and my future ticket into heaven.)


The five of us from Maynooth.


Good craic that night. The next day, I left for a day tour towards the Cliffs of Moher. We stopped on the way there and back at random places, such as this castle.





We were mostly driving along the coast (in the Burrens), so there were plenty of good views of the ocean.

The Burrens comes from a Gaelic word meaning "place of rocks." I had at least twenty pictures of rocks, hills with rocks, cows amoungst rocks, etc. A few hours later, we arrived at the cliffs. They were awe-inspiring.

Of course, it starts raining right when we arrive. Hurray for Irish weather.

They had signs helpfully informing people not to jump off posted every fifty feet.

If you look closely at the top of the cliffs in this picture, you can make out tiny people. Just to give you a sense of scale.

My travelling companions for the day: Laure, Samia, and Muhammad. Note the wind.

After the cliffs, we stopped by to see a dolmen (actually, the first picture in the article) and a cave. They were not impressive. After the tour came back, we took the bus back to Maynooth. I was quite exhausted by the whole weekend and promptly fell asleep.

Galway Weekend, Part 1

I was really looking forward to this trip. As Arlette and I boarded the bus on Friday, we were talking about how the weather was supposed to be amazing - cloudy and sunny. Arlette even packed her sunglasses. We were ready for the Galway trip.

This is not Galway.

It turns out that Arlette and I managed to get on the wrong bus. Since neither of us knew anyone in the International Club that sponsored the trip, we didn't find out about this until the bus kicked us off in Wexford. We went three hours south instead of three hours west.

I thought the situation was hilarious, but Arlette was a little more flustered. We found a cozy little B&B to check into and then went to a nice seafood restaurant. We then found a pub with a trad band and enjoyed a couple of pints.

The band was very into the Irish patriotism thing. Lots of hatred towards Britain and all that.

We had a very Irish breakfast the next morning - eggs, pudding, ham, hash browns, and a tomato. We decided to take a walking tour of Wexford before we left for Galway. The tour started on the town quay, an area right around this statue.

This is John Barry, who helped found the American Navy during the Revolutionary War. There are a lot of ties between the two countries.

Also, you can see a sign post on the street corner to the right of the statue. The sign pointing towards the statue reads, "John Barry Statue."


Pictures of the harbor. You might notice that the sky is blue. That's how nice the weather was this weekend.



There's really only two streets in the city and less than 20,000 people, but it still feels like a city. More so than, say, Mentor.

Wexford was originally two settlements. One half was Christian and the other half Viking. Seriously. This is part of Kaiser Road, which comes from Viking for "Road to the Sea."



Part of the town wall and the western gate. Most of the land trade routes came through this gate.

I was a little suprised at how small the wall was. I don't think it was more than fifteen feet high, at the most. Clearly, Vikings are more talented at pillaging than at defense.


Two chruches, built right next to each other. The spikey one on the left was the more modern one, but the congregation died out in the 1950s. They decided to tear the roof off and call the site a ruin so they wouldn't have to pay taxes.

The walking tour was very interesting and gave us a good feel for the city. Afterwards, we took a break at one of the cafes then left for Galway.

Je suis malade

I was viciously attacked by some sort of cold last week. I decided to stay home from the Glendalough trip to recuperate. Sorry, no pictures. Of Glendalough or the cold.

It's my turn to cook this week, but we'll be eating tomorrow on account of me being in Galway until Sunday night. I've decided to do beef stroganoff and corn tomorrow. For dessert, I'm showing everyone how to make s'mores (unfortunately, we'll have to substitute something for the graham crackers.)

I've actually been getting some hardcore studying done lately. It's all for French though, not really for any of my classes. It's almost been a month since school started and I've had to do one homework assignment the whole time. There are also zero tests or quizzes in class, except for finals.
Not that I'm complaining, of course.

Clubs are starting to pick up. I have my first fencing meeting tonight and my first equastrian meeting tomorrow. I'm particularly excited for these two - I guess they seem more European. Unfortunately, the karate club doesn't seem to be doing anything at all. I might go to the self-defense classes then, since they use some kenpo.

I had Supermacs for the first time this weekend. Their cheese-flavored sauce was delicious. They definately rank above McDonalds and BK, maybe just behind Wendys.

I don't keep too much of a stock of food around. I go shopping every two or three days and just pick up enough for a dinner or two. It's kinda fun. Plus, I can pick up fresh bread everytime I go out (If you ever have a chance to try "Wheaton Farls", take it.)

Älplermagronen

Back at Dayton, our house had a tradition of cooking and sharing a meal once a week. I decided to bring that over here, and my flat seemed excited about it. Since we represent four different cultures, it would be a great way to broaden our horizons (and our bellies). We've all agreed to try to cook foods representative of our countries (you know, the traditional stuff).
Arlette cooked Alplermagronen Sunday night and it was delicious. It was the first time I've had a pasta / potato dish, but it worked together excellently. We also had homemade applesauce, lox on toast, and muffins for dessert (although muffins aren't quite Swiss).
I'll be cooking beef stroganoff in a few weeks (if one of my parents could post the recipe, that'd be swell.) I'll be cooking a Thanksfiving dinner as well, which everyone is already looking forward to.

Friday night, Arlette and I ate at McDonalds. My curiousity was piqued about McDonalds when we went to Dublin. The Mickey D's over there looked really nice. Almost like a restaurant. The food ended up being the same (except the fries were a little less salty). I was a bit dissappointed.

I was in history class (Ireland Since the 1800s) and the professor was talking about how Robert Peel tried to fragment the massive Catholic support Daniel O'Connell had in Ireland. One of the ways Peel did this was by donating large amounts of money to the bishops and to Maynooth, which at the time was a Catholic seminary. It felt pretty cool that the University had a historically significant role.

This past Wednesday was Clubs and Societies Day, similar to Up The Orgs back at Dayton. I've decided to join quite a few. I'm now in clubs for fencing, volleyball, and karate, as well as the International Club and equestrian club. I'm in an American Kenpo class that meets on Saturdays (small world), and I've also joined the volunteer society (I have no idea just what they do yet.) I might still join either the boxing club or the hurling club, depending on how all the schedules work out.

Pop quiz! In the equation y = 50 - 2x, what is the slope of the line? If you answered, "50", you might be my microeconomics TA! Luckily, some other students and I were able to inform the rest of the class why this is incorrect. I think we convinced everyone but the TA herself.
Yes, my microeconomics class is spending a week on the interpretation of graphs of linear equations. Another excellent reason to skip that class.

The weekends here are very peaceful. When I earlier said most Irish kids go home, I guess I meant all Irish kids go home. The campus is a ghost town during the weekends. Well, almost. There's a large (thirty or forty) group of students from St. Mary's studying here. While they usually have a day trip, we usually hang out afterwords.

Speaking of travelling Ireland, the International Club is starting their trips next weekend. Here's what my next month looks like:
10th (Saturday): day trip to Glendalough with the International Club
16th - 18th: weekend trip out west to Galway, again with the International Club.
23rd-31st-ish: Paris, during study week. No link should be necessary.
6th - 8th: After our flat's been back for a week, we're going to head up to Belfast.

Looks like I won't quite be getting the peace and quiet on the weekends anymore :)