seriously, Laura, this is getting old

#1... but how cool is this tree? looks like the wind molded it into shape


#2 view through the window in front of which I held the hurling stick and tried to look threatening
#3 random pond. the tops of the encircling rocks were all turning goldish-orange, though you can't see it very well in the picture


#4 near the center of town
#5 I have more pictures from the day, but I'll end the onslaught here. I leave you with... a tiny thatched cottage! (even tinier, I'd say, than the smallest church IN ZE WORLD!)

and continues...

#1 near the end of our descent. thought it was cool


#2 this cat accosted us immediately upon our reaching the road. he demanded attention. he chewed on Emily's pants.

#3 view from the road
#4 we found an abandoned hurling stick. I attempted to look threatening
#5 haha!

and continues!

#1 another view from beside the smallest church (in the you-know-where)

#2 THE COW. you can't tell from this picture, but this thing was mother- effing HUGE. we had to decide whether we wanted to walk past it in order to get a better shot of the coast. we decided we'd 'come this far', and went for it. I led the way. my heart beat quickly the whole way across the field. seriously, it was HUGE.
#3 the fruits of our terror


#4 we were going to cut across another field, but the three cows in the background there looked decidedly more alert to our presence than Big Boy. we were frightened. we decided not to risk it.
#5 so we took some more pictures of the coast, and eventually climbed down the hill

the saga continues!

#1 there, at the top, was our final destination

#2 at the bottom, there was a monument. we're not sure what it was, because it was fenced in, but it has celtic designs on it and appears to be old
#3 there were random unlabeled arrows everywhere, generally pointing to nothing. we were confused. since the arrows provided no guidance, and since the road apparently stopped only 1/6 of the way up the hill, we decided to make our own path. so we climbed up the mountain, braving ancient stone walls and huge hairy cows (don't worry, I'll get to the cow story)










#4 I present to you...

the smallest church IN ZE WORLD!

#5 a view from beside the smallest church IN ZE WORLD!

Aran Islands

we're gonna start from the very beginning:

1. sign on the ferry. I chewed gum the whole way to the island, just so they knew who they were messing with


#2 view to our left as we disembarked the ferry and headed toward town
#3 we started our adventure in an abandoned/derelict building that had... POTATOES strewn all over its "floor"

#4 then the real trekking began. one of many vistas to our left as we walked along the low road
#5 about 800 people live on the island. this is the house of some of those people.















I have returned. I am tired.



since I can only post pictures in installments of five at a time, I'll probably make several posts over the next few days.



I now have to go the grocery store because when I went to pour soy milk over my cereal this morning, it came out solid

thank God for sunshine

#1 horses in a field a few minutes' walk from my apartment (there's a third horse, who was also lying down, but I couldn't fit him in this shot). the one on the right eyed me suspiciously when I first walked up, then heaved a sigh and laid down flat- out like her companion


#2 same field, view across to the houses (the river runs between the houses and the field, but you can't really tell)
#3 birds in flight over the river that runs along-side campus
#4 the path that runs along the edge of campus, beside the river. I walked to the end and back (it dead- ends at the canal)
#5 purty


















yesterday was beautiful, so I took the opportunity to walk around and take pictures.

then last night a couple of us went to a play-- "What Men Want"-- which turned out to be pretty funny. we sat near the front, and ended up being handed the biggest bottle of champagne I've ever seen in my life (by the main actor). it was called "Charlemagne", which I thought was hilarious. after the show we hung out in a pub where there was live music, which turned out to be really good-- kind of a Joan Jett vibe going on

tomorrow I'm off to the Aran Islands-- unfortunately it's supposed to rain (the sun was nice while it lasted...), but I'm hoping the beauty of the place will make up for the bad weather

also: http://www.someecards.com/ has some entertaining stuff (as brought to my attention by Carrie!)

last free day

I'm a bit sad to have this weekend end, though I'm happy that life goes on.

this evening Orla and I drove to Salthill (she has a car. it was weird to be in one. and even weirder to be a passenger in the left front seat) and then spent about an hour walking the promenade (the tide was in, so the beach was completely submerged-- we were able to go down by the water toward the end of our walk, though-- the third picture is of Orla gathering shells)

pop quiz!

#1 I couldn't achieve an angle that allowed me to show the whole market. this is just the beginning. the whole thing is staged in an alley behind one of the historical cathedrals


#2 the first bite of doughnut
#3 obligatory street performer photo (though not a very good one). this guy plays sax at least every Saturday, and it's awesome.






#4 obligatory street photo













Question: How would you pronounce the following:

Cois Abhan.

WRONG!


it's pronounced cawshh ow-vwan. bet you didn't see that coming!

Saturday is market day, so my flatmate Orla, my New Jerseyan friend Kaitlyn, and I strolled downtown around 1 o'clock and browsed for a while. Today also became my "spend money" day (sorry, M & D!), which I kicked off by buying a pair of earrings from a pushy Bolivian woman selling hand-made jewelry. her accent made me miss speaking in Spanish. then I bought mushrooms and a cucumber from a cranky young farmer, and Kaitlyn and I bought doughnuts from one of the most-(apparently)- genuine-and-therefore-most-beautiful men I've ever met. they were made right before our eyes, and personalized by our request for cinnamon sprinkled on top.

I dragged Kaitlyn along as I tried to check out the yoga studio downtown (I've REALLY been missing yoga), but all we found was a sketchy hair- cuttery and a useless flyer. I stopped in at the "chemist's" (pharmacy) and walked away with 8.31- euro drops for the infection in my eyes. we spent all day downtown, just wandering around. oh, and we stopped in the used book store, where I got 4 books for 9 euro-- I'm really hoping to do some pleasure reading at some point. we were going to walk back to the apartments, but on the way we passed the open door of a pub that was brimming with screaming people, and remembered that Ireland was playing France in rugby today. So Orla and I went in and watched the end of the game amidst the chanting throng (Ireland lost, sadly-- 21 to 26. but it was pretty exciting). the rest of the patrons began drowning their sorrows in Guiness (except for the six French people who were brave enough to make themselves known-- they drank Guiness in celebration), and Orla and I ducked out and walked home.

oh, I should have prefaced all of this with the fact that
it didn't rain all day! and it was warm enough that I only wore a jacket over a sweater! beautiful, absolutely beautiful

now if only my eyes would stop pussing so much that I when I wake up at 6am they're so crusted over that I can't open them and I panic until I've scraped it all off and then can't fall back asleep for three hours because I can't breathe through my nose and my throat hurts and my eyes hurt too
(Cheese and my stomach don't have a healthy relationship, so I will forego the cheese and simply accept the whine. thankyewvarymaauch.)

ps

I think I'm getting pink eye. I am never having children.





(you know, unless I want to at a later date.)

free time

today I walked to campus to view an exhibition by the university's photography club. then I wandered around campus and took a few pictures (perhaps I was inspired by the exhibition), then I walked downtown and bought tea and moisturizer at the health food store, then I came back to the apartment, showered, ate dinner, and watched shitty Irish television with one of my flatmates. shitty Irish television is wittier than shitty American television (at least the shows that we watched). we also caught part of "America's Got Talent", which pissed me off to no end-- it was basically the judges making fun of contestants for their weight/general appearance. they're still PEOPLE, asshole-- it doesn't matter what they look like; you owe them respect as a human being.

anyway.



#1 car parked by one of the academic buildings, which is covered in... whatever you'd call this stuff





#2 close- up on the "whatever you'd call this stuff". the thick branch looks to me like a person climbing the wall
#3 sculpture near the equivalent of the "student center"


#4 quasi- artistic- turned- inexplicably- fuzzy photo of the canal running through campus (or, more specifically, of a beer can stuck into the moss- covered stone wall of the canal running through campus. and a leaf)
#5 another attempt at conveying the sheer amount of water. for reference-- that metal bar running across the bottom wall is a handrail. to a walkway. that is entirely submerged in water.
honestly, I'm not sure whose bright idea it was to put the walkway there-- the water has never been below where people are ostensibly supposed to put their feet

Tuam and Scotland, Non- HO!

#1 the cathedral in Tuam. basically the only building of interest, aside from a cool pub that we hung out in on Saturday


#2 all of the bathroom doors at the university are painted the same color as their surrounding walls-- camouflage that is entirely unhelpful to those with small bladders desperately needing to pee
#3 the water that flows beneath the bridge that I cross over to get to camps

#4 one of many failed attempts to capture just how much water is flowing through downtown at all times-- it is probably the most consistently wicked- strong current I've ever seen
#5 during the tour we took our first Saturday in Galway, looking up one of the main streets












homestay was... a lesson in the fact that you can't generalize a culture based on one weekend with one family living within that culture. but I knew that before I went.

my expectations: sitting around the dinner table, sharing and laughing with the family over a huge, home- cooked, traditional Irish meal; strolling through town while the children pointed out their favorite sites; church services on Sunday morning followed by a warm, lengthy brunch full of pleasant conversation.

the reality: dinner on Friday was Ramen and canned peas, then the mother sat down in front of the TV (the father works odd hours and wasn't home for much of the weekend), told us to feel free to do our own thing, and shot-gunned three Heinekens.

haha! seriously. but the family was nice, and my program-mates and I took advantage of the lack of structured time to sleep in late and generally move slowly. the two daughters were adorable, though they got me really sick.

as a result of said illness I am now currently not in Scotland, as was the original plan this weekend. but it's not just the sickness that kept me behind-- I was starting to get sick (heh) of constantly moving, feeling like I wasn't actually living here but just using my apartment as a home base for traveling. so I stayed in Galway. since I don't have classes on Thursday or Friday, this will prove to be a very long weekend. I'm not sure yet what all I'm going to do with it, but I'm thinking lots of rest will be in order, as well as some randomness.

in a few minutes I'm walking over to a shop that my flatmate told me about-- it apparently sells fruits and vegetables for waaayy cheaper than the grocery stores. so you see-- the weekend is off to a bangin' start