Adventures Overseas: July 2008

Went out last night to listen to music at Monroe's (of course) very fun time. Table from Chicago next to us that gave us this HUGE thing of food because they couldn't eat it and hadn't even touched it actually which was chill. After music me and Jessie were tired so we went to grab a cab, well since it was only 11pm there were like no cabs out. Finally we got one, well no joke this cab driver was drunk or mildly retarded..or a sweet combination of the two. Definitely did not take us to Corrib Village at first so after making like a million wrong turns (none of which he charged us for thank god) we finally got to Corrib Village hahaha. His seat was so far forward that it was actually leaning into him. Well I just finished 977 words of my 1500 word research paper...probably the most poorly written thing I've ever done (even compared to these blogs...sad I know) and hopefully I can get another 600 words...but...ehh...I don't know. Kiinda over school hahaha. Especially school that has nothing to do with anything I am doing. I'm actually scared to go back and re-read...its all on sean-nos singing. Traditional Irish singing, look it up and listen. You probably won't like it though because its not like normal singing, they sing through their nose or something. We are going to see the new Batman movie tonight right after class because it just came out here and then go to the gay bar for karaoke night!! Should be fun, maybe I can get girls to buy me drinks since the guys don't here hahah.

LOOK! My friend took a picture of us hiking...this is where we were. If you click to enlarge you can see me...I'm right behind the girl in bright green!!

Cool street art!

What?! Why am I doing this...all that cider hahaha.

Some guys playing at Monroe's that pub we are always at...

Something pretty I walk by everyday

Three Sarah's :) I've never been friends with someone with the same name...now I know 2. This was right before the parade.

I've been collecting street art here since they have a lot of it and I think its interesting..

more street art...

More street art...this was all shells. If you click on the picture you should get more detail. I couldn't get closer to take a picture because you were suppose to pay to take a picture but I'm cheap so I took it and ran.

3 Sarah's again after "Mexican" food...It was pretty good but that 'sour cream' as they call that they gave me definitely was not sour cream. They are too far away from Mexico I suppose. Never thought I'd be so happy to live so close to Mexico haha.

Another pretty picture of something I walk by all the time...

More cool street art...I have a lot more but I'll probably do a full post with them

The Church that's right by where I live. Its really pretty. My roommate goes to mass (mass right?) every weekend and this is where she goes...I am going with her this weekend just because I think it will be neat. Or maybe its because Ireland has converted me into a hardcore Catholic? Oooooo

Sorry ahead of time...this is a long one and I didn't go back and re-read it so I am sure its full of errors and repeats since I kinda just typed what came to mind...enjoy!

Well...this was by far the most interesting day here in Ireland. Lets set up the scene, when you get an emailing saying "wear sensible shoes because we will be doing light walking today" what do you think? I think don't wear flip flops or heels, so I wore flats. Lets note that it say LIGHT WALKING. Which too me means...light walking, not intense hiking through weeds and thorny bushes and up rocky hills. But that's just me and my California thinking, because apparently in Oregon (where Mark...our wonderful resident director is from) its means HIKING! Now we all know how much I not only love hiking, but how I love nature and being right up in it...oh wait thats not me at all. So you can imagine that I was just slightly pissed when we got to Inis Mór and I found out we were going on a TWO HOUR hike before lunch and then another, more intense hour hike after lunch. It was the start of the worst day ever, that can only be compared to my 5th grade camping trip which I had food poisoning for. If you look down at the pictures you'll see the shoes I wore for this light walk. So I tried to calm down and accept the fact that I was stuck with this hike in these shoes (which are now trashed and I need to buy a new pair when I get back :( ) the road our guide pointed to from what I could see (also in a picture below...how silly of me to think it would be forever like that) was paved, kinda rocky and hard to walk in with flats but I think I could do it. Well right around the bend of course the paved road stoped and turned into a rocky grass "road" which I was dying on since I kept getting crap in my shoes and just freaking out the whole time that I was going to get ticks! This tour we were going on was too see things that most people who come to these Islands don't get to see...not the normal tourist stuff...which yeah cool whatever! BUT! I'm only here once in my life and I would kinda like to see the stuff everyone comes to this Islands to see (especially since that stuff was off the the main road). Already I knew this 2 hour hike was going to turn into a much longer time since Mark (resident director) ALWAYS has to talk over the tour guide, interrupting all the time to say his own shit...and just repeats the same stuff over and over and over...he has one of the voices that makes me want to punch a baby every time I hear it. Plus that fact that he is completely unorganized and doesn't know ANYTHING about teenage girls...which is this whole trip doesn't help much either. Well after a 20 minute stop like 2 minutes into the hike where nothing important was sad what so ever...we continue walking on this "road"...all up hill. Well just when I thought this wasn't going to get worse...OF COURSE IT DOES! We get off the grass "road" and swear to go just start walking off too no where. This was not a path, this was straight up going through the grasslands which were filled with bugs and these thorny bush and up hill with random rocks everywhere so I thought I was going to twist my ankle. We do this for about 40 minutes climbing over the stone fences you see in the pictures...I'm basically in tears at this point because I don't do this, let alone in rolled up pants and cute flats. We finally get up to the top of this hill to see what?! OH WOW! the same rock formations that were right on the side of the road, but this one you see, this was a special rock grave for most people never get to see it because its out in the middle of no where not meant for mankind ever to find! So we are up on this hill listening to NOTHING for about an hour, Mark of course making it even longer then it would be cause he has to keep saying something about everything the tour guide says. And then of course we have this one girl on the group that is just a know-it-all who never shuts up, always has something to say about everything, always has a question about everything, and always fights back with teachers on tour guides thinking she is right...everyone loves her. Hahaha, no. At this point I'm with my friend Maddie and Sam and we are just pissed. Along with everyone else on the tour because nobody gets the point of this and no one cares. This was a study abroad trip, people signed up to do that not hiking group who is interested in rock formations. Now hang in there on this blog, this turns out to be one of the best days I've had here so it gets positive...but it stays negative for just a bit longer hahah. So after being on this hill for an hour we have to walk back through the grasslands a crazy way, scaling up rocky hills. Now imagine me trying to climb up a rocky hill covered in thorns and bugs. Keep in mind I'm dressed up because this is a great place to take pictures so I wanted to look cute and I have my huge purse too! So I look insane doing all this. Well someone goes up to the tour guide and was like we need to stop and eat lunch now because no one can do any more hiking with out food. Him and Mark were pretty upset that non of us wanted to keep going at that point but none of us cared because we are all over doing what Mark wants to do since its never anything anyone else wants to do. So we then have to walk for 45 minutes to get to this random cafe with like 3 things on the menu (nothing good of course...Mark has a great eye for picking places to eat). So there is word going around that the 2nd half of this hike is more intense then the first...which I can't even imagine since that was the most intense thing I've ever done. I said screw this. I was done, I was out and I was over all this crap. So was Monica and my friend Maddie (who has twisted her ankle at the beginning of this trip and was super pissed because Mark knew and neglected to tell her what this was going to be like) so we went to Mark and told him we were done. And of course he gave up dirty looks and the guilt trip which didn't affect me since I was too pissed at him for lying about this trip. We told him we were going down to the beach instead and he very rudely said no you have to stay at this cafe...which of course we did.

** Random things to mention about Mark that I coudln't fit into this blog. He is very rude and talks down to all the fellow staff in front of the students which I think is ridiculously disrespectful to demean your fellow co-workers in front of students! We actually over heard one of the teachers talking shit about him after class one day...pretty fun. And one of the tour guides actually got mad and told him he needed to stop talking because he was wasting her time hahah. Paul (the other resident director) also made a comment when we first got to the Island that he didn't know if this was something that people would appreciate on this trip since no one was an archeology major...pretty funny. **

Ha! And here is where it starts to be the best day ever. The moment they start heading up to the cliffs (which they talked about how people die here from falling off all the time...wow lets hike up to cliffs just so I have a chance of dying...no thank you) we start heading down to the beach. It was probably the most beautiful beach I have ever been too. There was no one there, it was soo clean not one piece of trash to be seen, the water was clear and bright blue. The pictures don't do it justice at all which makes me sad since I wanted to capture how amazing it was! For only an hour that day too it was hot and sunny (the rest of the time is was raining) and of course it was the hour we were down there!! So amazing. After we hung out at the beach for awhile we decided to go find one of two pubs on the Island. I needed a hard cider after that hike so I didn't kill Mark when I saw him again. We walked up this paved road, amazing, for about 15 minutes thinking we aren't going to find it since it only looked like random house here and there as far as we could see. We saw these 2 yellow houses at the top of the hill and decided we would walk there and turn around if we couldn't see the pub. Well we thought we were out of luck since it was just 2 houses up there but then we saw a sign hanging above it saying "licensed to sell spirits". I was pumped. If you look at the picture below you'll see the picture of this place and I'm pretty sure it was just some women who had converted her house into a pub. We get in there, thinking it was going to be super shady since it didn't look like anything but when we opened the doors it was a sweet pub inside! Very small, only locals all speaking Gaelic. The bartender was fantastic! Super excited we were there visiting since only locals ever come in to this pub (the smaller island is where tourist go to drink). I talked to her for awhile while drinking my cider, her and everyone in the pubs had just got back from a trip to New York and were planning on going to SF next which I told her would be way better since its on the right coast. This was probably the coolest pub I've been to my whole time here. Its what I was expecting to go to and hoping to go to. Just a chill local pub where everyone knows each other and is extremely friendly. So then we walked back to the group (a lot of people were pissed we ditched out on the 2nd half...my friends didn't even really talk to me and still have not but I could care less! I got to go to an amazing beach and a great pub. Plus you know they were just jealous...but its like you could have bailed to! None of this is required, you paid to get to this Island you should do what you want) who tried to tell us we missed out on the cliffs. Yeah right, pictures are good enough for me. Plus they didn't even get to go to the beach! The bartender was telling me about how the beach is a blue flag beach...I'm not really sure what that means, but she says its extremely hard to get a blue flag beach and its one of the only ones around Ireland. I guess it means its super clean and nice. Got back to the ferry where I got a Guinness (the 2 boys on this trip got ones on the way there so I decided I'd get one on the way back) turned out to be the cheapest Guinness I've found! Me and Adam got one, and of course got dirty looks from Mark. Don't worry I can't get in trouble for any of this because we are aloud to do whatever we want since we are legal here (and in the states!) but he just looks down upon it because he is rude. So we had this hour bus ride back, I have never had to pee so bad in my life! It was WORSE then the Foo Fighters night where I almost went behind a car but sucked it up and made it home. I held it for like almost the hour but when the bus stopped in Galway in a place I knew to let one guy off ( we still had like 20 minutes to our place) I jumped off and told them I'd get a cab back (the tour was over so we were on our own time starting at 5pm...it was 6) Monica got off too as I ran as fast as I could to the Aquarium. Made it! Barely. So then we got some snacks and a cab back to Corrib Village. Defiantly beat the bus there, so there was no way I would have made it home. So the worst day ever turned out to be a pretty awesome day.

Picture of the place where we docked in Inis Mór

A horse...haha

Picture of us riding back to the dock after they got back from the cliffs...

same but the front of the van

the beach that only me maddi and monica got to go on! So nice!

beach again

back of the ferry on the way back to Galway

The beach again...

Me and Adam having a Guinness on the way back to Galway...it was the cheapest we've found Guinness in all of Ireland so I had to get one! Defiantly got dirty looks from the resident director...but after that hike I really could careless!