As Seen on TV

Hey! Look at this! I'm catching up! That's strange. How did that happen?

I guess Ireland's just good for me. 

I should come here more often. 

*significant look* 

So, before we begin, I just want to let everyone who was betting that I would love Ireland know that they were 150% right. Because I don't want to leave. Fortunately, I get to tell you all about it. 

SO! Saturday morning I woke up fairly early, packed up my stuff (not that there was much to do. I'd been there less than 12 hours.), ate breakfast, and headed over to a DIFFERENT train station to catch the train all the way across Ireland to the city of Galway. 

Now, my father informs me that this is how Eurail is "supposed" to work, but that hasn't been my experience at all, but Eurail in Ireland is so easy. I literally just show up at the train station and show them my pass, and they let me on the train, and I sit wherever I want, and that's it. For reference, in Spain I always had to book my trains ahead of time, and I received a printed ticket, and I had to show that and my eurail pass to get on the train, and I always had an assigned seat. That was just how I did it. France, while it does not require reservations for all its trains, is very strict about the trains that it does require reservations for. As in, for the high-speed trains, you need a reservation, and they only let a certain number of Eurail pass holders on each train, so if they have 5 spots for Eurail pass holders, and you're the 6th person with a pass to try to reserve a seat, too bad, so sad, you pay full price. So, Irleand is really relaxing in that. Also, they have free wifi on their trains. And outlets by each seat. That should be standard on all trains. And on airplanes too. 

Do you see why I like this country? 

Anyway, the train ride was beautiful, and I read and wrote, and chilled and stared longingly out the window

So, this is an important note, not just for this post, but generally for my time here in Ireland: 90% of what I know and think about Ireland comes from the movie Waking Ned Devine. Which if you haven't seen, you should BECAUSE IT IS FANTASTIC. In all seriousness, it's a wonderful movie, even if you kind of need subtitles until you get used to the accents, and it's about these two old men in a small town in Ireland who decide to claim the lottery winnings of a man named Ned Devine, because Ned died of shock when he found out he won the lottery. And it's funny and sweet and just a great movie. It takes place in the town of Tullymore (and I don't know if it exists or not) but I was on the train ride, and I passed

And I figured it was close enough, and I was very excited. 

So anyway, I got into Galway around noon, and found my hostel without much trouble. I dumped my stuff there, and went off to the Free Walking tour. I met up with the guide outside a pub, and we had a a nice chat. She was going to work in South Carolina this summer, and so we talked about the US, and Ireland, and travel, and it was fun. Unfortunately, I was the only one to show up for the tour, so the tour didn't happen. Instead she sent me off towards some of the sights by myself to explore. 

And so I did. 

I walked down the main pedestrian street, and took in the sights. I then found a little weekend farmers market thing off down one street, and so I wandered around there, and I got a bowl of Indian vegetarian soup for lunch, with some orange juice. 

Which looked sort of terrifyingly like blood. But it tasted good, and I swear it was oranges! I saw him making the juice.

So I headed down to the river and the harbor to find a seat to eat my lunch

It was chilly, but really nice.

And I was prepared for the chill.

Also, I saw this sign outside a pub, and it made me laugh. It was just so Irish. It says "What a lovely storm last night! Back to the perfect greenness of April days." And there's the Irish climate, the Irish attitude, and the Irish sense of humor all in one sign.

So it was raining at this point, and I'd forgotten my umbrella at the hostel, but my hood and coat did fine to keep the rain out, so I started up the river to go to the cathedral.

Which is above, in the distance over my shoulder.

That's just the river, because I thought it was pretty

Also, can we talk about the fact that I'm in Ireland, and the roof of the cathedral is green.

I'm sure they didn't plan it like that,

But still.

So yeah, it sort of rained on and off all afternoon, but I had a goal, so I headed over to the cathedral.

which was lovely.

Except that the weather was also the kind of weather where you can't decide if you need sunglasses or no, which is just annoying.

Oh! I love this kind of window.

Like, I love rose windows, but this actually looks like a flower, and it was so cool.

I have an obsession with stained glass.

This was a chapel that was there right when I entered. It was very dramatic.

And the other stained glass windows were cool too.

But the whole feel of this cathedral was once again very distinct.

It was very warm, but tha's mostly just the lighting and the wood ceilings.

And the stones in the walls, honestly looked almost painted on.

They weren't, of course, but they looked like it.

And I just loved the stained glass windows.

Religious or not, I think that's a prayer everybody needs. Most of it anyway.

They also had some really nice mosaics in this cathedral.

Still my favorite part.

So, I found this poster in the cathedral about whether or not you were called to be a priest (obviously I'm not, but it was so funny I stayed and read the whole thing.

Highlights include referring to the apostles as "a motley crew" and saying that many priests upon reading this poster feel like they shouldn't have been ordained.

And this is "a day in the life of a priest" containing things that a priest hears or says on a regular basis. Some of them are actually serious or what you would expect, and then some are, "the organist refuses to play that song" or "what time is the midnight mass?" which made me giggle.

Monica, I thought of you.

Oh yeah, I was also there during choir practice. Which is the best time to visit a cathedral.

I just loved this window

it was so interesting.

The whole feel of the building was very different from other cathedrals I'd been in.

Ok, so as you know, JFK was a good Irish Catholic boy, and Kennedy is actually a west Irish name. So during his presidency, Kennedy actually visited Galway, and they were very excited, because "one of us." And then 5 months later he was assassinated. And they all freaked out. Just like everyone else, really. So they put up a mosaic in the cathedral in Galway to honor Kennedy.

It's not big, but it's there.

Also, I loved this

How to store Holy Water,

Irish style.

And then I headed back out to expire the city.

At this point, I kind of just wandered

I headed back down the river, and out to the harbor

which was very lovely.

I like walking along the quays (pronounced "keys")

But yeah, walking along the shore is always nice. However, I turned back after a little bit, and went back to the hostel. I looked up some things, and got information, and had a cup of tea and chilled and the like. I went and- oh yeah, confession time. I finally cracked. In my 4th month in Europe, I finally got food from an American chain. It wasn't McDonalds or anything, but I just really wanted like crappy American pizza, so I got a slice from Papa John's. And so now that's out of my system. Whew.

And I went back down to the shore. 

 So, the thing with Ireland, is that I had sky-high expectations. It's one of those places you hear about all the time. "The Emerald Isle" and it's in all these movies and books and stories, and it's a place of great beauty and magic and that made me really excited to come, but at the same time it's a real place, how could it possibly live up to that hype?

But it does. It's like Hawaii. Everybody talks about Hawaii, and you think it couldn't possibly be as good as it sounds, but it is. That's what Ireland is like. From the moment I stepped out of the ferry terminal, it was all green grass and cliffs and old buildings and beauty. And so Saturday, after two train rides across stunningly beautiful, green, sheep-filled countryside, I found myself standing in a beautiful field of lush green grass, by the harbor,

staring at a rainbow.

As I told my friend Gemma:

I give up.

Send in the Leprechauns.

I mean... I kind of can't believe it, but that's Ireland, and that's what happened.

Though, they do have signs that seem to be about as useful as the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz. It says the same thing in both directions, and it is totally unintelligible in both Irish and English.

Fortunately, I already knew where I was going.

And I was going past people playing my new favorite sport.

I'm nto 100% on the rules, but it involves kayaks and a ball. It was awesome.

So back up the river

And to the cathedral for the 6pm mass. Which was nice. I mean, I sort of flailed around like an idiot trying to figure out how to catholic, but I don't think I embarrassed myself too badly. Though I did spend the entire second half of the homily (and most of the evening after that) planning out imaginary homiletics courses I would give at a Catholic seminary. Because poor dears, they need it. Like, the message was good, interesting even, but the delivery was... painful. He sort of groped around for a point for a while, and the he finally found it, and things could have looked up from there, but instead the homily ended. *shakes head* But the point was about the fundamental optimism of Christianity, and that was very interesting. 

So after mass I headed back to town and stopped at a famous fish and chips shop. Because I was in Ireland. And that felt like the right thing to do. It was. 

After a nice quiet dinner, I went back to the hostel and worked on blogs until bed.