Missing Gorse

... and other symptoms of Ireland-sickness

After camp we say you get "camp-sick", just as you might have been home-sick when you arrived. There are moments when I find myself a little bit emerald-island-sick. I am grateful as all get out to be home and surrounded by friends and family with a car and jobs and swing dancing and so many people I love within easy access, but I love Ireland as well.

It's been rainy here at home and nothing screams Ireland like rainy days. The rain reminds me of Ireland, it was chilly-near-consent-type of rain and our dear little (un-heated) house on St Brendan's Ave was quite cold, but I remember much more the overwhelming warmth of walking into a pub at night or the cozy comfort of sipping tea wrapped in a blanket on our couch watching the Love Machine or something equally as ridiculous.

Gorse growing on Crogh Patrick (and photographed in the rain)

Hiking and Hitchhiking

"Do Not Climb on Wet or Foggy Days" yeah...but this is Ireland

Before leaving Ireland I figured it would be fun to go on a hike.

Not Really the Merchant of Venice

Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice could very much hold its own in a fight to be my favorite play, although it would be up against the likes of Henry V, Hamlet, Much Ado, and Pericles so it'd be a great fight. This love for Merchant is due in large part to the first time I saw it performed, because I was lucky enough to have the chance to see it at the Globe Theatre in London. Nothing beats standing right up against the stage as a groundling while Jessica, Portia, Nerissa, the-guy-with-an-Italian-name-I-can-never-remeber-cause-he-was-played-by-an-actor-that-looked-just-like-Wash, and Bassanio all fall in love, exchange posie rings, put on disguises, and use their wits to save the day. Walking back along the Thames to our hotel I was nearly running from giddiness and very much in love.

Source: athenalearning.com via Megan on Pinterest

Globe Theatre with its floor of heaven thick inlaid with patens of bright gold

So I love the Merchant of Venice. A lot. And I realize that there most likely won't be another production

Avengers Assemble

Lucky Star stealing a kiss from Hawkeye over there

Saturday Market

Before leaving home for Ireland I was told to try the fresh doughnuts from Saturday Market in Galway. It was truly wonderful advice. Dan-the-doughnut-man makes the doughnuts right there in front of you when you order them. One is only 70cents, but honestly who has the self control to buy only one single doughnut when you can buy 6 for 3.50?

Cabin in the Woods

'We should split up'  'Yeah'  'Yeah'  'Really?!?'

It was amazing. Full stop.
As the Irish would say, or It was amazing. Period. as the yanks would say. Either way I loved The Cabin in the Woods. And that's saying something because I can count on one hand all of the horror films I've ever watched, much less enjoyed. When the trailer came out I was torn, because I equal parts hate horror films and love Joss Whedon. (Whatever Netflix says, Buffy is not horror. So even if I've given 7 seasons of Buffy and 5 seasons of Angel five stars, I do not need all the horror films suggestions you silly silly site.)  But the 4 euro deal on Tuesdays sold me and I decided to go see it. And yes Cabin in the Woods was a horror films with scenes that made me jump and even got a few surprised squeals out of us, but it was a very knows-that-it's-a-horror-movie-style-Joss-film. I loved the scenes in the hunger-games'-game-master-style-office with the Harbinger of Death on speaker phone. Plus the actors who play Fred and Andrew and Topher popping up made my day. The ending was perfect. And I'm pretty stoked to re-watch it to catch more of his insights about stories. The moral of this story was either keep your shirt on, or it was smoke a lot of weed. Important life lessons all around. My favorite quote was either the last few lines of the film or the Firefly reference of "They may be zombified pain-worshipping backwoods morons" "But they're our zombified pain-worshipping backwoods morons." Did I mention I love Joss Whedon? Cause Joss Whedon is amazing. Full stop.

Irish Family in Limerick

Me/Megan, May, Niamh, Jimmy, Aj, Tim/Dad, Dan, Ning

Cliffs with the Consumption Ward

Thursday we took a tour to the Cliff of Moher and the Burren area, despite all my visitors' terrible coughs which sounded like the consumption-ward-choir. We took the same company: Lally Tour (and still got the same driver Martin that we've now had five times on tours of two different regions-- I'm beginning to think their guides are an army of clones) Instead of stopping at the Allwee Caves first like we did when I went with Emily and Katie last month, we stopped at a farm; I think because we had a group on the tour from Dublin for a day-trip to the west coast of Ireland, it was pretty exciting. At the family-farm-turned-family-farm-with-tours-and-fresh-pie-to-boot.  We got a nice little tour of the farm, and a fun walk up the hill behind the farm-house so we could see more of the burren landscape. Burren comes from the Irish for "rocky-place" which is a ten-points-for-captain-obvious sort of name. Yet, despite how rocky it is the limestone covering the area holds in heat and water allowing a huge range of plants to thrive. Everything from Alpine-wild-flowers-like-blue-genetry to palm-trees can grow in the Burren since it nearly never frosts. Our guide explained the fairy-tree where you tie something to a branch and leave your problem behind, and ruins of seven churches and the famine walls-- stone walls you can see crossing over all the mountains dividing nothing from nothing and keeping nothing out of anything, they were built for woolly-brained-land-lords in exchange for soup during the Great Famine.

Oysters of awesomeness

At the Museum Cafe with cake and salad, a well balanced meal.  

We started out the day by getting breakfast at Griffins Cafe and it was delicious. This was a theme for the day, food which was delicious. Sadly the hard-core-Ireland-cough-germs started to get the best of my lil-bro and my dad so they headed back to the hotel to rest up, while my big-bro and sis-in-law and I headed back to the Galway Museum since it was not Monday and therefore it was open. We checked out the exhibits and then got super-duper-delicious snacks from the Kitchen Cafe downstairs of the museum.

Good Day, Bad Weather

After the Aran Islands with Jamie and Jessie, it seems like a fun trip to go on with my family guests as well. The forecast for the entire week was heavy storms, but we decided to chance it. The weather got the best of us in that wager. It started out with extremely choppy water all the way over. On the ferry to Inis Mor we confirmed that McCormack-genes do not come with sailor-stomachs standard issued.  Having already taken my turn with puking on the ship, I braced myself by the railing with the sea spray while everyone else fought or gave into the puking. At least the little boy sitting behind us enjoyed the ups-and-downs-and-side-to-sides with glee-full-giggles and happy little squeals.

Shop Street and a Bloody Window

We deciphered most of the Bible
stories in the stain-glass-windows. 

AJ found a book written by
his alter-ego WJ McCormack

 We spent the day in Galway with breakfast at Revive Cafe, then Shop Street for T. Dillon's: the official-and-original-makers-of-the-Claddagh-Ring, Charlie Bryne: the best book store ever, St. Nick's: the really old church, and the Cathedral: the really big church, and the Spanish Arch and other sights around Galway. The cathedral has a stain-glass-window with the world's bloodiest ever scene of Cain and Able, it was quite intense-- so much red!!! Turns out the little Galway Museum is closed on Mondays, but everything else was open until 6 or 7 when everything here starts closing. (A little early in my huble opintion) We got dinner at the King's Head -- a pub in the old stone house built by the executioner of King Charles II. And the crazy impressive sheets of rain didn't start until we were safely back inside for the night, wonderful timing on the part of the clouds.

Blogging from a bus

Both GoBus and CityLink have direct Galway to Dublin routes, complete with not only bathrooms, but also free wifi, what more could a traveler need?
So although today is not done yet, I'm going to post, cause I find it pretty cool that I can connect to the inter-webs while rolling down the road at some-amount-of-kilometers-an-hour. And it's the 15th so I've officially Blogged-Half-The-Month-of-April! Yay for BEDA milestones.

Lovely day for a Guinness

Friday the 13th

Last time I visited Dublin with Jamie and Jessie it went ...so...so...well. Therefore I returned to Dublin visit with my brothers and sis-in-law and all on Friday the 13th, a day known for it's luck-y-ness right? No? oh... dear me.

Regardless, after my day of rest on I got up early on Friday and took the GoBus back to Dublin were I met up with everyone at the hotel. We got some fish and chips for lunch and headed to Trinity College to see the space-alien-sphere and the Book of Kells. We stopped along the way at the General Post Office where the 1916 Easter uprising started.

The Book of Kells s quite impressive and it makes me wish I had handwriting that nice.  I've decided that if I could just move in a back corner of Old Library to live, I would be quite content for the rest of my life. So many rows of gorgeous books! And beautiful  arched ceilings! And slidy-beauty-and-the-beast-library-ladders! And spiral staircases!!!  On top of all that amazingness there was even a book on display from the 1600s with a picture of a Viceroy Tulip that pretty much made my day. (Yay for Fault in Our Stars!)

Break Day

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

Star's face is cause she is in the middle of
Looking for Alaska, Monique's is cause
 we've been traveling a lot. a lot a lot. 

The five of us spent one last night in in mega-bed. Then we had a wonderful breakfast with our splendid hosts Wednesday morning. It was quite sad to leave them (and Italy as a whole as well.) We packed up all our stuff (plus a handful of new scarves) and hit the road around 12:20. We walked briskly, but not full-on-panicked-ly to the metro and then took that to the Turino train station, Porto Nouvo. Having mastered the ticket machine in Rome we quickly purchased our ticket and were able to board at the very closest platform (karma was trying to make up for Rome).

On our first train from Turin to Milan, the Italian girl across the aisle from us was being bugged by two gypsies and it turns out they stole her wallet and all out of her purse which really sucked. But I have to say that the half a dozen guys who jumped up to defend her pretty much made my day, the guys also helped her out when she realized she was robbed. It was really nice to see them help her out. I had a slight run-in with a meany-pants-train-ticket-guy who charged me for having my feet on the seat across from me, just because he could (sticky out tongue face)

Roma Ti Amo

I fell in love with Rome when we came to visit my brother and I knew I'd study abroad there as well. My semester in Rome was incredible. So I am thrilled to pieces to be back to visit the Eternal City. Completely worth the near-total lack of sleep. The lack of sleep was a by-product of this morning/ last night Star, Monique and I had to head to the bus /coach station around 1:30am to catch a bus to Dublin; where we caught a plane to Roma Ciampino Aeroport; where we caught a bus to Termini; where we caught the Metro to a stop right down the street from the condos where Star's-god-parents'-son-and-his-wife live. Right in the back yard of the Vatican! It's so amazing to be able to stay with them here. We found the address alright, then got some help from the nice desk girl at the Candia hotel, then Monique completely outsmarted us all by a long shoot when she realized that our calls weren't working because we were not including the plus sign. Silly European cell numbers. After we dropped off our luggage and were treated to a welcome-to-Rome-cappuccino, we set out to explore and hit some of the highlights. I can barely contain my excitement to be back in Rome again.Combining this extreme level of giddiness with the caffeine of a cappuccino made it quite hard to keep from literally running to show the girls St. Peter's.

 We walked all over the city from the Vatican to St Angelo's Castle to the Victor Emmanuel to the Colosseum to Trasevere for pizza and then Old Bridge for gelato. Then we even got an amazing dinner back at the flat as well. I'm loving soaking up being back in Rome.

I've missed good ol' Belli in Trastevere 

Real pizza!!

I'm in love with Charle Byrne

     I'm seriously utterly and completely in love with Charlie Byrne, so far the solitary fault that I have found with my dear Charlie Byrne is a lack of most Hemingway's books -- A Movable Feast for instance. I'll forgive this shortcoming though, because of the treasure chest of other all the other wonderful (and cheap!) books that is Charlie Byrne. It is seriously like the prize-toy-chest-thing at the dentist, because you never know what amazing surprise you'll come across. But it's even better because 1: you end up with an awesome book instead of a plastic plane and 2: you don't have to let anyone check, poke, clean, or fill your teeth first.

     The majority of books at the unbeatably-awesome Charlie Byrne bookstore are secondhand, meaning it is only roughly organized in alphabetical order, and it is mostly by chance that you happen to find what you are looking for if you go in with something in mind.  The best way to approach Charlie Byrne is to wander and browse until something just catches your eye. One of my favorite things is that there are so so so many books they not only cover all the walls and tables, but the bookcases also spill out the front door and wrap around the entire outside of the store (on the indoor mall side). The books on the outside there are only 1 to 3 euros which is also super exciting. I got Angela's Ashes since it's a very fitting book to read in Ireland. Though I'm leaving it here in Galway and I'm bringing Bourne Identity with me to Italy, because it seems more fun and less sad-starving-damp-and-Irish like Angela's Ashes tends to be. (Although it's a good book so far, despite the sadness.) I figured a spy-thriller is more fitting for a trip around Italy with two friends My next blog post will be from the Eternal City!

Cliffs of Insanity

*This blog post is out of order, since we went to the cliffs the Thursday between Helen's birthday party and the weekend of St Paddy's Day. To make up to the out-of-order-ness it is full not only of epic cliffs, but also Princess Bride quotes.

"He didn't fall?!? INCONCEIVABLE!"

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."  

I went with Katie and Emily (Grove Cityers) to the Cliffs of Moher while they were visiting from Italy where they are studying abroad. Since we didn't have a giant to carry us up the rock face on a rope, we took a bus. Although buses are not as cool, we did at least have our favorite driver -Martin- who we've now had on 4 tours by pure chance.

The first stop was at Allwee Cave where we got coffee and tea to help us wake up after our rather late night and early raising, plus a doughnut which was yummy, but nothing compared to Saturday-morning-market-doughnuts-from-Dan.  

Rain on my lens, and wind winning the battle
of the hood with my great travel buddy Emily

 "I don't suppose you could speed things up?" 
 "If you're in such a hurry, you could lower a rope or a tree branch or find something useful to do." 
"I could do that. I have some rope up here, but I do not think you would accept my help, since I am only waiting around to kill you."
"That does put a damper on our relationship."

We drove through some great Irish countryside and Connamara, then we arrived at the cliffs and managed to snap some photos before the fog set in and blocked the view. The cliffs are impressive and well worth being soaked by the rain and wind since we got a clear view for at least a little bit.

Unlike the Aran Islands, there are walls and warning signs abounding at the Cliffs of Moher. I liked the nice touch of a memorial plaque "To those who have lost their lives at the Cliffs" at the end of the path were all the "Danger" and "Do not enter" signs were ignored. Although the people-die-when-they-ignore-our-nice-warning-signs-memorial was mostly ignored as well. Don't worry we stayed safe though. I think our poor cameras were in the most danger with all the mist, fog, and rain honestly. They had to leave the safety of our raincoats for photos though, cause there were cliffs! They gave us some blurry photos as pay back, but in the end came through unscathed. 

There was a tower built a couple hundred years ago for the tourist to have a better view. Clever idea. Sadly there was no Man-In-Black or dueling Spaniards.  Cliffs of Insanity/ Cliffs of Moher are still wonderful and made me realize that it's been far too long since I watched The Princess Bride, so that has to be remedied. 

See mom I'm staying a good safe distance form the cliffs this time ^_^

After checking out the cliffs and tower we stopped in their new state of the art visitors center. It is almost impressive how much mascara you can get on your face when you have cliff winds and rain combined against you. And that is to say nothing of the hair situation. 


We were (very slightly!) late to met back at the bus, but our fellow tour-mates forgave us and we headed to a little pub for some warm food. We got yummy (and not food-poisonous) seafood chowder and some of the amazing hearty brown bread for lunch.

We stopped along the way back to Galway for some more photo ops. At the coast and one of the castles built right by the water around the 15th century. By the coast we also got some photos sitting on one of the huge boulders dropped there by the glaciers a long time before the 15th century.  

I have it on good authority that the Cliffs of Insanity are also amazing when you see them from the water, so I'm scheming a bit to see if I can work out a way to go back and see them from a boat as well.  The Cliffs of Moher (Irish Gaelic name)/Cliffs of Insanity (other name of awesomeness) were really fun to see and we had good weather --by Irish at least since it only actively rain on us for part of the day. And we were even mostly dried out by the time we made it back to Galway that evening. 

"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia - but only slightly less well-known is this: Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha h..." 

Wonderful travel buddy, Kaite, in the Invincible-Tomato-Rain-Coat which was quite appreciated in the rain and mist 

Forgive the not good photo, we were too excited about eating to pose

When the three of us got back to Galway we met up with Monique and Star for an epic Girls Night. It started off with wolfing down six dozen wings at Scotty's and ended with eating two Tesco bins of ice cream while we watched Ocean's Eleven. Very very wonderful all around. I can't wait to visit Emily and Katie in Italy next!

"Once word leaks out that a pirate has gone soft, people begin to disobey you, and then it's nothing but work, work, work all the time."
"You mock my pain!"
"Life is pain, Highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Sunshine on Galway Bay

It was remarkably sunny and warm yesterday (as well as today and the powers that be say it should continue for the rest of the week too -happydance-). So Star and I went down to the waterfront to soak up some vitamin D and read in the nice sunshine.

It was a perfect way to spend the afternoon. Wading in the water was great. As long as you stood still and let your feet sink into the sand it wasn't even too cold. Although the water was in fact pretty icy.

We also made couple of important discoveries while chilling in the knee-deep point of Galway Bay. First off and most exciting: that the pretty-little-blue-clam-thingy-shells that are all over the sand are skippable like a flat stone, despite the fact that they are neither stone nor particularly flat. Star was better at this shell-skipping-skill than I was, but I still got a couple or very nice skips.

Secondly and exciting in a significantly different way was our discovery  that when the tide is slowly coming in, the sand is not a particularly safe place to set one's shoes and camera. (At least not if one had some plan that involves the shoes and camera remaining, you know, dry.) This epiphany arrived at the exact perfect moment, leaving us not only with non-soaking-shoes, but also with still-working-and-not-salt-water-logged-cameras.  We were quite quite glad. And that meant we could then sit and read our library books in peace, without having to mourn our foolishness. Cause it could have been pretty sad.

After good books and nice rays of happiness from that not-too-often-seen-ball-of-glowing-burning-gas-in-the-sky, we made a yummy dinner and watched the first episode of the new Titanic mini-series by the Downton Abby guy. Then we may have possibly followed up that classy show with the oh-so-classy Gordie Shore. In case you ever wondered the Jersey Shore would not be any better at all if it was about a bunch of fake-tanned British kids instead, it might even be worse. (And it also makes you miss American TV censorship laws a little bit). 

On our way back from the water we stopped to read the poster at the end of Shop Street. It was a post from this site: http://galwaywow.wordpress.com/ about reasons to love Galway. They hit on some of the great ones like doughnuts from the St Nick's weekend market, Griffin's Bakery, walking along the Salt Hill prom and talking about great books with friends. I agree wholeheartedly. The poster/ post ends by calling Galway a little old town "that gives little, but in that gives a chance for stuff to happen in the gentlest ways". Yup yup, sounds about right. I agree and I love Galway as well.