Katherine in Ireland Part III (or, the other West Coast)
Galway was, at least in terms of the weather, like some sort of recap of my entire trip so far. In the course of a day, the weather cycled through the steady rain, cloudy but dry skies, showers, harder rain, and then fitful clearness of my first week in the North. Galway itself was nothing like the rest of my trip. First of all, there are no museums in Galway, transport or otherwise, so other than wander around and drink cofee, there wasn't much to do during the day. At night, of course, there's too much to do (basically every pub has live music, and I had apparently arrived in the middle of the Galway Oyster Festival, so there was more than usual; several theatres had at least one show up, and only a couple were the obvious tourist traps of 'traditional Irish dancing').
The second night in my hostel, a Scottish man introduced himself to me and interpreted my response ('nice to meet you') as a request for his life history. He was in Galway for a wedding, and was going to be seeing his family for the first time in 15 years. He didn't explain why, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with the decible level of his snoring, which woke up the other 5 of us in the dorm and literally made his bed shake. I seriously thought at some point that he was in physical danger of exploding, and I don't know if I wouldn't have been a little bit glad if that actually had happened. It has consistently amazed me, the amount of snoring that goes on in hostels. If I knew that I snored, I think I would at least make an effort to sleep on my side, or back, or whatever position minimized the snoring, or at least get one of those little nose tapes. And I won't give people the benefit of the doubt that they don't know they snore, because there's just no way. For example, a certain, nameless, sister of mine knows that she makes weird eating noises in her sleep, because she has been told by me on numerous family trips. But maybe, after 15 years of living alone on the island of Eigg, that man just had no idea he could cause tremors with his snores.
Apparently, Rachel is keeping tabs on me, because she ended up in Galway the same nights, something we figured out during my second day there, so we went together to the Crane bar, where there was a very nice trad session. The guy tending bar, by the way, was Will Payne. I'm not sure how he got to Ireland when he's supposed to be in school, or why he didn't say hi to me when I ordered drinks, but if it wasn't Will, it was a guy the same height, with the same hair color, haircut, face, and style of clothing.
The night before I saw a play by a local company. It was called 'Finnegan's Wake Me Up Before You Go Go,' and it wasn't as absolutely hilarious as it was touted to be, but was amusing. The black box theatre it played in was eerily like the Loeb Ex (I guess it's not surprising that two black, square rooms with seats and a stage would look alike, but... it seemed eerie at the time) but honestly I think most productions in the Loeb are better, at least in terms of set and lighting. So I partly watched the show and partly sat there wondering how it much better it would have been with Rebecca or Aoife directing. My conclusion was: considerably.
I left Galway yesterday morning for Doolin, the tiny village in the Burren that somehow manages to stretch out along about a kilometer of road. When I got to my hostel (in the Upper Village), there was only a teenage girl around, and she told me to find her mother in the B&B next door (the same owners run it). When I found the mother, she seemed very annoyed that I had come to ask for a room, and took me back to the hostel where she found a second girl and had her check me in. I was going to bike up to the Cliffs of Moher, as the hostel rented bikes, so I wandered around a bit looking for someone who looked like a bike rental type. A woman who had appeared in the front room said that 'Matty' was over at the B&B, but he might be busy because his son was getting married that afternoon. I had seen a lot of nicely dressed people in the B&B the first time I'd been over there, and as Matty was the hostel owner's husband, that explained why she seemed so harried when I'd seen her. I never found Matty, but a teenager half in a tuxedo told me that he wasn't renting bikes that day. So I walked up to the Cliffs of Moher.
It's only about 5 or 6km from Doolin to the cliffs, but it's all uphill, and by the time I was halfway there it had started to rain. I had my raincoat on though, and my boots are more or less waterproof, so I kept walking. It kept raining, and more so, and after a couple more kilometers my pants were soaked through, and dripping into my shoes. I stopped for a little while in an old, half-ruined house to get out of the rain, then kept on up the road. It had been windy the whole way, but I didn't think about the fact that the place where I was going, the higest point in the area, would probably have considerably stronger winds at the top of it. So I couldn't actually face the view of the cliffs directly, once I'd actually gotten there, because rain was blowing into my face at about 400mph, possibly 450mph. I saw a lot of grey ocean though, and I was warm from the climb, though wetter than it's generally possible to be. Although the visitors center at the cliffs closes at 5:30, the only bus that goes back along the coast (after the 3pm one, which I was too late to get anyway) was at 7:15, so I got to walk back, too. It dried up a bit though, and it was downhill, and back in my hostel there was a peat fire waiting for me, so I could dry my boots and pants.
Also in the hostel were three German kids, who I ended up going to a pub with, a man from Amsterdam who ended up playing trad (drums, bones, and flute) at the same pub, and two Americans who were hitchhiking around Europe with no money except what they made playing music on street corners. The Dutch man promised that the best spoons player in Ireland would be playing at the pub that night, and he was very good, as far as I can tell, though he didn't seem to be able to play any other type of cutlery.
This morning, I again tried to get a bike. I waited around in the front room of the hostel until about 11am, when finally the owner turned up, and then waited another half hour for her husband to get up and get out a bike. It had sprinkled a little, but was supposed to be a nice day, so I set out with a map of the Burren and a bike that usually did succeed at changing gears when I wanted it to. After many hills, amazing views, and a tiny bit of rain, I got to the coastal road and realized I was very hungry and kind of tired. There didn't seem to be any significant towns on my map of that area, but outside one building along the road was a sign that said 'Restaurant: Soups and Sandwiches; Coffee and Tea,' so I stopped and went in. I walked into the kitchen of a house, where an old Irish woman with copious whiskers was sitting next to a peat stove, and she asked me what I wanted to eat. I 'ordered' two scones and some tea, and sat down at the kitchen table. Apparently, 'Birdie' runs this 'restaurant' during the summer months, so I was one of her last customers. The scones were, frankly, some of the most horrible baked goods I've ever eaten, but there was a lot of butter and black currant jam, and the tea was really good. Birdie and I talked while I ate, and after I told her I came from California, by way of Boston, she decided that I had 'lost my accent.' She apparently thought I talked more like an Irish person than an American, though I'm really not sure why. I guess I didn't drop 'dude' and 'woah!' a lot during the conversation, but as it was about cuckoo clocks, the weather, and the local produce, that's hardly surprising. But apparently, I don't have a California accent. Also, apparently, Americans do not boil the water for their tea long enough, and on the West Coast of Ireland they often get the tail end of American storms. Birdie asked me why they had 'gone straight from Katrina to Rita,' by which she meant why had the names not gone alphabetically. I explained that a lot of the storms that they name don't ever make it to land, but she didn't seem to understand, and asked again why after Katrina they hadn't used a man's name. I explained a couple more times and eventually she seemed to understand. I had really a lot of tea (the very boiled water really did make good tea) and choked down the scones. At first, I thought of telling next year's Let's Go: Ireland team to see about adding this place to the book, because it was a very cool experience, having tea and chatting in an Irish person's kitchen. But the horrible microwaved scones and the difficulty of getting to the place, not to mention the total lack of anything else to do nearby (except bike, obviously), are probably too big of deterrents.
So I've ended up filling the time in Galway and Doolin better than I thought I would. I got much wetter than I should have, but have met some massively interesting people. Two of the German kids had gone to school in Canada for quite a long time, and the third had just started college in Galway, and they explained to me all about what's going on with the German political situation. They also tried to suggest travel tips in Germany, until I finally told them that I've actually written a book on that subject. Then we just talked about beer.
One weird thing about beer here, actually: somehow, Carlsberg is the official beer of the Irish soccer team. And they have Stella on tap here a lot more often than I would have expected. Also, I saw Germans last night ordering pints of Budweiser, which was truly shocking. And a Texan man was absolutely mystified by Euro coins, which I don't really understand, seeing as how he's had to be in the country for at least a couple days, beacuse Doolin's not quick to get to. But it is pretty tricky to figure out that the coin with the giant '2' on it is worth more than the one with the '1.' Or, something.
I'm going to stop sitting now, since my bike seat wasn't the greatest, and roads here are bumpy. Then I'll probably go hear more trad at another pub, because trad basically never gets old. It's a kind of music that simultaneously always sounds familiar, but never comes out the same. And it makes the accordian sound good, which is a feat in itself.
The second night in my hostel, a Scottish man introduced himself to me and interpreted my response ('nice to meet you') as a request for his life history. He was in Galway for a wedding, and was going to be seeing his family for the first time in 15 years. He didn't explain why, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with the decible level of his snoring, which woke up the other 5 of us in the dorm and literally made his bed shake. I seriously thought at some point that he was in physical danger of exploding, and I don't know if I wouldn't have been a little bit glad if that actually had happened. It has consistently amazed me, the amount of snoring that goes on in hostels. If I knew that I snored, I think I would at least make an effort to sleep on my side, or back, or whatever position minimized the snoring, or at least get one of those little nose tapes. And I won't give people the benefit of the doubt that they don't know they snore, because there's just no way. For example, a certain, nameless, sister of mine knows that she makes weird eating noises in her sleep, because she has been told by me on numerous family trips. But maybe, after 15 years of living alone on the island of Eigg, that man just had no idea he could cause tremors with his snores.
Apparently, Rachel is keeping tabs on me, because she ended up in Galway the same nights, something we figured out during my second day there, so we went together to the Crane bar, where there was a very nice trad session. The guy tending bar, by the way, was Will Payne. I'm not sure how he got to Ireland when he's supposed to be in school, or why he didn't say hi to me when I ordered drinks, but if it wasn't Will, it was a guy the same height, with the same hair color, haircut, face, and style of clothing.
The night before I saw a play by a local company. It was called 'Finnegan's Wake Me Up Before You Go Go,' and it wasn't as absolutely hilarious as it was touted to be, but was amusing. The black box theatre it played in was eerily like the Loeb Ex (I guess it's not surprising that two black, square rooms with seats and a stage would look alike, but... it seemed eerie at the time) but honestly I think most productions in the Loeb are better, at least in terms of set and lighting. So I partly watched the show and partly sat there wondering how it much better it would have been with Rebecca or Aoife directing. My conclusion was: considerably.
I left Galway yesterday morning for Doolin, the tiny village in the Burren that somehow manages to stretch out along about a kilometer of road. When I got to my hostel (in the Upper Village), there was only a teenage girl around, and she told me to find her mother in the B&B next door (the same owners run it). When I found the mother, she seemed very annoyed that I had come to ask for a room, and took me back to the hostel where she found a second girl and had her check me in. I was going to bike up to the Cliffs of Moher, as the hostel rented bikes, so I wandered around a bit looking for someone who looked like a bike rental type. A woman who had appeared in the front room said that 'Matty' was over at the B&B, but he might be busy because his son was getting married that afternoon. I had seen a lot of nicely dressed people in the B&B the first time I'd been over there, and as Matty was the hostel owner's husband, that explained why she seemed so harried when I'd seen her. I never found Matty, but a teenager half in a tuxedo told me that he wasn't renting bikes that day. So I walked up to the Cliffs of Moher.
It's only about 5 or 6km from Doolin to the cliffs, but it's all uphill, and by the time I was halfway there it had started to rain. I had my raincoat on though, and my boots are more or less waterproof, so I kept walking. It kept raining, and more so, and after a couple more kilometers my pants were soaked through, and dripping into my shoes. I stopped for a little while in an old, half-ruined house to get out of the rain, then kept on up the road. It had been windy the whole way, but I didn't think about the fact that the place where I was going, the higest point in the area, would probably have considerably stronger winds at the top of it. So I couldn't actually face the view of the cliffs directly, once I'd actually gotten there, because rain was blowing into my face at about 400mph, possibly 450mph. I saw a lot of grey ocean though, and I was warm from the climb, though wetter than it's generally possible to be. Although the visitors center at the cliffs closes at 5:30, the only bus that goes back along the coast (after the 3pm one, which I was too late to get anyway) was at 7:15, so I got to walk back, too. It dried up a bit though, and it was downhill, and back in my hostel there was a peat fire waiting for me, so I could dry my boots and pants.
Also in the hostel were three German kids, who I ended up going to a pub with, a man from Amsterdam who ended up playing trad (drums, bones, and flute) at the same pub, and two Americans who were hitchhiking around Europe with no money except what they made playing music on street corners. The Dutch man promised that the best spoons player in Ireland would be playing at the pub that night, and he was very good, as far as I can tell, though he didn't seem to be able to play any other type of cutlery.
This morning, I again tried to get a bike. I waited around in the front room of the hostel until about 11am, when finally the owner turned up, and then waited another half hour for her husband to get up and get out a bike. It had sprinkled a little, but was supposed to be a nice day, so I set out with a map of the Burren and a bike that usually did succeed at changing gears when I wanted it to. After many hills, amazing views, and a tiny bit of rain, I got to the coastal road and realized I was very hungry and kind of tired. There didn't seem to be any significant towns on my map of that area, but outside one building along the road was a sign that said 'Restaurant: Soups and Sandwiches; Coffee and Tea,' so I stopped and went in. I walked into the kitchen of a house, where an old Irish woman with copious whiskers was sitting next to a peat stove, and she asked me what I wanted to eat. I 'ordered' two scones and some tea, and sat down at the kitchen table. Apparently, 'Birdie' runs this 'restaurant' during the summer months, so I was one of her last customers. The scones were, frankly, some of the most horrible baked goods I've ever eaten, but there was a lot of butter and black currant jam, and the tea was really good. Birdie and I talked while I ate, and after I told her I came from California, by way of Boston, she decided that I had 'lost my accent.' She apparently thought I talked more like an Irish person than an American, though I'm really not sure why. I guess I didn't drop 'dude' and 'woah!' a lot during the conversation, but as it was about cuckoo clocks, the weather, and the local produce, that's hardly surprising. But apparently, I don't have a California accent. Also, apparently, Americans do not boil the water for their tea long enough, and on the West Coast of Ireland they often get the tail end of American storms. Birdie asked me why they had 'gone straight from Katrina to Rita,' by which she meant why had the names not gone alphabetically. I explained that a lot of the storms that they name don't ever make it to land, but she didn't seem to understand, and asked again why after Katrina they hadn't used a man's name. I explained a couple more times and eventually she seemed to understand. I had really a lot of tea (the very boiled water really did make good tea) and choked down the scones. At first, I thought of telling next year's Let's Go: Ireland team to see about adding this place to the book, because it was a very cool experience, having tea and chatting in an Irish person's kitchen. But the horrible microwaved scones and the difficulty of getting to the place, not to mention the total lack of anything else to do nearby (except bike, obviously), are probably too big of deterrents.
So I've ended up filling the time in Galway and Doolin better than I thought I would. I got much wetter than I should have, but have met some massively interesting people. Two of the German kids had gone to school in Canada for quite a long time, and the third had just started college in Galway, and they explained to me all about what's going on with the German political situation. They also tried to suggest travel tips in Germany, until I finally told them that I've actually written a book on that subject. Then we just talked about beer.
One weird thing about beer here, actually: somehow, Carlsberg is the official beer of the Irish soccer team. And they have Stella on tap here a lot more often than I would have expected. Also, I saw Germans last night ordering pints of Budweiser, which was truly shocking. And a Texan man was absolutely mystified by Euro coins, which I don't really understand, seeing as how he's had to be in the country for at least a couple days, beacuse Doolin's not quick to get to. But it is pretty tricky to figure out that the coin with the giant '2' on it is worth more than the one with the '1.' Or, something.
I'm going to stop sitting now, since my bike seat wasn't the greatest, and roads here are bumpy. Then I'll probably go hear more trad at another pub, because trad basically never gets old. It's a kind of music that simultaneously always sounds familiar, but never comes out the same. And it makes the accordian sound good, which is a feat in itself.
posted by Katherine at 1:45 PM
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