Aaargh!

I guess I'm not going to post any pictures until I get home. This wireless connection won't let me upload anything, pictures or otherwise. Poo.
But anyway, here are a few earlier posts.

Yeah, I give homeless people change, too

Doolin, 17th

I'm such a bleeding heart. As I was out walking yesterday a man waved me over from his car. An old Irish farmer, he was obviously lonely and wanted to chat a bit. So I did, and he offered to give me a lift over to the cliffs, which sounded alright. I don't normally get in cars with strangers, but he seemed harmless enough, but by the end of the journey, if he'd asked me to marry him, I'm certain he wouldn't have been joking; he just got a little too friendly, and all those creep alarm bells began to go off. He tried to get me to agree to let him drive me to the neighboring town for the festival they're having that evening, but I only agreed that I might run into him at the nearby pub.

Thankfully, I met some Americans at the hostel that were headed to the same pub (there was supposedly a good group of musicians in town, set to play there) and told them about the guy, and we all figured their presence would be a deterrent. Well, it was. He said hello, but wouldn't talk to me with everyone there. Now, I'm pretty sure – and the Americans would agree with this – that he has slightly dubious intentions. What they are, I don't know, which is even more alarming, but if he just wanted company he wouldn't have shied from chatting with my companions. But despite this knowledge, at the end of the night when he approached me and asked forlornly, "so do you still want to go to Lisdoon?" I really felt bad. It was already midnight, so he knew it was probably not going to happen.

"No, not tonight, it's already late, and I'm kind of tired," I answered, apologetically.

"Oh. Ok," he said, clearly disappointed. "Tomorrow, I can pick you up at one o'clock and we'll drive around the coastline, ok?" Why do these people have to be so goddamn nice?

"Well, I'll probably be out hiking then. I kinda wanted to hike all day, that's why I came out here."

"Oh," more disappointment. "Well, you'll be around then?"

"Yeah, I'll be around tomorrow."

"Ok, well perhaps I'll see you then?" his voice cracking.

"Perhaps, Tommy. I'll be around." And then he hugged me and tottered towards the door, leaning heavily on his cane.

I'm a terrible human being. I've made some sweet, lonely old man very sad.

Sandwiches, Tralee, and the Best Bus Driver Ever

Tralee, and Limerick, enroute to Doolin

The following combinations of sandwich fillings were available in Limerick Monday morning. They are, unfortunately for the hungry American, common.

• Ham and potato salad
  
• Turkey and stuffing
  
• Turkey and cranberry sauce
  
• Ham and onion
  
• Tuna and sweetcorn
  

On a sandwich? How do they even THINK of these things? The selections in England are even more bewildering. I'd have taken a picture of the ones at the York train station, but I was too tired and hungry to be amused by what appeared to be either terribly ill-conceived experiments conducted by aliens on what humans eat, or a joke conspired by sandwich makers and the operators of CCTV cameras in stores. On these sort of occasions, I usually settle on "Chicken BLT on thick, chunky bread." Sometimes it's funny later.

Yesterday, Kerry won the football final. As I was in Tralee, the capital of Kerry, things were expectedly crazy. Every car that came through the main drag laid on the horn, and any passengers waved air horns out the window at passerby who returned fire, so to speak. By 7pm, there wasn't a sober person on the street, save for me, who was trying to take pictures of pretty things, but I then decided that I was more likely to get a can of Bulmers thrown on my camera than a decent shot of anything. Instead, I walked out of town a bit and took roughly a million pictures of a sunset. On the way back to the hostel I was accosted by at least three extremely drunk men, one of whom was probably 80 years old. The pub I'd watched the game at said that they'd have a band in, so I stopped in the doorway to listen but heard a cover song and decided I didn't want to put up with bad covers AND drunk slobs, so I tried to find a shop open on a Sunday night for a sandwich. Besides, I was sick of every male I walked past slurring, "Heyyy-eyyyyy," at me. (And no I don't even know how you can slur a nonword like "hey", but they managed.) The only thing open was a fastfood joint named "Supermacs". The counter was staffed by the only cute - and coincidentally, the only sober – boy in town. It didn't hurt that he kept smiling at me. While that was probably due to my funny accent, I'll take what I can get.

I had to get up at 5:30 in order to catch the 6:15 bus out of town, which was my only chance in getting to Doolin before 8pm. I didn't sleep well either, due to the text messaging from my youngest sis (YstSis, until I find a better acronym) and Tim (who doesn't get an acronym), who wanted to talk about the Timbers game. Any other night, guys. Poor Tim is IN Portland, but can't follow the games due to work. So YstSis texts me the latest halfway 'round the world, then I text Tim. Communication these days is strange, isn't it? (btw, Timbers 3-0! 3-1 on aggregate! Bring on the next round!)

Irish towns are hard to identify. I mean, I know when I'm in one, I just don't know the name of it. This is a problem when riding the bus, as the driver sure as hell doesn't inform anyone of where we are. In small American towns, everything is named for the place. You'll have the Newport Bank, the Newport Insurers, the Newport Police Station. Here, everything is Paddy's Pub, Diarmuid's Shoes, and O'Shea's Groceries. In every town! This meant that on the ride to Doolin from Limerick, I couldn't sleep for fear of missing my stop and ending up in Bogville in front of Murphy's Pub where there's no ATM, no place to stay and noooo bus on Sundays. So when the old lady at the front of the bus who had been shouting into her cellphone for the whole journey began to have technical difficulties, I was the one she approached.

"Do you speak English?"

Sigh. "Yes."

"Of course you do. Now, could you tell me why my phone isn't ringing? It's only vibrating and I CANNOT afford to miss calls today, it's urgent."

So I gave it my best shot, but for the life of me, I don't know why it wasn't ringing. It really should have been ringing. But after fifteen minutes or so she gave up and tried the boy across the aisle who merely looked at the thing, with visible disgust I might add, and it rang. This is why I never got into fixing cars.

BUT the trip got immensely better when we hit a traffic jam in some tiny town called Lisdoonvarna (we got stuck in front of the sign labeling it as such, that's the only reason I know the name). A delivery truck parked on the wrong side of the road couldn't pass us, and after consultation between our driver and the other, it was decided that the bus would back up. Meanwhile, traffic was piling in from both directions. The bus driver (known from now on as Best Bus Driver Ever, or BBDE) was already getting excited. "Making ME back up? He could've. He should've. He's the one going the wrong way! He got scared though. He had room, he just got scared." After the truck was past, it was a matter of dealing with all the cars that were following the truck, all of which had decided to follow the truck's lead by driving on the wrong side of the road. So we hiccuped through town, jamming on the brakes so hard every few seconds that people's faces kept bouncing off the seats in front of them, and BBDE less and less successfully stifling his shouts at the other drivers. Finally, in a tirade I could hear all the way near the back of the bus:

"OCH, fuck.. fff… *mumbles* AGGGHHHHGGGH! DIS IS WHY I DON'T HAVE ANY HAIR ON ME HEAD!" (btw, I think I came to Ireland just to hear someone shout that)

"THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE WITH LICENSES! I WOULDN'T LET THEM DRIVE A PRAM!" He was a short man, with a high-pitched voice which made it all the sweeter. Even people in the restaurant next to us were laughing.

About an hour and 8km later he saved me a walk to my hostel by dropping me off right in front of it, but not before I'd nearly gotten off the bus earlier. Told that he'd get me closer to where I was going, I hopped into the front seat, with full view of the road ahead. Big mistake. Sure, we only went like a hundred feet, but it was a hundred feet of terror. There is no way that vehicles that large should be on roads that small, especially when there are other cars and pedestrians. But for entertainment alone this guy won the close race for the highly coveted best bus driver title.

Wireless, tomorrow!

Back to Galway AGAIN tomorrow, and maybe I'll get to post some pictures, finally. The last time I had wireless and was therefore able to use my laptop, the wireless network had blocked all the picture uploading sites. Anyway, I'll be home Sunday night, Monday morning in my current timezone.
Currently in Clifden, which is really scenic. Went on a 9-mile hike today and saw lots of pretty things. Unfortunately, I'm a bit far from the Twelve Bens and Connemara National Park, part of which the bus went through yesterday, so I can't hike it, but can only look at it forlornly on the map. Someday I'll have the courage to deal with the left-handed manuals and drive through this damn country.
The only real news other than the hike is that it finally occurred to me to buy my very own mini-French press so as to make myself real coffee. Most hostels have water boilers and things, but not coffeemakers. This takes care of that nasty instant problem, and the overpriced and sporadic coffee shops.
Pooh, the cute guy working here when I came in just left. :( Oh well, I've got some errands to run. Until tomorrow!

Not much internet out this way

Oh, it exists, it's just scarce and you really only have enough time to explore bus schedules and maybe book a bed before you have to get offline. I assure you I've been keeping track of things and possibly soon I'll have some posts. The last post was from Killarney, I think, and since then I've been to Tralee, Doolin and now Clifden. I came out here to go hiking around Connemara, but as the weather is nasty, I may just hang out in a pub. Worst comes to it, I'll hang out in a pub in Galway or something.

The England Trip

It's 4am in Ireland, and 8pm on the west coast of Canada, where the Timbers are playing Vancouver in the first round of the players. The first half is over, no one has scored, and my video feed has worked for all of about 7 minutes. And I'm tired.

Anyway, Wednesday I flew from Cork to Liverpool and then took trains all the way over to Harrogate to visit an old army buddy. He met me at the train station and walked me to the pub, which was fine with me. It was the perfect place: hideous, dingy carpet; frightening bathrooms, and loads of great handpulled ales. Mmmmhmm! Some drunk 17-year-olds latched on to us outside the pub and bummed cigarettes and tried to talk shit, which ended up being hilarious. And no, they weren't 'taking the piss' - they weren't smart enough for that - they truly were being serious.

Drunk Teens (DT): "Coors is a really good beer, I really like it."
Us: "Coors? ....Are you sure? I mean, yeah. Great beer" *rolls eyes*

DT: "Why do you call is 'soccer'?"
Us: "Cuz you invented the word. Thanks."
DT: "No we didn't!"
Us: "Yep. Ya did. Again, thanks from us, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and any other country I'm forgetting that calls it soccer as well."
DT: "Oh."

DT: "Is Olde English any good?"
Us: *snickers wildly* "Yeah man, it's great."
[OE, in case you're unfamiliar with the stuff, is a beer that comes in a 40oz bottle (two Imperial pints) and it's, at most, $2. Homeless people drink it, usually from a paper bag.]

Anyway, dumb kids aside, the night was good. I chatted with the bartender for quite awhile, which was nice after a few days without talking with a lot of people (happens when traveling alone, sometimes). Plus, while up there I got to try some different beers, including Deuchars pale ale, which was really fruity and not really my thing, but nice for in between normal stuff. Then I had some Roosters, which I vaguely remember being good, but I was getting really tired by that point.

Thursday, my friend's coworker was having a 'pub lunch' going away party at this pub in the middle of nowhere. (Ok, looking at a map now, it's just outside of Harrogate, but it really seemed farther.) His friend drives like the original British Land Rover. It's like something out of National Geographic. It's basically a giant metal box with gears that go down into the negatives, and the behind the back seat is a fuel tank you could power a small neighborhood with. The pub had the same hideous carpet as the one the night before, except cleaned so you could see the bizarre patterns and color combinations clearly, PLUS there were matching curtains! Thankfully, too, cuz the rustic, country decor was a little too cutesy without it. More beer! Something called One Leg Up, which was so delicious that I didn't even look to see what other beers they had.

Most of the rest of Thursday was spent trying to nap away the gianormous steak and ale pie from lunch, flipping channels, and playing with my friends two adorable kids. Later on it was back to the pub to hear a band, catch up on the past two years of crap, and drink more beer! This time it was the local stuff Black Sheep (which I'm pretty sure is at my grocery store at home), and some nasty Hoegaarden, which thoroughly kicked my ass.

Next day was back to Cork, so I was up early and got dropped off at the train station with enough time to spare to eat breakfast, which was amazingly, considering the wealth of Harrogate, the cheapest meal I've had all trip. The train ride itself was going swimmingly - I'd made my connection in Leeds without being stabbed (there's something about the name Leeds that just sounds nasty, and I always think of grime and hooligans) and gotten a mocha - until some idiot ran his car into a rail bridge outside of Manchester, causing all trains to Liverpool to be delayed by an hour. I was so furious by the time the trains finally left that craphole station we were trapped in that I hardly even got excited when we went past Old Trafford. I got to the airport check-in counter with only eight minutes to spare and was in no mood to deal with the ditz who insisted that I needed a visa to get back into Ireland. Seriously, if she'd just read my passport, she'd have seen this was my FOURTH TIME entering that country, all other trips without a visa. Thankfully, the woman next to her gave her an your-an-idiot look and handed my passport back to me (it's not MY fault no one even looked at the thing when I came into the UK) and I even made it through security with enough time to pee before boarding.

England surmised: Lots of beer, some fast driving on narrow roads through sheep fields, more beer and strange decor. Good trip!

[bah, Vancouver 1-0 Portland. Video never worked again]

Engerland!

Quick post from the Middle of Nowhere, England, where I'm having about as fabulous of a time that one can have in such a place. I'm back to Cork tomorrow afternoon, which means I have to leave here ridiculously early in order to make my flight from Liverpool, which somehow takes FOREVER to get to, even though it's not really that far away. Tomorrow night I'll be in Killarney at a nice hostel I stayed in a few years ago, which has free WiFi and stuff so I'll have time to post a real blog then. Plus, the Timbers are playing, so I'll be up all night trying to follow that from 4,500 miles away.

The Rebel Army!

Ok, this post isn't as exciting as the title implies. Monday I went and saw Cork City FC take on University College Dublin. City's nickname is the Rebel Army, so of course they sang that a lot. Well, a bit. Ya see, Ireland really isn't a soccer country - they're into the Gaelic football and hurling, so even though there are tons of people walking around in ManUtd and Celtic jerseys, the turnout for live soccer is pretty small. And yes, they call it 'soccer', not football; it's not just North America. The stadium only holds about 8,000 and it was about half full, maybe a tad more. The supporters section was a lot like the Timbers Army, in that they hang out behind the goal and wear green and white, but they were a lot younger. It seemed to be made up mostly of teenagers and the only ones older were parents of five-year-olds. I'd say the average age was 14. A lot of the chants were the same (as I'm sure is the case the world over), but with a slightly different tune, and of course, different words. In the first half they sang maybe four chants intermittently, which was kind of disappointing, but it picked up a lot in the second half and most people in the Shed were singing and there was even some pogoing! (Firefox doesn't think 'pogoing' is a word. Shame on it!) I bought a couple overpriced scarves (what isn't overpriced in this country?), but refused to buy a jersey for my friend who wanted one, as the prices were really outrageous.
In the end, City won 4-1, even with the ref really taking it easy on the Dubs. Refereeing aside, just the blindingly obvious shots Cork missed meant the score could have been much, much higher. In any case, the Timbers could easily have taken on UCD, and I think CCFC v PTFC would make a great preseason friendly. That way we'd have the Rebel Army v the Timbers Army and the People's Republic of Cork v the People's Republic of Portland! And yeah, I am going to get one of those cheesy PRC tshirts; it'd go nicely with my PRP scarf.
Oh, and there's no alcohol sold in the stadium(!!!). That, and the age of the crowd were the biggest differences from a Timbers match. A good night out, all in all.

Achill Debacle

So I was on Achill for awhile. Some people call their hometowns a vortex, but they're just exaggerating. Unless they're from Achill. It's an island off an island and even though I spent six weeks trapped there last year, I came crawling back again. Of course there's no internet, the buses run intermittently, and I wouldn't even be surprised if the newspapers reach there a day late. It's a great place if you want a break from the real world – and I really appreciate it for that – but, man, do you need to plan everything before you end up out there. The dates are from the 6^th through the 9^th.

***

*Old Friend, New Friends*

Getting a bus out to Achill is easy as pie, especially if you've done it a few times before. The only problem was that the only public toilet in Westport was closed, so I was in a pretty bad way before I even got on the final bus. The weather that morning in Galway was chilly and drizzling and I expected much the same up north, but Westport was like a blue hole. It was hot. It's always raining in Westport! So I buried my jacket in my backpack and wandered around taking pictures and looking for a bathroom before getting on the next bus.

The driver winked at me. I sighed because I already recognized him. He was the one that nearly left without us last year when my friend read the schedule wrong and we were at the pub. The whole town thought that was pretty funny. I recognized people on the bus. I already felt like I was entering a hole.

On the far end of Westport, an elderly lady flagged down the bus. "Sorry! I had to go to confessions!" she explained. "I had to go to confessions and they kept me there for an HOUR!" And then, as she walked through the aisles, possibly to no one in particular, "Them priests don't know what the hell they're talkin about!" I was suddenly glad I'd forgotten my headphones in my luggage. Ahhh, western Ireland.

The weather stayed nice and everything was peachy until we stopped at a schoolhouse and every kid on the island got on the bus. It was three to a seat in the back and standing room only everywhere else. They were nice enough kids, but in the way that all teenagers do, they had to shout at each other to communicate. I'm pretty sure people could hear that bus coming better than they'd hear a brigade of tanks.

I walked down to the fieldschool to meet Kate, my Canadian roommate from the fieldschool last year. She'd spent the summer working there this year and was about to move on to a different job somewhere in the Midlands. I met the rest of the new staff, including Ross the housemate of Kate and the field director at the school who I was staying with, and then we all went out to prepare for a beach barbecue. Yay beach party! Apparently, the weather had been crap all summer and it just cleared up right before I drove up. People were coming out of their houses to admire the view and breathe the air. It's nice that people can appreciate such little things.

The beach party was excellent, of course. We salvaged some washed up wood and turf for the fire and had kebabs and burgers and sausage and of course a lot of Guinness. Oh how I missed the ocean and drinking beer over conversations about archaeology.

*Happy Times*

The next day I hiked the long way around to the Deserted Village, where the dig is, to see what they'd done to my unit. The whole walk was gorgeous, and hot, and I took a bunch of pictures that now kind of all look alike. The house I'd been working on looks completely different, with the exception of a few stones that I'm intimately familiar with, after spending days measuring the corners and sketching. The fire pit I'd been working on is actually one of two fireplaces in the house, and a piece of stone with metal bits had been found toppled over, indicating it may have been a mantelpiece. Isn't that NEAT? I thought so.

Continuing the same direction, I took the back road to Dooagh which provided some gorgeous vistas that if I wasn't nearly about to pass out from hunger, I'd have lingered at the whole afternoon. Gielty's, the pub I practically lived at last year, was my goal for the afternoon, and I got there just in time to grab lunch and some (instant! When did they start that crap?) coffee and chat with Alan before meeting Ross to get a lift back. It turned out though, that we were going to have a few pints with a newish local at The Pub pub (Yeah, it's really just called 'The Pub') first. Did you know that the Irish government will fund film clubs? Ross is trying to get one going there. He'll get sent a few films a month and will show them at the fieldschool and people are going to arrange for a shuttle from other parts of the island. Does the American government do this? The way they were talking about it, it seemed common knowledge that one could get the government to send movies to watch with the town.

That night it was back to Gielty's to meet (for me) and re-meet (for everyone else) a professor from Cork and his archaeologist wife. They of course were friendly and incredibly knowledgeable, as all archaeologists seem to be. Plus, again like all archaeologists, they liked beer and bought everyone pints. That's how archaeology works in Ireland (and to some extent in the US, as well): you make connections and learn about other digs by meeting archaeologists at pubs and drinking many rounds.

That night I decided that since I need to use the internet, I'd combine the trip with the opportunity to meet with Jenn, another Canadian fieldschool survivor that now lives in Castlebar. I needed to book a room in Cork, figure out how to get down there, and maybe even work out a plane ticket to England. Besides, I'd only been through Castlebar on the bus; it'd be neat to see a new town. Kate was leaving the next day and Ross was driving her, but they were letting me stay an extra night so I could sort things out.

*May I Waste your Time, Too?*

What a colossal waste of time. I got out of bed and sneaked out of the house before Kate and Ross got up, so I didn't get to say goodbye to either of them, which was very disappointing. I needed to use the internet and I wanted to see my friend Jenn who lives in Castlebar, so I had to catch the 8:20 or 10:00 bus. I opted for the latter, as I figured Jenn wouldn't be awake either and that we would make an afternoon of it and I wouldn't need to get back to Achill until the evening. Well, I booked my room in Cork and wrote down the bus schedule for Sunday (8:35 from Achill, 10:15 Westport to Athlone, 1430 to Cork) in about twenty minutes. At that point, I could have caught the next bus to Achill and have been back in time to go for a hike, sit on the beach and then wander over to Gielty's to watch the soccer and have a few pints. But I waited for Jenn to get back to me, which she did… at three-thirty. Two hours after that bus had left. And she said she couldn't make it into town. Well, hell. So then I had to waste an afternoon wandering around Castlebar – the highlights include a Dunne's and a Tesco – and didn't get on the bus until 5:30. A small relief though, the bus driver didn't normally do that route and seemingly forgot to do the rest of the island, which was great for those of us heading all the way to Dooagh, since it cut an hour off of the journey time; hope no one was waiting to catch the bus in Dugort, though!

So a twenty-minute errand took over ten hours. That's life in Achill for ya. I got to Gielty's just in time for the Ireland-Slovakia game, but the place was really quiet. I chatted a bit with one of the servers who had worked there last year (the look on her face when I walked in was hilarious – so confused!), but otherwise I sat drinking my Guinness and watching the game. I tried to text Tim back home, but the message wouldn't send and then I somehow managed to lock the phone, rendering it useless until I got the pin # from my room. No one talked to me, which was ok until the soccer turned to shit and Slovakia kept getting shots on goal. Then Slovakia came back and tied it in stoppage time and I was furious. Can't anything go right? I nursed my drink until I decided that it was late enough that the field school students probably weren't going to show up, so I shook Alan's hand and started the three mile trek in the dark. By the time I got back to the empty house I was thoroughly depressed. No one to talk to! My phone wasn't working, I was on an island in the middle of nowhere, there's no internet access, I didn't have enough minutes to call home, blahblahblah. I went to bed early so that I could get up in time to walk back to Keel (two miles or so) to catch the 8:30 bus.

*Why We Call it "Achilltraz"*

There's no Sunday morning bus off Achill. There really is no escape! It seems that everyone except the bus company knows that there's no bus on Sunday mornings. An old man dressed in the standard attire of jacket-over-sweater, with wool cap pulled down informed me of this after I stood around the area in front of the store that serves as a bus stop.

"Good marning!" he says, after I greeted him. "You're not waitin fer de bus, are ye?"

"Yeah, I am, it's supposed to be—"

"No! Dare's nooooo bus on Sunday! Dare's one at four o'clock. It goes ta Galway. Dare'll be people wanderin inta da store here soon - you should enquire wit dem." (Funny, written down, the Mayo accent looks like a Jamaican one.)

Devastation! What do I do now? If the only bus leaves at four, there's no WAY I'll make it to Cork tonight. I'll have to find a place in Westport or Galway, but they seemed to fill up really quickly last week. I guess I could stay another night here, but I feel I've already overstayed my welcome and Ross is coming back tonight anyway and I don't think he wants to find some bum still in his house. Staying here is definitely a last resort option.

It being Sunday, the store was still closed at nine, so I wandered down to the beach to sit and calm down and look up phone numbers from my travel book. No internet access meant that I had to actually call and talk to people. Unfortunately, I then discovered that my phone had only 80 cents on it. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. I shouldn't have been surprised, really, what with how the past two days had been going. I formulated a few plans of attack, and pushed sand around into little smooth piles until ten when I went back to the store. I bought some frozen spaghetti and "Club Orange" fizzy drink, and a phone top-up. What a stupid day so far. It's only 1015!

*Is My Luck Changing?*

I glumly trudged back towards the house, four miles in a useless roundtrip, topping off my phone along the way. As I walked, thinking frantically how I was going to work the next few hours, a car pulled over and the reversed back towards me. The couple from UCC! "Would you like a lift?" she asked. "I would love a lift!" I chirped, and then hopped into the back seat. They said they would have taken me all the way to Cork, but they're stopping in Westport and Galway and wouldn't be arriving for a day or two. This is where I should have asked for a lift to Westport or Galway, so I could catch the train or bus down to Cork and everything would have worked itself out, but I'm an idiot, so I didn't. I was grateful enough for the lift to the house as it was, and they certainly empathized with the bus schedule snafu.

As I cooked my frozen spaghetti meal I called a hostel in Westport, fully expecting to be turned down, or at the very least, offered a four-bed private room which I could never afford. "Och, we have loads of beds!" Well, that took care of that. Then I rang the hostel in Cork to let them know that I wouldn't be coming tonight. "Ok, no problem. See you tomorrow!" What the hell, this is becoming easy! I may even get in a hike today, since that's really all I've wanted to do these past few days as it is.

The day turned out alright, though. The weather cleared up again, so I walked down to the far end of Keel beach that I hadn't been to. I deliberately left my camera behind. I wanted to experience the walk and the beach for myself, not for my digital film. Besides, while my camera could have shown you the gorgeous green-blue of the water, and the bright green terraced hills that rose straight up from the beach with sheep clinging impossibly on them, it wouldn't have been able to capture just how frigid the water was or how nice the breeze smelled. There was hardly anyone there, either, save for an old man in a tweed suit who was riding an old bicycle. There were lots of these kinds of men along the way and they all greeted me with "hawaya" which I've figured out is "how are you" which really means "hello." On the way back I realized a tractor had pulled up to where the road turns into rocks and hits the cliff walls. In front of the tractor a man with a wild, dark beard and hair stood, wearing a sweater that matched his tractor. He was just breathing in the view, himself, a man who lives here presumably full time. Again, it's good to see the local appreciate what they have. Hawaya, he said as I passed.

The four o'clock bus arrived when it was supposed to, just as the weather changed for the worst. There were ominous dark clouds suddenly in every direction and the wind caused me to put both jackets on. The driver had the radio tuned to an inter-county hurling match. Those Irish announcers could make golf exciting! Transcribed, the announcer's words wouldn't have any spaces between them, and everything would be capitalized. I wondered how he was even getting breaths in.

Westport was pretty boring, since I got there so late. I like the town and all, but I was tired and just wanted a burger from Cozy Joe's (is it sad that I have to travel halfway round the world to get a decent burger?) but they were out. Pooh. So I ate the curry and watched the first half of Ireland slaughtering Namibia in rugby.

*Last Tricks from the Vortex*

The bus to Cork wasn't labeled until I asked about it. The bus driver couldn't understand my accent. We stopped in Galway and he then turned the bus off. Why, if the bus isn't really going to Cork, would the bus say it was going to Cork? The driver said another bus would be leaving at half eleven. This would have given me enough time to get food, but I hung around for a few minutes and sure enough, the bus left at five after instead. The bus was completely crammed and the driver started telling people getting on, "Shannon ONLY!" and I figured I'd be stranded at the airport after yet another change of plans. Miraculously, we got into Cork at three-thirty or so, which added up to about seven hours of bus time for me.

Cork

Oh my god, WiFi and real coffee!!!!! I'm in heaven, I think. I'm coalescing (is that the right word? I can't even think straight) posts from the past few days and I should have them up soon. Right now I'm bathing in the glow of global connections and information at my fingertips. It's awing, really.

Back to Galway

I really like Galway, so I'm partly excited to be here, but then again, I have trouble with the accents and I had to spend several hours shopping for pants (few things worse) and where I ended up eating dinner had a really weird vibe and I think the bartender thought I was retarded. Plus, my friend who said I could stay with her on Achill is suddenly having to "run it by" other people, leaving me in limbo as to what I'm supposed to do tomorrow. Beds are filling up rapidly here in the west. Also, my internet time is running out.

Somebody leave a comment, I'm sad.

Dublin: The Next PDX

So I've been in Dublin for just over 24 hours and I've already been hit by a car three times. Same car, too! Ok, I'm kidding. But it could easily have happened. I'm still a bit jet lagged and still lacking a few necessities (adapter for laptop/camera, an extra pair of pants, blah blah boring stuff), but fairly well settled. I even got myself a "mo' bile" so as to fit in better.

Dublin is turning into Portland. Last time I spent a significant amount of time here, I was disgusted with the way people treated their city. On several different occasions I saw people just toss half eaten food, drinks on the ground, then throw their cigarette butt in the other direction. Feet in front of them was a trash bin, but that would have been too much effort. The sidewalks were heaped with crap like that. This time around while I was trying to talk on a payphone a loud sidewalk sweeper truck drove past. Two minutes later a man carting a pressure washer came around and sprayed down the area around the garbage cans. Then the sweeper came back again. Along with traffic, I've been dodging these contraptions ever since. It's like the city tourist board reads minds! Then there's the bike issue. Dublin seems like the last place on earth one would want to ride a bicycle, what with the 24/7 rush hour traffic, the narrow streets and the bathshit crazy bus drivers in charge of carriages thirty feet tall. I'm fairly certain that the last time I was here a bicyclist would have been laughed and pointed at. This time? They're everywhere. You can see them winding their way between buses and trucks, and there are parking areas with dozens of bikes stacked up. Next thing ya know, Dublin will be serving Stumptown coffee.

Finally made it to the National Museum with all the neat archaeological finds, including the bog bodies. Third time in Dublin and it's the first time I've seen the place. To be fair, my second trip here was just going to and from the airport. I'm much more familiar with the street layout, so I only get lost 1/3 of the time now, instead of once every block.

Kevin, my buddy from the field school last here who spent the entire summer over there again, dragged me to the Jameson distillery and made me be a volunteer, which required drinking several shots of whiskey. Dublin is much easier to navigate in such a state.

Tomorrow I think I'm heading off to Westport and then to Achill to see my friend who will only be there a few more days. Other than that and the soccer match in Cork on the 10th, I don't have any solid plans. My army buddy in England hasn't gotten back to me, and I'm beginning to wonder if he's been deployed or something nasty like that. I'd sure like to see him.

The Purple Man

I'm glad my name isn't Chad Thad, or Dab Bad, or whoever it is with headphones on that airport personnel keep paging over the intercom. Yep, I'm here in happy-dappy Portland Int'l Airport, and so far things are going smoothly. Although I packed expecting to have to take my bag as a carry-on, they allowed me to check it all the way through to Dublin, so I turned over my tiny pack and was nearly completely unburdened until I ran into the Powell's store. Whoever decided to put a branch of the greatest bookstore ever at the airport is criminally brilliant. Powell's isn't the kind of place you typically find in airports that sells cheesy mystery and romance novels for $14 and offers a dizzying display of crappy magazines. Somehow I managed to limit myself to one Bill Bryson book that was on sale. Quite proud of my restraint, I walked across the hall to the Rose City Wine Bar, which isn't as fancy as it sounds. The TV at the bar was showing a college football game between two schools I've never heard of called "DeMath" and "St. Xav." The hometeam is obviously based on the East coast as it was not even 10am out here. I guess an EPL match would have been too much to ask for, even in Soccer City, USA at an international airport.

Security was a breeze, and the experience was enhanced by some sort of incident triggered by a man wearing purple. The TSA man on the near end shouted, "Hey! The Purple Man!" and then the man next to him shouted, "The Purple Man!" and on down the line as they jogged towards the gate area and the suspicious man. "The Purple Man! The Purple Man! The Purple Man!" It was very dramatic, and topped off with a loud "ALL CLEAR!!!!" from the other end of the airport.