Eolas Cuartaíochta

I awoke early on Thursday, to a gloomy looking morning, such a difference than the previous day which felt about as tropical as it gets here. It was 8:30 and the sun had come up much earlier, but regardless I decided to go out to Galway Bay to watch the sun rise over the water. I had been relaxing on the benches at the Salt Hill Prom, with my $5 imitation Ray-Ban’s purchased from some Jamaican dude in Park Slope on the 4^th of July, and wearing a white collared shirt. I became distracted from watching the scenery when I noticed the scenery had started to watch me, a girl had passed by me three or four times now with wide eyes. The final time she passed I could tell she was going to come up, and she did with this giant grin to ask me something which was way to fast for me to understand with her thicker accent. Asking her to repeat it, she said a bit more slowly “don’t think I’m crazy. Are you the I-102.4 thief?” Telling her no, I was then slightly less shocked when a portly gentleman began pacing around me looking me up and down, before finally coming up and asking the same question. He explained that it was a radio promo

and that the “Thief” was supposed to be dressed similarly to me, slightly dressy with sunglasses apparently. After another person asked me the same thing, I realized I wasn’t going to get to watch the sun in peace, and also assumed that there must be a prize for this thief so I walked the entire prom looking for the I-102.4s thief, and found nothing but another person that thought it was I.

Walking into town I found an unkempt boat on the swan landing (pictured), and headed up Quay Street to find some breakfast. After a search up all the way through shop street , down bridge, and looping through the Claddaugh, I decided to return to the busiest place I had seen on Quay street, assuming they would have the best Irish breakfast. I was wrong, the rashers & sausage were ok, but the beans were canned and the puddings were out of a package and microwaved for sure. I burned through another 25 pages of War & Peace, making Tolstoy the best part of my breakfast.

Unsure of what to do next I went to my old hostel across the street and read the paper, and looked through my pictures of the previous day at dog’s bay. While it wasn’t exciting to write about, it was probably my favorite day of the past year. Really relaxing. As 2pm approached, the sun was blazing, and I decided it was time to head to the races so I went up to Eyre square to catch the bus. The Gentleman of the Western Reserve song “Horse Race Jubilee” was in my head as I queued up with the other 500 people, really coincidental lyrics. “T’was the 30^th o’ July and fair, as carriages drove into town square.” I was off to Ballybrit & the famous Galway Races which I’ve heard about only through the writings of Yeats & the Dubliners.

Today was Ladies day (pictured) at the races, and there was just over 20,000 in attendance, nearly every guy dressed in a suit and ever woman in a fancy hat & gúna (yeah, that’s right I’m learning irish! 1 word at a time.) First thing was first, I went to the beer tent and had myself a drink and watched the first race on the large screen. Some old Irishmen decided to strike up a conversation with me between stuffing their faces with the hot beef rolls. The talk mostly revolved around me asking what they said a million times and them telling me how great Obama was. Which surprised me a bit, since my old buddy from Wexford, Jim, had some awful joke about Obama which made me think the older guys might be racist here, it went like… “I always said there would be a black president when pigs fly. Well, now we got swine flu.”... among other equally classy racist jokes Jim had.

I decided to place some bets and went to the betting booths but couldn’t really figure out what the hell I was doing, so I just went up to the front row to watch the races. After watching several, I found an automatic betting machine and tried to figure it out and some girls helped me out by telling me I had to wait in some long line to get a ticket. In that line I chatted with two guys next to me and had the tip that Deutschland (a horse from the US) was favored better at this inside betting than outside and bound to win. So I took my entire cash allowance for betting, a mighty 10euro and threw it all down on him to come in first. Well, he came in second. I stuck around until the second to last race getting some good pics from trackside.

Back in town, literally in the 200 meter walk through eyre square, I was asked at LEAST 5 more times if I was the I-102.4 thief, which Susan later explained to me that he is American too, so I’m sure that confused people when I said I wasn’t with my accent & dressed like him. The Garda had barricaded off Shop Street and had police checkpoints. The town gets nuts during this period, and they basically turn the entire street into an open bar with barricades to keep bottles & under 18 y.o.’s out. I couldn’t even get halfway down the street before I was annoyed by the drunks, and took a sidestreet off to get some dinner alone. Chorizo & carmalized onion pizza for my birthday meal! Then I went down to the Spanish arch and fell asleep people-watching in the grass. Waking up to my now good Galwegian friend Susan calling. She came into city center to meet for a drink, and there was talk of meeting up with her sisters in town but everyone was spread out at the far edges and getting through the center was almost undoable with the rowdy crowds. So we had some drinks at Jury’s before the drunks literally overwhelmed the security guy there, who were pouring in to use restrooms and yell at the staff (at least one very angry guy in particular was making no sense trying to hand out his own money…?) We ended up at Salt House Pub to finish celebrating my 32nd. Tomorrow I’ll have to get pictures of the insanity that is Quay Street during the races.

PS – thanks to all the facebook happy b’days, especially Nesson, that was really sweet of you.

The Dog's Bay Excursion

Wednesday I left for the coastline to the west. Riding through the lower area of the Connemara and then turning south to roundstone I got some lovely pictures. The last one I took is the first one I'll start with (pictured to the right) of the sun setting, if you enlarge it you can see the rays jutting out between the trees and the mountain-side.

I walked around the town of roundstone, that Tara had suggested seeing the other night. It was really small as shown below with the bay to it's left. I also stopped for some scenic pics in the afternoon:

By early afternoon, I'd arrived at Dog's bay. A small sea inlet that was shetlered by a small piece of land that spiraled out into the bay. The sand was pure white, and with the sun out it created crystal clear water that sparkled in the sunlight along with the sand. Despite the wind, it was reasonably warm outside, though the water was actually warmer (or so it felt). I stripped down on the beach, threw on a pair of boxers and went for a swim. It felt like the arctic getting into it, but once it the water was really refreshing. I took a dive and had forgotten that it was the atlantic, coming up with salt in my eyes. For a while i just floated around and lost track of time while avoiding the jellyfish.

There were cows that wandered on and off of the beach, and I walked around the surrounding hills to photo them and the countryside:

I meant to meet Marie at the Crane for some traditional music, but she had some unexpected family stop in and I couldn't get to the bar they were at. I was nearly worn out myself from the sun & salt, so i went to bed at a reasonable hour for the first time this week. Taking it easy in anticipation of the 30th; I'd planned to stop by the recruiters in town, get a good healthy breakfast, and go off to the Galway Races to bet on any horse that coincided with 32 for my bday.

Tropic of Cancer

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience. I've had Henry Miller on my mind quite a bit recently, I wondered if he had a plan at all and threw it by the wayside as it suited him. Small coincidences in life seem to lead to large outcomes.

Sonja texted me saturday morning for breakfast, and as I was only on my second cup of morning tea I went to Amnesty to meet her for my first cup of coffee. Afterwards she showed me around to several second hand stores in town, hoping I could find something to wear to the wedding that was affordable. Obviously in my light & disposable packing for the bike trip, formal wear was not something i had brought. Who knows, maybe it would have a dual use if I stuck around a couple more days to drop a CV or two in town.

I found a quality white shirt that was just slightly bigger than my size, but acceptable. I split from Sonja to relax at the Hostel for a bit and found my new topshop shirt had been stolen or taken with the bedsheets. So I went out shopping later in the week to rebuy it, but for today all I got was a new belt from Topshop, shoes from Dunnes, and a remarkably nice pair of pants despite them being from Penney's.

I was really nervous for the wedding. Here I am, a foreigner, in a foreign land, going out into the midlands.. where on my bike trip I could hardly understand them in the southern midlands, and going to have to meet someone's family at a wedding. What would they think, having some transient american biker showing up to their wedding? Luckily, they were very hospitable and when Susan was off talking to people, her sisters (Linda & Tara) and cousins (Keith & another fellow that i forget) kept me busy chatting away. I even got pulled into dancing with their mother, who was known to be quite a dancer. I learned, ok maybe not learned, i tried to mimic her mom (Mary) doing a traditional irish dance called 'Jive' (pictured). I danced like I had a pegleg and a club foot, but no one seemed to mind except me and it was fun none-the-less. The wedding ended fairly late, and i was surprised to see that the afterparty was to go on until near sunrise, though we all left slightly prior to that.

Sunday through Tuesday were mostly nothing new in terms of who to see & what settings. Sunday I spent the afternoon with the French family, having dinner and bottle of wine with them which they drank out of something like shot glasses, mind you the daughters are 17 & 15 but that didn't stop them from having wine with dinner. It was comfortable for me though, since I was able to relax a bit more being the third time I had eaten with them and now with a little wine I was able to talk in French & mess-up talking in French with relative comfort. Wrong tenses, having to say one or two words here and there in english? No sweat, it was a good time and I could tell the girls had eased up speaking english to me as well. That night I watched Milk & just relaxed inside during the thunderstorm.

Monday I did some shopping, and spent the night out with a nice fish pie for dinner and creme brulee for desert, my favorite. Afterwards I went to the Front Door for the first time since I'd been at the end of august last year with Petra, it was still the same packed, loud, hot, and at the same time fun establishment.

Tuesday, I was invited to a dinner with the Whyte's (susan's family) that her youngest sister, Tara had stirred up plans for during the wedding. I took the shot (pictured above) as we drove there. I was a bit nervous hanging out with someones family again but once again they were super to be around and very welcoming. There was a three course meal, goat cheese bread appetizer, baked pesto salmon entree, and followed with dessert that I had bought from my favorite tart company here. I had missed having those since last year and was happy to have an excuse to get them (pictured in my Hostel window).

The courses had finally ended and I was stuffed! Having a bit too much of just about everything, including the wine which I'm not really use to drinking, I was sitting back relaxing when they surprised me with a Scooby-Doo cake for my thirty second birthday, card & all! I think my jaw must have dropped when I saw that, totally didn't expect it from people I had just recently met, and two days before my birthday even.

Linda snapped this shot of me blowing out the candles during my birthday wish. Henry Miller's words had switched to the Killer's song "Human" playing on the radio during the way over.

And sometimes I get nervous

when I see an open door

close your eyes, clear your heart

cut the cord

The Beach & The Crane, c'était un bon soir.

Friday morning was my first morning in my new hostel, barnacles, right in the heart of the pubs on Quay Street. I gave the Galwegians a lecture on phonetics of how to pronounce the street name, and learned the next day that i was completely wrong, oops. Barnacles was a large hostel, and in the morning I went down to the picnic area style kitchen for some toast & tea. There i met 2 primary school teachers on holiday from the Nottingham (Ravienda (sp) & Julie), and a girl from switzerland (Sonja) who had just completed her culinary schooling and was sticking around Galway a bit to tour the Burren.

Everyone had been talking about what they were up to for the day, and since I didn't have any plans for the day except maybe calling up marie to see if she wanted to play chess later the two teachers asked me to be their tour guide since they weren't sure how to get to the salt hill promenade. So we walked up coastline that i used to jog every day last year, there I got photos of the sea life at low tide, the great beaches, and the "green dragon" which was the boat(pictured) that ireland had in the volvo around-the-world race.

It rained 3 times during our walk, which wasn't so bad except one downpour was remarkably heavy and we had to run in from inspecting a dead crab on the beach to hide in a coffee shop. While there we ate a lunch, which for me was my first full irish breakfast (yeah!). I made Ravienda try the black pudding, and she had a horrible face on but admited it was tasty, yet another convert.

From there we went to get a pint and were off to the free exhibition showing photography, painting, and commissioned work from Absolut Vodka at the Arts Festival. The photography was really intense since it was all based on child warfare, with some extremely graphic (decapitation or shot & dying) photos. I didn't photograph that, but don't suspect that I'll be forgetting it anytime soon.

That evening I ate dinner in the hostel, trying to conserve money for once and make some pasta. I gave Sonja a hard time earlier that day because as a recent culinary graduate she was eating pasta with no sauce for breakfast. As i was waiting for my food to cook i was working on the blog, when the people next to me asked in some really broken english if i wanted their extra food. I tried to explain that I was cooking but i'm not sure if she really understood, so I accepted. They turned out to be from Strasbourg France, and the Father who had just came back spoke decent english. His one daughter was able to say simple sentences and the only french. My food finished and we all shared the various dishes, me speaking in french, and the two of them that could in english because the father really wanted his daughter(s) to practice it and it was good practice for me as well. I had plans to meet sonja at the Crane, assuming they'd have some traditional music on tonight, so I invited the French family to come with me. There was an irish/swedish/american bluegrass mixed band that night, which played mostly covers of other country & bluegrass, which was not what I expected but it was still a good night.

Photos:

1 - the band at the Crane

2 - The french family: Marie, Roland, et Julie

3 - Sonja & I

Susan texted me that night and asked me to come to a Wedding the next day, all the way back towards Dublin and a bit north. Her mom had been guilt tripping her into going, and now it appears I was being sucked into the guilt trip too, but I was excited to go, this trip was unpredictable to this point, and why should it stop?

Bike is GOne

The alarm shook me out of bed, and I was excited to be off. Maybe relief that I could sit on a real seat today, maybe to be back towards Galway, and maybe for Bon Iver. I took a picture of my sun-burned feet (pictured) and jumped on the bus to Dublin. At Dublin I decided to skip taking the next bus and spend a couple hours in the city. I found the bicycle redlight an appropriate photo opportunity (pictured). Up until this point I had been running on “disposable” clothing that I had been throwing away each day, all of which I bought from the 3euro or less racks at penney’s. The biking was done, and the need to travel lightly so I headed downtown to shop. On my way there I got some good pictures of downtown:

I ate a sullen lunch on the sidewalk by the river Liffey. Not much had reminded me of last year until Dublin for some reason, but sitting alongside the river and listening to Bon Iver started to remind me of the last time I was in Dublin, for my birthday last year with Megan. Which I’m not sure if I’d classify as good memories or not. I searched Grafton Street for some new clothes but my heart wasn’t in it and carrying my heavy bags made me decide to eventually turn back to the bus station and make for the west coast.

I arrived in Galway in late afternoon, bought my tickets for Bon Iver, checked into my hostel, and bought some decent clothes at Top Man. Marie had talked Susan into going to Bon Iver, and I went to meet them both at Kelly’s Pub. They had a friend from work named “Caoimhe”, which is pronounced as Queeva…. Yeah, I don’t get gaelic phonetics. Like how Galway is written Gaillimh, it’s beyond me. We decided to forgo the opening band and Marie bought a round of drinks instead. Then off to Bon Iver and a few drinks at Massimo afterwards (pictured). Bon Iver was incredible, for an album that has so many overdubbed tracks he did a great job of either getting the crowd to substitute for the overdubbed vocals, or making some pretty interesting sounds and loops with the effects pedals each member of the band had.

Bon Iver’s skinny love rattled around in my head on the busride:

I told you to be patient
I told you to be fine
I told you to be balanced
I told you to be kind
In the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different "kind"
I'll be holding all the tickets
And you'll be owning all the fines

Jim Connely was not the kind of man you photograph.

My trip through County Galway & Offaly were enjoyable with numerous stops to photo and take in the sites. The closer I got to Kilkenny, the more hills that appeared in the horizon. I felt like the trip to Wexford was more downhill than up, and my muscles were much less sore today but overall I was still quite week and did the ride in a couple hours more than what it took me to go from Galway to Offaly despite today's run being a lesser distance. By the time I arrived at Wexford around 7pm or so after a roughly 8 hour ride, I felt a simultaneous feeling of excitement for making it to the ocean and also relief at the fact that I could now ditch the bike. Had I the option to do this again I’d stay at least 2 days in each town (not Banagher though!) This panoramic shot of the bay in Wexford felt like a finish line, click on it to blow it up to fuller size:

I left go in front of a church, and some of those racer boys that would speed by me on the highway are probably the undeserving sob’s that got my bike. C’est la vie, it got me across, it was fun, and now I was ready to get to what vacations typically are, relaxing. All day as I had been debating going on to France or back to Galway to see the Galwegians & listen to Bon Iver, I tossed around this quote:

Life is too important of a thing to be taken seriously.- Oscar Wilde

I took shots around town as yet again I searched for dinner in a rapidly closing city.

My hostel was absolutely empty, which was sad since I wasn’t able to meet people to go out like usual, so the lady working there suggested I check out “The Sky & The Ground” for some live irish music. I grabbed a quick fish & chips at yet again some fancy restaurant out of little choice, and it was actually the best fish & chips I ever had.. something I would have expected from France, not Ireland, with mashed-potato like Peas. When I arrived at the pub (pictured) it was one of the small town places where the record stops when a stranger walks in. I went to bar to grab a drink before finding a seat near the band and had some slight trouble getting served, getting some cold shoulders. Eventually getting a Guinness I sat down next to this guy that looked like he was born on that bar stool and had sat there drinking since he was born 70 years ago. The band was good, with an accordian player, a singer constantly switching between guitar, banjo, and other strings I didn’t recognize, and an old man who switched between several different harmonicas (why? I don’t know they sounded the same) and would hambone during other songs. I pulled out my camera to photo them (pictured):

The previously mentioned old fella next to me, gave this huge grunt when I took a photo like I had just kicked a dog. Feeling a bit uncomfortable I ignored him. He asked me if my camera was recording sound, and after answering he asked where I was from, when I told him NYC he lit up… apparently he used to do business there quite a bit. He proceeded to tell me jokes, half of which I couldn’t tell with this thick drunken accent what he was saying and the other half which were pretty terrible jokes. He did have a number of good stories about girls he used to date, and the time he was trapped in manhattan during 9/11 and had no place to go but an irish pub, living on fish & chips and Guinness for 3 days there. I guessed it wasn’t all that different from his life here in Wexford. He noticed the bartenders were ignoring me so he started ordering me drinks all night. I sat with him until the band quit, drinking & exchanging stories. It turned out to be a different, but fun night with him (Jim) and I would have pictured him had he not taken such offense to my touristy actions earlier. I went home, set my alarm for 7am and got prepared to head back to Dublin & then Galway to see Bon Iver. Still trying to figure out where I’m going to stay, and when to go to Paris since I do have a 1 way ticket from Paris to Shannon on the 31^st (and because I am slightly in love with Paris).