Is this real life?

I literally wake up every morning and I have to remind myself that yes, I am in Ireland and yes, this is real life. 

Immigrating

On Monday, I woke up at 6am to go to a class at the gym with Katelyn.  It was the class from hell.  First of all, we had to wake up early.  Second of all, it was one of the hardest workouts that I've been through since two-a-day's during field hockey preseason.  It was the start of an interesting week to say the least.

After the workout, I went back to bed because I didn't have class that day.  I woke up a little after 1:30 to find a little love note from Eileen on my computer.  My first thoughts were, "Aw....what a sweetheart."  My thoughts after reading it were, "OH NOOOO!"  The note contained the fact that I had my registration appointment with the Guarda at 2pm.  (Eileen and I had to switch times because my appointment was during the English Seminar registration.) I had no idea where the Guarda building was.  I needed to get a paper from the reception in my apartment complex.  I needed to organize my papers and make sure that I had everything that I needed to become a little immigrant in Ireland.  Basically,  I knew that I was screwed and I wouldn't make my appointment. 

I collected literally every paper that I had ever received from Arcadia, NUIG and all of the papers that I brought with me from the States and I headed over to reception.  The door was locked and they were at lunch.  I took a chance and knocked on the door.  A woman answered the door and I had to beg her to give me the paper that I needed to register and she gave it to me, bitterly.  I then asked her for directions to the Guarda building and with a huff, she gave me very quick directions which I didn't understand.

I knew that the station was close to Centre Point, an apartment complex where a few of my friends live, but I was still a little confused on how to get there.  I started speed walking in the direction that I knew it was in and I had to stop to ask directions to two more people.  Both of the people took a long time to give me awful directions and I began to run down the sidewalk in hopefully the direction of the Guarda station.  I eventually flagged a taxi because I knew that I would never find the station on my own and I was running out of time.  Thank God that I got a taxi because the station was in a random location and it didn't even have a sign on the front.

When I got into the station(with barely two minutes until 2pm), I saw my friend Jeff and he told me that I needed to fill out a paper before my appointment.  A little bit after 2pm, the Guarda called Eileen's name.  This is roughly how my immigration experience went:

Guarda: Mary Eileen McGinley
Me:  Hi!  I'm Ellen Gilroy.  Eileen and I switched times, I hope that's ok. 
Guarda:  No, it's not ok.
Me:  Really?  She is coming on Wednesday at 11:30...we had to switch because of a conflict at NUIG.  Is that ok?
Guarda:  No.  That is against the law.
Me:  Are you kidding me?
Guarda:  No, I am not.  You can sit down and maybe we will get to you today.
In my head:  Oh no...Eileen is gonna kill me.  I'm gonna have to wait here all day long and they might not even have time to immigrate me. And Eileen missed her appointment and she is going to be so mad at me because now she's gonna have to sit in this office all day and wait...what do I do?!?!
Jeff:  Did you really just say, "Are you kidding me?" to a Guarda officer?
Me:  I'm going to cry right now!  This sucks.
I sit down and look very pouty and annoyed.
Guarda:  I'm just kidding!  Come on, I'll register you.

Turns out that the officer is a very nice man and we are probably distant relatives.  His last name is McIlroy which he says is one of the original versions of the last name Gilroy.  Pretty cool dude but he almost made me cry.  In the end, I am a legal immigrant of this fine country for the next five months and my immigration I.D picture is quite frightening.

County Cork

Before I left for my home stay in Charleville, County Cork, Ireland, all that I had heard about it is that one, I probably will not be able to understand a word that anyone says to me and two, I will probably be living in the middle of no where on a farm.  The first one stayed true but the second did not.

We arrived in Charleville at around 9PM on Friday night after a three hour bus ride from Galway. My host mother was there to pick me up and Melissa and I got in the car to go back to her house.  Pauline's (my host mother) four year old son, Adam, was in the car.  The moment we got in the car, I said hello to him and he said, "Stop staring at me, fat face!  I will bite your ear off!"  He continued to say things such as this to Melissa, Pauline, Pauline's brother-in-law(who picked us up), and myself.  I eventually got on his good side by 'slagging' him right back and we ended up watching The Ant Bully when we got back to the house.  Pauline's house is a row home in a complex with other houses and it is about a ten minute walking from the main street of town.  And when I say 'the main street,' there was literally one main street.

On Saturday, Pauline did not have anything planned for us to do, so Melissa and I made our way into town to walk the rainy street of Charleville.  After we had walked up and down the street, we went into a pub called The Four Winds and had a cup of tea and chatted with the locals and the bartenders about the places that we needed to go while we were in Charleville.  We then met up with a few other girls in our program and went to Dinny's Bar for lunch.  After we ate, we headed over go Geary's (better known as Gough's to the locals) to have a pint.  Later that night, we headed back into town and went to The Second Winds, which is connected to The Four Winds, and had a few pints there before heading back over to Gough's.  It was crazy packed at Gough's and we were lucky if we found a place to stand.  Eventually, we got seats at the bar and started to chat up the extremely cute bartenders.  Cathal was bartending earlier in the day when we were there with a fellow named Claude who had worked in Washington, D.C for three years and gave us the name of a pub and a bartender there to look up when we got back to the States.  Claude was not there on Saturday night but Cathal was along with Brian and Chris.  Of course, the four of us were swooning over their Irish accents and how cute they all were (Chris was definitely the cutest with his healing black eye from a rugby match).  The pub played very eclectic music, everything from Black Eyed Peas to Billy Medley/Jennifer Warnes to Frank Sinatra.  It was grand!  The four of us taught the locals the proper dance moves to 'Cotton Eyed Joe' and 'Cha Cha Slide' and I'm pretty positive that we were the only 'yanks' to stop by Gough's in a long time.

Today, we all met at a beautiful church to be picked up by the bus.  It was a beautiful day with the sun shining and only a few rain sprinkles.  I'm not sure of the name of the church but it is beautiful inside and out.

On a different note...I'm going to an Irish Step Dancing class tomorrow evening with my friend Jon.  It should be interesting and quite fun.

Róisín Dubh

Eileen and me

at the Roisin Dubh

I wasn't much of a techno fan before I got to Ireland.  Sure, it was fun to bob my head back and forth for about thirty seconds when someone played it at a party, but then it just got boring.  I never knew how to dance to techno and I thought all techno sounded exactly the same, so I didn't really like it.   A lot of the pubs/clubs that we have been going to play nothing but techno--and it's grand.  It is so much fun to dance to and it really doesn't matter if you're good at dancing or not because everyone is just there to have fun.  Also, usually you aren't really dancing with a specific person, mostly in a group of people who are all dancing just as crazily as you are.  Róisín Dubh  is the pub that you can usually find me at on a Friday or Saturday or Sunday or Monday or Tuesday (you get it) night.  In the front of the pub and on the second and third floor, it is just a normal Irish pub with multiple bars and multiple stools/tables for people to sit at.  When you go to the back of the first floor, things get crazy.  The first night that we went there, after a grand suggestion from our super cute campus tour guide, a guy was playing the fiddle in the back of the first floor.  When I say he played the fiddle, he didn't just play the fiddle.  He had it set up to a synthesizer and he had a keyboard and a whole bunch of other electronic things.  He played the fiddle like a fiddle, he played it like a guitar, he plucked the strings, he basically did anything that you could imagine.  His name is Daithi O Dronai and he is amazing.  YouTube him. 

Classes...what classes?!

Modules begin tomorrow.  I'm trying to incorporate the Irish language into my life and modules are what they call classes.  I have no idea what classes I am taking.  I have no idea which building holds which classes.  The Irish do it so much different than in the States and they are pretty unorganized (they would admit that to you themselves.) 

Basically, modules begin tomorrow but we do not register for specific modules until the end of next week.  We can choose whatever module we want to go to and just attend it(or not attend it) for the next two weeks.  After that, we register for the classes that we like.  It is very strange but also makes sense.  You don't have to go through all of the drop/add, withdrawal B.S that we have to do in the States when you realize halfway through the semester that you have no idea why you are in that class.  So, I'm going to campus tomorrow with a few friends to wander around aimlessly and possibly walk into a few classes or check out the lovely scenery on campus.

Everything about Galway and NUIG is amazing, minus the €195 that I had to pay for a five-month gym membership.  I'm thinking that it will give me a reason to actually go to the gym...that and the fact that cute Irishmen work there and work out there.  The campus has some old, mid-evil buildings but also some new, modern buildings.  It's a semi-small campus but it is somewhat confusing.  It's the only campus in Ireland that is bi-lingual, so everything is written first in Irish and then(in much smaller font) in English. The campus will take some getting used to but I think after the first two weeks I should be ok.

Slag

The term 'slag' can be used in various ways.  It can be used as a verb by saying, 'Oh, I'm just slagging!'  Or it can be used as a noun by saying, 'She's such a slag.'  It can even be used by saying, 'He was just taking a slag.'  I don't know what type of grammar that would be (my mom would be disappointed) but...whatever. 

You WANT to be slagged.  If an Irishmen is 'slagging' you, it means that he is teasing you or making fun of you.  They only do it when they like you and you want to slag them right back to show them that you aren't offended and that you understand it's all just a joke.  As I walked into a pub in Dublin, called 'The Auld Dubliner,' on our last night there(great craic if I do say so myself), an Irishmen walked up to me and started slagging me.  We had just learned the term earlier that day in orientation and I was so happy that I got slagged!  It kind of sounds inappropriate...but it's all in good fun, until you get called a 'slag'.

Being called a 'slag' in Ireland is the equivalent to being called a 'slut' back in the States.  No one wants to use the term but sometimes it is just necessary. 

While in Dublin, other than learning the local vocabulary, we took a bus tour through the city.  It was freezing and windy but we decided to sit on the OPEN top of a double-decker bus.  It made for great sight seeing, but also for numb fingers and cold ears.  Although it was bitter cold outside, it was a beautiful, sunny day in Dublin.

 

We also took a tour of the Guinness factory and the Jameson factory.  Both were interesting but the Jameson one was definitely better than the Guinness factory.  At the beginning of the tour, I, along with seven other people, volunteered to participant in an experiment at the end.  The experiment turned out to be a taste test between Scotch Whiskey Johnny Walker, American Whiskey Jack Daniels and Irish Whiskey Jameson.  Of course Jameson won out on the taste test but it was interesting to taste all three back to back and really realize how good Jameson really is. 

The first night in Dublin, we went to 'The Quays Bar' (pronounced 'keys').  I had a grand time there when I was in Ireland two years ago and it was just as grand this time around.  There was a live band playing awesome Irish music.  So many locals were out that night because they had holiday the next day because of the new year. 

Dublin was a grand time but I am happy to finally be in settled in Galway, the best city in the world.

It has begun!

I have arrived safely in Dublin, Ireland! 

The airplane ride was not bad at all...I ended up sitting next to a girl who graduated from Dickinson, so it was pretty cool to chat with her about Carlisle.  Her and her boyfriend were on the way to visit her sister who moved to Dublin years ago and they introduced me to a monk who they met in the terminal.  His name is Brother Columbo and he is a young guy who has a crazy long beard.  He was very funny and nice; telling stories about his life before becoming a monk and making jokes about tickling people while they are sleeping on the plane.  He is originally from Dublin, Ireland and moved to NYC eight days before 9/11.  Very interesting guy and he told me that I had a good handshake...which is something that I've never been told before. 

Currently, we are relaxing at the Abbey Court Hostel in center city Dublin.  We have a lunch at noon that is mandatory and then we have the rest of the day free.  I have to go shopping for some essentials after lunch because, of course, I forgot to transfer my toiletry bag from my checked bag to my carry on and my checked bags are on their way to Galway, while I am in Dublin.  So now...I will nap because I got zero hours of sleep on the plane!