A little heavy stuff...

Hello again from Ireland, the land where the rain never stops! Ever. In Ireland there are two things you absolutely cannot lose or you will pay the consequences... your umbrella and your house key. You're probably thinking well duh your house key, but this is more serious than it sounds. I have yet to enter one house whose front door has a door knob. Just a little keyhole. So you can forget about leaving your door unlocked. And if you lose your key once you get inside the house you can forget about leaving the house; some homes don't even have a latch on the inside, you have to have your key to get out! Hanging on to your umbrella, literally, is also not as easy as it would seem. Everywhere you go in Galway it seems like every 3rd tree has claimed some poor soul's umbrella. People are slowly walking along trying their very best to brave the gale force winds and sideways rain. These "gusts" of wind not only make the walker's series of steps look like that of a drunk's, but also frequently suck the umbrella right up out of the person's hands and into the nearest tree or bush. Walking to school the morning after a storm, it looks like the land of massacred umbrellas, there are enough strays lying around to build a roof over Galway, which isn't a bad idea.

I guess I have to retract one of my previous statements... a few days ago it did stop raining, but it started hailing. It was very slushy kind of hail that can be mistaken for snow and the people were out in the streets going crazy! Snow is a precious novelty in Ireland, some people have never experienced it before. Not five minutes after it started "snowing" they were already playing "Let It Snow" on the radio. I was downtown with some friends, the bars had just closed and the street was crawling with people (typical Monday night in Galway). It wasn't too long before a massive snowball fight broke out in the street which we joined in on. Unfortunately it didn't last too long because after about 5 minutes we had used up all the snow!

I think I mentioned this earlier but I really cannot get over the bar scene here. I thought maybe I had just been downtown on the right nights or maybe everyone was out because they'd just come back from Christmas break. Nope. Nearly every bar is almost packed every night of the week. I haven't been out on a Tuesday, but judging by Mondays and Wednesdays I'd say it's about the same. And I'm definitely not in Montana anymore Toto... there's no such thing as an Eagles type bar that has random pictures of the ladies bowling club on the wall. Everything is tastefully done. The clubs look like something straight out of Night at the Roxbury. These places must be making a fortune! You walk in and pay about an 8 euro cover charge. (I guess I've been with the right people because all of them work at other bars and have VIP passes to get in free, I've only paid one cover charge in three weeks). Then you walk up the stairs and come to the coatroom where they'll hang your coat for 2 euro. Like Karma, that we went to last night, you walk in and there's immediately a bar where pints are about 3.50 (remember that's about $5) and mixed drinks are at least 5 euro. There had to be 350 people in this place last night; there were 3 floors of people dancing, and 3 different bars packed with people buying drink after drink. I'm thinking about going into the night club business... My family in California is probably hysterical that I've never witnessed anything like this... but really - this is incomparable to anything you'd ever find in Montana.

Most of the student bars play all popular American music so that's made me feel right at home. However I've never been without my good 'ol country music for three weeks before and I think I'm starting to go into withdrawl. You don't realize the dumb little things that are such a huge part of you until you're away from them. Maybe I just haven't found the right places yet, but over here they think country consists of Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers and Garth Brooks, and that's it. That's all well and good but you can only hear Dolly's 9 to 5 so many times before you really miss all the other stuff. There are 6 radio stations that I can get with my little phone on loudspeaker in my room. One of them is in Irish, which is interesting to listen to but doesn't do much in the way of curing wistful sentimentality. I did find a station that announced the country top 20 of the week but that just made it worse because I knew what I was missing. They played the number one song Awful Beautiful Life which I'm not even crazy about but I nearly cried I was so happy to hear something familiar.

I know, I know, I'm in a new country and I need to immerse myself in the culture. I have been listening mostly to the unfamiliar music that's from Ireland and have taken a liking to a lot of it. There's a BBC type station that I was listening to where a woman was interviewing Irish old timers from out in the country. It was really fascinating to hear their stories. Some of them were 75 years old and their only means of getting to a town was walking or cycling 3 or 4 miles to the nearest bus station. Then of course if they bought things in town they'd have to carry it all back. A lot of them were elderly widows who, in the abscence of their husbands, are still taking care of their small farms by themselves. One lady had 9 sheep, a milk cow, and a few chickens and was just as happy as could be living out there alone. It was very interesting to hear them talk about "the good 'ol days" and the way things have changed. You would think you were hearing these stories from older generations of Montanans; it seems every nationality I've talked to has made the comment that things aren't like they used to be. One man talked about the pace of life and how people don't take time anymore. (One Irish saying is "God gave us time and he gave us plenty of it!") He said it used to be that he and a couple friends would have to walk into town to get things and it might take half a day, but they weren't in a hurry and that was fine because the company and the conversation were grand. The Irish really value good company and just sitting around chatting over a pint. I think traditionally it was a much more laid back kind of life.

Above I mentioned that people from everywhere say "things aren't like they used to be." This is something I've been a little surprised to find outside of the US. A group of us were sitting around last week talking about globalization (believe it or not we are all in our 20's). Among us there were 6 Irish, 1 American, 1 Australian, and 2 Dutch (Holland). We were all in complete agreement that big corporations have moved into our more rural areas and have put the little man out of business. While you want to support local business owners, as students we can't afford to pay the higher prices to the local businesses. Nine was mentioning too that since joining the European Union, Holland seems to be losing some of it's culture and traditions. You could maybe say the same thing for Ireland. While there are great benefits to banding these nations together to help with things like infrastructure, the downfall is that they do not want their nationalities to be blurred. There is a reason Holland is not the same country as Poland or Germany, etc. The languages and traditions are completely different even though they are next door to each other. Not to mention the hundreds of years of strife between them. We all agreed also that it is so important, yet very difficult, to preserve individual cultures while making technological advances. In Ireland there has been a huge push in recent years to change British city names back to their original Irish names, print all public documents in Irish as well as English, etc even though only about 1/4 of the nation is actually fluent in Irish. Irish students have to take Irish language courses from the time they enter school until the time they graduate, but most my friends say they don't even remember enough of it to be able to hold a conversation. So who cares if every last word is printed in Irish if no one can read it? The preservation of culture becomes superficial, and in effect pointless. There seems to be a catch-22 in most cultures that traditional aspects are taught to the youth, but at a young age kids and young adults are more excited about the shiny new things going on in the world and have less interest in the value of history. By the time we appreciate where we came from and want to learn more about it, we go back to find many of the older people who could explain these things and share their stories are gone. These are things I've always thought were mostly just happening in America; it is reassuring to know we're not the only ones suffering from the epidemic, but also disheartening that other nations are not immune either.

This topic is fascinating but exhausting because you can talk yourself in circles and never come to a conlusion. I promise most of the conversations 20-year-olds have over here are not that frighteningly mature. Last night we were discussing sewage around a game of pictionary... and at one point I wound up drawing a diagram of a septic system and explaining how they work. I think I started the whole thing by asking why in Ireland the bathrooms are always upstairs and was it traditionally for gravitational purposes? (It's not that crazy of an idea if you think about how old the buildings are). And how do they deal with septic issues in Ireland at sea level? Dad you've permanently warped my mind. Luckily I knew this group of people well enough they didn't think I was too weird.

I'm at the school at 6pm on a Friday night, no matter the reason that's borderline insanity by Irish standards. I'd better get out of here before I'm cast out as an overachiever. Thanks to those of you who reached the end of this post, I commend you.

-sas