Irish Experience of March #1: St. Patrick's Day
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| Need we say more? |
The parade was adorably charming. Local schoolchildren showed off their Irish musical talents, sports teams brandished their skills, and sundry other floats and groups (some yet to be identified) gave us a taste of Galway's communities beyond just the student one! Following the parade, we went (still decked out in our green gear) to Fibber Magee's, where the local students entertained us with Irish drinking songs. The Americans joined in where we knew the words; where we didn't we just linked arms and danced like everyone else!
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| Here representing the Gaelic sport of hurling is a nightmare of some kind |
The Galway Farmer's Market is a lovely little pop-up scene that livens the alleyway by St. Nicholas Church. Although I usually end up going every weekend, I thought I would make sure to give it a shout-out in March! Vendors of multicolored scarves, delicious hummus, Claddaugh rings, fishmongers, crepe makers, artists, florists, and farmers all have their wares on display. The busy street becomes aromatic and bright, full of stands and chattering people. After awhile, the faces become familiar. This is no more applicable than with the Doughnut Man. Yes, he's actually referred to as the Doughnut Man, because this man is straight up famous. You haven't lived until you've tried a hand-made, to-order doughnut from this wisecrack character. We make it a goal to grab one nearly every week.
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| SO DELICIOUS |
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| Fun fact: He makes all of his own clothes! |
Irish Experience of March #3: Trad Session
Galway is famous for its buzzing musical community, both professional and local. Instruments used in traditional Irish music (shortened sometimes to "trad") can include: tin whistle, wooden flute, accordion, guitar, piano, bodhran, uilleann pipes, violin/fiddle, harp, concertina, and banjo. Not all of these instruments are ever used at once, and the most popular versions of trad are dance jigs and reels that actually largely influenced Country music in America. One of my friends and I trekked to Monroe's, a hot spot for trad music on Tuesday nights, to see some of the musicians in action. Something that I did not at all expect was the traditional impromptu dancing that accompanied the music session! Couples of all ages danced with joy and precision, and it made for a perfect night.
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| The picture might be a little fuzzy, but it was perfect--Take my word for it :) |
Irish Experience of March #4: Adventure Weekend
Though not specifically Irish by any means, I'm still throwing this one in here. This past weekend all the American students went on a trip sponsored by our program to Carlingford, Ireland for an "Adventure Weekend!" While some aspects were unintentionally adventurous (read: the food), the rest of the activities were great craic. Over two days, we did laser combat in the woods, a high ropes course, archery, and an "indoor dark crawling maze" (claustrophobia at its finest). However, my two favorite activities were the zorbing ones. A zorb is a huge inflatable plastic ball that you fit into in one way or another. "Body zorbing" involved us all donning big inflatable balls that our legs stuck out of, and in which we ran at each other sumo-style and bounced off each other so hard that we often fell to the ground, at which point you felt (and looked) like a turtle stuck on its back. Yet even MORE hilarious than body zorbing was full-sized zorbing! Brittney and I crawled into a huge zorb ball that we had rolled up the hill and, after being securely strapped in on the inside of the ball, went rolling down the hillside. Instead of a stomach-drop feeling, we felt like we were just endlessly tumbling in huge, slow loops; we could not stop laughing, the entire way down. It will definitely go down as one of the funniest physical activities I've had the bizarre chance of doing yet!
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| Yep that's us in there |
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| The whole gangggg |
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