In the land of gingers

Last weekend I went to visit Kathryn in Ireland, which was “brilliant,” as they say over there.

After a very rainy Friday, we seized the night: party Irish style! Irish old lady-style, that is: we made chocolate chip cookies and caught up on Grey’s Anatomy.  This may not sound that fantastic to you, but it was a magical evening.  McDreamy, McSteamy, pretending to make the oven mitt talk, learning to brown butter (!), and having a real, chewy cookie for the first time in months! (Why are European baked goods so disgustingly brittle?) Plus we needed to save our energy for a very full day of Irish sightseeing and activitydoing on Saturday.

And to think that we're known as hard partying hot messes in some circles...

On Saturday we took this delightful tour through the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher, both of which are impressive sites of physical beauty and imposing size in the general vicinity of Galway. Although much of the Burren looks a lot like the moon, it was apparently the place to be about 15,000 years ago.  Our cute and slightly senile tour guide, Desmond, really liked to say everything happened 15,000 years ago and make wildly inappropriate jokes. Sometime between 15,000 years ago and now, old Celts left all sorts of stone clues about their mysterious activities around the Burren. We saw lots of these remnants, lots of cows (apparently the Irish government prefers to employ grazing cows instead of lawn mowers), and lots of verdant vistas.

I don’t really know much of anything about Ireland, so the tour seemed really, really informative to me.  A certain grad student and Ireland enthusiast traveling with me sometimes corrected Desmond’s facts, but I was still  impressed.  Unfortunately, some aspects of the tour were a little murky because I am absolutely incapable of staying awake while riding on something as big and yacht-y as a bus (or a train, or the backseat of a car, or a plane, or the metro…).  But it added a touch of mystery and excitement to hop off the bus sometimes without any context about where we were.

The Cliffs of Moher - beautiful AND windy. I more glimpsed this place during brief pauses between gales of blinding wind than outright saw it...

antisocial ancient irish people used to surround their homes with huge earthen walls here... AND THIS IS WHERE LEPRECHAUNS ARE FROM! I FOUND ONE!

Saturday night: apparently Halloween began here to celebrate the Celtic new year, when the line between the living and the dead was thinnest.  So they had to wear scary costumes to look dead so the already dead folks wouldn’t take the living people… or something.  I’d had a fair amount of tequila by the time this explanation was being offered…by someone dressed quite convincingly as a zombie.  But the important takeaway from this information is that Irish people prefer more “realistic” and scary costumes. Ireland’s ratio of girls in lingerie with animal ears to girls who look like “Thriller” video extras is the exact opposite of America’s.

 

Seriously, though. Scary costumes

As Denny would say, "This is nor-mahl."

Despite a lot of scary costumes (but also a lot of slutty Snow Whites — why was that so popular?), Halloween was wonderful.  We went to one of Kathryn’s friend’s houses for a while, then we went into the crazy streets of Galway! All the pubs were overflowing with people and the party spread through the whole city.  It was great!!

This will come as a surprise since I’m studying in Italy and we all know Ireland’s reputation for food, but some pretty crucial culinary developments occurred there:

1. Guinness! I was afraid of it.  But it’s actually delicious!
2. Chinese food!  Mexican food!  Diversity! New flavors! (That said, I was really craving pasta by the time I got home.)
3. STARBUCKS. Let’s not talk about how overpriced it was, let’s focus more on how magical it was. I had a grande peppermint mocha because they were advertising the impending arrival of red cups and I decided to kick off the Christmas season with my coffee. It was so great!  (Actually it was not well made at all, but I guess Irish baristas just aren’t as skilled as their pro American counterparts) But after tiny Italian espresso drinks, a grande felt like the super gulp. I couldn’t even finish it!

On Sunday we oozed out of bed and went to Dublin.  Dublin was so cool!  All the buildings were so new and multi-colored! Basically, Dublin is the complete opposite of Florence, which was a cool change.  Favorite site? Oscar Wilde memorial.  Perhaps the first time stone has so perfectly captured a subject. Step aside, Michelangelo. This is a masterpiece:

 

Sass incarnate.

 

Conclusion: I was blown away by Ireland!  It was wild and beautiful, full of new stuff and diversity, but also a lot of nice Irish-ness. Italy is the beautiful family heirloom chair in the house where you aren’t actually allowed to sit, and Ireland is the comfy chair with the mid-century modern upholstery where you do all your best reading. Ok now it sounds like I don’t like Italy, which is obviously false because who doesn’t like la vita dolce?