Gaining the "gift of gab"

            Well the past couple days have been wonderfully busy, or at least hectic. I’m technically still not in my Immunology class (waiting for the International Office to get back to me), but I’ve decided to take Marine Biology as my backup just in case. But I’ve actually started learning real stuff in Irish—I can count and talk about the weather and name random objects! I’m practically fluent, obviously. I just joined a class about King Arthur and how he is seen in Celtic mythology, which includes some Welsh lore as well as Irish. I have to say, Irish has some weird pronunciation, but Welsh takes the cake. For example, “dd” is pronounced as “th,” but only sometimes. When, you might ask? Well, it really depends. Something I did learn about Irish—there are multiple dialects that say the same thing very differently. “Hello” in Munster Irish is Dia dhuit (dee-ah hwit) while in Irish from Galway it is Dia duit (dee-ah ditch). A little different, don’t you think?

            Thursday night Rafa, Alyssa, Claire, Katie, and I had a nice cocktail party before going to one of the clubs called The Bailey (without a cover charge thank goodness) where Claire, aka Paula Dean, cooked for us and basically was the best hostess ever. And when she’s had some to drink she gains a heavy Southern accent, though she’s from Indiana. We saw some of my roommates there, which was really fun since I never really hang out with them outside of our room. It was a fun night that we ended by going to Tasty Kebab to order our new favorite food—cheese and garlic chips (fries). I’m not exactly sure what is in them, but that’s probably better. SO GOOD. AND cheaper than the place by Vic Lodge, so wins all around.

            Friday we went to the Franciscan Well Brewery (once run by monks) where they brew all of their own beer. It was soooo crowded but we lucked out (or so we thought) and found a table upstairs. However, turns out that it was some poor girl’s birthday party and we totally crashed it. She was really nice though and let us stay until her friends came to kick us out. After we were all hungry so we went back to Tasty Kebab (it’s rather tasty), though I stopped by Eddie Rocket’s to get another fantastic milkshake. Love ‘em. That is something I do miss—having a blender. Making smoothies all the time was such a privilege…now I have to go buy smoothie-in-a-carton instead, though they are incredibly good. They’re called Innocent Smoothies, basically similar to Odwalla, and my strawberry banana smoothie the other day was perfect. I’m eating fruit, for once.

            But TODAY was epic—we went to Blarney Castle!! And unlike last Saturday it was a beautiful sunny day out, and while cold it wasn’t unbearable. To get to the castle we took a bus right from the center of Cork, then walked a bit through a field and over some (read: a lot of) rivers. It is so beautiful there! It was even misty—stereotypical Ireland haha. And all of the sudden the castle rose in front of us up on a hill. Quite breathtaking. The dungeons were first, and although it was not raining they were still wet and full of puddles. Also, these Irish must have been freaking tiny, because the doorway are really short; it was a little hard for someone my height to maneuver. Guess it’s good I live in an age where we like spacious ceilings and such. There was this small tunnel that went 16m under the castle that they believe was an attempt by an invading army to dig up into the castle, but was never finished. We had to squat-crawl through it and there was nothing at the end, but it was cool nevertheless. After making our way through the cold stone rooms and windy staircases and hole-y floors of the inside of the castle, we finally made it to the roof, where the Blarney Stone is. Most people know about my great fear of heights and how I swore to not kiss the Blarney Stone (also it’s gross, I think) but my tourist-iness got the better of me and I did it! Not nearly as scary as I thought it’d be…especially since I closed my eyes and did NOT look at the ground. This very old man held my legs as I bent over backwards to kiss the stone, and kiss it I did. So apparently now I have the gift of gab. Pssht like I didn’t before :-P

            Although the castle is the most famous part of Blarney, there’s actually a whole lot more around, like Blarney Lake (gorgeous view, especially with the sun on the water), Blarney House (closed until spring, sadly), and the Rock Close. There are all sorts of legends associated with the last place, including a set of stairs called the Wishing Stairs that apparently will grant you your wish within a year…but only if you walk up and down them with your eyes closed while thinking only of your wish. Despite the fact they were slippery stone and crumbling, we totally did it. There was also a Druids Circle, complete with sacrificial altar. We sacrificed Rebecca on it, complete with praying Druids all around. So hilarious! Originally we wanted to stay for the sunset, but we were all hungry and decided to go get some noms in the town before our bus back, though obviously after a little shopping. I got another sweater, though this one is authentic Merino wool from Ireland and is sooooooo soft and was on sale! I love sales. I plan to get a claddagh ring as well, though not from a tourist trap town like Blarney since I need to save my cash moneys for delicious garlic cheese fries.

            I have some super exciting news: I HAVE SKYPE NOW. I feel a little betrayed—the IT guy told me it just wasn’t possible for it to work because the network didn’t support it, but he LIED to me. Our relationship is broken beyond repair, I think. It’s lucky that my roommate’s friend was able to fix her Skype, and by association, mine. So if anyone wants to chat, def let me know because we have to coordinate schedules. This darn time difference does make it hard to talk to people; as much as I love getting to see my friends/family, staying up until 2am day after day is hard. But I do want to talk to you all :-) Tomorrow I think we’re planning a group dinner, since Sundays are usually spent totally alone and I do miss human contact occasionally.

Slán go fóill!

P.S. Something I learned in Irish class—Slán go fóill (goodbye until later) is actually the response to Slán (goodbye), so technically I’m using the phrase wrong. Oh well!