Europe is the new Spring Break

As it turns out, the rest of Ireland was pretty delightful. The next stop after Dublin was Galway, which is a very cute little city but also pretty much a college town. When I arrived, Sunday night was pretty slow- my first order of business was to find some fish and chips, and while doing so I met a juggler. The juggler (whose real business is teaching kids circus tricks, thus the juggling) took me to a very authentic Irish pub where I proceeded to down a couple Guinnesses (Guinni?) before the juggler and I exchanged an earring for a used Metrocard. I then moved on to another pub with live traditional music, which was lovely, and met a couple students who asked me how the crack was in Dublin. Considering I saw a girl doing a line of coke off the windowsill of my hostel a couple days before, but since I also try to stay away from (most) drugs, I was a little hard pressed to answer this question. They laughingly explained that "craic" (pronounced crack) is an Irish word for fun. Who knew?

The next couple of days were spent sightseeing in the Irish countryside. The Cliffs of Moher are breathtaking- as are the Aran Islands. After taking the ferry to Inis Mor, the largest of the 3 islands, I rented a bike and rode around seeing ruins and cliffs and ocean views for about 4 hours. It was amazing- and the Irish breakfast and coffee with Bailey's wasn't so bad either :)

Upon returning to Galway on Monday evening, I found that the city was in full swing of an Irish phenomenon known as "rag week" (I didn't go into what americans use rag to refer to...). Basically, rag week is a cross between Mardi Gras and spring break, under the guise of a fundraiser. Apparently students drink for a week straight and pull pranks (no idea what kind of pranks, as all I witnessed were drunken antics) to raise money for a designated charity. The city was insane, but in the midst of it all I found a vaguely-sober 21 year old who claimed to be a "boy racer," referring to The Fast and the Furious. I managed to convince him to teach me to drive a manual car, which I have always wanted to learn, and he did! By the sea! I was pretty sure that if he tried to pull anything shady I could take him- he probably weighed about half what I do. He did tell me that American girls are known to "kiss with class" in Ireland... he may have just been angling for some action, but I took it as a compliment to our great nation.

I returned to Dublin for one night before flying to meet Susannah in Italy, and a very cute boy who worked in my hostel took me out to a couple pubs- which was a very nice end to my time in Ireland :) After seeing amazing sights, being taught to pour a shamrock into a proper pint of Guinness, learning such grand drinking games as Fives and Wiggly Worm, and jumping on beds to Vampire Weekend (who is really popular in Ireland for some reason, yay!), I might just have to come back here real soon.

Next up- adventures in Italy with Susannah and Bonnie! Stay tuned for stories such as how we found the Trevi fountain, cooking curry in the middle of the night with Francis, and cheeky little buggers.