Throwback Thursday: Lessons from Ireland
Every Thursday I bring you a post from one of my journals. This week, it is an early post from my time studying abroad in Ireland. Enjoy!
Rules of Ireland:
1) The pub next door is always a good idea.
2) The misting gets you as wet as a downpour.
Monday night my roommates and I needed dinner something fierce. So we left our hostel and headed towards Grafton Street, except right away we paused at the pub that actually shares a wall with the hostel. We notice that the foods pretty cheap, but we want to explore, even more than we want food. So, on we go. For twenty minutes we wander in a steadily increasing rain of a type that I like to think of as misting. Finally, we decide that nothing looks quite so good or so cheap as the place next door and we make our wet way back. Lesson learned.
Of course, the dinner there was brilliant. The atmosphere of the bar was pleasant with the pub spread over three fairly open levels with two bars and a soccer game on over each. I had a Steak and Guinness Pie, which is steak in a Guinness broth with a pie crust on top. Very good. As the bartender put it, “too much good.” I couldn’t finish it. Then chocolate cake for dessert, which I shared with Kari. To that, the bartender said, “ye destroyed it.” I love the way people here speak, they’re almost always poking fun. Yesterday in our last meeting we learned that that kind of joking is called slagging.
After our delicious dinner, we were having drinks and people from the Arcadia group arrived and we all went to a pub a good twenty-minute walk away. The place was pretty packed, particularly for a Monday night. We got our Guinness and stood by the bar chatting away then wandered back through the mist to our beds.
Tuesday morning Kari and I had nothing until 1, so we went to Grafton street with an aim of finding good coffee and a bit of breakfast. We had just found a Starbucks when we noticed right across the street was a restaurant called Bewley’s. It was so inviting with is green trim and flower boxes at every window and there were street performers playing lovely Irish string music outside. We had to go in and it was a thousand times better than Starbucks. We had yummy pastries and their specialty “Golden Blend” tea with milk. I’m enjoying drinking tea with milk, I had never tried it before, but I think it gives the tea a richer texture We went to Bewley’s again Wednesday morning before leaving for Maynooth.
After our lovely breakfast, we went over to the Arcadia offices but found no one there. So we went down the street a bit to the hotel where our meetings had been on Monday and where lunch was scheduled to be. When we arrived we realized that we’d messed up the system. Lunch was to be at the hotel and we were on time but somehow we had missed the part about meeting at the hostel and walking over as a group. There simply didn’t seem to be a point. We knew how to get to the hotel, why not all roam until lunchtime? Of course, there was a point, before leaving the hostel as a group, the lunch order was placed. However, everything worked out in the end and we didn’t starve for our forgetful independence and were allowed to order at the hotel and the meal proved quite good once again.
After lunch, we had our final talk about culture and social norms etc. That was when we learned about slagging.
Tuesday night we roommates went to the same pub next door for dinner again (we learned our lesson 🙂 ). There we met up with some of the Trinity students before darting off to a play at the Abbey Theatre. The play was The Plough and the Stars. It was very good but also very sad. Or at least I thought so. During a death scene at the end, multiple people laughed!
Wednesday morning during our trip to Bewley’s for a bit of tea, Kari and I saw the funniest thing. We were sitting at our table and an Irish man behind us was talking SO LOUDY on his cell phone that another Irish gentleman and one of the waitresses both asked the man to be quiet! I thought that only American did that, it’s a bit reassuring to know that the Irish aren’t perfect either. Though they are very nice and make the best tea.
After tea all five of us Maynooth girls hopped on a quick bus to Maynooth. The town is one Main Street and the school with suburbs and apartments around. We dropped our things off in our rooms and then the lady from Arcadia who rode out to Maynooth with us, Grianne, showed us a bit of the school, including South Campus. South Campus is also St. Patrick’s Seminary. It’s filled with beautiful old buildings covered in ivy. After our mini-tour Grainne took us for tea in a little café in town, it was so sweet of her and then she just sat with us to talk for a bit before catching the bus back to Dublin. It was lovely.
Kari and I wandered back to our rooms to unpack and then met up again for Grocery Shopping Experience #1. In Ireland, the store charges you for both a cart and plastic bags so you pick up and carry everything in a bag you bring yourself. The walk home was killing my shoulder and of course, it begins to rain, with enough wind force to blow me backward, quite an adventure.
Kari and I met up again at 7 and walked around Maynooth town and finally ducked into one of their bars, The Roost. It was very quiet, but we ordered a drink each and just chatted. Things began to fill up and the man next to me gave me lessons on life in Ireland.
Rules of Ireland
3) It should take about 20 minutes to drink a Guinness
4) Don’t order Bulmers in a pint, get a bottle.
5) Pay for your drink when its brought to you, don’t keep a tab (this is different in Dublin)
It has certainly been an educational few days. Classes start Monday.
