My Mom Insists

I've been flooded by requests (my mother) to update my blog in a more timely manner. I understand the concerns. What in the world could be happening in Jimmy's life? For that matter, what is happening in Jack's life? As probably none of you have cared to notice, Jack is not keeping a blog. Could it be that he has nothing important to say? Yeah, probably. But I blame it on laziness. Probably from eating too many sugary cereals as a kid.

I am fairly certain that the last 7 days can be summed up in a few thematically based description verbs.

1) Work: We had our first full week of work. Jack works in the schools on Wednesday and Friday while I work in the guesthouse and vice-versa for Tuesday/Thursdays. In the guesthouse we found our work to be highly rewarding (aka not highly rewarding) as we spent most of our days washing windows and cleaning gutters. I commented on the intrinsic benefits being a little on the lower end after reflecting on the work of Justin Rose, Thomas Joyce, Tyler Ethridge, Grant Stevens and all the rest of the volunteers who are literally changing the lifestyles of hundreds of individuals for the better. I will admit, however, there is some sort of petty pride when you watch people walk straight into a perfectly clean glass door.

At the school we have primarily been left to find our own work. Jack has spent a significant amount of time organizing books while I started my very own running club. Six kids showed up and all are very interested in running technique, advice and strategy. Most questions are pretty easily answered like, "should I be an idiot and run barefoot?" None are particularly fast...yet. I'll keep ya'll posted on their progress.

2) Aquaint: Jack and I have found that this is our best way to pass the time. We take walks around the area, and have become "Yes Men" this last week; our focus has been to just show up at anything that is happening. Example 1 was from last weekend at the Mary from Murroe festival. We came, we saw, we conquered. Other examples would be the all-faculty forum (where all the teachers meet and talk about the upcoming year), an art exhibit opening from a well known local artist, the robe giving ceremony for Brother James, going to Alice's house just because we only know one house in the area. We have also said yes to going on any possible field trips in the future, most likely with Brother Caman or Father Senan.

3) Drink: This may be a warning flag for some people. I can imagine my dear sweet mother worrying that her son has put drinking as the number 3 priority in his life...and I have no excuse or apologies. We have spent way more money than intended on drinks at the pub because there is little going on in Murroe.

4) Reading: I've been reading books too I guess.

So there you have it. A week in the life. I'm hoping in the next few weeks we can update you on: The Clare Glens (we hope to go explore there), the waterfall I am going to find today (we are going to probably build a cool clubhouse there), Connemara (driving there on Monday), and much much more!

Total pints: 31

Guinness for the most part, but throw in some Devil's Bit hard cider and Bavaria and you have our lifestyle down pat.

Excursion #1

I will have to write about the crazy awesome time that the town of Spiddal provides, but the first post I need to do is about the excursions we have had so far. So this is mostly off of notes I took, a part of it is reading Matt and Thomas' posts to remind myself what exactly happened.

So our first trip is called the Connemara excursion. We ended up venturing into the county due North of Galway. This ended up being in some ways the greatest journey of my life, because we got to ride in a bus driven by a man named Allen Jones. To describe this man, I would have to first quote the first words I ever heard him say. In response to a comment about getting thrown in an Irish jail he said, "Irish jails aren't that bad, and you can trust me, I've been in a jail in every country in Europe." Whether that is true or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that this man, along with knowing about every jail in Europe, knew everything. He started a three hour talk once about turf. Turf is compressed biological compost found in bogs that is burned through Ireland as fuel. It came up in conversation, and he talked about it for three hours. This guy was amazing! After that trip he drove our bus on one other excursion. Since then, however, he has retired. Will he remember me, his faithful listener? The kid in the back of the bus that yelled up questions for him to answer, the kid who pointed out the window and eagerly wondered what Allen had to say about the world around him. Will he remember me? I don't know. What I do know is that his words were magic, and his stories were profound epics that I will forever wish were turned into audio-books, so I could listen to them forever.

Back to the excursion. We ended up going first up to this place called Ma Mean. Don' quote me on the spelling, there is alot of controversy with Irish and English spellings, but bottom line is that this was a mountain. Just a few steps up the mountain was Patrick's bed, I don't want to knock Saint Patrick, I am sure he was great, but when I see a mountain, I don't curl up at the base. I need to conquer it. So me and a handful of Minnesota's best decided to take a picture or two at the bottom of the mountain by a little stone alter before booking it halfway up the mountain. We got up into the clouds and decided it was probably enough and we went down. Looking back I realize you cannot beat a mountain until you have reached the summit, I will never make the terrible mistake of quitting halfway again. Upon arriving back to the bus we were entertained by Allen telling us all about his good friend, J.R.R. Tolkien's nephew, and how Tolkien claimed his inspiration for Middle Earth was the Connemara region. This is exactly what Connemara looks like. I half expected a group of birds to fly overhead, obviously spies from Isengard, etc. Allen is so wise.

After that we had to stop in some small town nestled in a bay. I am not even going to try to remember it's name, because to be honest it was hardly worth remembering. The reason for the stop has become a recurring theme on this trip, a slightly obnoxious time waster. We ended up taking the worst tour of a wool factory ever. Literally took 20 minutes, was something like 5 euro a head out of our trip funds, and was just an old women talking about sheep fornication and how it works. It sounds like I am kidding, but I guess rams are busy animals. It was horrible.

Finally we reached our final destination though, the great town of Clifden. When I say "great", I probably mean boring and insignificant. The place was about the size of Cold Spring and was considered the thriving metropolis of the Connemara region. We did get to go to a poetry reading by the great Irish poet Seamus Heaney. I don't care if you enjoy poetry or not, this was pretty cool. To hear the author of some of the great Irish poems reading them exactly how they are meant to be read is an experience, and probably something I will never forget. Plus, we were listening to him read them in a gorgeous church. After the reading we ended up exploring the town a bit and a few of us ended up listening to a session in on of Clifden's many pubs. It was great music, and I had a fantastic interaction with a man who was convinced I knew his wife because I knew where Spiddal was, it was terribly awkward. After that we went back to our hostel to rest up for some exploring at Connemara National Park the next day. The hostel we stayed at was top notch if anyone was wondering, and we had all the guys from our trip in one room, so of course we giggled like little girls for two hours before we fell asleep.

The last place of note was Connemara National Park, a beautiful park that overlooks the ocean and Ireland's largest mountain range. We hiked up to the top of "The Black Diamond." The hill was a pretty easy climb, but offered a tremendous view of the Irish landscape. I loved every second we spent up there.


Future posts will include, County Mayo/Westport (Not as sucky, but sort of), Portmagee (FML), and Killarney!

Cheers!

Skip Prague, Ireland: Day 1/2

So I have been way overdue in my blogging (as my mom has pointed out to me), but I am going to tell you what happened in week number one. So first off, let me say it is amazing, in fact if you have to get one thing out of this blog, know that it is the most amazing time I have ever had (through one week). I will try to get through each day.

Day One was the arrival on September 10th. We flew into Dublin airport and took one of those fancy double decker buses into Dublin. Once there we had to wait around for about 40 minutes for a bus across country into Galway. The bus ride itself took forever, about 4 1/2 hours to get across the whole country. Thomas and I spent a majority of the ride listening to loveline, a radioshow featuring Dr. Drew, the doctor on celebrity rehab...it is really a mindless show that insults both of our intelligences, but it passed the time. By the time we got to Galway bus station it was 7:30 and we had no way to get to our hotel. So we spent the next half hour trying to figure out how to use the payphones and we finally got through to a cab driver named Rauri who said he would get us to the hotel. Rauri is a longtime friend of the hotels owner and a really interesting guy. He was very energetic and more than happy to help us get acquainted with the city (I have since spent a morning having a cup of tea with the guy at his house and he is hilarious. I sort of wish that everyone would have the same view of the world as him, simply because it would be a magical world full of good conversation). The weather was gorgeous all day by the way (and we surprisingly have not seen a drop of rain since we arrived). After we got here we had to hear a thing or two about how the place worked then we went to bed...that was it, first day. Not too exciting, but still awesome! Oh yeah, the kids I am staying with are Pat, Ross, Ben, and Matt. Take note, dear reader, because these individuals will inevitable be included in many of my adventures.

Day two, September 11th (never forget and all that)
So in our little rundown o how the place worked I heard the most magical series of words, truly the only words any man needs to hear to be happy, "breakfast will be provided tomorrow." I know I already knocked on a free breakfast, but that was a hostel breakfast in a country that runs of Czech monopoly dollars this was a feast prepared by the wonderful Geraldine Foyle, a saint in the making who was one of the siblings that owns the Park Lodge. She was able to conjure up the most delicious meal I have ever had. There was (quoted from Matt Reeves blog), "fresh fruit, fresh bread, scrambled eggs, fresh cheese, fresh juice, amazing coffee, sausage, yogurt, and bacon." That is what Matt Reeve recalls, so I have to believe him. I on the other hand will never be able to truly remember what all was consumed. Plate after plate of this delicious food was devoured, but for some odd reason there were inturruptions from a few people saying things about "important information" and "it is essential to know. Obviously I was in the zone, so to speak, and I didn't really pay attention to what they said and I am guessing none of it was "need to know" stuff.

After our amazing amazing amazing (etc.) breakfast we went to Galway again. So we learned from the best bus driver in the world (a guy named Allen who can spit hot fire with a bus mic like no other) that Galway is a pretty crazy place. Not in the sense like it is wild and all that, more because it is old and seeped with history. The place used to be one of the most beautiful cities in all of Europe, but now it is sort of a small (about 90,000 people) city with a very small town feel. I went out with Pat and Maggie N and we ended up eating at a restaurant in Galway called Brannagans. They had fish and chips and I had a chicken and stuffing sandwich, looking back I wish it was warm, but it was still pretty good. We spent te rest of the afternoon trying to get ourselves acquainted with the city and just poking around in some of the shops. The whole plan that afternoon was to go to a large Super Target type store called Dunnes at the end of the afternoon, but the plans fell through. I have very few complaints about the trip, but this is my only one. I needed to get to this utopia of low prices and cheap fleece jackets! Since this fatal miscommunication, poor planning, bad directions, whatever it was that prevented our bus from taking us there, since that day Dunnes is my new holy grail, a place that I will have to enter with great reverence for all the potential it offers.

When we got back to Park Lodge we made our way into the small town of Spiddal to get some food (because our trip to Mecca was canceled and we had no groceries), and during dinner we had a run in with some of the Irish girls, specifically Geraldine's children and their friends. Now these little kids, although adorable and incredibly hard not to giggle at due to their cuteness factor, were a plague on our cabin. They grabbed a bucket of frogs and with a ruthlessness not seen in this country since the Viking invasions attacked our hearts and souls. We had to offer Swedish fish a a peace offering, but they stole them, along with all our remaining courage, and it wasn't until Geraldine (did I mention she is inevitably to become a saint in my book) called them off did they leave us be.

We ended up going down to the beach that night as a group where we all relaxed and watched the sunset. I am telling you right now that I will never forget how amazing that sunset was, with a whole group of people who I hardly know but will all individually be in some of the greatest memories I will ever have. It was almost surreal. This by the way was my secind view of the ocean. I had grabbed some Nutella in Spiddal earlier and went swimming in my boxers. The ocean is salty, I honestly wasn't expecting it. Maybe I am an idiot for being surprised, or maybe it looked so much like a lake (it is Galway Bay after all, not the real deal ocean) that I was just not thinking about it.

Prague: Day 2

So we woke up in Prague on day 2 and I went for a run and all that. It is straight uphill every direction, and I swear I get twice the workout in, so that is nice. Second, we switched rooms to save some Czech monopoly dollars, so for the last few days we have been in a dorm room with 13 other people. As I am writing this a couple days after all this happened, so I figure I can touch on this experience now. So we found out there are a few types of people that stayed in the room over the few nights we were here. One was a couple groups of Asian, college aged kids who all were very polite, spoke more than one language and did touristy things like us. Two were Czech people visiting their capital. They were usually out clubbing until late and we didn't have a ton of interactions due to a language barrier. Three, a much smaller group, was creepy girl who laid around on her bed for two days straight. She was the most depressing thing I have ever seen and we went to a concentration camp. Incredible.

Anyways, our second day started with a free breakfast of warm milk, warm juice, dry bread and...other barely edible things that I inevitably devoured. After that we went out to take a free walking tour of the city. Maybe we had too high of expectations after our Munich tour, but this one sucked! Not only did we learn nothing cool about Prague (possibly because the Czech Republic has a tendency to let anyone walk over them at every and any opportunity), but the guide was some fruitcake who tried to make learning fun. Learning is never fun. He spent three quarters of the tour imitating Nazi soldiers in bro-tastic mannerisms, which is not fun at all, and when he wasn't mocking people he was telling us useless facts. The only cool thing I learned about the history was that part of XXX was filmed there...remember when Vin Diesal was getting sniped on the balcony? Been there. Anyways, some notable areas and places include the world's largest gold Astronomical Clock in the center of what they call the Old Town Square. This clock was made way back in the day and every hour a little show went on dealing with the apostles and birds and a whole bunch of cool things...we never waited around to see it, but based on the throngs of people surrounding it I bet it was really cool. We went in Charles Bridge, which is a magnificent structure with 36 statues lining the sides. Each statue was a different Christian scene or saint, pretty impressive. The problem was that across the whole bridge people were trying to sell you things, so instead of contemplating deep issues of faith I had to shake off artists and musicians trying to make me buy their mediocre attempts at art. We also saw St. James church, which is a gorgeous Catholic church with a mummified arm hanging from the rafters. Apparently the statue of the Virgin Mary grabbed some guys arm when he was trying to take off with some stuff from the church, and the monks, upon finding the robber, in true medieval Christian fashion, cut off his arm and left it as an omen to church robbers everywhere. Other landmarks include the Tyn Church, Powder Gate, the National Museum, and The Jewish Quarter, where even the cemetary costed an astronomical enterence fee.

After the tour we headed to a grocery store where I found something that rocked my world more than anything, that includes Nutella. I bring up Nutella because as I was considering what would possibly be better than that delicious hazelnut treat and I distinctly remember thinking, "Self, What are your two favorite foods?" And as I shouted the answer "Nutella and Peanut Butter!" at the top of my mental lungs, there in front of me appeared Nugeta! If I try to describe it I will probably pass out to prevent my brain from exploding, but let me assure you...it is glorious.

Anyway, after waking up from in an ally with nugeta smeared across my face and 13 empty jars littered around me, Thomas and I took a short 3 mile walk up to Prague Castle to try to take in some of its vastness. The place was huge. I will get some pictures up, but the castle is big enough to fit 7 football fields inside of it and still have room to run around. It took us two hours just to walk to it, around it, and back.

After getting back Thomas, Matt and I went to a hill overlooking Prague and looked out at the city. As beautiful as the city was I think we had more fun with the psychedelic playground equipment. They all looked like smiling Gumby horses. We spent the evening playing on those and walking back to the hostel where Thomas and I actually had pasta, along with a generous helping of Nugeta before falling into a terrible sleep. The room was hot, the pillows thin, and creepy emo girl apparently never sleeps...she just peers around the room with squinty gollum eyes. I cannot even explain how creepy she was. Anyways, I have six days to catch up on, so I'll keep depressed girl descriptions to a minimum.

Mis amigos

If you want to follow Matt or Thomas through the course of their adventure you can check out their blogs too!

Thomas

http://thomasinireland.blogspot.com/

Matthew

http://www.mattinireland2009.blogspot.com/

Drunks

So before I go on and tell everyone how Prague is, I want to make a note about how much public drunkenness is on a streets of Europe, and how much of it rocks. So here are the short, unedited tales of three of my favorite drunks.

First off, and award for most awkward moment of the trip came when we were passing one of Munich's many strip clubs. We were about ten steps from the door when a man is thrown out onto the street, we sort of glanced in and looked to see who was tossing him out, assuming it was going to be some huge bouncer, but it ended up being several strippers with looks of contempt on their faces. You know you are a little overboard when you get looks of contempt from strippers of all people. The expulsion from the club wasn't the part that made him so drunk, it was the fact that he had his pants down to his knees and was completely unaware that his kit and kaboodles were on display for the whole world. As we turned the corner (please note we were walking past the strip club, not to it) he was slowly waddling away from the club with his pants slowly falling further down.

Drunk number two was the most entertaining of the three. We were in a pub called U Fleku here in Prague. When we first got to the pub there was a little two man tuba/accordion band playing some traditional Czech songs. Some of the more inebriated patrons ended up standing up, dancing, falling down and repeating more than once while they were playing, but it was still an enjoyable little duo. The entertainment to follow came in the form of a ridiculously trashed guy singing Czech songs at the top of his lungs with no regard to his surrounding or the laughter that swelled from every corner of the pub. The guy literally sang for ten minutes, getting pleasant applause when he was finished, and gentle encouragement whenever he would start to forget words.

The final drunk, and my personal favorite, was a man we saw grabbing a light pole as we exited the hostel at about 6:00 in the afternoon. At first I thought he was maybe waiting for someone, but he had the look on his face of a small child whenever them are going to the bathroom in their diaper. Just sort of holding onto the pole with a strange look of concentration/constipation on his face. As we passed him, he made his move, he started staggering sideways across the sidewalk to a windowsill where he stopped and got back into his awkward stance. We actually turned to watch as he made his way to the next light pole and repeated his actions. We turned to walk away, but I immediately thought of the advice I have gotten many times as a runner, if you are having a hard time during a run, find a checkpoint up ahead and make your way to it. Once you get to that one, pick another and repeat. That man was obviously taught the same lesson but was able to apply it to his everyday life. Kudos!

Prague: Day 1

September 6th- So we got off the train in Prague and got to our hostel, but let me explain to everyone a little about Czech Republic. So in Munich we got on a train that was just super. There were boyscouts cheerfully chattering in German, parents were running alongside the train to say goodbye to their kids, people were normal. We went for an hour or two on the train, watching the German countryside change from city to lush green hills and then we arrived in Nuremberg. Now I have no problems with Nuremberg, and I was sort of excited to switch trains because some little kid was having a seizure in the seat in front of me and taking advantage far too often of the reclining seat, but when it came to switching trains, we got a janky ghetto train. There was graffiti on the sides of the train, the people waiting for it were staring at their feet and slowly walking to the train like it was a death sentence. This atmosphere can be applied to all of the Czech Republic. The shadiness factor went up tenfold when we crossed the border, and they made us buy their Czech monopoly money. I believe I asked for 48 American Dollars and got a crisp 1000 Czech bill...

We got to our hostel pretty quickly and checked in. Of course it didn't disappoint, as shady as the rest of the city. Where wombats in Munich was top shelf, the Traveler's Hostel was beer in a can. When we went outside, however, we were pleasantly surprised to find that some parts of the city looked beautiful. We took a short walk towards the river in the city (which is disgusting by the way, like most other rivers in Europe) and stopped by a little stand where I got a huge sausage for 50 Czech monopoly dollars. We continued on towards the river and passed over a bridge where we saw the most amazing castle I have ever seen. I am still in awe. It is the largest medieval castle in the entire word, and nestled up on top of the hill is the most amazing Church I have ever seen, just gorgeous. When were were walking around we were sort of looking up the whole time, just admiring the fantastic architecture. There was also a lady playing a violin on Charles Bridge and it was pretty cool. She was charging about 300 Czech monopoly dollars for a cd, so she must have been really good, or maybe she was taking advantage of people feeling like they had a bajillion dollars (which would have been about 116 US dollars). We walked back to the hostel, went to bed, and prepared for an excellent adventure day 2!