well, I officially have four-day weekends. this is going to be tough to go back to america. I love my arthurian literature class, it started thursday morning. I better love it, to take a 9AM class! The thing is, my professor is American. I am never going to get an Irish accent because only 3 of my professors are Irish! The others are American, German and British. Wow.
Yesterday I ran out of clothes, so I took most of my laundry to the place down the street. 10kg of laundry for 12 euro, I can deal with that. Although I washed some pajamas here. Unfortunately for me (and my roommate Colleen, who did the same thing) we forgot it wasn't same-day return, so we of course put our sheets in the laundry. So....last night we ran into a problem , because who knows how clean the mattress covers in Dunaras are?? We could get bed bites, I mean mites, or bedbugs, or worse, like the whooping cough. Luckily, my package from home has arrived with my Fairfield U blanket (stags to the rescue, fear the deer) and I put that on the mattress cover and slept on top of it. I gave in and bought new pillows from Dunnes (and pillow covers, remembered that, thanks Mom) so those were also safe, theoretically. Colleen slept in her sleeping bag. The small adventures that make life worth it. At this point, the laundromat shop is closed and I won't get my laundry until tomorrow, so tonight will also be the same. I like it, it keeps life interesting.
Today I gave in to the weather and all of the peer pressure. I bought real gloves. Apparently everyone doubted that my adorable flowered-but-fingerless gloves would last me in Ireland. I disagreed and knew they would pull through. But since it is constantly raining, damp or cold, they have suffered some small (large) holes...they are being retired. I went to a fabulous sweater shop in downtown Galway and got some genuine-state-of-the-art gloves, Aunt Marcella style. Also a purple hat that I'm probably going to sleep in because I love it so much (I'm waiting for the Aran Islands to buy a sweater). Here's the funny part of the story that makes it interesting and why I'm posting about stupid purchases...I used the credit card that I had forgotten to notify I was traveling to Europe. Good job, Katie. Luckily a phone call sorted it all, with lots of words like "security" "authorized purchase" "european stay" were used. Whoops.
Did I mention I've had my first Irish coffees? I like Bailey's Irish coffee better, definitely. definitely. When I ordered an Irish coffee at Tig Coili, I couldn't finish it. Once the whipped cream was gone, the whiskey was DEFINITELY tasteable. The barman Ronan gave me a little trouble about "there's still good whiskey in there" before he took it away.
I love Galway, have I mentioned that yet?
