Party Party and Alexis Gets Her Hair Cut

     It's Sunday morning and I'm coming at you live! from my bed in Adare, Ireland. It's been an exciting weekend. Thursday was Arthur's Day, a holiday established a couple of years back in honor of Arthur Guinness, the creator and first master brewer of Guinness beer. I think this celebration may need a bit more time before its on par with, say, the birth of Christ, but there's certainly promise in progressive new beer holidays. (Tour de Fat, shout out to Fort Collins!) One of the cool parts of Arthur's Day is that Guinness brings in popular artists to play at random locations around Ireland. I should say it would have been cool if we had gotten into the club in Limerick City that was certain to have someone good playing, but alas, it was 20 and up that night. Liz and I went back to Adare and opted for Plan B: Drink a Pint at Every Pub in the Village. Good thing there are only four.
     For your viewing pleasure, here is a link to a promotional video for Arthur's Day. Paint the town black.

     On Friday, I ate two bowls of cereal and then chopped off all of my hair. Why? You ask. If you've been keeping up with our blog you'll know the correct answer is: why not? But actually, it was long, bleached, and not travel-friendly. My long hair and I had parted ways. HA.
     There were like 3 other hairdressers shuffling around and watching nervously, waiting for me to start crying or having a panic attack. I sat calmly and drank my tea, thank you very much. Meanwhile Liz snapped away with her camera like a maniac and tried not to slip in the pile of hair on the floor that looked increasingly like a small, sickly animal.
     And I almost forgot! We made fettuccine alfredo with chicken for dinner, and I actually made most of it. Proud moments for an extremely amateur (incapable) cook.

     Saturday was a big day for the Bourke family, us included, since it was Niamh's 21st birthday party. 21st birthdays are an important occasion over here, and I'm quite sure why because everyone can already drink. We asked a few Irish people why it was such a big deal, but they didn't know either so we just went with it. Liz and I went with Elaine to run party errands: buying last minute accessories, picking up balloons, stopping at the grocery store, etc. While in Limerick, Elaine showed us Saturday's lovely outdoor market and a delicious milkshake shop. Then with perfect timing, we walked into the pharmacy while L'Oreal was doing a promotion and we all got our makeup professionally done for free. And I mean really, really done. You would be surprised at how closely Liz can resemble Barbie.
     We had more to do when we got home, like shave our legs. These things get neglected when traveling, and it takes much time and energy to reinstate order. Later, we decorated the pub with balloons, ate some dinner, and started ACTUALLY getting ready.
     The party was a good time. The birthday girl looked fabulous, the food Anne made was delicious, and we enjoyed the free pints we received from Finnick, the guy in a sheep suit. (We really hit the promotion jackpot yesterday.) We were also introduced to some key Irish traditions throughout the course of the night. For example, on your 21st birthday, you get 21 kisses from your guests. Everyone stands around and runs up for their turn. Another important tradition: Sally. As in Sally Hansen spray-on tan. I was surprised to learn that Sally is a household name here, a staple beauty product of every young Irish woman going out on the town. I watched Elaine scrub herself down with it. "Doesn't it get on your dress?" "Oh, it gets on your dress. It gets in your bed. Sally's everywhere." I'm still confused as to why a nation of pale people collectively spray tan themselves. And a little sad, too, because now there's almost nowhere I can go to be with people as pale as me.

Love,
Alexis

Arthur's Day glow

Before

After

Pregame struggles

Birthday girl

Well.

I have this edgy new face to go with my edgy new hair.

Liz gets tipsy.

Niamh on the dance floor. 

Elaine and Liz

"ANOTHER ROUND!"

um. cheers?

Cliffs of Moher and Galway

We weren't on an adventure to the Cliffs of Moher today. I couldn't tell you how long it took to get there because surprise, surprise, I fell asleep in the car. Again. We made it to the Cliffs of Moher and before we even got out of the car, we could tell that it was going
to be very windy. Luck has stayed with us this trip though, because not 10 minutes after we arrived, the sun came out. The cliffs themselves were spectacular. I can't really use my words to describe how magnificent they were so I'll let the pictures do the talking in that respect. There was a really interesting exhibit about the history and wildlife of the surrounding areas in the visitors center that was very cool. It boasted of all that puffins that make the cliffs their home. Unfortunately we did not see any said puffins. By the time we made it back to the car we were incredibly wind blown and my hair resembled a rats nest.

We plowed on to Galway. The roads were very windy, so bravo to our driver, Shane. Needless to say it took us a little while to get to Galway. We heard an intriguing story on the radio about a
Canadian who was in Ireland a year ago and met the girl of his dreams at a cafe. A year later, with no name, he was still dreaming about this mystery girl so he has returned to Ireland to search for her and is prepared to stay as long as it takes. I can't say I believe in love at first sight and I find it highly questionable to track down a girl you met once claiming that she's the love of your life, I suppose it's a sweet story so we wish him luck on his search.

Of course I fell asleep in the car again but after (seemingly) no time, we made it to Galway. We didn't do anything particularly exciting per se, but the city was very charming and had creamy pastel buildings everywhere. We saw an old Irish man with a large white beard playing a one man band. His drum was "played" by a wooden cutout
of Obama and his tambourine caused a trio of Teletubbies to sway in time with the music. It was certainly a sight to see and unfortunately we didn't get a photo of it.

After walking around the city center, we walked over to the university and walked around the campus. It is very different than Tufts. Primarily, the student body consists of citizens of Ireland. Because Ireland is so small there is a certain type of uniformity that you don't see at Tufts or many other colleges in the US I have visited. Almost everyone is wearing the same style and most people even look alike. It's interesting to see the dynamic of a university from another country.

When we returned home we were welcomed to the lovely smell of curry! Elaine had made chicken curry and basmati rice while we were away and I must say it was superb!

Cheers,
Liz

Sunday Dinner

Sunday is a very down dog day in Ireland. Shops are closed and the day is reserved for the home. Luckily not all of the shops were closed because we needed to go out for carrots for our traditional Sunday dinner! Ann is truly a master in the kitchen and this mid day meal was a perfect example. There was a lovely pork roast with homemade applesauce, mashed carrots and turnips, broccoli and roasted potatoes with gravy. It tasted as good as it sounds and better. By the end, I was bursting to the point that it was all I could do to crawl upstairs and nap it off. After waking up from the short siesta, the meal wasn't over. Everyone had gathered again for dessert, which was, wait for it, stewed apples and custard! It was incredible, like creamy hot applesauce. We are being so spoiled here, it's going to be difficult to go back to eating reduced price supermarket food! Nothing else that day was even worth mentioning compared to the meal. And this happens every Sunday!

Cheers,
Elizabeth

Ohhhhh Lisdoonvarna!

Dearest readers,

Liz is back in action and we're here to update you from Ireland! We're currently sitting in the kitchen watching a show about travelers (gypsies) on TV and we just made quesadillas for a midnight snack. This was a big deal, since no one we're staying with was really sure what a quesadilla was. And in the grocery store today when I went to get some salsa, I was met with a very easy decision since there were a whopping two choices: mild and hot.

Anyway, we've had a good few days. On Friday, we headed back out to the Adare manor to have a relaxing day of laying in the grass. Unfortunately, we struggled to find ANY patch of grass on the miles of grounds that wasn't part of the golf course. And also unfortunately, neither Liz nor I are too familiar with the game of golf, and our leisurely walk turned into a run with strange men in the distance yelling "FORE!" at us. The manicured lawns quickly became a death trap, and I'm probably just saying that because I recently finished the Hunger Games series and I felt like I was in an arena with my little backpack on and the Victor's Village off in the distance. Some good did come of being lost, although at the cost of Americans' reputation abroad. An Irish man driving around in a golf cart stopped after passing us like three times.
"Are you gys American?"
"...Yeah."
"Ah. You're lost. Americans always get lost."

Honestly, we just wanted a place to day drink in peace, we weren't really lost. But you don't tell that to the person who works at the manor you're trespassing on. And he was so nice he let me drive the golf cart.

We finally found a weeping willow along the service road that provided the necessary shade, privacy, and scenery. We sat against the tree for the next fews hours talking and laughing and sitting. And being thankful that our biggest responsibility was...well...I don't really know. Haha.

***

On Saturday, Liz, Niamh, Elaine and I packed up the mini cooper and drove to Lisdoonvarna for their famous Matchmaking Festival. Back in the 1970s, waves of women moved to Dublin to work in new office jobs, while men stayed on farms across the country. The unequal proportion of genders in the city (too many women) and in the fields (too many men) led to the solution of matchmaking festivals, where both parties could finally gather to find their future husband or wife. The tradition has evolved in some ways, with younger people now going more for the fun than the future (or so they say). In other ways, it remains the same, because all the boys we met were farmers. I made the mistake of asking a few of them if they were students, and they looked at me like I was some kind of alien.

So here we were in the Matchmaking Bar with a group of Irish gentlemen that I sat down with because i was hungover I had grown weary of wandering around like some slab of matchmaker meat. Liz still felt a little under the weather so she went to the car to lay down for a bit.

She's going to start writing now. Love, Alexis

I had a nice lovely nap in the car for an hour. On account of my hangover, my cold had reared its ugly head and talking to strangers who I could only understand every other sentence was not my cup of tea. The nap helped put some life back into me and made my throat hurt less, so when Elaine came back to see if I wanted to come in, I obliged.

I walk into a bar. I see Alexis, four inches from a balding man's face who I've never seen before waving a glass in his face. When I get closer I hear her yelling "Don't you fucking touch my whiskey. I need to go to the bathroom and I see you eyeing it, but I don't want you to fucking touch it..or drink it!" (he bought the said whiskey) When she comes back to the bathroom, she agitatedly explains to me how this man, Chris, has never done his own laundry, and his mother comes over at the start of every week to cook his food for him. He goes on to say that he supports Romney all the way and proceeds to show us pictures on his phone of "the Romney family." At this point I have gathered that he's trying to get a reaction out of Alexis, and let me tell you it's working. After a tirade that includes her views on marriage, babies and politics, she sits back in her chair, arms crossed and says "I don't care, let me be, it's my day to be an O'Connell." Gauging that this is where the day was at 4pm, I did the only thing I could do and had the boys order me a pint of Guinness. The average time from table to empty for each drink was astonishing, there were never less than 15-20 drinks on the small table, and as soon as we ran low, there were at least three guys offering us new drinks. Niamh was jiving with anyone that could stand on the dance floor, Alexis would argue with anyone that could speak, and I had the pleasure or watching it all with more sober eyes. As the heat started to die down and people were up dancing to Johnny Cash and The Jungle Book, Alexis and I decided we could no longer function if we didn't get food.

So we made our way to the center of town to search for some grub. Our initial search was unsuccessful. Everywhere was too expensive and would take too long. Finally for fear of being incapable of movement, I bought a baguette from a convenient store that gave us the energy to find a cheap Chinese restaurant. The place was completely deserted and at first we were afraid it was closed. But it wasn't and we sat down as the only patrons in the place. Less than five minutes later, two boys stumble in, clearly intoxicated and around our age. We decided to pool our tables and began to talk to Chris and Michael. They were stepbrothers from Galway and had decided to take a week off from school to come to Lisdoonvarna.

I have to say, Chinese food in Europe is really shitty. We ordered orange chicken, but what we got was chicken fingers covered in sweet sauce. It was not good and not worth €13. Luckily enough, our choice to pool tables paid off and a less than adequate meal with two drunk kids turned out to be free.

We made our way back to the Matchmakers Bar where we had left Niamh and Elaine. This is what it looked like, seeing as we didn't take a picture.

http://www.google.com/search?q=matchmaker+bar+lisdoonvarna&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=L5xfUO7fGM2AhQfT3IHwAQ&biw=768&bih=928&sei=MpxfUI1Sgs-EB_yLgbgO#biv=i|12;d|yz6UlObGM4iL5M:

When we got back, our party of 11 had become 2 as everyone had gone out to eat. We had no choice but to sit and enjoy our drinks while we waited for Elaine and Niamh to return. When we were finally reunited, it was all we could do to eat a burger and fries, and we were so tuckered out that we made our way home by the early hour of 9:30.

And about the title, there's a song that goes with it. We'll post it later.

Cheers,
Liz

Sick

There's not very much interesting to report for the last couple days. I've been pretty sick and as a result have not ventured far from the house. Unfortunately this means Alexis hasn't gotten out too much either. But she's been a great help while I've been sick. At least this is all happening here where we have a room and lovely hosts to make it easier.
Cheers,
Liz

Cork'n'Blarney

Yesterday we took a trip to some of the southern parts of Ireland with Shane and Niamh. Shane was turning in his thesis (yay!) at UCC, so Niamh showed us around the campus. We snooped in the engineering department, sat in an empty classroom, and drank hot chocolate in the student center to get our fill of school for the year. I'd say it was sufficient.

We walked into the town of Cork, checking out the shops and the dense collection of architecture. The pain of seeing more beautiful clothes that we can neither buy nor carry wretches a larger hole in our hearts each day. We pull through, dreaming of the thrift store binge pursuant to our return. It looks like this.

Anyway, I tried Prawn and cocktail potato chips for the first time and they were pretty good. Liz and I also fulfilled our dream of romping around in an Irish meadow, as our next stop on the day trip was Blarney. While I was initially suspicious of the entry fee and the souvenir shop, Blarney was so worth it. It was a perfect, clear day to enjoy the extensive grounds and gardens. And after exploring the castle, we each took our turn kissing the Blarney stone. Legend dictates that smoochers of the stone become blessed with the gift of eloquence. (You can find a more in-depth explanation here.) I wasn't aware that the stone was situated so precariously over a gaping hole in the castle. Any poor bloke who slips through the crack in his effort to reach the stone would certainly tumble to his death without any witty last words.

We stopped for some food on the way home and then we napped, a growing hobby of ours. So far today we're just taking it easy, since the weather is grey and Liz is sick with a sore throat. I told her its because she sleeps with her mouth wide open (see picture below) and I bet that's why it gets dry and germs and stuff get in there. Feel better, dude, and I'll make you soup after I post embarrassing photos of you sleeping.

Luv to the friends & fam,
Alexis

A UCC library

What Liz and I look like when we navigate our way around

In front of the President's house

Cork

Blarney

Caves

Ferns

In the fern garden

Green rug

Bliss

Atop the old lime kiln

Blarney house

See?!

Car naps

Hurling

On Sunday we went to a semifinals hurling match that Adare was playing in. Hurling is a purely Irish sport and is very hard to describe but I'll give it a go. It's basically like a mix between american football, soccer, hockey, lacrosse and ultimate frisbee. (the only way it's like ultimate is that you can only take 4 steps if you are holding the ball in your hand before you must pass it on or transfer it to your stick.) I'm not even going to try to describe the shape of the stick because there's a picture of one below. The game is played on a field with 15 players on each team and a goalie. You score points by getting the ball in the goal. 3 points if you get it in the soccer like goal and 1 point if you score in the field goal-like space above the net. The game is incredibly fast paced and it is near impossible to follow the little ball around the field. People get smashed to the ground and there is no mercy. The game was often paused for players that went down and stayed down for need of attention by the trainer. The first game we watched was exciting because Adare was playing, but that was it. The game itself was a little dry because Adare was so much better than Garryspillane. Each half lasts 30 minutes but it went by very quickly. The second game was much more interesting. NaPiarsaigh and Kilmallock were both evenly matched and seemed to have a more intricate skill set. In the first 2 minutes, 3 real goals were scored. It happened so fast it was incredible. The game continued to be fast paced, with one team scoring and then the next evening it back out. We watched the first half of the game and then decided to go back home. Shane and John stayed for the whole thing, but we listened to the end of the match on the radio. Kilmallock (the team I had decided to root for because their jerseys were green!) won in the end, beating out the reigning champions NaPiarsaigh. All in all it was a very high energy Sunday. Alexis, Shane and I went to the bar in town that sponsors the team. Everyone from 17-65 was drunk, celebrating the team's win. A lot of the team themselves were there too!

Liz