"It's been a while"

I mean, it's not like nothing's happened in the last couple weeks. There's (maybe?) a new leader of the free world. COVID has rampantly run through a ton of other countries, including the US, but the good news is since lockdown here, COVID rate has plummeted in Ireland.

I haven't written though lately for a few reasons:

1) Lazyyyy.

2) There's not a lot of pictures these days to punctuate things.

3) Everything here just runs together. When you have to spend your time within a small circle-- in a place you've lived before no less-- it doesn't really feel like you're generating unique stories or things I want to memorialize.

But then I just remembered something: I paid hundreds of dollars (well, at least $100) to buy this website and its domain. So I should at least get my money's worth.

So here's what I'll use this post for:

1) Recapping the journey up to Galway, and sharing a couple stories around that

2) Top moments here so far in the last couple weeks.

Driving up to Galway:

This happened a couple weeks ago... but this is at least how I remember it!

As you may remember, but I know intimately, you're officially not allowed to go more than 5 km from your home for any non-essential purposes. To paranoid people, or law-abiding people (which I am I think?), this could put a little damper on my endeavor.

November 1-- the day after I wore this lovely outfit for virtual Halloween-- I decided to rent a car and try and make the drive up.

I like how the hat just says "exotic"... bit on the nose.

[Quick Sidebar Story-- Getting this costume was a huge pain in the ass. I ordered it to get it in time for a work Halloween Happy Hour where my team all dressed up as Tiger King people. But the delivery company had 2 issues:

1) They said they couldn't find my house... somewhat understandable, since it wasn't clearly labeled and was on a street you can't drive down.

2) The driver refused to call me because I had a foreign number.

After 3 calls back and forth with some lady (her name was Susan Holmes, I still remember it for some reason), where I asked legitimate questions like "what would you have done if I didn't call you to follow up here?" "when and where can I actually get this package?", etc., she called me back and gave me the driver's number. Actually, she first suggested I go to the Cork Airport to pick it up, but realized the stupidity of that idea after I told her so several times.

I called up the driver, who said: "Oh sure, I know exactly where it is, I live 3 minutes away from there... meet me at Denjoe's [crappy takeout place] in 5 minutes?". Then he shows up throws the package at me, and starts chatting with me like I hadn't just been through an hour of phone calls trying to get this, and like I had time to chat in the pouring rain. Stupid friendly Irish]

Where was I? Oh yeah, leaving Killarney for Galway.

Here's the deal in Killarney with renting a car-- if you don't want to pay more/spend 30 minutes to get to the airport to rent a car,

i) you pay about 50% more for the rental and

ii) the rental place is closed on Sundays. Of course, I was leaving on a Sunday, much to my consternation.

What this meant practically is I had to rent the car Saturday as late as I could, which turned out to be noon, disappointingly. Now you might say, well why does that matter, Sam? Because I'm paying more for a car to rent for a day, I really don't want to rent it for more than a day, right? So basically, I had to now get to Galway by Noon, meaning I had to be up by 8 at the latest, and really hope I don't get stopped by the Garda or chatty Irish folk.

My landlord Billy insisted on "helping me with my bag" and seeing me off. This made me slightly nervous, I've never known him/the Irish to be particularly punctual. Plus he lived about an hour away in Cork. But sure enough, he shows up at about 8:35, not too bad. Hungover and red-eyed as you could possibly believe ("Irish rugby played last night, it was murder"). I nodded and avoided asking how he and his friends social distanced, etc, as he insisted on driving me to my car < 2 blocks away. The whole time as he just keeps chatting about stuff I keep looking at my watch, thinking, "I really don't want to pay for 2 days of rentals". But eventually if you don't reinforce shitty conversation people just let you leave!

Packed away into my shitty facsimile of a Volkswagen Polo (it was actually a Skoda of some kind), I was off a little before 9 am. Should be ok, right?

The real struggle was finding coins for the tolls.

Well, I got here, so you know it worked out ok. But I did see 2 Garda checkpoints, one about 30 minutes in... they were just getting set up and weren't pulling anyone over. The other was just after Limerick, and they were only pulling people over on the other side of the road. So I don't know whether my lame "I'm moving" excuse or even lamer "I'm working remotely in Galway for a university" would have flown. Thank god I drove though and saved myself at least 5 hours by not taking train or bus.

I got into Galway around 11:30, and then had the wild thought of dropping my stuff off at my new place before returning my car. This was truly the "sometimes you gotta just steal one silmaril" of thoughts (If you get this Tolkien reference, congrats! you should really be friends with me). I called and begged for the code, and the lady who runs these apartments airily mentioned "sure, I'll send you the code in about 20 minutes, is that ok?". It's really rare when you're supposed to check in at 3 pm that getting it 3 hours ahead of time is not OK... so I meekly said yes.

Did I mention it was *pouring* rain that day? Like, buckets, even with coats, umbrella, would easily get soaked through in seconds. After reassuring myself over hot chocolate nearby that I had enough time to throw my bags in the place and return the car, I patiently waited. 11:50. 11:51. 11:52. 11:53. *sigh*. Finally, I get the codes at 11:56 or so, I run through the downpour, jog up the stairs and drop things off. I got to Budget at 12:05 or so, soaked to the bone after 2 15 ft walks, and the guy at the counter stares at me, and says "you're coming from Kerry, right?". Clearly not a ton of business these days. He took my keys, then his supervisor comes up and says "you've got to put it in the garage down the road". I've never been told that returning a car before, especially when the sign outside says to return the car here.

Bottom line is I did all they asked, returned it to a random unmarked car spot, trundled back to them and sloshed through puddles to my new apartment. It's nice!

I warmed myself up out of the rain, ordered a pizza and streamed RedZone. What a Sunday.

Random Galway Things

Love the Puffins! Hopefully will get out to the Aran Islands again before I leave.

You know, I never knew Che Guevara was from here...

I wish every day I was here looked like this...

...but most days it's dark by the time I get outside :(

I thought Uncle Ben was out business! Apparently he's now an expert in a lot more products...

words to live by

this is going to change how i think about donuts...

Moment of Zen (kinda)