"Of all the money that ere I had, I spent it in good company"

Ahhhhhhh how I love that song ("The Parting Glass" for the uninitiated... do yourself a favor and YouTube it and *try* to not get misty)! And it actually describes the last couple of days! #topical. Also, sometimes your unexpected events can really turn into unexpected joys.

For the first time in a long time, I woke up thinking "I need to go eat something healthy". Who knows why. But they have a couple of fast casual salad places here, and I was really hoping they'd be the Chop't (yeah... not Sweetgreen #sorrynotsorry) equivalent.

Spoiler alert, it wasn't... don't do "Freshii" if in Ireland if you're just looking for a salad.

8 Euros of "meh"

My original plan after this was to take a long walk to a place called St. Martin's Tea House and read by the river today. Pretty good plan I thought! Didn't happen.

Not today :(

It's mostly because my roommates were all going to the beach, and you know what? Sometimes you should be social. Plus a place called "Silverstrand Beach" just sounds nice.

Unfortunately, as soon as I got to the bus stop to head out with them, I remembered I had a call in 10 minutes. And you know, I feel like no one likes to hear me loudly blather on a bus, so I swiftly made up my mind to just walk, and I could take the call and meet them there. I know that it's an hour and a half walk vs a half hour bus ride, but hey, it's scenic here, right?

So I take my-- let's call it mission critical-- phone call as I'm walking all along the Salthill promenade. Who can be angry when you're looking out at this?

Oh trust me, that picture on the right, it turns out, would drastically undercut my distance for this walk, which apparently was all the way to Barna (aka, not in Galway by any stretch of the imagination).

What's great, and ultimately distracting about countryside walks in Ireland, is you see horses/animals everywhere. Here's me getting scared by a family of jackasses (proper useage!)

Yeah I know it's a quick clip, but that one donkey really scared me! I'll save another sweet horse movie for later (TEASE!).

Anyhow, I do finally get to the beach, and it was actually pretty nice... but there's a catch coming up.

Well, actually, 2 catches before I plunge into reading my book:

1) I turned on my phone service again quickly and realized I got a message saying "the bus never came, we're going to Salthill beach instead" -_-

2) I was going to have to have another phone call in about 30 minutes.

So, solo beach reading time it is!!! Followed by another lovely walk home. People here say "gotta get my 5", which I think means the equivalent of "getting my steps in"... but I definitely walked at least 5 miles today so take that Ireland!

Achingly, I got home but had what I thought were big plans tonight-- going to go with a roommate to Silent Disco, and eat a nice seafood dinner (insert Champ Kind meme here).

Let me tell you what's bullshit here:

1) Calling shrimp "prawns"

2) Serving "prawns" by weight and leaving the head on so you only get a little bit of meat for your trouble

3) How spiny these "prawns" are.

All that being said, the prawns and John Dory fillets (I have no idea what kind of fish that is, but sounded good?) were pretty good. That's a decent foundation for a night of dancing, right?

Wrong. But only wrong because by the time Katarina (sp?) and I showed up for the Silent Disco, where I thought it would be 10 nerds and us, it was a line that serpentined seemingly forever down Domenick Street.

Disappointment can turn into joy pretty quickly here in Ireland though! Went on a bit of a bar crawl, first to "Bierhaus", because if you're getting drinks with a German lady, you want her to criticize when Irish people try to do German things. In this case, it was really easy because "Bierhaus" had just one German beer, which seems like not quite a full house.

What was really great though was going to the Crane bar after. Not only did we see the below "session", which is just people asking if they can play with each other, but wait, there's more...

What's cool about this isn't the music to me, but the process. This random Irish guy gets up after these guys and asks if he can sing a song, "one that's important to me". It's a full bar, and the musicians just go "shhhhhhhhh" and the whole place shuts up as if all the air was vacuumed out in an instant. No clinking glasses, no whispers, just focus. And it was awesome, I have *no* idea what the song was, but it was a great and sad Irish tune about a conversation between a father and his son. No, it's not Danny Boy, and yes, that can be many many Irish songs.

But the real highlight for me is when this guy was done, I sang a bit with him and closed down the bar-- a verse of the Parting Glass (see subject line!) and of course Wild Rover. If you're going to Ireland, please learn Wild Rover, and learn where you're supposed to clap in the song! Pretty sure it's my favorite. I also tried playing the *horribly* out of tune piano in the back ("she's a bit misshapen", said the bartender), but to less enjoyment. If you asked me what my goals were for Ireland, this was pretty much it!

Some would call that a night, but we set out to go dancing, and dammit, dance we would! We met up with some Australian ladies who Kat knew and went to the Quays and to the Front Door. I learned a few things:

1) Australian people love trashy American songs. And Men at Work.

2) No matter how bad a dancer you think you are as an American, surround yourself with Europeans and you look less spastic.

3) Even bars with dancing here are like mazes-- there are hidden rooms and passages to find all the space you need.

Apart from Kat getting a drink spilled on her and two guys literally fighting over her (but not in a competitive way, more directionally), it was about time to go. Also it was 2 in the morning. She was confused about the fight, saying "In Germany, if a girl stands near you usually guys won't fight". Well... not in Ireland.

I'll gloss over the next day, but what I'll say is it was the first time we all went out as a house together. Which was fun, but I really have no pictures to capture it. And I learned my French roommate Fanny is quite a good artist, and my Canadian vagabond roommate Gary knows more about Burning Man and "Burn" festivals then you could ever forget about because of what you do at these festivals. His notes from these festivals, terse little phrases like "they named me kerchief man" and "Genital ID" led to bizarre stories that had hours of follow up questions from me and the ladies. All in all, good house bonding over the last couple days!

Random Things:

-I could have written paragraphs about learning about the various "Burn" festivals around the world. But the 2 best named ones, imho, were "Creme Brulee" (the French burn festival) and "Smoking Craic" (the Irish burn festival).

Win-Win?

Moment of Zen