The Final COUUUNTDOOOOWN...

(bad 80's song)

This weekend was our final full weekend in Galway. Kind of sad and weird. Unfortunately, we were too spent from Friday night to do anything major on Saturday night. Katie and I attempted though. We walked downtown to get tickets for a show playing this week with the festival, but it was sold out. So we wandered around and stumbled upon a weird parade with no theme in mind at all. There were creepy people dressed up as big scary monkeys, kids in garbage bags, an Irish Elvis, and a six-year-old Irish boy in a soccer uniform holding two clumps of grass and yelling: "Grass up your ass!" There is supposed to be a bigger parade Sunday, but I think this one was an underground more weird one.

Actually it was funny because we found it once, then kept trying to avoid it because it was hard to get around... With all the people. So we kept making these detours and ending up at the parade again. The worst part was... We kept seeing the same part of the parade. Not even anything new... We were going at the same pace there were, so the Irish Elvis and monkeys was funny the first time, but the fourth and fifth time, well, it was just old.

Saturday night the guys from our group and living next door to us had a big party. I am pretty sure everyone from our program was there, but us. Somehow we've excluded ourselves from the twenty-year-olds from San Diego. I wonder how the ef that happened? Maybe being completely condescending yatches all month? Oh well, I slept and got some reading done instead.

Today, Sunday I went to mass at the cathedral since we've been on weekend trips and plus it's also my mom's birthday. WOO! Pour a little out for Carol. Then I checked out the farmer's market. There was a visiting choir from Austria in for the festival. The best part of the mass was at the end when the choir sang the Irish Blessing. It was so pretty and such a great gesture. It gave me the chills. The priest had already dismounted the pommel horse, I mean the altar, but he came back to say that's the first time a visiting country had come and sang "An Irish Blessing." And what a great gesture it was (that's what I had just thought inside my head, yeah?) So everyone was crying and gave them a standing ovation and the Austrians just stood there awkwardly not really understanding the power of what they'd just done... Plus, They're Austrians which is similar to Germans which means they pretty much have no emotions.

After church I came back and changed my garb. At this point it had rained and was windy, about 65 or so degrees, but seemingly cooler with the wind. But convinced it was going to get nicer, I didn't wear a coat to the parade today. I was glad later because it ended up being about 75 degrees and sunny for the remainder of the day. Katie and I met for the parade. Ok guys, there are these places here called "off license" dealers. Sometimes they are attached to licensed bars, sometimes they are not. But you walk in and can just buy a can of beer and then leave. They don't have licenses to serve only to sell. So you can walk around all you want with your booze. It's fantastic. So I did that... Then did that again with Katie.

The parade was really cool. The theme was "the Big River." I don't know what big river. Probably NOT the Mississippi. I can't type that word without spelling it out loud. Anyways, so everything and everyone in the parade was some kind of sea creature or type of water thingie. Whatever.

We kept calling these things crabs, but looking at these pics, I realize they are lobsters... with the extra legs and all. Stupid asses.

Mind you... these are children on stilts... children... dressed as dragonflies. So cute.

This was a lot more artsy than any parade I've been to in the states. hardly any floats, just a lot of dancing and "Get In shape Girl" dancing ribbons... You girls know what I am talking about. And the costumes were a lot more impressive than anything I've seen in the Wheaton parade. Katie and I had gotten to the route early so we would have a spot than stupid mom asses got in our way. Like they could just stand in front of us, as we sat on the curb, like we weren't there. So we spent time before the parade started saying passive aggressive comments like, "boy, I am sure glad I got here early to save a spot so that someone could stand in front of me" or "Wow, I hope this person stands in front of me the whole time" or "I like how these moms are pretending to be videotaping for their children but are really doing it for themselves." Not really original, no, but effective. It worked. They all moved. Except for this one older woman who didn't even have any kids... She came and stood right in front of us, shoving children out of the way so there was room for her front butt. I solved the situation though by standing directly in front of her for every picture I took. I'm classy.

After the parade, we went to a place called "La Salsa." I know. I don't usually go for Mexican food more than once a year, but I was starving... I know, Mexican food in Ireland. Who knew? And it wasn't bad, except I cut my burrito on tin foil and some of it got in my food so I bit down on it on my crown and it hurt so bad I thought I was going to die. It was like a chemistry experiment went array in my mouth. It still smarts hours later. To take the edge off, Katie and I got a pint to go and went and sat by the river and watched cute kids eat ice cream cones. Irish kids are so cute with their freckles and their orange hair, and their ginormous heads. Seriously... ginormously cute fat heads. So cute. Katie took some pics of them but I felt creepy doing that.

Anyhoo, tomorrow we have another all day trip for class. We're going to Coole Park, the land of Lady Gregory and James Joyce for you literary fans out there. We have a paper due tomorrow and it needs to be handed in before we get on the bus. This means we are going to be leaving late because stupid state school 19 year olds have no concept of time and how rude it is to be late. They'll show up to campus to print their stuff out at 10:15, the exact time we should be leaving. That being said, I'll be leaving for campus at 9 am to ensure that I have my crap together. What a novel concept. I'm SUCH an amazing person. Seriously. And modest. No seriously.

Tricia and Kelly get here Wednesday. I can't wait for them to show up at my doorstep at 8 am drunk from the in flight wine! WOO HOO!