Sept 11th

Today I woke up and almost threw up twice. No—I didn’t drink too much Bulmer’s Hard Cider last night at the pub, but after this morning I might have to more than I previously thought. I woke up and wanted to start the day off with the triple S… (sh@!, shower, and shave). Because of the high cost of electricity we can only use the showers simultaneously one after the next. Well, I got up earlier than everyone else so I was not able to use the heated water. I hopped in the shower and turned it to “hot”. My hand literally turned purple when I put it under the “hot” water. I began to shiver and felt a strong bond with Grandpa Lais, who was in the Navy. He told me about how they would get wet, turn off the water, then lather up, and turn on the water to rinse off and get out and on your way. Well, here in Ireland we shower Navy style, but not to save water, just to save our freezing rears from frost bite. This solidified my decision to buzz my head and not shave my beard after showering and shaving my neck. The ice water has pushed me to the razor.

I got out of the shower and noticed that the mirror was cloudy. I couldn’t comprehend how ice cold water produced steam. Then I laughed and cried to myself a little and became one with my car in the winter time. I understood more than ever why my window fogs up in January. Here in Ireland I am learning more than I ever imagined… And to think class has not even started.

The next reason why I almost threw up explains to me why men and women naturally get married and live together. It’s because if men lived together for the rest of their days they wouldn’t survive. I hopped out of the ice shower and saw my cottage mate soaking his slimy feet in our serving dish and some electric heated hot water. I was excited for him that he could enjoy the wonders of heat and applauded his innovation. I looked at the grime in the top of the bowl and noticed the layer of yellow sweat. It looked much like when oil settles at the top of water. Then the unthinkable happened. He went to “wash” our serving bowl, which we ate spaghetti in last night. He merely rinsed the sweat drenched bowl in some ice cold water and put it on the drying rack! YUCK! I then remembered that he kindly finished some of the dishes last night after Joe and I cleaned the majority. I know now that I’ll be volunteering to do the dishes quite a bit. Or the Super Macs (AKA McDonalds of Ireland) looks better and better each day. His cleaning move brought back so many memories of Blimpie’s Subs and Soup. Some of the guys are going for a run, so this is my chance to reclean the dishes. I am such a rebel. I may be looking into marriage sooner than I thought, because living with a bunch of guys isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…

I just went on one of the most beautiful hikes of my life. The clouds blew past allowing the sun to sparkle against the golden brown water and green moss covered rocks. I, like always, fell in a small crick that emptied into the bay while I was tip toeing across the slippery rocks. (The picture of me falling will be added once it is emailed to me.)

This is the crick that I took a dip in… I am considering bathing in it, because it is much warmer to the touch than our showers. I might actually eat off of it too, because its way less slimy than our serving dishes too. The beauty of this country is unbelievable. Dad would love taking pictures here. And mom would love to scream at dad and me for taking pictures of landscape and not the people. But the thing is the people ruin the pictures…



Along the shore line are tide pools with glimmering waters, rock with waves violently crashing into them, and flowing cricks feeding the bay’s angry tide. As you look inland there are cow pastures with rolling rocky grasslands bordered by walls of rock.

Cows staring me down!

Me staring some cows down!

After coming back from our hike, Chuck our professor came by with our allowance money for heat this week. He took a look at our meter and said, “Wow! You guys haven’t used much power; have you only put Euros in once more?” We told him, “Nope we’re still running off the 2 Euros you put in a couple days ago.” He told us we still get the allowance money, so maybe we can put it in a jar and have enough to buy some better food.

We headed into Spiddal and bought groceries today. We bought 4lbs. of ground beef (on sale for 6 Euro!), enough pasta to feed Italy, and an array of other foods. Kevin made some tatortot hot dish tonight, but had to substitute fries for the tots. This was much more successful than the spaghetti shenanigans the night before. I browned more beef for tacos tomorrow and not surprisingly volunteered for dish duty tonight.

Off to sleep I go, because I am heading to the Aran Islands tomorrow for some biking.
On a serious note, I am thinking of the victims of September 11th and all the business people, firefighters, police officers, and medical workers affected by the tragic event.
Also, Jinette’s mom became a U.S. citizen recently. Because of the time change, I’m not sure if she did on the 10th or 11th, but either way, congratulations.