Coole As Eisscubes

We left off our two intrepid heroes in a B & B in Dublin. Now they are traveling along the motorway to the depths of Galway city. Well, not right now, but they were at one point.

Shockingly, when we got to Galway, the sun was a-shinin'! If there is one thing I have learned from living in Ireland, it is when that Vitamin D-giving orb in the sky pops its shy self out, you take advantage of it! To do just that, we took a nice long walk around Galway and then to the Claddagh area of the city that is a lot of open green space with the bay.

The one swan is such a black sheep. A black swan, if you will....It's Natalie Portman.

Sheesh, picky buggers, aren't they?

People are often unsure how to react when the sun comes out. The common reaction is to stare unblinkingly into the sun trying to identify what it is. Blindness is a common ailment in Ireland.

We're so artsy.

Then, I took Strange Bird to one of my favorite places in Galway. If you thought I was going to say a pub, shame on you. I was in fact going to say Cupan Tae, which translates to Cup of Tea. Those of you with any sort of deductive powers should have ascertained that it is a tea place, and a quite delicious one at that. It's the kind of place where you feel inclined to drink your tea pinky up. They sell all sorts of teas you can buy there, but I like sitting down and drinking my tea a 3-tiered stand that includes cakes (classy), scones (classier), and finger sandwiches (classiest). As a defense mechanism to being banned from Cupan Tae, I try not to go there on days when I'm wearing my Puma sneakers and Gym Night sweatshirt or when my immaturity is running at a high level.

Any place that has a teacup tree in the window must be grand.

The next day I whipped up a last minute plan to go to Coole Park for part of the day. We stocked up on pastries and chocolate, (the only things you really need in life), and moved out. I think most people normally drive to Coole Park instead of taking the bus because we had to ask the driver to drop us off close to it instead of going to an actual stop. We ended up just walking along what seemed to be a residential road, hoping it would eventually bring us to Coole. We had to walk through a bunch of pastures, so that was quite the "Irish" experience for Katie to have during her visit. We made it there eventually. Unfortunately, we didn't pick up an infatuated Gerard Butler-type along the way. Curse you, movie magic!

The boulder was too heavy to bring back with me to keep as a lawn ornament.

Super fun history time! Feel free to skip if you don't feel like bettering yourself, you lackadaisical ignoramuses. Ignorami? Coole Park was the residence of Lady Augusta Gregory. Other than the fact that Lady Gregory, or as she will be known from here on out due to the fact that we are uber close friends, A-Grizzle, was super wealthy through inheritance, I actually have a lot of respect for the broad. She was helpful to a lot of starving-artist-types, including W.B. Yeats, and was a big proponent in propelling Irish theatre, art, and literature forward. A-Grizzle also did quite a bit of writing herself. One of her works was a play she co-wrote with Yeats that was significant to Irish history, and she let him take primary credit, even though she wrote most of it.

Coole is indeed a pretty cool place to go to. The house itself was very pretty, but the neat part about it was the fenced in backyard that just happened to have a herd of deer. I don't know if it's just that they were sick of keeping horses or llamas or something, so they switched to deer, but I liked seeing them. A little similar to visiting a low-budget zoo. Other than the deer playground, Coole also has one fairly significant attraction, the Autograph Tree. Since A-Grizzle had so many literary and artistic connections, she would have them come to visit her on her estate. Once they were there she would have them carved their initials into a tree on her property. Apparently, if permission is acquired, defiling a tree is not considered vandalism, but instead, "artsy fun." Teaching morals to children must be quite difficult.

You know you have made it to the big time when you keep deer as pets.

They have to keep a cage around the vandalized tree to keep vandals from vandalizing the vandalism.

I, too, got really excited when I thought the triangle was the Triforce from Zelda. It's not...

Number two is George Bernard Shaw. Somebody likes being the center of attention. He must have a affinity towards the theatrical.

Other than the Autograph Tree, Coole is mainly just filled with walks and nature, which was nice and peaceful. We had a good time exploring and munching our pastries and chocolate overlooking some lovely views. These were the same views that Yeats and J.M. Synge both took in to help inspire their writing. Both these famous writers and Katie and I had accomplished some serious work at this location. For Yeats and Synge, it was great and historically monumental literature. For Katie and I, it was digestion.

Don't go towards the light!

English nerds unite!

How many Katie's does it take to make a picture creepy? Clearly, just one.

Once we were done chilling at Coole, (ha!), we had lunch, took the bus back, then I had class. I haven't really told you, readers, too much about my academic life here at NUIG, and I'm not sure if I will. Maybe if I get around to it. Anywho, after class Big Bean and I met up to catch a flick.

Katie was all about seeing "The Vow" when she was here since the only way she could see it in France would be dubbed over with French voices, which I'm sure is pretty irritating. I wasn't crazy about seeing it because I'm not a big fan of Channing Tatum.  I know, all of the girls reading this must have just gasped. I just think his intelligence level is about, hmm, how to put this? You know that movie Good Will Hunting where Matt Damon is a genius, and he solves that really hard math problem on the whiteboard even though he's the janitor.  Then, he goes to counseling with Robin Williams, and they think deep, smart thoughts with each other? Channing Tatum is the intelligence level of the chair that Matt Damon was sitting on. Plus, I didn't really think he could pull off "ghetto" in Step Up. I would know.

There he is! Bottom right!
Photo courtesy of http://southbourneluis.blogspot.com/2011/05/good-will-hunting_23.html

There were other perks in seeing it though:

1. It made Katie happy.
2. I like Rachel McAdams. Who doesn't like Regina George? After all, one time she punched me in the face...It was awesome.
3. The movie theater is right by this falafel place that I totally dig. It's called "Chip Inn." Oh, puns.

Overall, I probably wouldn't see it again, but it was okay, because after the movie we got to take advantage of perk number 3. It's a little strange that the first place I've ever had falafel was in Ireland, but I'm going to go with it. Now, I'm completely addicted. Every possible chance I get I head to Chip Inn. The guy who works there is starting to recognize and know me. The other day he gave me a free soda, probably because my purchases probably paid his rent for the month.

Ground and fried chickpeas laced with delicious spices and an imperceptible amount of cocaine.
Photo courtesy of http://suzyeats.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/falafel.jpg

The next day I had a complete blast hanging out with my dynamite big sis, but I'm going to leave out the details because it mostly involved shopping, exploring Galway, and feasting. I will mention one thing about the day, though. It was Pancake Tuesday, so that was wonderful/the best day of the year. I thought it might be similar to when IHOP does its free pancake deal, but Galway was way more impressive. Every restaurant that day had a sign out advertising pancakes, even if they specialized in something like seafood. My Irish roommate actually had a friend over and were making pancakes, something she has never done before. Pancake Tuesday was taken as seriously as a heart attack, which was definitely a possibility.

Sadly, the next day Katie had to leave me to go off to do bigger and better things. She'll be back, though. She always is. She's like a barnacle.