The Greenery vividly contrasts with slate-gray clouds

So not to freak anyone out or make anyone feel like I’ve changed a lot or anything, but I’m receiving different moods and feelings here than I’ve felt before. I just came back to my cramped bedroom at the Niland House and it smells interesting here. It’s not a bad smell, and it’s not good. It’s just weird. If you want to call Europe and Ireland in general by a name that everyone can understand, it would be “weird but interesting”. I realize that’s really not a word but instead a three-word phrase, but hey, anything goes over here. I never really listen to Ben Folds, but the first song I click on today was “Philosophy”, by his Five. Great song, I’m just beginning to understand his genius. Mmm, Guinness. Such a wonderful thing. There’s 2 things I love about Ireland. Flying into Shannon and finally realizing everyone was right about this place. You really do see sheep and stone walls and bright green grass that vividly contrasts with the slate gray clouds that cover most of the country. I watched the news last night, and the weather map made me laugh- you couldn’t see the country for the clouds.

Also last night, I witnessed Irish music for the second time. Which brings me to the second thing I love, their pubs and the things they do while drinking. The first time was at a pub called The King’s Head, which during my visit I really liked. Looks small from the street, but opens out into what you could call a super pub. 3 levels, many bars, a stage with a cover band playing American Idiot and The Killers and Franz Ferdinand. Pretty kick ass for a top 40 cover band. At least they didn’t play Usher or Jessica Simpson.

But last night was better. I was going out to Dunnes Store around the corner to get some Coca-Cola. I was getting cash from my bedroom and I hear Greg Jackson at the door. My roommate Kevin Mcgarrity was talking to him, thinking I had already left for the store. I came out of my room with my Marmot raincoat on, ready to go to Dunnes Store. I walked with Greg and the people he was with, just to figure out how to get to campus. They were going to karaoke at College Bar, which is in the student union at NUI-Galway. I ended up walking the whole way with them. How could I not? I would’ve passed up a night of listening to shrieking American college kids that were pretending to be singing. Pretty annoying. We laughed at them though, and mingled once we had a few Smithwick’s in us. Met a kid from USC, we met her in the London airport. It’s cool to make friends along the voyage and run into them at the destination. This one girl Carrie is pretty much traveling alone and felt very welcomed by us Marquette people. I saw a kid from Philly that was on the bus from Shannon to Galway with us. He ended up singing Grease or some stupid song with some girl, that was hilarious because she was doing all the singing- he was either whispering or too drunk to do so. We joked with a bouncer who had been standing near the bar when we left. Greg had noticed how mean this dude looked. I agreed, and said his jaw was probably made out of steel. Naturally, we decided not to mess with him . He was at the door on the way out, and was actually friendly and hilarious like the rest of the Irish. He made fun of us and said we were probably going to GPO, the club that was giving out free cover tickets during Karaoke. We felt pretty cool when we told him we were really going to a truly Irish bar with a Galway resident. His name is Wes.

I have a couple pics of his house, but most of it is unfit to photograph. I wish I had gotten one of the Gremlin that supposedly lives in the filthy bathroom I stopped in. According to Wes, he’s a Gremlin of a creature, probably smoking cigars. Just whap him on the head, no don’t slap him, just give him a little bonk on the head like this, yeah mate don’t mind the bugger.

Cool poetry on the wall, a few random people in and out. Street performers stop in and live on and off here. They are all musicians and there’s actually a pretty nice recording studio upstairs. Two guys in there with a drum set, an iMac and a closet FULL of guitars and mandolins. I asked Wes if they spend a lot of time recording- their beer cans and dirty dishes spoke of days devoted to a sacred recording. Yeah they spend their days and nights in that room, he said. I can tell, wow, I’ve gotta hear some of their music. Whatever they had playing when we walked in was very cool. Sort of a tribal drumbeat with some whistles and piano and such. I’m not sure if it was them, but you’ve got to love original, organic Irish music created right in front of your ears and eyes. Nice guys, too. Next room over, the guy who Wes used to work at Dominoe’s with, playing PS2. He’s got some long dreads, some of them red and blue and green under a rastafari stitched hat. Lots of psychedelic tapestries, posters, incense, probably some drugs in there somewhere but that's just an assumption. Good vibes all around and a real nice guy.

The first night we got in to Galway, we didn’t know left from right or Eyre Square from Fibber McGee’s. Wes took us to see this guy, I still haven’t caught his name (I’ve heard Wes speak the name but have yet to decipher most of this guy’s words), who is now in this stoner room. They got us a free pizza, which earned Wes angel status in the eyes of most of the girls, and nomadic hero status in my mind. I’m glad we got to meet up with him last night. Helped carry luggage to Niland House, which is on the South part of town. Town is pretty much 6 blocks square, at least the downtown part. The colorful part, where you can see street musicians playing guitar and fiddle, or sitting under a curly-lettered sign for a pub playing his pennywhistle. Where you hear dialects and languages, see people from all over Europe and try to figure out this town. Many electronic shops, DVDs, CDs, lots of clothes, jewelry, perfume. There’s an Amnesty International store that sells clothes and is sort of a gift shop. I have to check that out, it’s all fair trade and benefits Amnesty. There another fair trade store across the street. I’m liking the social justice concerns here, the dreadlocks, the music, even the inefficiency that pervades this country- at times. At other times the slow pace seems so ridiculous and a complete waste of time. But I am just soaking it all in and attempting to live as they do. When in Rome…

Then Wes took us to a pub across the street, which seemed so far away from our temporary home on Merchant’s Road. Turns out it really isn’t so far when Europe is facing the sun and the Guinness buzz has subsided. The place is called Roisin Dubh, sort of like the Quest or First Avenue or the Cabooze if you’re from Minneapolis. Sort of the Rave – not the basement though. But, this place made us the only Americans in almost a mile I’d say. Cool Irish band playing, Wes didn’t like them too much. The lead singer kept bringing out a tamborine and a cow bell, and just going crazy on them. They sounded kind of like Franz Ferdinand, but that could be just because I had a Guinness in hand and another in me and had seen the cover band at King’s Head the night before play “Take Me Out” perfectly exactly properly like the amazing original song. I talked to the drummer of this band called the Ghostwood Project, which he compared to a jamband when I mentioned it. He seemed to agree that his music was somewhat in the experimental style of Pink Floyd or the Grateful Dead. He seemed to think jamband was an appropriate American term for his music. He's on MySpace. It’s www.myspace.com/theghostwoodproject. Who knows if I’ll make it back to that place on 2 February for his gig. Their sticker poster thing was on the wall, that bar seems to like his band and I’m thinking they’re probably good. They seem to be a little in the vein of Tool or some prog metal band. Pretty good stuff, not my cup of coffee but still good music.

We took a cab home, which was better than jamming in Wes’ Domino’s delivery mini car with barely enough room for 5 of us. I was under the back hatch, holding cardboard boxes that got smashed when the door slammed down. I’m glad that wasn’t my hand or anything. Three of us back there, me and Greg and the girl from USC. It was probably so funny to watch us try to get out. Wes gave us all a hand and lifted us out. What a good guy, this Wes character. Perfectly Irish, with sayings like "fantastical, lad" and "I'll be there in 2 shakes of a lamb’s tail" and "take it easy and if you don’t, then take it easy twice". He speaks so fast and so colloquially, though he’s been all over Europe and even lived in San Francisco for a year. Worked at Dominoes for years and says he can show up and work whenever he wants- he knows everyone in there and lives with the playstation guy. He got us a free pizza with everything on it- by that I’m referring to the American deluxe pizza plus pineapple, ham, Corn, yeah, corn, and some other meat.

Then I came back home and went and called the girl I miss so much. I spent all the Euros in my pocket and wished I had more to spend so I could hear the voice that I hear in my head all day here. I miss you Em and I love you more than ever and always will. You are so good to me. And I called my parents, I miss them a lot too. Then I called it a night, but not before I wandered the emptying streets of Galway with my camera in pocket, avoiding too much rain on the lens. I must have been cold, or the camera’s silver surface was flooded with this constant rain. The pictures are all blurry, my hands were shaking with the damp cold and my heart waiting coldy patient but burning continuously with my love for a lovely girl back home until the next time I talk to my love. I miss her so much. I miss home, and everything about it and about my love. But I also am really enjoying all of this. I do not regret coming here, I just regret not bringing my lovely girlfriend with me to share all of the beauty and grit and narrow cobblestone streets of Galway. And the voices here that speak of “ringing” someone on the phone. I can’t wait to ring you on the Nokia I just bought at Eyre Square, the mall right off of Eyre Square.