Playtime!

If you read my last blog post, you know a good deal about what I've been doing here in the rural farmlands of Western Ireland. It's often hard work, long hours, and fairly early bedtimes. But lest you think that all work and no play makes Jake a dull boy, my travel-mates and I have still been managing to have ourselves a grand old time here, trying to squeeze as much juice from the pulp of Irish culture as we can. After all, we didn't just come here to work, we came here to have the most awesomely fun time of our life!

Unfortunately, the local Sheep-Shearing Festival was too far away, and Bog Week was happening during our work schedule. We did hear on the radio that last year's sheep-shearing champion was planning to attempt to shear 800 sheep that weekend, and we wish him the best of luck on that endeavor (those famous Irish woolen sweaters don't grow on trees, you know).

Despite our despondency over missing these two epic events, we spent the first two weekends hanging out in downtown Galway to try to explore the best of what the city had to offer. The first stop, of course, is the outdoor market where our host Flo works in his falafel stall. It must be said that as humble as it may sound, Flo has operated his stall in countless festivals and catered events and has easily the most professional-looking cart in the market.

After getting our complimentary falafel sandwiches with our WWOOFer's discount, we head further into the market, which is populated by all sorts of interesting folks and friends. There's Mick, who runs a creperie and has in his past starred as the "evil white guy villain" in several low-budget Japanese action flicks. There's also Daniel, who is originally a New York Jew, but after 10 years of living at sea among Irish fisherman and another 10 years of living in Galway selling freshly made donuts in the market, and recently adopting an injured wild crow as a pet, there seems to be very little of the N'Yawker left in him. We love Daniel, first of all because he's endlessly friendly and entertaining, regaling us with his life stories I probably shouldn't submit into the public forum. He's also let us sleep over at his house a few times after late nights in town when our ears are blown out from too much live music and our coordination is off from too much Guinness.

One such night was during Galway's Latin Street Party. Apparently, to the surprise of us WWOOFers and even several locals, Galway has a Latin Quarter, and it's big enough to warrant its own cultural festival. This was no cheap pinatas and mariachi band festival either. This was three days and nights of music, salsa dancing, street performers, some of the most terrifying clowns I've ever seen, and Cuban Rum specials at every pub in the area.

As far as I was concerned, however, the highlight of this festival was a pub hosting Australian Pearl Jam, a tribute band that is, as the singer said, "Not Australian and not Pearl Jam." This wasn't just some kitschy throwback party celebrating a 20-year-old band either. Co-WWOOFer Amanda and I entered the pub to the sight of a hundred plaid-clad Irishfolk belting along to the songs and partying like it was 1991, and we happily joined the fray (easy enough for me, I knew all the words and I am almost always wearing a plaid shirt and jeans anyway). As the concert let out, and we worried that the night had hit its peak, Amanda and I went bar-hopping for a little while, trying to see what other fun we could conjure up before retiring. Our travels landed us in The Western Hotel bar, which, at shortly after midnight, is populated entirely by drunken Irish out-of-towners of the AARP-age variety. One particularly indecipherable old man came up to Amanda and I at the bar and asked us, or rather, asked Amanda, "Scooze meh, ung layd, woz ur nemme? Yoo frm roond her? Her ya liiike de pless?" The conversation went on in that manner for a few minutes, and when the tired musician in the corner - warbling out of tune to country songs lazily strummed on his guitar - picked up the tempo, Amanda was escorted to dance by her new gentleman friend. I sat back smugly and watched this happen for a song, but as the next song began, and Amanda was twirled in my direction, she snarled at me "Finishyourdrinkandlet'sgo!" before being pulled back onto the dance floor by her old and drunken lothario. The night was officially over.

There are plenty of good discoveries I've made just wandering around Galway, like kayak-water-polo matches on the river, or the plethora of random buskers. But after a couple weeks, we were feeling stir-crazy and decided to head to Cork for the weekend and see the Street Performers World Championship we had read about in the paper. Every year, in several Irish cities, the SPWC is organized and famed performers of every kind from all over the world are invited to come in and perform for thousands of people, who will in turn hopefully throw a few euro into their hat at the end of the show. We saw quite a few acts, among them beat-boxers, illusionists, acrobats, pogo-stickers, flaming teacup-balancers, weight-lifting midgets, and at least half a dozen people juggling flaming torches on unicycles insisting that what they were about to do is "one of the most astonishing and dangerous tricks you've ever witnessed." (I'm not about to discount how hard it is to balance on a single wheel and juggle fire, but with the number of people there doing it, it goes from impressive to downright tedious and predictable - "Come on, try juggling chainsaws, ya pansy!")

Among the events was also planned an attempt to break the world record for the most people gathered in one place dressed as Waldo of Where's Waldo fame (Wally, as he's known here in the UK), because apparently the World must be starting to run out of useful world records to break. Nevertheless, for 12 quid, with the proceeds going to the Africa Aware charity, thousands of people bought their official Wally costumes and shortly thereafter became very confused, since the newspaper said the event was at noon, the organizers said it was at 6, and radio said it was being canceled for rain. The result was the city of Cork being overrun that Sunday by hordes of damp, frustrated, and very easily spotted Wallys. Eventually, the misinformation was sorted out, the rain ceased, and two-and-a-half thousand of us descended on the public park for our picture to be taken. We did end up breaking the world record, and keeping our title for a full week until the SPWC and the record-breaker organizers held the same event the following weekend in the bigger and less rainy city of Dublin, where our record was shattered by nearly 1000 souls. But now, if nothing else, I have my next Halloween, Purim, and any uneventful Sunday's costumes sorted out.

After spending a month with hardly any good long solo time, I decided to take a vacation and spent last weekend on the Aran Islands, which Flo told me was the one place I must see before I left Western Ireland. I took a ferry out to the largest island, Inis Mor and got myself an overnight hostel room and a bike. The island landscape is basically an amalgamation of most of the Irish postcards you've ever seen. It's nine miles long by two across, with two main roads going up and down the length of the island. Those roads tend to be crowded by speeding tour buses, and offer a fairly restricted view of the landscape. Once on the smaller, unpaved roads, I found myself biking through endless grids of stone walls dividing the pasture lands between different farmers' fields. Cows and sheep grazed everywhere in the electric green pastures, and dotted among the new modern homes were the remains of old stone cottages and churches where the thatched roofs had long ago rotted to nothing, offering a view inside of the old fireplaces now filled with grass and thistles. On top of one of the hills is what claims to be the World's smallest church (more dubious world records) built centuries ago in memory of one of St. Patrick's disciples. Elsewhere is the island's main attraction, an ancient stone fort built right up to the edge of the cliffs which look like God had taken a chisel and split a mountain cleanly in half so that there was a straight drop from the top where we were and the bottom where the waves were smashing against the side. Since this isn't America, the Land of Liability Litigation, there was no fence or protection from the cliff edge, save a couple guards stationed way off to the side, so just about every visitor who came was able to force themselves to work up the courage to crawl up to the cliff edge and look into the abyss, over 300 feet straight down.

This weekend is taking us back the joys of simple country life. Thursday night was a bonfire for St. John's Day, where Flo and I lamented together the burning of tons of perfectly good free firewood - a bit of a scarcity in Ireland. Sunday will be what is the local Irish equivalent to the 4H Club festivals or county fairs held in the States. There will be livestock and horse competitions, vegetable judging, and probably more country fun than you can shake a stick at. It's all part of the fun, here in cloudy, wet, and lovely Ireland.