Lost in Translation

I've made that rookie blogger error of letting the adventures pile up and neglecting the posts. I promise to backtrack and rectify that over the next few days (albeit with photographs and vaguely connected poorly punctuated pseudo-sentences) but in the meantime, you'll never bloody guess what happened tonight.

I got locked out of my bedroom.

A Spotters Guide to Irish People in Berkeley

The road always rises to meet us, the sun is always at our backs, and no matter where you go you'll always find us. Like Davina McCall and Candy Crush Saga, we're fucking everywhere. Here's how you spot the Irish people in Berkeley:

Uniform
In contrast to the Berkeley uniforms of grimy tie-dyed tshirt and dungarees for the hippies, safety-pin adorned army surplus for the hobos, and shiny Cal branded gear for the undergrads, the Irish stubbornly cling to their county colours. I mean really. Must we? It's such a stereotype it's positively painful. I did see one girl today in a basketball shirt (very American) in our national green. Where on earth did she pick that up? Skymall? Go home and change love. You're embarrassing yourself.

Skin Tone
Red and blotchy. Your skin will not adapt to the sun. Your burn will not turn to tan. You are quite simply not built that way. Can't figure out why you're sweating so much? It's because you're on fire, dumbass. Put on some damn sunscreen. You're killing yourself, and you look ill.

Modesty
Honestly, it's not that hot. It was 19 degrees today: jeans and a jacket weather. Put your fucking shirt back on. Or, if you must walk around like that, do the rest of us a favour and spend a month in the gym first. A solid month. A simple rule of thumb is: if you wouldn't walk around Ballyhaunis like that, do not subject the good people of Berkeley to it.

Chemical Makeup
Me: My heel really hurts. I walked around 10 miles yesterday in flip flops. Should I just keep taking ibuprofen or is there something else you'd recommend? I'm quite sure its bruised. I've had that happen before from running.
Pharmacist: Oh my God! Are you Irish?
Me: Um, yes. So, ibuprofen? Or Arnica? Or...
Pharmacist: We've had a lot of Irish people in here lately. They all have... Well, never mind. Confidentiality and all that.
Me: Hangovers. They have hangovers. So, about my heel?
Pharmacist: Ten miles in flipflops eh? *jolly laugh* Sounds like what you need is a time machine!
Me: I'm just going to keep taking the ibuprofen then. Thanks though. You've been real helpful.

Stature
There is something inate about the way we as a nation carry ourselves. Maybe it's from all the rain, or maybe we're still upset about the famine, but the Irish generally hunch their shoulders just a hint more than the Americans. Our strides are just a tiny bit more shuffly: perhaps a vestige of learning to walk in wellies. And we tend to peek furtively from under our brows as though the elastic has gone in the back of an invisible cap that keeps slipping down. Its all barely perciptible but combined you can pick out the Irish kid from behind at 50 yards. Americans greet the world head on with a big toothy smile. Except the meth addicts. They have the shoulder hunch and the shuffle and the brow glare. And the famine. Maybe this one should be filed under chemical makeup too. Do meth addicts get hangovers?

Pack Instinct
I was setting up a bank account yesterday and my Personal Banking Representative used numerous variations of the term "pack" in the course of our short conversation to refer to the estimated 15,000 other Irish people in Berkeley. Examples include:

• You're at the tail end of the pack.
• Most of them arrived last week.
• The rest of them were on J1s.
• It's so convenient that you have a US passport. I had to fill in like 3 pages of extra paperwork for the others.
• All the beer will be gone.

We do tend to stick together. I've never understood this custom of flying to the other side of the planet to submerge oneself in the specific aspects of another culture that most closely resemble or outright mimic ones own. I knew a girl in college who had spent the previous summer in whatever medium-sized American city was cool then (the Berkeley of yesteryear) and had "scored an Irish person every night". A different one. Every night. She essentially spent €1,500 on a one-way ticket to Coppers. Can someone please explain this to me?

The mbanker also reminded me that Americans tend to swear less casually than the Irish. I dropped an F-bomb when my desired username had already being taken.

Here's an unrelated photo of some graffiti I saw yesterday.

The German Guide to San Francisco

As predicted, I have landed on my feet.

After an only moderately unpredictable flight I landed in my new place in Berkeley and was introduced to the other guests. They asked if I wanted to come to dinner. I did. My only stipulation was that dinner included alcohol. It did.

Source: berkeleybowl.com

Lolly is a Canadian girl who likes rock climbing and beer and generally does not require assistance getting up or down from large things. She is funny, friendly, kind, and altogether very Canadian. She was just as overwhelmed by the Berkeley Bowl as I was. Dan is exceedingly German, impressed by German things, likes a good German car, is an engineer (a German engineer) and has a virtually encyclopaedic knowledge of the extensive Bay Area Transit System (not just the BART, but the MUNI, the MANI, and the PEDI to boot) as well as its notable buildings, hiking trails, and why horizontal storage vending machines are superior to the type that store your drink upright. While he is delightful, he is more notably the most extraordinarily helpful person I have ever met. All visiting scholars ought to be assigned one.

Hossenfeffer V

What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

To the Moycullen Market and Beyond!

The Friday market in Moycullen is the happy home of Level 7+ Hippies, local farmers, continental crafties and foodies... and occasionally escaped students from NUI, Galway. I've attempted to blog on this before but my photographer let me down a bomb  and has just now forwarded the photos from our last Moycullen Market adventure. Thus I am rolling this into a super post incorporating two market trips, and an adventure extension.


The market runs every Friday at An Fuaran from 1 to 7. You can find them on Facebook, here. I suggest skipping lunch, because when you step out of the car the assault on your senses will make your knees weaken along with your resolve, and you WILL have a second meal. If you manage to make it past the sausage guy - who generously gave my hungry looking friend Jos a twofer (that's TWO sausages per roll) - you can choose from sushi (melt in your mouth - the crab rolls are sheer perfection), an Indian stall which also sells freshly mixed spice packs (I went back for second helpings of onion and vegetable bhaji) and for dessert Dutch Poffertjes which are teeny tiny pancakes. The jolly lady who runs this stall will helpfully advise you not to split your Poffertjes with a friend. Listen to her, she knows what she's talking about. If you're feeling fancy take a seat, and enjoy a plate of oysters and a glass of wine for mere pocket change.

Start a Feud

I have a bit of a feud going with Starbucks.

Our relationship bloomed when I came back to NUIG in September and started studying again. Now I LOVE Starbucks. They are not so plentiful in Ireland, but I buy their beans whenever I find myself in their stores in Belfast or Dublin. I favour their frappucinos over ice-cream when I'm in the US. I have one of their (Product)RED brand travel cups that allows me to feel simultaneously caffeinated, socially and environmentally responsible. I bought it last summer while driving from Philadelphia to North Carolina with the Shafis. Its so water-tight and idiot proof that I don't need to stir in my milk and sugar, I just put the lid on and shake it; martini style.

The first time I visited the NUIG Starbucks and ordered my usual - good old fashioned filter coffee - the girl looked at the bottom of my beloved red travel mug for some sort of indication of what sized vessel I had presented her with. Seeing nothing, she filled it up, charged me €1.40 and conspiratorially told me to ask for a small whenever I come, because its just filter coffee and therefore not much more complicated than water, and the mug is not much bigger than a small anyway and they didn't have to give me a disposable cup every time and we just agreed that this was the best for everyone. I thanked her, and went on my way. That was the last time I saw her. Bless her cotton socks.

Pecha Kucha

Last night we went to Pecha Kucha in Kellys Bar. Pecha Kucha is a fun informal presentation of 20 slides that each last for 20 seconds. It is not to be confused with Machu Picchu which is a fifteenth century Inca site in the Andes.

This was the 2nd Pecha Kucha night in Galway and it was quite a crowded room. If it continues to be this successful they will definitely need a bigger space.

Because you can present on absolutely anything some people did comedic presentations, some presented their art, some presented a political agenda and two people showed photos of their recent travels. Its amazing how much less boring looking at peoples travel photos can be when they only have 20 seconds to talk about each one.

One guy gave advice on how to approach a DJ. Another guy presented the best and worst of housemates. Two ladies presented photography as the capture of a moment, one through fashion the other through landscape and body art. One of my favourites was a presentation on creative space in Galway. The girl presented her ideal layout of Galway city in 2040, which had several free creative spaces. She got a loud cheer from the crowd for converting the Bank of Ireland building into a music school.

The next Galway Pecha Kucha is in May. I am considering presentations on the following:

• 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which I link myself to Kevin Bacon and other celebrities in 6 steps or less.
• The best and worst of haircuts.
• How much does a book cost? (Read: How long is a piece of string?)
• This blog... pending more posts, obviously.