Craic Is Wack

Allow me to sincerely apologize for the tardiness of this post, but I have been consumed with school.  I know, I know.  I'm in Ireland doing homework?  I must be crazy!  But the classes here require much more self-discipline.  There are no tests along the way.  You have one big paper or exam at the end of the semester and that is your grade.  So in the midst of all the fun, I've had to force myself to sit down and read my assignments.




Besides schoolwork, I've been busy going to ultimate Frisbee practices.  We won our very first match on Thursday!  I am not very good but I am proud to say that I assisted scoring one of our points!  I also signed up for archery club so that I could live out my childhood Lord of the Rings fantasy but I have yet to hear about practices.  Sad day.  There is also MUCK club!  It's for kayaking and canoeing down rivers in Ireland.  Unfortunately the trips are on weekends so I don't if I'll be able to go on any since I really want to use my weekends for traveling abroad.


I must say that I am truly surprised by the amount of American things I see around Ireland.  Everyone here wears Abercrombie, Aeropostale, Hollister, or a combination of all three.  I have yet to watch one Irish television show.  My roommates mostly watch MTV.  And most importantly, they can understand my accent and all of my American slang but I still have to ask them to repeat themselves more slowly or to translate what they just said.  For example, my roommate needed a plaster for her thumb.  What is a plaster you ask?  Excellent question!  A plaster is a band aid.  I have developed quite the Irish dictionary over here.  The worst, yet funniest, case of me not understanding went a little something like this...
My roommate: "How's the craic?"
Me: "Did you just ask me my opinion on the quality of the crack?!?
My roommate: "Yes."
Me: "Why are you asking me about drugs?"
My roommate was not able to reply because she was too consumed with laughter.  My mistake was that my roommate asked about craic not crack.  I can only describe craic as another word for fun, but it's a little more complicated than that.  My roommates always describe a night out as "wild craic" and when they talk to their friends they ask what the craic is at a certain pub or apartment.  I am still learning and all my Irish friends take extreme delight in my naivety and funny way of pronouncing things.

But on to other subjects!  Last weekend I went on an overnight trip to Killarney with all the SMC girls.  We left on Friday afternoon and got there that night.  I roomed with three of the girls in a cute little B&B called Earls Court.  Our room had a huge canopy bed and some single beds, so we pushed them all together to create one giant bed and had a magnificent slumber party.  The next day we all go onto the bus and drove around the Ring of Kerry.  It was gorgeous!  We had cloudy but otherwise great weather for the first half of the day which was lucky since we picnicked on the beach.  I walked out on one of the masses of small boulders that reached far out into the water and I had to be careful not to crush any of the snails or other shelled creatures that absolutely covered the rocks.  Unfortunately the weather did not hold and so we missed seeing the most beautiful view of the Ring of Kerry (Queen Victoria traveled to Kerry specifically to see this view so it is named after her).

On our journey around the Ring we made several stops.  The first was at the Golden Mile.  We got to walk part of the path of the old railroad that passed through.  We saw cut little huts and a small waterfall too!

Our second stop was Derrynane House, the vacation home of Daniel O'Connell.  O'Connell wan an Irish politician who was successful in fighting to allow Catholics to sit in the UK's Parliament back in the 1800's.  He also fought to repeal the Act of Union which combined Great Britain and Ireland.  He wanted to bring about these changes through the government instead of revolting against the government. I'll probably be learning more about him next semester when I take a course on Irish history.

Our last stop around the Ring of Kerry was the Staigue Fort.  It was the home of some rich chieftan back in 300 or 400 AD.  It is one of the largest stone forts in Ireland and it was built entirely without mortar.  In other words, the stones are simply piled on top of each other so there really isn't anything but friction holding them together.  I'm glad that I was told this after I climbed it and skipped around the top!

There is tiny Mouse Island in the middle.

On our way back to the B&B there was some sort of semi-truck rally going on, so we had to pull over as exactly 49 semis drove past us honking their horns!


























Our last day in Kerry consisted of a horse and buggy ride through the Killarney National Park (home of Ireland's only native herd of red deer) and a boat tour around Muckross Lake.  That day there happened to be about 50 fishermen out on the lake, but all the ones I talked to said they hadn't caught anything.  I think our large boat passing through may have had something to do with their bad luck!  All in all it was an gorgeous trip!