Irish Lessons

Dia duit! That's how you say hello in Irish. Actually, I think it's more literally translated as "God with you", maybe? Irish seems like it's a very poetic language, rather than literal, when it comes to what its phrases actually mean. In any case, I started my Irish lessons today and I really like it. I mean, I've only learned to say really basic things so far, like go raibh maith agat (thank you). And it's more about speaking than reading and writing so it's kind of weird to try to spell things out, but I'm sure we'll do a little of everything. I think it's really cool to say things in Irish. There's a whole building on campus that's not bilingual, everyone speaks in only Irish all the time and all the signs and stuff are in Irish. So neat. Also my friend Charles from Sailing club is in the class, which is pretty cool. We hung out with sailing club last night at the meeting, although they were mostly talking about the trip this weekend that I'm not going on. I felt a little bummed out because it sounds like the trip is gonna be awesome, but I'm still psyched about going to Cork this weekend and there are other sailing trips. My friend Dierdre is already getting me hyped up about the trip for regionals in March. I guess it's like the biggest sailing competition and all the sailing teams from all of Ireland compete and some guys come up from Scotland too! So I'm already planning on that

Also, I don't mean to rub it in to my friends back in Buffalo, but it's really starting to feel like Spring here. I mean, it's definitely not super warm yet or anything, it's still more or less winter coat weather. But it feels like life is starting to come back to this country. Like, when we first got here, when it rained (which it is wont to do), it was still cold enough that the rain was really unwelcome and uncomfortable. And now, it's not like the rain is ~warm~, but it feels more... hydrating. Like it's nourishing the ground. And it smells like Spring, it smells like... life. I guess I'm not too surprised because here they celebrate the beginning of Spring on 1 February, which is coming up. But I'm really glad because the days were awfully short when I first got here and they're already starting to get longer.

Anyway, we're trying to cook chicken goujons in crappy Niland House stove.