Forever a Galway Girl

Today is officially my last day in Ireland. It is such a bittersweet feeling. I am so excited to be going back home to my family, my friends, and my dog. But, I am also so sad to leave this beautiful place that has been my home for the last 4 months. So before I go I wanted to give you 10 pieces of advice about the magical land of the leprechauns.

1.      Galway is the best city on Earth. Yeah sure, I may be a bit biased just as everyone is who studies abroad in a different country; but out of every city I have visited in my travels around Europe, Galway is still number one. I feel safe here; I can walk down the street any part of the day and know that I won’t encounter any harm. I also won’t ever get lost on those walks because the city itself is so quaint and yet is the third largest in Ireland. Shop Street is so cute with its cobblestone road, little shops, and old Irish pubs. And of course, the people here are so incredibly nice.

2.      You aren’t going to see every castle in Ireland; there are hundreds of them. I can remember driving down the road with my parents when they came to visit and being out in the middle of farmlands and we drove by at least three ruins of castles. Along the motorway between Galway and Dublin, the M6, you pass by two of them just out in the middle of fields. They are everywhere! Of course the best ones to go to are the ones that have been restored such as Bunratty, Ross, and Blarney, but there’s something so hauntingly beautiful about the ruined castle towers also. It is incredible that these stone structures are still standing after hundreds of years and without any residents. They have stood the test of time and although you won’t see them all, you can’t come to Ireland and not see any!

3.      To shift is not to move side to side and crack is not an action but rather a thing; and not a negative thing. The Irish have their own lingo, sayings and expressions and some of it is so fun to say. To shift actually means to kiss someone and crack is actually spelled craic and loosely means fun. I don’t know where the term shift came from but craic is actually an Irish Gaelic word and they use it A LOT. “Where’s the craic?” “What’s the craic?” “Oh it was good craic.” Trust me, they’re just talking about having fun. College students don’t ask if you’re going to class, but rather “are you off to college?” And to say hello and thanks it’s “hiyya” and “thanks a million”.

4.      Saturday and Sunday are donut days at the market! Boychick’s donuts are the most delicious pieces of fluffy fried dough your taste buds will ever try. Every Saturday and Sunday by St. Nicholas’s church off Shop Street is the market. There are crafts, jewelry, fresh produce, sweets, and oh yes there are donuts. And Boychick looks like the typical Irish man with the white shirt under a button down, knee length pants with high socks and dress shoes, and the flat cap with a little pompom on top. He even has a gold tooth! He will talk to you while he makes your donut fresh right in front of you or he will hum a classic Irish tune. And best part of all the donut is only 80 cents! Great for a college budget! So go get your donut , walk down Shop Street and listen to all the street performers lining the cobblestone road.

5.      On the topic of food, you can’t go to Ireland without trying Garlic Cheese Fries. The Irish fast food chain is called Supermacs, but in my opinion if you really want some amazing garlic cheese fries at 3 am when the pubs close, you have to go to one of the many kebab houses around the city. These aren’t typical skewer kebabs though; these kebabs come in a pita pocket with cabbage. But anyways back to garlic cheese fries, they are a heart attack in a to-go container, but they are worth every single calorie. You get warm crunchy fries covered in a garlic sauce that is simply indescribable that is then layered in cheese that melts a bit over the top of it. Is your mouth salivating right now? Because mine is.

6.      The mumps are coming; the mumps are coming! Remember that disease that doesn’t exist anymore in America because we all get vaccinations? Well, there was an outbreak of it while I was in Galway and I was unfortunate enough to contract the illness as so many of my American friends did DESPITE the vaccinations. Well, or we all had some variation of it. Basically, I looked like a chipmunk. It was like getting my wisdom teeth out all over again; my jaw was swollen almost completely shut, I couldn’t eat anything because I just couldn’t chew, but other than that I felt totally fine! I woke up one morning looking like this and thank goodness some of my friends had already had this happen to them otherwise I would have most definitely freaked out. So along with all the positives of Galway I will throw in this one negative that will someday make a hysterical story.

7.      Time is not a real concept in Ireland. First of all, the Irish are always late; if you have a class that starts at 12:00 don’t expect your professor to show up until 12:05 at the earliest. And then, you will always be let out 10 minutes early; so when you freak out because you have class from 2:00 until 3:00 and then another one all the way across campus from 3:00 until 4:00 like I did, take a breath because not only will you have time to make it, you can make it to the bathroom and also grab yourself a cup of tea.

8.      Yes, I said tea. Coffee as we know it does not exist in all of Europe. There are lattes and cappuccinos everywhere but unless you see filtered coffee on the menu, don’t ask for it. They will try to give you an Americano which is espresso with water. It is NOT coffee. It tastes AWFUL, so don’t be confused. You will miss Dunkin Donuts I promise you, but hang in there; you’ll get used to the instant coffee that they sell in stores by the end of the semester.

9.      The Irish are the nicest people in the world. And I know I’m not biased on this one because I hear it from everyone. Maybe it’s the accent that makes them so charming and trustworthy, but whatever it is it works for them. Dubliners were my favorite because they are known to be witty and sarcastic and every Dubliner I met lived up to that. The bus drivers from Dublin were the best; not once did I ever get on a bus without the driver being a bit of a smart mouth and giving me a little bit of a hard time. I finally got so used to it that I could banter right back by the end of the semester. I’m smiling now just thinking of it. And those accents—you just never get sick of hearing it. I think out of everything in Ireland, the accent and the people are what I will miss the most

10.  The most important thing I learned in Galway had nothing to do with Ireland itself, but rather the experience of studying abroad. I learned how to be an individual. It sounds so cliché doesn’t it; like, of course I am an individual. But, being abroad was the first time I went on a plane by myself, it was the first time I had to cook for myself and go grocery shopping, I had to buy all the necessities like toilet paper and tooth paste that I’m so used to being provided by my parents, and I travelled to new places and even explored much of Galway by myself. I have always been a person who needs companionship or at least another person with me to go somewhere or do something. But, this semester taught me that doing things by myself isn’t the worst thing in the world; in fact, sometimes it’s better because even though I’m not sharing the experience with someone, I can run on my own time and schedule and not have to worry about anyone else besides myself. I learned a lot about myself while living in a different country. I hope to someday go back and have the chance to walk up and down Shop Street, to see the Long Walk and the Salthill Prom, and to once more taste those garlic cheese fries and Boychick’s donuts. I left a piece of my heart in that city and for that reason I will forever be a Galway Girl.

Amalfi: The Dream Place

John Steinbeck exposed the beauty of the Amalfi Coast in Italy to the tourist world when he wrote an article in 1952 in Harper’s Bazaar about the town of Positano. He most famously said, “It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone”. Positano and the Amalfi Coast are now beckoningly real to me. I spent my last abroad trip there this past weekend alongside my best friend from home whom is studying in Florence. It was a weekend of fun in the sun, but I never think Steinbeck would have predicted his article to cause as much of a boom in tourism as it has in the villages that sit on the hills of the coast.

I decided that the best and easiest way to see everything that Amalfi has to offer (as well as travel there in the most inexpensive way possible) was to try out one of the various student tour groups in Florence. It was great being able to sit back, relax, and just enjoy each of the activities that our tour group Smarttrip coordinated for us and I would totally recommend trying one out if you plan on studying in Italy. We left from Florence late on Thursday and after six hours of travelling from Florence, we finally arrived at the town of Sorrento where we would be staying for the weekend. The other benefit of using the tour group was the awesome hotel they set us up in! It was right on the cliff overlooking the ocean and we had breakfast and dinner included.

After just four hours of sleep, it was time to begin our day’s activities. We headed off for the ferry in Sorrento to take us to the island of Capri off the coast. Capri is just beautiful; it is like a massive rock that was just plopped right in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. The sides of cliffs plunge straight down through the waves and disappear for who knows how long down into the depths of the ocean. We took a boast cruise around the island to see all of the caves and caverns hidden in the rock walls, as well as the incredible houses probably owned by celebrities that sit precariously along the cliff’s edge. By far the most incredible part of Capri though is the Blue Grotto. This cave was discovered by the Romans thousands of years ago and what is so unique about it is not the cavern itself, but the color of the water inside. To get into the cave, you have to clamber into this tiny rowboat with just two other people and a native who paddles it. When you reach the cave entrance, the driver has to judge when the waves are low enough to allow the most height between the water and the top of the opening because the entrance is THAT SMALL. Then, everyone has to lie down in the boat and the driver has to pull the boat through by a rope attached to the cavern wall. With a rush of wind you enter the Blue Grotto and instantly you are dazzled. The water within the cave looks as though someone dropped millions of blue glow sticks into the bottom of it. This florescence is caused by the way in which the light enters through cave and bounces off the rocks and water underneath the surface. My friend was courageous enough to actually jump in and swim in it, but because I could not see the bottom at all I told her I’d take the pictures. The Blue Grotto is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world and it is no surprise why; it is simply mesmerizing.

Day two was spent at Steinbeck’s Positano. Positano is known as the beach town of all the villages because of its Black Sand Beach. We spent the day relaxing in the sun and swimming in the still chilly waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The houses that dot the side of the cliff are an array of sizes and colors and you can truly see what Steinbeck was talking about in his article. The town itself is made up of a few small streets for pedestrians only and there are plenty of shops, restaurants, and gelato stores for everyone. There is one road in and one road out of the village and you will sit in some traffic during tourist season in order to get to the beach. I had the most amazing lunch at a place called Capricci and found out that I love gnocchi with pesto. We did some shopping at the ceramic stores which are plentiful along the streets, and ended the afternoon with a gelato on the steps to the beach overlooking the sea.

Our final day was not actually spent in Amalfi, but at a town without any inhabitants but plenty of visitors. Pompeii was jaw dropping. I have of course heard of the town that met its deadly fate in 79 A.D. with the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, but seeing it in person was both incredible and unnerving. Walking through the streets, first I was amazed at how well preserved the ruins are, and then I was equally amazed at the size of the village. I couldn’t believe that these ruins were still standing after both the eruption of a volcano and a time span of nearly 2000 years. It was impossible to fathom just how terrifying the eruption must have been; it must have seemed as if the world was ending. The town was layered in residue and soot, and the sky covered by the cloud of ash sent up by the eruption. And after all these years, we can still visit and see the buildings that once stood in the thriving town. Along with the buildings we saw the preserved forms of the bodies of humans and a dog that were imprinted through the years in the ground. It was chilling.

After seeing Pompeii, we then ventured to the cause of its ultimate demise. I can now say that have I hiked up Europe’s most dangerous volcano. Since 79 A.D., Vesuvius has erupted 8 times, the most recent in 1944. It is also the most densely populated volcanic region due to its close proximity to the city of Naples as well as smaller towns with a total of 3,000,000 people living miles from its base. These are the reasons for it being considered the most dangerous volcano and Europe. Today, it is closely monitored and for this reason it is visited by tourists all around the world. Reaching the top and looking down into the crater, it is incredible to imagine that this mound of earth without any visible lava or smoke has killed thousands of people. But, standing there at the top I could see for miles all of Naples, the coast, and out to the Mediterranean Sea. In that moment, looking out over the Italian coast during my last abroad excursion, I could only think about how lucky I was to be standing there at the top of a volcano, in Italy, studying abroad, living in Ireland, and having had all these incredible experiences. My abroad experience is the dream place that Steinbeck wrote of. It hasn’t seemed to be quite real this entire time I have been here; but now that I am coming to the beginning of the end, this experience is becoming beckoningly real and the nostalgia is hitting hard.