Brenna's Ireland: Ain't No Mountain High Enough to climb on my 21st Birthday!

"Tráthnóna maith" (TRAH-noh-nuh my) Good Afternoon in Irish!
I have been keeping busy lately and haven't even had the time to post the entry from my birthday weekend! I only had one class today, Studies in Ancient Imagination, (great class that studies Roman art and architecture and the ways they were used as propaganda to reflect their triumph and power. One of my favorite classes! That's visual culture nerd in me, good thing that is my minor!). The class was over at 1:00 or 13:00...they use military time for almost everything. I am starting to pick up on it better but it took me some time and counting on my fingers to figure it out! I decided that I would walk along the canal and find the cafe, An Tobar Nua, that has great food and hot drinks and offers free Wi-Fi internet. It was not very cold at all, but there was a slight drizzle as I walked along the canal admiring the birds, the calm flowing river and the people of Galway walking along the streets on a Tuesday afternoon. This cafe is so quaint and perfect to sit and get some work done. The Irish are so nice, as soon as I walked in from the rain I struck up a conversation with two lads asking me about the weather. One of them who obviously worked here asked me where I was from. When I told him Oregon he told me that a girl from Oregon used to work here for the semester a while ago. He asked me if I was hungry and that I should try the Tommy sandwich. Come to find out he was Tommy and he had invented it! I wasn't very hungry so I ordered the Chai Latte and found a quiet spot by the window that looked out onto the canal and the Galway streets. Enough about the day in the life of Brenna. On to the previous two weekends.

My birthday (January 16th) fell on a Sunday this year but we decided to begin the festivities on Saturday night because many of us have classes on Monday. Saturday morning we all woke up and took a trip to the market as we did the week before to get our produce and I was very excited to visit the donut man and start off my birthday weekend with a warm fresh donut. The whether was absolute rubbish! It was so bad that the wind bent my umbrella and it got jammed open. Anders tried to fix it, but warned me that it was broken and may not pop up anymore! Not all of the shops were up, and to my despair, the donut man did not want to rough the bad weather this morning. Good thing the produce men were still there. They joked that the weather wasn't bad at all, and a silly thing like rain and heavy wind wasn't going to stop them from bringing the fruit to the market. I filled my entire Dunnes bag and went to pay the man. He skimmed the bag and asked for a ridiculously cheap price for the amount of fruits and vegetable I had gotten. As I was getting out my money, he was filling up my bag with oranges I hadn't paid for. I just love the Irish! He wished me a great day and thanked me millions ( I have noticed that when the Irish say thank you, they usually add to the phrase, "Thanks a million!" Just a nice Irish touch at the end!) The rest of the day we just relaxed and I got some things done that I needed for classes.

Emily told me that I needed to be dressed and ready at 6:00pm. I took my time getting ready and decided that I would wear my green dress out! Of the only two dresses I brought, I thought my green one was more "Irish" appropriate and it is one of my favorites! My cream Audrey dress will have to wait for another occasion to be worn. At 6:00pm my friends started coming over and Emily said that I was allowed to come into the kitchen now. My roommates had surprised me with a pink 21 birthday badge and a variety of different alcohols to make some yummy 21 year old drinks. A favorite drink that the Irish told us about was the Baby Guinness. It is a shot of Kahlua and you carefully pour Bailey's to fill the top layer so it looks like a Baby Guinness, and it takes just like Nesquik, the chocolate milk drink. They got all of the things to make that and we all cheers and had a birthday shot together. Our whole Linfield group (plus Quinn, our honorary Linfielder) was there to celebrate at the apartment before dinner. Some of our other friends we had met were going to meet up with us after dinner. We went to a restaurant we were recommended called Finnegan's. It served traditional Irish food and was situated in the heart of Galway. Emily had called to make reservations and we were seated in a room all to ourselves upstairs! The ambiance in the restaurant was very traditional Irish and it was the perfect place to have my birthday dinner. Their prices were just right as well, dinner specials for only 6 euro. I asked the waitress what her favorite dinner dish was and without hesitation she told me the Crispy Chicken Goujonsboyfreinds advice and went with it. I smiled as I ordered, thinking that Daniel would be proud of my brave order! I am always so indecisive when ordering, looks like Ireland's laid back attitude is rubbing off on me! The goujons was served with golden chips (giant french fries, they call fries chips in Europe) and a garlic ranch dip. They were basically the equivalent to fancy chicken strips but way better than American style strips! (which are my absolute favorite food by the way!) Thank you to Danny for the tip...it proved to be very true!! After dinner we met up with some of our other friends at my apt and chatted for awhile then we went out to the pubs. We decided to try and new pub called The Quays. It was in the Latin Quarter of Galway. It was a great pub! Good music and it was huge. It was three stories hight with all different sections. At midnight, when it was officially my 21st, Emily bought me a shot of power whiskey. I asked for Paddy's whiskey but they didn't have it at this pub. Everyone took a shot with me and sang me happy brithday. I kept my badge on and I felt like I was in America celebrating. Many of the Irish congratulated me and realized what a big deal it was to turn 21 in the States. We decided to end our night at Roisin Dubh (The Black Rose). This pub is three stories and on weekends in the middle section they play old funk pop music, I guess that's how you would describe. This Saturday night was a little more electronic oldies but still the perfect music to just let yourself go and dance silly with your friends. I busted out some fun dance moves, the robot and sprinkler may have made an appearance! Emily even laughed on our way back and said "wow Brenna, you have some wicked dance moves!" I laughed so hard and had the best time, even the DJ hugged me and wished me a happy birthday! We headed back to our apartment fairly early for the night, but it was perfect time for me! I had danced the night away and enjoyed turning 21 in my homeland! When I got back to my apartment I was able to skype my family and Meghan and Jake (they were at my parent's house enjoying a nice home-cooked meal from the best cook in the world, Mama Kel!) It was so great to see all of them! My mom had made me cupcakes and they lit candles on them and sang me happy birthday! It was sooo sweet I could have cired. It made me so happy to get to see them on my birthday! We skyped for about an hour then it was off to bed!

My 21 Birthday badge I rocked all night!

Baby Guinness shots with the girls!

Cheers! I sat this one out

The Birthday wave!

Apparently I turned 12 this year :)

At Finnegan's Traditional Irish Food & Drink

The Group

The chocolate birthday cake Cate made me!

The drinks my roommates bought me that I gladly shared with the group!

January 16th- In the morning I got up at about 7:30 because all of us had planned to go on the hiking trip with the mountaineering club to The Burren in Co. Clare. I woke up fairly easy, only had a slight headache, but started drinking water, and I had been really looking forward to this hike so I was determined to get up and make it! I didn't just want to sit around on my birthday, I wanted to see Ireland and do something out of the ordinary for me. A hike to the top of the Burren sounded like the perfect way to spend my 21st. The bus ride to Co. Clare was VERY curvy, bumpy and windy along the coast line. It was horrible, everyone began feeling car sick. Even Anders even moved to the front of the bus because he was getting car sick. I began feeling very warm and Emily looked over and my face was ghost white. I was praying I wouldn't get sick and just closed my eyes to try and pass the hour trip. I was doing okay until i had to talk with our tour guide about which hike Emily and I wanted to do. I had to look at a map and follow the squiggly lines on the bumpy bus. Minutes after he moved on to the next couple rows, I conspicuously took my lunch out of the giant zip lock bag and proceeded to yak inside the bag. I don't want to get into detail here, but I had to ask Emily for another one very quickly as I noticed that my bag had a small hole in the bottom. SO I double bagged it and let it go. Happy Birthday to Brenna from Ireland ha ha! Some say that if you don't puke on your 21st it wasn't celebrated like it should. I really thought I had avoided that whole scheme for your 21st birthday. Whether it was the alcohol from the celebrations of the night before or the car sickness from the horrible windy road, I will never know. I am going to go with a little bit of both. When we got off the bus everyone told me that I wasn't the only one feeling really car sick. I guess the 21 year was the only one who yaked though lol. Looks like in the end, my 21st began with little emptying of the stomach. Well I rallied like a champ and felt 100% better as soon as I got off the bus! I felt refreshed and was ready for this hike! We chose the short hike. It was supposed to be 6 kilometers, but ended up being about 10 kilometers (about 6 miles or so). At the time of deciding, I thought I may throw up in the kind lads face so Emily and I signed up for the short one. We were told this one had great views and they would stop for photo taking and such. Many of us, all of the girls signed up for this one and our group consisted of about 20 international students and and older couple. The man was full of great information about the hike and facts and myths about the area. The woman was very kind hearted and had great conversation as well. Our other leader was an Irish student who was in the Mountaineering club. He was a hiking freak! (in a good way) If we ever got off track he would run to the front and find the correct trail and run right back to us!

The Burren. We couldn't have chosen a better day for this day hike. The sun was out shining on the tall hills, the wind was fairly mild at the start and their wan't a drop of rain in the sky. Our hike was absolutely incredible! I wished I had the vocabulary of a professional writer to give this breathtaking scenery justice. Explaining it is so difficult without actually experiencing it. It is a very unique type of terrain that extends 50 square miles. There were no signs, no paths, just open surface to walk on and hills to climb up. Most of the terrain was just miles of limestone pavement. Before we began our trek, the guides told us that we had to look at each step we took because the ground can fall from under you and it was easy to get your ankle stuck between two slabs of limestone and if you trip your ankle will most likely brake. They were exactly right. Different levels of the hike had different sizes of limestone. But they were all broken up into pieces. In between them were grassy and muddy sections (these were the areas that would sink down sometimes when you walked across them). Some levels were more grassy some more filled with stones. It almost felt like a strategic video game on the hike on where to step and the best way to climb the mountains. Not to mention the wind speeds that we would run into when we got higher up the hike. My ankle would get stuck every now and then and tweaked but nothing too major. The higher and higher we would climb the more breathtaking it would become. It almost didn't feel like Ireland anymore. It almost looked like a land far away, something like you would see out of a scene from Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. I remember just thinking that it felt incredible to get the opportunity to see this treasure in Ireland. The walk almost felt spiritual to me. Lots of time to think and enjoy the Irish air. The spaces that we would overlook were incredible. I felt like I was in awe the whole time. We would look up on a hill, climb that one, and find another one to trek up. I never thought we would reach the top peak. At one point, Hiker pro Irish guy, walked by me and said ,"Is it bad that I always want to be the first to the top?" and then he sped off. Now after explaining the terrain, you are probably wondering, like I was, how he was running across these treacherous rocks. So there I was just trying to keep the snot from not shooting out my nose from the cold fast wind and making sure my foot placement was correct so I wouldn't break a limb and there he goes galloping like a gazelle across the dangerous terrain. These mountaineering people are crazy! We ate lunch at 1:00 behind these small hills to block the wind and it we were off again after we had finally reached a top peak. The view looked out on the ocean and in the distance we could see Galway and even caught a glimpse of the Aran Islands. From up there, Ireland looked like a dream land from a movie. Filled with green fields and the ocean air was crisp and the water was a deep blue. They decided that instead of back tracking to continue on to see more and we would find a trail back down to the main road. This was my favorite part of the trek. We got to a point where we were trying to get down to the road but it was blocked. Crazy mountaineering man, ran ahead through the forest to try and find a simple path. It led into someones back yard so we couldn't take that one. As the women described to me "It is very rude to go into someones back yard without permission, so we couldn't possibly take that path." The Irish also have great manners! The only other option we found was deep in the forest part that was right out of a forested area in Oregon. It reminded me of the woods at my old house in Battle Ground just with an Irish taste to it. There were a lot of pricker bushes that we had to bypass and this off-roading experience was very fun!!! After exploring the woods of the Burren later, it dumped us out to the road! After our hike we met up with the other groups at a local pub their called Monks. I had the best seafood chowder I have ever had and enjoyed watching a game of rugby. I had no idea how to play or even the rules so an Irish guy walked Emily and I through the simple rules of the game. It really didn't look like they were playing by any rules. It is an intense game!!! We packed up and headed home after everyone was done with drinks and soup. That night Cate went to the store and made me a chocolate cake and my roommates and I enjoyed a nice piece (or two :)) sitting around the couch discussing our day! In the end I had a fabulous birthday in Ireland! Even though I missed celebrating it with my closest friends and family, the new friends I have made here made it special for me. And I will never forget that I hiked my first Irish mountain on my 21st birthday! Thank you all for the birthday wishes and cards I received in the mail. I wish I could tell you much it means to me to hear from all of you! My next entry will be about my weekend trip to Dublin and I will add all of the pictures soon. I have just finished my Tommy sandwich and the cafe is closing soon. It is starting to get dark out so I will head back to my apartment. Cheers!

"Today you stand at a milestone in your life.
Behind you are your struggles and challenges and
you've conquered along the way. Before you lies
a new horizon filled with thrilling possibilities.
Today you choose the direction of your life.
Go for it!"

This quote was in a little book my family gave me for my 21st birthday. I think it sums up the feeling I had on top of the mountain that day. Ireland has opened my eyes to the possibilities I have in my life. I am so very blessed to have the opportunity to see the world. I am learning to let go of the little things that I cannot control and just live free knowing that each day comes with a whole abundance of opportunities for me to take advantage of. I really am growing as a person and pushing my limits! Ireland is simply a dream come true! Thank you mom and dad for the inspirational book and thanks again to all who wished me happy thoughts on my birthday and are so supportive of my journey!!