Grace Huntley: Real Life of a Galway Girl

Studying abroad is not a vacation. One of the most defining moments during the study abroad experience occurs after the honeymoon period has worn off. Instead of a tourist’s fascination with every new sight, “Man I really need a picture of that gorgeous gas station over there,” a veteran’s weariness seems to set in. The first time I walked home in the rain only to have my grocery bags break 100 meters from my front door I found myself cursing Ireland. The nonstop misting rain that makes it feel like you’re constantly walking through a sponge, the environmental bent that means you need to pay for grocery bags, the temperature that’s only available in Celsius so that I never have any clue what the weather forecast for the day is, all these things suddenly stopped being quaint and refreshing and a “grand adventure.” This was the moment I knew I had ceased to be a tourist. This was also the moment I knew it was time for a real vacation.

            Luckily, the past Grace had possessed the foresight to predict this moment. Three friends and I had made plans to venture to sunny Croatia, the new south of France. We found cheap flights to Zadar, the only available airport when you’re coming from Dublin, and rented an apartment for the week. When we arrived, knowing only the Croatian word, “bog” for hello, we were promptly greeted at the airport by the owner of the hotel, carrying a sign that read Aliza, the name of my friend who had booked the apartment. For a mere 15 euros (115 or so Kunas, the local currency) a night, we were privy to the most beautiful lodgings I stayed in my entire time abroad, complete with balcony porch, in ground pool, grill, and garden. A coffee maker graced our apartment and we began the trip by partaking of one of the three free bottles of wine provided to us by the owners.

            Croatia was everything I needed in a tropical getaway. We spent our first few days marveling over the cheap prices and purchasing the necessities (which turned out to be a 1 lb bag of almonds and lots of pasta) at the local versions of 7/11s, along with the outdoor market in town. Zadar, the fifth biggest city in Croatia, is broken up into the old and new sectors. The old section of town is comprised of white stone streets, red clay roofs, and outdoor restaurants and bars. However, the most significant places in old town Zadar was the forest tucked away into a corner of the city, swelling to mythical proportions in the pre-dusk light, and the Sea Organ, a testament to nature and engineering which consisted of a series of pipes that were places into the ocean at different levels so that with each wave a new sound was created, often resembling a whale’s song. I finished five books while lying by the side of our hotel pool and finally chased away some of my skin’s reflective paleness brought on by Ireland’s cloud-cover.

            The most memorable day by far was spent exploring Krka National Park. From the very beginning we had planned on touring around to see Croatia’s famous waterfalls. However, I had been expecting something akin to East Coast falls, singular entities that plunge in linear fashion from hundreds of feet. Instead the entire park is blanketed in a series of rapidly swelling waterfalls, the width of the entire river. Using man-made wooden pathways, it’s possible to traverse the entire park, weaving over and under these massive falls, spying the local wildlife on the way, which includes such beauties as the human fish (a fish that possesses elbows…creepy indeed).

When we were in Rome, we stumbled upon the Pope giving a speech. Apparently it happens every Wednesday. Hundreds of chairs are lined up in the Vatican courtyard. Groups of people flood in from all parts of the world, school trips and church groups that all cheer with Superbowlish enthusiasm when they’re given their shout out as the Pope gives his speech in no less than six different languages. By this point I’d traveled to four different countries, besides Ireland during my study abroad experience. I’d spent time in Brussels, Amsterdam, Seville, Paris, and Rome. I’d attempted three different languages (I didn’t even try Dutch), not to mention the struggle of deciphering the Irish accent (which at times should qualify for it’s very own dialect). However, no time did I feel as foreign or as out of place as when I was surrounded by this sea of believers.

It’s an amazing and an intimidating things to find yourself amidst of sea of people who have given themselves over to faith. Currently, it’s something I still struggle with personally and an issue I’m never certain I will really come to terms with. I have to admit though, there’s something inspiring about a mass of people, all from different backgrounds, cultures, languages, that have come together to sit for a two hour papal speech, 5/6th of which they will not be able to understand. Sitting in the courtyard of the Vatican, I watched the members of the crowd watching the Pope, and I envied them their ability to believe that somewhere, someone had a plan.

Remember nap time? For most of us this idea is a thing of the past, a reality only in vague memories of kindergarten classrooms, replete with cardboard pinups of the alphabet and hand turkeys on the walls. However, in Spain, nap time, formally titled siesta, is part of daily life, as normal as the double cheek kiss hello and the pig legs hanging over the bar at restaurants.

Three weeks ago I was lucky enough to visit Sevilla in the south of Spain, only a Ryanair skip and a Renfe high speed train jump, from Dublin, Ireland. I was immediately assaulted with a completely foreign culture, complete with 7 Euro tapas meals, bottles of wine for 1.6 Euros, and 2 Euro bus trips to visit ancient ruins (Italica). After nearly fourth months of living abroad you’d guess that I would have become accustomed to culture shock, but Galway, with it’s pastoral hills and small-town feel, is easy to make into your home.

Sevilla was quite possibly the most romantic place I’ve ever been. When you’re in love, you typically see the world through idealized glasses. An oil stain becomes a rainbow of colors, a cracked asphalt sidewalk is merely a nesting ground for the dandelions poking through. However, Sevilla provided the glasses without the oxytocin. The air actually does smell like orange blossoms, due to Orange trees dotting each sidewalk, and the Royal Gardens actually do ring out with the music of fountains and children’s laughter. Sevilla even has it’s very own castle, which, when it’s lit up at night, looks like every fairy tale I’ve ever imagined.

In only a couple months I had allowed myself to become a little smug. I had felt like a pro at navigating Galway’s back roads, at locating the nearest grocery store, at bringing my own shopping bags so I wouldn’t need to pay when I arrived. Travelling to Spain thrust me into a whole new world, a place where I was once again a stranger. Still, whether due to my past experience of adjusting to culture shock, or simply the welcoming environment of Sevilla itself, it was a much softer landing this time.
Even wandering around the Madrid train station I found myself sucking up the details. The jungle of plant growth that grew wild in the middle of the downstairs floor. The sign that said “No Turtles” that stemmed from people leaving unwanted pets in the giant green space. The ten foot tall stone baby’s head that greeted you as you walked out of the station.

I don’t know about you, but I often find myself wouldn’t what would have been. I typically regret the things I’ve done more than the things I haven’t simply because making a choice means closing a door. As we get older and find more and more options closed off to us, it can be a hard fact to face that we no longer have the option of being a famous ballerina, an astronaut, an Olympian athlete. Going to Sevilla was like having five days to walk around in my “what ifs.” What if I had chosen a country other than Ireland? What if I had picked a place that spoke a different language, where the culture was not just the flip side of the page but a whole different book? Leaving Sevilla, I was plagued with a gnat storm of doubts, tiny nagging alternate forks that whizzed through my mind.

When I stepped off the plane into Dublin Airport the air did not smell like orange blossoms. There was no chance of me going go to see a Flamenco performance in a hidden club through a blank red door and no possibility of getting a meal for less than ten euros that wasn’t McDonalds. However, I felt something inside of me soften when I heard the first lilt of Irish accents, and a knot in my shoulders that I hadn’t known was there loosened at the sight of BusEireann. Coming back to Ireland felt like coming home, and that was enough.

There are some social situations I have never been able to master. For example, when you’re walking down a long stretch of road and you see someone approaching you from far away. You don’t want to meet their eyes because they’re still a good five minutes away from you and it would be strange to spend the rest of the time walking towards each other staring into each others eye’s. However, it’s most natural to look in front of you when walking, and also a good preventative measure to keep from bumping into things. Therefore, I usually compromise by awkwardly darting my eyes around to the front and then coming back to an imaginary fascinating view to my right (for some reason I always pick the right).

These are some of the uncomfortable situations you don’t have to worry about when you’re surrounded by good friends instead of strangers. Two of my friends visited from the States this last week. It’s was strange at first to have my two worlds of home and study abroad collide, a bit like traveling to the Amazon rainforest and seeing a Pizza Hut stationed in the center. However, it was amazing to be able to show them around Galway as well as Ireland and get to experience things through a new set of eyes. There’s a kind of excitement, a need to take advantage of every moment, to see every site, that I was able to piggyback upon while my friends were here. We watched the St. Patrick’s Day parade and biked around the Aran Islands, and whether it was the beautiful sunny weather, the presence of my friends, or the feel of walking without shoes oh the beach; I had some of my happiest moments in Ireland during this past week.

They say it takes twenty days to form a new habit. This doesn’t apply to forming substance abuse addictions or to falling in love. Instead it’s about the little things: Knowing which way to look when crossing the street; Automatically not leaving a tip when you’re in an Irish restaurant; Looking for the switch that turns on the oven. These tiny details seep into you, diffusing slowly into your bloodstream, sinking into your subconscious. Like the tiny scratches you’ll sometimes receive when walking through the woods, you don’t remember when or how you picked them up but they’ve somehow become a part of you.

I tend to lose things a lot. Just yesterday we walked into town and went to the weekend Farmer’s Market. It’s on a side street to the right of Shop Street, a small cobblestone outcropping dotted with stalls sellin everything from medallions to gourmet olives. I purchased this amazingly fancy cheese and fresh rasberries, a delicacy in a country where the potatoe passes for all the fruits and vegetables you will ever need. However, somewhere between stopping to soak in the sun in Eyre Square, and looking through the mall for comfortable walking shoes, I set the bag down and lost it.

Sometimes being abroad is a little like losing something. Only instead of a bag of berries and gourmet cheese, it’s a piece of your identity. You start to forget little things about yourself like whether or not you say CARmel or CARAmel or which pizza toppings really are the best or if you snore. Luckily, close friends are like having a safe box for all those personal details. They keep them safe so that even when you forget, you know where you can find the pieces of yourself.

Have you ever noticed that when a group of people try to enter or exit out of double doors, there is usually a bottle neck effect? This occurs whenever classes let out at NUI. Students pour out of one of the five or so auditoriums in the Arts Concourse building and immediately make their way for the exit, like passengers jumping from a sinking ship. However, every one seems to have a mild case of the Lemming-effect, prone to following the person in front of them. Maybe this was bred into us as a survival technique from days long gone; following the more skilled guide through the dangerous night around you. Still, now that we have killed off most of the animals that could hunt us to extinction, it doesn’t seem to be that effective of a habit. Even with two doors available, each student will use the door that’s been pushed open by the person in front of them. Sometimes the single file line with stretch back ten, twenty meters in the corridor, a winding human snake of complacency.

So what is it that makes people so unwilling to forge their own way? Does it just not occur to them to try an alternative route, or is there something deeper that makes them hesitate?

Classes at NUI do not function the same way they do at Cornell. Instead of having class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in the same lecture hall at the same time, the schedule spins and winds like an acrobat on ecstasy. Sometimes my Comparative Public Policy class will meet in Kirwan Theater, sometimes in Oh’Eocha. At times it’s at 3 in the afternoon and then the next day it will switch to 4. In keeping with this nontraditional system, each class runs for a different period of time, several starting as late as three weeks after the semester has begun. Most classes run for a mere two months total, and instead of continuous assessment, each class has either a final exam or a 3,000 word paper.

Lucky me, this means that I have six 3,000 word papers to finish by the end of the month. After the end of May, I’m one final exam away from being done for the semester. However, this knowledge hasn’t been helping me to start my papers. What is it that helps us paralyzed, that makes the beginning so much more difficult to face up to? There’s a kind of solace in inaction, a refuge in the knowledge that even if you’re not accomplishing anything, at least you’re also not messing anything up. This kind of thinking works pretty well until it comes up against the idea of deadlines. Still, you’ve already gotten yourself into a bad habit, and so, instead of a weekend spent putting your nose to the grindstone and getting assignments out of the way, you find yourself justifying just one more hour watching Scrubs (because really, that JD holds all the life wisdom you ever need.)

Every day I walk the forty minute trek back from school. It’s long, and tedious, and I now know exactly which landmarks are halfway (the hospital) , two thirds (Tesco), ten minutes to go (McDonalds). Five minutes away from my house there is a building slowly going up. In the two months that I’ve been here, I’ve watched the construction transition from a muddy pit in the ground, to a twenty foot high stone wall (stemming from a muddy pit in the ground). They must work on it for hours each day, but since I spend a mere couple seconds passing it, the site seems to spring up from the ground. It’s always fascinating to me how little pieces can add up after a while. My life in Ireland often seems to be like that, a favorite coffee shop, a right turn on the way to school, knowing about the computer lab on the bottom floor the Arts Concourse…and suddenly you have a routine, and you’re already halfway there.

Have you ever heard the story about the man who rebuilds his ship? He starts after a bad storm destroys half his hull one day. Years go by and he replaces board after board, strengthening a part there, a sail there. Finally there comes the day when the whole shop is composed of new pieces. The question is, when, if ever, did that ship stop being the vessel he initially had?

Sometimes, I feel that Ireland is merely stripping me down the most elemental pieces. Some things remain the same; my procrastination on papers for example. Other times, I feel like the abroad experience is changing me, seeping into my bloodstream to subtly alter each of the cells it comes in contact with, and it scares me, to look in the mirror in the morning and not know if the same person will be staring at me that night.

Yesterday, when I was leaving the Arts Concourse building, I got stuck in the same old herd of students trying to leave. I was shuffling along, content with my place in the crowd…until suddenly I wasn’t. I walked forward, pushing my way through the throng, and exited through the other door. It’s not everything, but it’s a start. 

This last weekend i travelled to Brussels, Belgium, and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. While there I sampled the waffles, the chocolate, went to the Anne Frank House, saw Starry Night at the Van Gogh Museum, and went on a tour of the Canals.

Did you know Belgium is responsible for creating the saxophone, the Smurfs, and the www in every web address ever?

I felt like a typical tourist during my trip. Over the last two months, Ireland has begun to feel like home. I can navigate my way around Galway. I know where to go for a cheap meal. I even know the time tables of the library right now. Travelling to Brussels and Amsterdam was the first time in a while I’ve felt truly out of my comfort zone, and the first time on this trip that I’ve had to navigate a country where I didn’t speak the language.

Stereotypes are a prevailing reality in any country you visit. Ireland is known for it’s rolling hills, St. Patrick’s Day, and the Guinness Factory. Belgium is famous for it’s waffles, chocolate, and architecture. Amsterdam is renowned for it’s canals, tulips, and the Red Light District. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the problem with stereotypes and how they become perpetuated. I’ve come to the conclusion that as a tourist you typically enter a country only knowing the bare bone facts, in other words, the stereotypes. It’s a lot like going to college and only knowing that there are five jobs out there, Doctor, Teacher, Lawyer, Police Officer, and Rock Star.

Therefore, when you enter the country you immediately gravitate towards what you know. Especially for broke study abroad students, most out of country experiences involve trying to hit up all of that country’s stereotypes. This creates a cycle in which the country’s stigma is experiences, carried home, and then related to all of the traveler’s friends, family, and semi-acquaintances. 

Have you ever seen one of those T-Shirts people have in the US that says, “Everything is bigger in Texas?” I feel like I should get one of those for when I travel around Europe, only instead of Texas, I’d have to change to to the USA. A striking difference in each of the cities I have encountered, is the size of things. From portion size, where at McDonald’s in the States they load up your to-go Big Mac with extra packets of salt and ketchup and (FREE) mayonaise, to our vehicles, where you can regularly see such gems as Hummers cruising the New York City streets, we tend to do things to excess.

Our laughs are louder, our obesity problem is greater, and our buildings are much much taller. Still I have to wonder, with all of our emphasis on bigger is better, what is this X-tra size really getting us? Europeans seem to have scaled down the package and yet included all the essentials. They are the sleek iPod to our 8 track tape…and there’s something charming about strolling down a street that hails from the 1800s and being able to see the city skyline hovering twenty vs. 220 ft about your head.

At times, I forget that I’m not in the US. Galway is a different case than some study abroad locations. It’s a mostly Caucasian city, populated by a student-dominated demographic. Most every one speaks English, albeit in varying accents, and it’s possible to find a McDonald’s within a ten minute walking distance from almost wherever you are. Scrubs and Friends plays constantly on the TV and American pop music is blared in every pub that isn’t hosting a traditional music session. It’s easy to forget that between me and home lies an ocean, a five hour plane ride, and a few hundred bucks.

Certain things are the same everywhere, and I take comfort in that fact. Similar things make me happy whether I am here or at home, such as looking up at a clear night sky and finding Orion’s belt or that perfect moment when tea becomes just cool enough to sip without burning your mouth. While in the bathroom outside of the cafeteria I took solace in the fact that vandalism of public property also seems to be a cultural constant. However, upon a closer reading I was once more snapped back into foreigner status.

Abortion is illegal in Ireland. When I first found this out I was sitting in my friends apartment in Corrib Village, freshmen student housing which is an enviable ten minute walk from campus. We were sitting tea and discussing politics and education. The Irish girls were mortified to discover that in the US we spend as much as 40,000 a year to attend college and were quizzing us about the idea of a Greek fraternity system. Somehow the issue of sexual education came up and I mentioned how in the US the only federally funded sexual education is abstinence based. The topics of teen pregnancy rates were raised and this lead us to a discussion on abortion.

Ireland is a country with a national religion. The vast majority of the country practices Catholicism. The religion is wound up in many childrens morals and values from birth, instilled in childhood through Sunday mass and forever constant in daily life through a reminder of rosary beads. In Ireland, abortion is simply something that’s not very accepted. It’s not trendy to be pro-choice. After that day, I was aware of the fact that in Ireland, abortion was a hot topic. I accepted it as another cultural quirk, like RAG (Raise and Give) week where they raise money for charity through a week of drunken debauchery…However, I never expected to come face to face with the debate while inside of a bathroom stall.

Someone had posted three stickers on the inside door of the stall. Someone else, had subsequently peeled most of each of the three stickers off. From the vestiges of each sticker, it was clear that they stated a possible abortion method, through oral means. There had been a website to get information on the sticker. This had obviously been unacceptable to another individual who, while using the bathroom, decided to peel off the offensive information. However, information had prevailed. Someone, probably the original sticker-placer, had written the website next to the sticker remains, and underneath had included a message. “It’s just information. Don’t deny your fellow women the right to choose.”

Unfortunately by the time I got back to the bathroom to take a picture of the ethical battle the evidence had been removed by the maintenance crew (good to know they clean the bathrooms I guess). Still I managed to get a picture of a poster of the organization and website, one more reminder that I wasn’t home anymore.

In the US, we include phrases like, “Dancing Through Life,” as fanciful metaphors within our bestselling Broadway plays featuring green women with conformity issues. In Ireland, dancing through life refers quite literally to the activities one participates in from venues as varied as a coffee shop on Shop Street to the College Bar or to the clubs next to my favorite coffee shop, Java’s, and from events ranging from birthday parties to Ceili (Kay-Lee) Irish dance sessions to traditional music nights. This livelier form of physical expression is present in almost every modicum of everyday existence. It affects the way you meet people, the exchange in which you interact, and the mentality of each encounter. For some reason, smiling across a crowded room becomes a lot easier when the person is currently breaking out a Lord of the Dance move or doing “The Shopping Cart” (If you’ve never done this dance move please stop reading right now and try it out.)

In the last week, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to experience each one of these venues, surrounded by a comforting buffer zone of my group of friends, which makes the experience of flailing about in public much more manageable to the point where sometimes, it actually seems like a good idea. My first dance experience in Ireland was an informal session. After scouting high and low, my friends and I have finally located a cafe down the street from the local biker bar that we have decided to claim as “our place.” It’s reassuring to have a coffee shop that recognizes your face when you walk in. It’s a lot like the bar from Cheers. One day we even aspire to becoming so regular that when we walk in they ask, “the usual?” The upstairs of this quirky cafe is resplendent in reds of differing shades, lopsided couches positioned on the scuffed wooden floor and a baby grand piano nestled in the corner. It was there, at three in the morning, that I had my first dance in Ireland, whirling myself about like a solitary waltzer while my friend played a song by the Frames (the Irish band that did the music for Once.)

The next dancing experience was a little more typical. After a solid month of avoiding the dance clubs, last Saturday we set aside our pride and our flats, and, armed with with three inch heels and packets of travel tissues (all of us were amidst the most fun part of a cold), set out for Cuba. In the streets, hired guys and girls mark passersby with UV stamps which allow you free access on weekdays and half price on weekends. The club itself was a study in demographics. It was composed of two floors, the first of which was where the traditional clubbing kids got down to business. Here you could find the popped collars, the fancy dresses, the 90′s American Pop music. The second floor was where we mostly spent the night and it was full of mohawks and piercings (I made sure to get a special glow in the dark eyebrow ring for the occasion). This type of dancing, as opposed to clubs in the US was less about grinding and more about wildly flailing about. There was a lot of jumping up and down, and for one of my friends even some being carried through the air. I still maintain that that should be implemented as the new mode of transportation.

The final night of dancing was a step into the traditional. In Ceili/Social dances, people dance in groups of 2-8 people. In some cases, Ceili dances can take place with an unlimited number of participants who either stand in lines or in a giant circle. This was the case for the College Bar. The bar borders one side of the room. A giant TV screen takes up the far wall and the left hand wall is covered with a veneer of a forest. Black leather couches and high seated wooden tables occupy the floor. That night they had all be pushed to the side to make room for a giant dance floor in front of the stage. Traditional Irish music was played live that night by violinists, flutists, and accordian players. So you’ve got an idea of the room? Now imagine it packed with up to two hundred people, at least fifty of them crowded onto the dance floor, all spinning and jumping and switching partners. There’s something compelling about a national identity that prevails here in Ireland that baseball and hamburgers just don’t quite make up for back in the States. It’s like stepping into a giant family reunion, only with less drama and more drinking.

Ceili Dance<– Click to see a video of the students dancing!

No matter what your personal taste, there’s a type of dance for every type of person here in Galway. More than the dancing itself, it provides foreigners with a chance to learn the steps in a new culture, a new culture that with practice and repetition, is starting to feel more and more like home.