Visitors!

Before I went to Belfast, Hannah (my cousin, for those of you not related to me) sent me a message to say that she was going to be in Ireland that weekend for a funeral (some of her mom's family still live down in County Cork), and would I mind a visit? Pssh, of course not, says I! So, on Monday evening Hannah and I met up, and she stayed with me until Thursday morning! That night we stayed in to catch up, and she went to bed early after all her travels, and I finished a paper (crazy times here, let me tell you). The next day I had classes, and she wanted to explore, so she did. We went to McDonagh's for dinner, which means delicious fish and chips, then headed to Tigh Taaffe's for some music, where Ethan met up with us for some craic. We swapped over to Quays and heard another excellent band before heading home.

Last year, I took the best class ever, Tolkien and Lewis, and met a girl named Brittany, who, like the rest of the class, shares my geekish love for all things Tolkien and Lewis. We never really saw each other after the class, but this semester she is studying abroad/interning in London, so I've been following her blog on here. She was coming to Ireland for her spring break, so we agreed to meet up when she came to Galway. As you can read if you choose to stalk her blog, she had a generally lovely time on this fair isle, as I knew she would =) So, she got into Galway late on Tuesday, and Hannah and I wanted to spend Wednesday on a day trip to Connemara, so we invited Brittany along. However, we woke up to a heavy snowfall, so we decided to cancel that plan. The weather was pretty gross all day, so it was a good call. Brittany ended up going to the Cliffs of Moher for the day, and Hannah and I did some Galway wandering, which included a blissful hour browsing through Kenny's Bookstore, the best place ever. We went for dinner with Brittany, but it was too early to hit the pubs, so we all went back to Corrib Village for some tea, which, sadly, Brittany spilled on her sweater. BUT the good news is that Heather sent me some Oxy Clean spray, which worked like a charm (go Heather!). We went downtown to the Spanish Arch Hotel to meet up with Jess and Jaye to hear another band, who were a cool mix of Spanish and Irish members, and I bought their CD.

Hannah left the next morning to spend a couple days in Dublin before heading home. It was so good to see her!! I haven't really been homesick, but I miss my family... there are so many of them, I'm used to having at least some of them around! And I hadn't seen Hannah in a really really long time, so that was a bonus. I met Brittany for dinner that night (McDonagh's! Score!) but, due to a cold of doom, I was forced to be lame and head home instead of joining her for some music and a pint. I can't always be winning, you know. But it was really nice to see Brittany again! The rest of that week and the weekend were spent recuperating from my cold (so many tissues... even the mansize! And yes, they have a classification of large tissues here called "Man size") and not writing my papers, so that was all very quiet and restful... getting me ready for this weekend, when Laura came to visit!!