For the Craic

I was in a pub last night, talking with a couple Irish people. They were already on their sixth or seventh pint of the evening when I got there, so by the time I started talking to them they were speaking pretty freely about other European countries, Irish universities, and the trip they took to America . When I asked them how they liked America, they said “We loved Chicago, we had loads of crack.”

I did a little bit of a double take, but didn’t say anything about what I had heard, and kept talking with them. They told me they were from Dublin and that they were just visiting Galway, and had gone to a few other towns too. They told me “all the other towns are shite, but we had some good crack in Galway.” This was the second time they had told me about how much crack they had, and they kept saying things like this. “We were just having a bit of crack.” “We had tons of crack last night.”

Eventually, they asked me and my friends if we wanted to go to another pub, saying “come on, we’ll have some crack.” I finally had to ask, “when you say ‘crack,’ what does that mean?” A look of realization appeared on their faces. “We’re not talking about crack cocaine,” one said. “Now I know why you had a weird look whenever I said crack,” said the other.

“Craic,” (pronounced like “crack”) is Irish slang for “fun.” That word is the root of the phrase “cracking a joke.” It doesn’t have anything to do with drugs (although it might in some contexts). So if you go to Ireland and someone invites you to have some crack, don’t get freaked out. Also, for any Irish person reading this, if you’re ever talking to a cop in the states, don’t mention that you were just having a bit of craic.

In The Marketplace

This trip to Ireland has been full of surprises in many ways. I’m getting to see Ireland in a way that very few people have seen it before. They’re saying it’s getting close to -15 degrees Celsius, a temperature that hasn’t existed in Ireland for at least 40 years.

Incidentally, even though it’s been about 5 months since I was in Japan, I still think in Celsius. I’ve told a few people this story already, but it’s a good one that tells you just how obsolete farenheit is worldwide. I was talking to one of my Japanese professors and said “In America, we don’t use Celsius.” Her immediate reaction was “Oh, you use Kelvin?”

Anyway, Ireland, which is usually known for rain and green, is now snowy and white. Hopefully this is just an abnormal winter, because, as I said before, if this is the start of a larger trend then it could have disastrous consequences. One of the best examples of how this weather is affecting Ireland was what I saw at the farmer’s market yesterday.

I love going to markets when I’m in a foreign country, partly because I love eating, but also because I think food is a really good window into a culture. In the case of the Galway farmer’s market, it was a really good window into what’s happening in Ireland right now. Our professor took us there and told us that the farmer’s market is always busy and full of people. But when we went there, there were only a few stands, and hardly any people. Only a few truly dedicated farmers had brought their produce with them to the market. I asked our professor, and he said it was probably just because the farmers couldn’t drive out to the market on the icy roads, and it probably wasn’t because the weather was affecting the crops. But it shows how just this one bad winter is immediately affecting Ireland, and how reliant a farming economy is on consistent weather.

While the weather is obviously making this trip not go as planned, it’s still a great experience. I came here because I wanted to see what Ireland is like, and that’s not at all what’s happening. I’m not seeing what Ireland is like, because it’s never like this. But I am getting to see Ireland like no one has ever seen it before, and that’s a good experience in its own way.

Ireland – Day 2: Connemara

I thought I was over jetlag, but right now it’s 8 in the morning. Clearly I was wrong. I guess jetlag gives me a normal sleep schedule.

I thought I was recovered from jetlag yesterday evening. Our professor told us there was a TV show about farming that we should watch from 8:30 to 9. I don’t understand how I timed it, but somehow I fell asleep exactly at 8:30 and woke up exactly at 9. Although I had missed the show, I felt refreshed and stayed up until about midnight, thinking I had recovered from jetlag. But the sun still isn’t up yet.

Anyway, yesterday we took a trip to Connemara, an area in western Ireland where the primary language is Irish. Our main reason for going to Connemara was to visit a beach where the sand was made of bits of hardened seaweed. It was a beautiful beach, and apparently it’s only one of a few like it in the entire world.

There were two primary themes being discussed yesterday that I kept thinking about. One was climate change. Ireland is really, really cold right now, which isn’t normal. Roads are covered in frost, because that happens so rarely and people aren’t prepared to put salt on the roads. Lakes are frozen over, and the people who live near those lakes have probably never seen that happen before in there entire lives. Is this a fluke, a statistical anomaly, or is this the start of a new trend? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, but it’s pretty strange. On the one hand, it’s amazing to see Ireland during such an abnormal time, but hopefully this season will stay abnormal and there won’t be any more like it. If this is the start of climate change in Ireland, it could have disastrous consequences.

The other thing we’ve been talking about is sustainability. Is it advantageous, or even possible, for Ireland to be completely self-sustaining? Well, it obviously was for most of its history, but now much of the food in Ireland is being imported from other countries in the EU. This is good in some ways; if it’s a bad year for farming for some reason, it’s not as much of a problem. But there is a movement in Ireland to buy local products and be self-sustaining. When we went grocery shopping, on our receipt every local product had a clover next to it, and at the bottom, underneath our total, was another total of all the money we had spent on Irish products. It ended up being about half of what we payed, so about half of the food we bought was local. In addition, a lot of the local food was shelved together in the supermarket. People are definitely aware of where the food they buy comes from, which makes sense, since Ireland is largely a farming economy.

Anyway, hopefully things will warm up soon. See you later.