I had my front tooth knocked out back in '02, and no thanks to Alice, she took the only photo that exists of me without my tooth.
For this and many other "shocking" photos, feel free to visit my online photo album.
To view the older blog entries, please click here.
Monday, July 4, 2005
An Irish Fourth of July
Wow... I just realized that this is the first time since I was maybe just 8 that I'm going through a Fourth of July without fireworks. Hmm... seems kinda weird.
Anyway, on the way to western Ireland, we first stopped by Peadar O'laughlin's Studio to rent myself a violin for the week. Peadar is a violin maker here... it was fascinating to check out his studio and to talk to him about how violins are made. (Incidentally, he spends about 250 hours per violin).
Yesterday (Sunday) we went to an Irish mass, which was very interesting. And then we drove south to County Kerry, talking a car Ferry (it rhymes!) to get across the River Shannon. We ended up at Killarney in County Kerry, checking out Killarney National Park, Ross Castle, as well as the town. It was absoultey beautiful. And they were having a summer festival (basically, a fair) there, so we rode one of those Drop-Zone type of rides... except, it's way freakier because (a) who knows what kind of safety precautions they take and (b) instead of going just up and down... they take you up and leave you up there for like an eternity (ok... it's more like 45 seconds... but whatever).
Anyway, the Music Summer School started off great today, where I learned two tunes this morning... both polkas. Oh... and guess what: culturally, folk tunes, fiddles and other jigs are taught to each other in pubs and in homes and such. It's all taught by ear -- meaning... no sheet music! They just play and you have to follow along. It's kinda like the way we learn dance moves at social dance club classes and stuff, I guess. Learn by repeating them and self repitition.
What stinks is that the class only got out about 2 hours ago, and I already completely forgot the first jig we learned, and I'm on the verge of losing the second one, too. Tomorrow, I'll bring paper to jot down the notes during class.
Other than that, it is apparently quite challenging to try and do laundry in western Ireland. Basically, there's only coin-op place we've been able to find out about -- which is an HOUR drive from our place. So we did the drive... and we just arrived, and it turned out it closed down just 6 weeks ago!!! Grr... so we walked around, found some other places that were all launderettes (basically, drop off and pick up-type places). Unfortunately, cause we're so far from our place, it doesn't make any sense to do that.
So our only other option is to hand-wash. Woo hoo. =P
Tonight, we're going to check out a fiddle recital -- some of the greatest names in traditional Irish fiddling will be performing tonight. It'll be fun.
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