7 September 2008: Carlow, Ireland

I woke up early this morning and waited for a few hours for everyone else to wake up before helping myself to a couple pieces of toast. Rochelle put what could easily have been five tablespoons of butter on each of her two pieces and then was disgusted that I didn't put any on mine. Right. Kel also commented that we don't have "proper butter" in America. If you insist.

After the Butter Situation we went to Kel's dad's house, in Kilkenny County. The all-Irish hurling championship match was that day, and the under-18 division game was on between Kilkenny and Galway.

Hurling is a bit like soccer meets rugby meets cricket. Which, in a sense, makes it the least American sport in existance, since Americans as a practice can't stand any of those sports individually, let alone all of them meshed into one.

The main objective in hurling is to score goals, and the second objective is to score points. The goal is essentially the same as in soccer, and you score one by getting the ball in the net, which is worth three points. Simple enough. Above the goal are up-rights, and if you get the ball between them-- but over the top goal-post-- it is worth one point. That basically explains the soccer and rugby aspects.

The main thing about hurling, though, is that you use sticks. You have to hit the ball with a paddle-stick the length of the field, passing it back-and-forth between teammates, and you can only use your hand to pick the ball up from the field. You can take about three steps with the ball in hand, although the referees are pretty lenient with the three-step rule.

So, now that I think about it, hurling is soccer meets rugby meets cricket meets lacrosse. Which means that New Englanders would like 1/4 of the sport, and the rest of America would have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Anyway, when we got to Kel's dad's house he was watching the under-18 championship match. Since the senior match between Kilkenny and Waterford was more important, and since we were in Kilkenny county, Rochelle and I thought it would be fun to go to a pub in town and watch the senior match.

We had time beforehand, though, and so we went to a centuries-old church in Kel's town which has a centuries-old cemetary. The church was nice, but pretty much just a church; it was the cemetary that was incredible. Maybe not incredible, but fascinating to see the proof that people have been living in that part of the country, and praying in that part of the country, and dying in that part of the country for 500 years-- the oldest visible date on a tombstone was in the early 1700s, but the church has been around for much longer.

Kel's family plot, though, is only since the early 20th century. Weak.

The last thing I did around the church was drink from the healing fountain. It's a spring that comes out of a mucky pond, that looks pretty disgusting. But the water that comes out of the spring is perfectly clean to drink, and since there is no visible water leaving the pond to enter the spring, the people who lived around the church ages ago would drink from the spring because they thought it was holy. If it is, and if it really is healing water, then I guess I'm set on the health thing for a little while, yes?

As we were leaving the church, and with the car plainly in view, I called shotgun. I mean, it was the cleanest shotgun ever called in Kilkenny country. And Rochelle said "I didn't hear you" and took the front seat. I couldn't believe it. Seriously, I was stunned. This has absolutely nothing to do with Kilkenny, but I thought it was important for me to note.

When we got into town Dave, Mitchel and I went into the first pub we found. Rochelle didn't want to go in, which was odd because she had been just as excited to watch the match as I had, and went on a walk around town with Kel.

The match, to put it as concisely as possible, was a slaughter. An absolute demolition. Kilkenny won 3-30 to 1-13, where the goals are first and points are second, goals are worth three and points are worth one, and you add the two totals. So, essentially, Kilkenny won 39 to 16. And it wasn't even that close-- Watertown scored their only goal with literally three minutes left in the match.

When I first got to Dublin I had planned on my club of choice being the Bohemians, a soccer team in northwest Dublin. Unfortunately, soccer is a distant third on the list of Irish sport priorities-- after hurling and Gaelic football, which is what the Irish call "football" as opposed to what the Irish, and Americans, call "soccer." Since hurling is the most important sport, and since Kilkenny might be my new favorite town in the world, AND since Kilkenny were in the championship match, I had meant to buy a Kilkenny jersey to wear at the pub. Sadly, we got there too late and everyone-- including the shop owners-- were watching the match in the pubs.

So, clad in stupid colors instead of the Kilkenny yellow and black, I cheered my heart out and enjoyed a Bulmers-- only €3, the match special-- and feasted on chips and mini sandwiches courtesy of the pub.

(Irish chips, of course, you silly Americans. And I should also mention that I had a piece of red pudding, which is basically pig intestines and other parts of pig innards, colored with blood. I don't want to say anything else about it because I might throw up.)

After the match we drove back to Kel's dad's house to say goodbye, and then headed back to Carlow. Along the way Rochelle sat in the middle of the back seat, between me and Mitchel, and complained that she didn't have enough shoulder space. I said she gave up her right to shoulder space when she broke all sorts of shotgun etiquette on the previous ride. Damn straight.

I slept for a little bit on the ride home and then for two more hours on the couch, which, to be honest, is a little disconcerting. I'm definitely one in strong support of naps, and am more than ready to adopt the siesta lifestyle, but I've been pretty tired just about every day so far this trip. I hope it's just the abrupt change into lots of drinking and little sleep, coupled with the time change, and therefore will subside when I get more used to my current pattern. At this point, though, I need to step it up.

That evening, Dave made paella, Mitchel played Wii for a bit-- and kicked my ass at cow racing-- and Kel was just as sweet as could be. These three might seriously be the most wonderful people in all of Ireland.

The last thing we did was watch "White Noise," a so-called psycological thriller that was on the television. This was without a doubt one of the top-five most terrible movies of all time, with a shot at grabbing the top spot. Watch it. I dare you.

And that was it.

We were leaving Kilkenny the next morning, and I decided to head back to Dublin in the morning. Dave was leaving for Galway, where he works during the week, Monday morning, and when we first got to Carlow he offered to take me and Rochelle there with him. I initially said I would go with him, because I want to go to Galway and it would be a free trip, but I decided that back-to-back trips would be a bit much. Not necessarily monetarily, since Carlow was free and Galway would be cheaper than Dublin, but in terms of "extra trips"-- I didn't want to give up on Dublin so quickly, and I wanted to save some trips for later.

I told Rochelle about this, but she didn't really understand what I was saying and so her response was "yeah, I want to move on to Galway too." So I repeated myself, and she got it, but looked a little disappointed.

Now, the previous evening I had told her that we would be traveling buddies throughout Ireland, but this evening, after dinner, she asked me where I was going after Ireland. I told her where, and she said "that works for me." I froze up a bit, and basically told her "no no no." She said she thought we were traveling buddies, and I said I had meant in Ireland. Past that, I'm going solo.

So at this point, whereas I had been giving some thought to still going to Galway, I knew that was out of the question. I have no problems going on a weekend trip with someone, or even really with going on back-to-back weekend trips with the same person, but leaving the country together and going to the same place is just too much. And I figured that actually going to Galway with her was a bad idea, too, since obviously she was expecting more out of our traveling together and continuing together to Galway would have sent her the ol' mixed signals.

So Rochelle said she was going to go to Galway, and I told her I was going back to Dublin. And that was that.

The final thing this weekend in Carlow taught me is that I'm going to have to make some decisions about how I want my adventures to go. It seems to me that the extremes are all travel and all work, and that the only realistic possibility is a balance of the two. The other factor is that, the more I work, the longer I can stay in Europe, whereas if I travel more than work I'll run out money rather quickly.

We'll see.