It's pissing down in Galway. I've been wandering about, basically hanging about, visiting bookstores, swearing I will not visit any more bookstores, visiting more bookstores... I think I'll probably have to ship another bag home; my suitcase is getting seriously out of hand.
On a side note, I'm finding the whole tourist culture more and more amusing. I've always been pretty embarrassed about being an American, because Americans are *so* annoying, but it's slowly penetrating my attention that they're not the only ones. Americans are annoying, yes, but at least they don't take as many pictures as the bloody Japanese. And they're not quite as boisterously loud as the Australians. Germans? No one likes the Germans, and don't even talk about the French, and the Scotch-Irish guy I talked to on the train a few days back added the English to the list of tourists to be hated- and, frankly, I have to agree. They seem to invade Scotland and Ireland on a regular basis and nobody, but nobody, likes them.
(My employer's wife had a rugby t-shirt: 'The Welsh support two teams: Wales... and whoever's playing England.' This is a remarkably widespread attitude. The English have done amazing things for national unity- whenever they show up, everybody stops hating everybody else and make friends, so as to more perfectly hate the English.)
About the only largish group of tourists that don't seem to have made major enemies with the tour-ees are the Canadians, which is also what people most often mistake me for. ('But you can't be American!' one of my Kiwi aquaintances once said. 'You're polite!') So not too many complaints there.
The hostel I'm staying in is nice, but the room sucks- a fourteen-bed'er, which is a bit too much company for me. Also I want to recharge my computer's battery, which I drained waiting for the bus in the bus station in Belfast, and I'm not thrilled about leaving it laying around in a room full of 13 other girls, none of whom I know, with a door that doesn't lock and is as a matter of fact tied open for most of the day. Decisions, decisions. Hoping to make a friend so's I can go out on the piss tonight- I could always go myself, I suppose, but there's something intensely pathetic about drinking alone, and if you're a single girl it tends to draw the wolves.
On a side note, I'm finding the whole tourist culture more and more amusing. I've always been pretty embarrassed about being an American, because Americans are *so* annoying, but it's slowly penetrating my attention that they're not the only ones. Americans are annoying, yes, but at least they don't take as many pictures as the bloody Japanese. And they're not quite as boisterously loud as the Australians. Germans? No one likes the Germans, and don't even talk about the French, and the Scotch-Irish guy I talked to on the train a few days back added the English to the list of tourists to be hated- and, frankly, I have to agree. They seem to invade Scotland and Ireland on a regular basis and nobody, but nobody, likes them.
(My employer's wife had a rugby t-shirt: 'The Welsh support two teams: Wales... and whoever's playing England.' This is a remarkably widespread attitude. The English have done amazing things for national unity- whenever they show up, everybody stops hating everybody else and make friends, so as to more perfectly hate the English.)
About the only largish group of tourists that don't seem to have made major enemies with the tour-ees are the Canadians, which is also what people most often mistake me for. ('But you can't be American!' one of my Kiwi aquaintances once said. 'You're polite!') So not too many complaints there.
The hostel I'm staying in is nice, but the room sucks- a fourteen-bed'er, which is a bit too much company for me. Also I want to recharge my computer's battery, which I drained waiting for the bus in the bus station in Belfast, and I'm not thrilled about leaving it laying around in a room full of 13 other girls, none of whom I know, with a door that doesn't lock and is as a matter of fact tied open for most of the day. Decisions, decisions. Hoping to make a friend so's I can go out on the piss tonight- I could always go myself, I suppose, but there's something intensely pathetic about drinking alone, and if you're a single girl it tends to draw the wolves.
posted at 08:19 AM on 06/21/02
by kat -
Category: Place
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