Hurling

Let me kick off this post by saying that the two major spectator sports in Ireland are Gaelic Football and Hurling. Gaelic Football is like soccer with more lenient handball rules. Hurling is kind of lacrosse but with huge wooden spoons and the option to score point by throwing the ball thru what is essentially a field goal upright.

They are bizarre to explain. You could even say that they're ridiculous. But in action, both sports are very cool.

I have yet to see Gaelic Football in person. But I'm going in like two weeks. But I did have the option to see the All-Ireland Hurling Final this afternoon. Here is the play-by-play, bullet style:

• Take a bus into downtown Dublin
• Walk for what seemed like an hour (I was not leading the way)
• Pass a TON of people dressed in Galway (maroon) and Kilkenny (yellow/black) colors
• Feel like an outsider and be pressured into buying a scarf/headband/shirt/flag/etc. 
• Sit down in a small, quiet bar
• Get bored instantly
• Walk back towards the stadium
• Haggle with scalpers
• Go to get cash
• Come back and find out that the scalpers no longer have tickets
• Ask the cops for tickets
• Get free tickets from cops (yes, that is a real thing in Ireland)
• Go to the game

And then this happens:

(trying to upload a picture but the wifi here is subpar)

There were 82,000 people in the stadium to watch a sport that is known (by me) as Frying Pan Lacrosse. And it was NUTS. 

I took a video of the game-tying score in the final minute and the stadium exploded. 

And then the game ended. In a tie. And they play again in three weeks to break the tie. It is bizarre, to say the least. But you can bet your ass I will be there for the rematch. 

Welcome to Ireland

Well, I had intended to post more blogs about Ireland before I actually left for the Emerald Isle but that didn't happen so all I really knew going in were these two nuggets (both from Netflix, actually):

• the Irish equivalent of classic rock is awesome (some documentary that I don't know the name of - just search Netflix for "Ireland")
• Irish accents can be so hard to understand (Burn Notice and a movie that I don't know the name of - but also just search for "Ireland")

At the time I am writing this post, I have been in Ireland for three full days. Seventy-two hours of completely unreal life. I don't know what it is about this green country but something about it makes the following things seem okay:

• Bars with "college bar" feels to them that are packed with 16-60 year olds
• The fact that a fellow American and I sat down for dinner at a pub at 6:30 and drank beers with a local man named Jerry (legend, by the way) until 11:30
• Jerry came back to the bar on campus with us because it was his 39th birthday
• Jerry said his wife would be fine with it
• The following night, we went back to the same bar and saw Jerry and his wife. And she was okay with the previous night's happenings
• The bar on campus (which I could hit with a rock if my living room windows opened wider) hosted a Transgender/Transexual conference party thing this week. Three other Americans and I chatted with a man named Stella last night. 
• Our conversation with Stella was about housing markets and the Irish economy. Not about how he was muscular as shit but wearing a tube top dress and lipstick. 

I would hope that reading that makes you concerned for my health and safety. I'm actually really nervous to let my mom see, now that I think about it. But Ireland isn't all about getting really drunk. There is also a lot of history and culture that does not happen in public houses. 

For example, did you know that Arthur Guinness was akin to George Washington? He was such a huge figure in the political history of Ireland that they honor him with his own holiday (September 27th) like the Fourth of July.

Wait, what? He's not political at all? He founded a brewery? 

Oh.

Well, in the words of Jerry, #welcometoireland