July 4

Today we weren't very patriotic, unfortunately. At least not for America.

(Trying to be patriotic, even though we were dressed for the Irish hurling match. Galway was this burgundy and Kilkenny is black and gold.)

(The killkenny supporters.)

(Yay America.)

We began the day with a museum search. We met up and grabbed some early morning (10:30) Starbucks and headed downtown. We began at the National Gallery. We spent an hour in there, which wasn't nearly enough time to even make a dent. The place is incredibly large. For example, at one point, we were finished there and left the gallery, followed the map to a different museum, and when we entered the 2nd museum.. we realized it was still the first one. Still the National Gallery. It was big enough that we walked down the street, turned the corner, and ended up in the same building.

(The National Gallery of Ireland.)

(Photography was forbidden, but it's a Van Gough.. I had to sneak a photo.)

(Jenny browsing the European Art.)

(Visiting the masters.)

(Don't even get her started... this is Megan's heaven.)

After the National Gallery, we grabbed some lunch and headed to the National Museum of Ireland. We stood outside and realized that we didn't take into account that it was Sunday and the Museum still didn't open for a while. So we skipped it, and headed to the next part of the day's plan... the Red Parrot. The same guy who owns The Comet owns the Red Parrot, so he told us to come by and he'd take care of us. The Red Parrot was also one of the Irish hangouts before the hurling matches, since it was right near the stadium. We were all dressed up in our best makeshift Irish hurling jerseys and ready for the game, so we went and hung out at the Red Parrot.

(Red Parrot.)

(Kilkenny versus Galway.)

(Uh oh!)

(We bought the headbands/wristbands/braided cords from this guy on the street... it seemed like EVERYONE had them.)

(This is the FIRST round of shots Darragh, the manager, gave us.)

(This is Darragh's dad, the owner.)

(They're tight.)

(Hey, hey, hey.)

(Grrr. It's on.)

(Awww.)

(Attempts at patriotism at 2:07.)

After two rounds of free shots from Darragh and other drinks and hanging out, we headed to the stadium around 3:30, for the 4oclock match. Since I was sober... I can tell you allll about the obnoxious American group I was wish that walked to the stadium, not as sober, yelling "Happy Birthday America" and "Happy 4th of July" and trying to sing "Proud to be an American." It definitely attracted some looks. But the streets were PACKED with people walking to the stadium. Hopefully their voices were overshadowed.

(Jenny's bff.)

(More rivalry on the way there.)

(Made it to the stadium!)

(Woooo!)

(Croake Park.)

(The walk onto the field.)

(Galway girls.)

(Hostile Kim.)

(Cheering Kim.)

If you know me well, you know I really don't follow sports. Like at all. And I thought this would be super lame. But it was actually really fun. The game was super fast-paced and easy to pick up. From what we could gather... all players have a stick that looks like a lacrosse stick without a net. It's called a hurly. There's a ball that looks like a big ping pong ball. You are allowed to throw the ball, hit it with your hurly, bounce it on your hurly, or kick it. Basically anything haha. The goals at the end of the fields are soccer goals with football field goals on top of them. If you get it in the field goal it's one point and if you get it past the goalie in the goal, it's three points. The ball flies SOOO impressively far when they hit it, like so far, especially considering the vicious wind that day. It was pretty cool. The final score was Kilkenny 22- Galway 15. We got a little lost when the National Anthem was in Galeic and all the announcements were also, but that's ok. We followed pretty well. Oh, also, at the end of the game the teams shook hands and the captains took off their jerseys and switched jerseys with each other, it was pretty cute.

(It was the championship game.)

:)

(Kilkenny spirit!)


After the game, we went back to Santry and hung out at the Comet for a little while then turned in early.

(Kim's sour about losing.)

(Winnerrrrss. Hehe.)