Gaill-City of Strangers

This past weekend I had an opportunity to see an hour presentation on the history of Galway and to go on a walking tour of the city center (or medieval city as the historian called it).  The historian, Peadard O'Dowd is a local historian who has written many books about Galway and his presentation was interesting. While he gave us the tour of the city centre he also explained many facets of its history. Gaillimh is derived from the irish word gaill which means strangers. This city has always been known as the city of strangers because of the many tribes that have come and gone and all of the invasions that have occurred here. I feel that even all of the students moving into the university attributes to the name. We are from all over, the university generally has an average of 1500 international students attend every year. 

Also, as you walk around Galway you'll notice there are a lot of swans and I mean a lot. Biologically I don't know why (maybe my bio friends would know ;) ), but according to Irish lore, swans are a reincarnation of the ancient celts. There is also a legend about an Irish family that had been turned into swans, I need to research that. The Irish cherish their swans dearly, whenever I walk to the promenade by the bay you can see so many people bringing bread to feed to the swans (I don't think they realize that bread is bad for ducks), but it's the thought that matters. The swans will let you get very close before they start to ruffle their feathers. It was really cute to see one standing next to a little boy whom it towered over. If you were to ever hurt a swan they'd through you in the bay (so an Irish woman told me). 

My Irish roommates have moved in, they are all girls, and they seem really friendly. One girl made me a little nervous when her initial reaction to my introduction was "oh, you're american". But as that days have gone by she and I have been chatting in the living room and I have been making an effort to really show who I am and be myself. Many of the other American students have told me that when meeting the Irish, the Irish have said "why can't you guys be yourselves?". It's difficult to get an understanding of what they think of us. Last night a guy stopped my friend and I to ask us to come to a house party. Then he followed the invitation with "are all americans cheesy?" It was difficult getting him to explain his meaning, but then he simply stated "are you all like the people on the Hills?" I have never watched this reality show before, and it's sad to say, that's how they measure americans. I have found that many of the Irish base who we are upon the reality shows on TV. The Irish are known for watching a lot of TV and they show a lot of American reality shows. It bothers me that our shows are such a poor reflection of so many Americans and because they are so popular they will continue to be a poor reflection, thus we're only shooting ourselves in the foot. The Irish guy also asked if all American girls were extremely horny, which was a rather awkward question (he was rather drunk while talking to us anyway). American women have gotten quite a reputation here in Ireland. The only thing I can surmise is that because so many girls are attracted to accents maybe they do hook up with a lot of Irish guys. I only hope it doesn't become an issue I have to wrestle with often. 

It has been cloudy and showering from time to time. My roommates say it will be like this until April now. We'll see if that ends up being true.