International Fame
~E~
On our first day in Ireland, my parents and I forced ourselves to wash up and make our way out of the B&B and into the real world. Our eyes sandy and bleary from the long plane trip, feeling rumpled and in need of a shower, we stumbled down the stairs and into our rental car.
Our destination was downtown Ennis. The city was having a fleadh that weekend, a fine arts festival that involved the entire city. It included plays, concerts, dance exhibitions and was a perfect start to our stay in Ireland.
Having found out there was a parade a bit later, Mom, Dad and I staked out a spot on a curb to watch. The sky, surprisingly (haha) was a bit cloudy but we stuck it out anyway.
The parade did eventually begin. It was kind of a sorry affair, and we heard people talking about it and saying that not every one had shown up. They stopped the parade a few times because of rain, and finally just gave up on it altogether. It wasn't disappointing at all - we were in frackin' Ireland, people!
We walked around a bit, saw a play or two, watched one singing competition in which the poor woman onstage totally forgot her lyrics. It was painful. People in the audience tried to whisper loudly so she'd hear, but she finally ran off stage, redfaced.
I was fascinated by how narrow the roads were; I walked into the middle of the street to snap a photo and was dragged back by my dad as a car came racing down the road! The roads just don't seem like streets, and it took another day or two to get used to everyone driving on the other side of the road.
We continued our roadtrip, ending up a week later in Dublin on the other side of the country. Stopping in a newspaper shop, Dad picked up a copy of the Clare Champion, the newspaper from Ennis where we had begun our journey.
There, on a back page pictorial of the fleadh, was a photo of me. My mom. My dad.
International stardom, I'm tellin' ya.
On our first day in Ireland, my parents and I forced ourselves to wash up and make our way out of the B&B and into the real world. Our eyes sandy and bleary from the long plane trip, feeling rumpled and in need of a shower, we stumbled down the stairs and into our rental car.
Our destination was downtown Ennis. The city was having a fleadh that weekend, a fine arts festival that involved the entire city. It included plays, concerts, dance exhibitions and was a perfect start to our stay in Ireland.
Having found out there was a parade a bit later, Mom, Dad and I staked out a spot on a curb to watch. The sky, surprisingly (haha) was a bit cloudy but we stuck it out anyway.
The parade did eventually begin. It was kind of a sorry affair, and we heard people talking about it and saying that not every one had shown up. They stopped the parade a few times because of rain, and finally just gave up on it altogether. It wasn't disappointing at all - we were in frackin' Ireland, people!
We walked around a bit, saw a play or two, watched one singing competition in which the poor woman onstage totally forgot her lyrics. It was painful. People in the audience tried to whisper loudly so she'd hear, but she finally ran off stage, redfaced.
I was fascinated by how narrow the roads were; I walked into the middle of the street to snap a photo and was dragged back by my dad as a car came racing down the road! The roads just don't seem like streets, and it took another day or two to get used to everyone driving on the other side of the road.
We continued our roadtrip, ending up a week later in Dublin on the other side of the country. Stopping in a newspaper shop, Dad picked up a copy of the Clare Champion, the newspaper from Ennis where we had begun our journey.
There, on a back page pictorial of the fleadh, was a photo of me. My mom. My dad.
International stardom, I'm tellin' ya.
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