hullohullo, I'm back from a fabulous weekend and kicking my own ass profoundly in the best possible way, but first things first, the farm (pictures later i promise! i have to get some from some friends)

this weekend me and a couple of friends (chris, ifer, april and mary beth herafter refered to as mb) went home with our irish friends matt, alistair, and kate to their parent's farm in fuenog (again, i don't actually know the spelling) which is about an hour outside of cork. it was, in a word fantasmagorical. they live just outside of the little town, down the road from michael flatley (if you don't know who this is look him up....think lord of the dance) who was getting married that weekend to their milk farm. first night out al, matt and kate's mum fixed us a glorious dinner, we had copious amount of really good french wine (as well as some "american sludge" from the napa valley, lol) and then went out to the pub down the road. this place was tiny. i mean, tall people beware clean your clock on the ceiling tiny with two rooms, one for tossing hoops (a game that is way cooler than darts) and drinking, and one for music. i (well duh) wandered into the music room like a cat to cream, sat down and listened to the fast fiddle, crazy banjo and guitar, and as people went round taking turns and requests, the whole room singing together, couldn't help raising my voice to james taylor's sweet baby james. this is one of my favorite songs in the entire world. and as the song ended, the man with the guitar right in front of me turns around, tells me i sing like and angel and to quick, pick something i can sing from the book. we do the water is wide and the room stops dead. no joke. it was amazing. this whole room full of people who are there on a friday night because they love to make music together and we all sang and clapped untill it wasn't night anymore. i love ireland.

then went back to the farm, which after living in the downtown city center (which i never really have) was such a breath of fresh air. it smelled like the country, there were deep glowing green trees everywhere, the earth smelled damp, ivy twining around everything, laundry out on the line, the two herd dogs running up after the car and covering you face with shaggy loving dog kisses, scads of farm cats' eyes peeping from behind tractors that are waiting to be fixed and barn doors, and gardens, flowers, everything growing and loving and alive in abundance. i was really deeply happy.

the next day we headed out to see a rugby match, munster versus dublin. now, for anyone who dosnt know. cork and dublin dont.get.along. according to everyone i've ever met in cork, dubliners are prissy, rich, stuck up, materialistic, shallow, snobs. and i havent been to dublin yet, so i can't really speak for them. the match was, needless to say, incredibly entertaining. it got down to 23 munster 21 dublin in the last five minutes, and dublin scored, putting them up at 26...we were dispelased. but the match was amazing, and kate ( who is incredibly fabulous by the way, she's also the only girl after three big brothers) talked me into trying lady's rugby with her, so that will be later today, striaght after which we are planning on marching muddy, buised, sweaty and sodden into choir practice to sing our little hearts out! anyways, after the game kate and i were hankering for some chips (read frenchfries....now who here is suprised?) so we walked thorugh the town to a little takeout place (this is kate, mb and i) and got curry chips, garlic chips, and straight up no nonsence chips respectively and pigged out in front of the store. glorious. the it was back to the farm

we milked cows. need i say more? we went in, cleaned off the teats, had milked each one to make sure they're not infected or anything's wrong, then hooked them up and milked them. so freeking cool! i got used to slapping them good to make them move down, and feeding them to get them to stand in line, and having milk fights with kate (if you aim the teat as you're squeasing, the milk will fly really far...aim takes practice, so much fun) and dodging cow shit (...ew) and god it was awesome. totally messy fun. and i'm looking at the time so i have to get going. but ill write up the rest of our day's after class. that night was just drinks and ten fingers, not too terribly exciting. more to come!