Did you miss me?

The town of Dungiven is about 100 meters long and the majority of the residents are sheep. Not counting the houses, I’m fairly sure there are actually fewer buildings in this town than there are on my college campus.

Arriving in Dungiven was one of the easier journeys so far. In Derry it was an easy walk to the bus station, I only had to wait very briefly for the bus, and the ride to the town was only about half an hour. As I arrived I noted where the B&B was—right in the center of town, perfect location—and then it was just a short walk to get there. “No problem!” I thought, “This was comically easy!” I thought. I rang the doorbell, waited. No one answered. “No problem!” I thought, “I have the phone number right here!” I called the number, waited. No one answered. “That’s a little more of a problem…” I thought. I figured they couldn’t be long wherever they were so I clumsily pulled all of my luggage into the café next door and ordered a smoothie while I waited. I drank the smoothie very slowly then left after about an hour. Rang the doorbell—no answer, called the number—no answer. I spotted a bench right across the street and figured that might be a good place to wait so that I could see if anyone arrived at the B&B. So again, I clumsily pulled all of my luggage across the street and situated myself on the bench. The unfortunate part was that this bench is right in the center of this very small town, so sitting there with a huge suitcase and a big backpack made me very clearly stand out from the crowd. I happened to have written down the phone number to the one other B&B in Dungiven and out of desperation I dialed it. I was very happy to hear someone answer! And they had a room for the night! And…she was also out of the house and wasn’t going to be returning until 4:30...it was about 3:20 at this point. I figured at least now I had a destination and a time frame. I only lasted on the bench a little while before I really had to go to the bathroom so I hauled my caravan across the street again to “Skipper’s Fish n’Chips.” It was only after entering the establishment that I realized they had no customer bathroom. I went to the counter, where the woman was giving me a very very puzzled expression, and I ordered fish n’ chips with no fish. I tried to explain my situation then pleaded to use the employee bathroom. Finally 4:00 rolled around so I began the walk up the street toward the other B&B. It’s a short walk from town made longer when you are pulling a 50 pound suitcase. I found the B&B around 4:15 and was happy at least to have somewhere to wait…and at least it wasn’t raining. But then it started raining. And she didn’t actually arrive until about 4:50 so I just stood in the rain with all of my bags for a half an hour and passed the time by counting my many many blessings… “Yes it’s raining, but at least I have a place to stay…at least I’m not dying of AIDS in Africa…at least I completed elementary school before ‘No Child Left Behind’” and that sort of thing.

Actually, in the end it was a good thing I ended up in that B&B. The woman, Margaret, was very friendly and the room was very nice. When I told her that I was here in town for the Fleadh she got very excited and said “Oh! I’m in the local ceili dance club and we’re dancing at the opening concert tonight!” This was also lucky, because, as it turns out the opening concert was in a community center a long way out of town and she offered me a ride there, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to go. Plus I had the benefit of listening to her cackling and squealing with her lady friends in the car on the way there…I just can’t seem to keep myself out of awkward situations, can I?

The concert was pretty enjoyable. It was scheduled to start at 8pm and didn’t start till 9pm, but none of the guests seemed to notice. They seem to have a lot of local talent in terms of music, but less in terms of dance. It was all very quaint right down to the local drunk crazy old guy heckling the performers from the back of the room.

I was certainly the only non-local in the audience. I’m actually beginning to wonder if I am the first American to ever visit Dungiven. Every time Margaret introduced me to someone she said, “This is Katherine. She’s an AMERICAN!!” And also, when I was sitting in the first café (the hour-long smoothie) the teenage girl at the counter found out I was American and almost fainted. She kept saying things like, “Oh my god you’re American?! That’s so cool! I love Americans! Tell me all about where you live! I’ve always wanted to go there! America is so cool!!”

On Friday, I had kind of run out of things to do in Dungiven before I had even done anything. I took a walk through town but that only passed about 10 minutes of time. Eventually I concluded that my time would be best spent taking a nap.

Now I'm back in Derry for a few more days. Enjoy some pictures from the past few days:

This is what I look like when I ride the bus.

A very amusing mural in Dungiven. I particularly like his very circular knee caps.

That is Dungiven Castle, and that crazy person pointing to the castle is me.

OHMYGOD OHMYGOD OHMYGOD. PINK Smart Car??! Seriously??! I spent most of my time in Dungiven trying to figure out how I could steal this fine vehicle.