Two weeks down!

It's raining again.

I should be all set as far as accommodation now. Tomorrow I'm going out to the town of Dungiven, which will be the only place I will go on this whole trip that doesn't even get a mention in my guidebook! There's another little Fleadh music festival going on there so I'll be seeing that. When I called to book a room at the B&B the man on the phone said "there's only one stoplight in town and the B&B is located right past it." So I'll be there for two nights then I'll come back to Derry where I'm happy to say I'll be staying in a different hostel with a single room and let's cross our fingers for clean showers and working toilets.

Derry would be a very nice place to have lots of money. It's a tiny city, but it's basically entirely made up of shopping malls. I've been wandering into a lot of these stores...but it's all for cultural research I swear... Actually, shopping in Ireland is helping me to understand how Irish dance costumes became the way they did. From the stores I have been to it seems that Irish people are very much into neon colors, rhinestones, and sequins. A lot of women that I see here seem to have no problems with fake tans, fake hair, or excessive makeup either, so that explains some things as well.

I know I've talked a lot about accents but Derry is the craziest place so far in terms of how people speak. The Northern Irish accent is somewhere between Scottish and Irish, and while most Irish people speak very rhythmically, Northern Irish people speak with so much rhythm that they sound either like they're using iambic pentameter or like they're constantly asking a question. I don't feel like I really noticed the accents this much the last time I was in Northern Ireland, but I guess I just probably wasn't interacting with as many locals.

Funny things that Irish people say:
--"Aye" instead of yes
--"Fortnight"
--"HOWahya" (that's what it sounds like when they say "how are you" It's like one word with the emphasis on the "how"...very funny sounding.
--"Soya" instead of soy. Soya milk, soya sauce, soya protein...
--The letter "H" they pronounce as "haitch"
--In stores or in restaurants when an employee in the USA would say "How is everything?" or "Are you finding everything ok?" in Ireland they ALWAYS say "Are you ok?" This catches me off guard every time because I always think they're asking me if I'm about to get sick or something.

And some of the best quotes by Irish people so far:
--"Oh, you're American! I love your country music!!"
--"Do you have an airport in Oregon?"


And while we're on the subject of things that are funny in Ireland, let me address the topic of bathrooms. Every sink that I have encountered in Ireland thus far has had that annoying two faucet deal where one is hot and one is cold and there is no in between. Also, no bathrooms in Ireland have paper towels, they always just have hand dryers, which is environmentally conscious, but a little annoying. Today I used the most powerful hand dryer I have ever encountered. You know those pictures you see of people sky-diving and the skin of their cheeks is flapping back against their face? This hand dryer was so strong that the skin on my hands was doing that. I actually started laughing aloud and I'm sure people were wondering what was so funny about drying my hands.

That blog was a little lame, but that's all I got.