The Irish Summer

As I stepped off of the plane from Chicago I learned the mearning of Irish Summer. An Irish Summer, in Chicagoese means that it’s freezing. I immediately wish that I would have flipped the jeans-to-shorts ratio that I came up with while I was packing.  Oh well, one really can’t wear jeans too many days in a row can one? I met a guy from Claire who told me that last year they had two summers: Tuesday and Wednesday.  Something tells me he didn't come up with that one himself,  but I told him that I would steal it nonetheless.


After spending the last 5 summers traveling primarily in Mexico and Central America, all I can say is that Ireland certainly seems to have the bus and road part of the infrastructure down. I was able to get on a bus directly outside of the airport, pay the driver and get deposited right on the campus of the University of Limerick. The roads were fast, the people were friendly and the bus even had WiFi.

I  had a very pleasant 4 hours looking out the window as we cut directly across the island. We bussed along though soft rolling hills dotted with cows and sheep, passed through several small Irish towns and only had to slow down a couple hundred times for traffic circles. It was better than Wisconsin. Who needs stoplights!

The University of Limerick Campus has a very modern, if not dated feel. They are celebrating its 40th year this year so a lot of the architecture has a 60’s/early 70’s look- although not necessarily the bad shag carpeting/orange plastic furniture/fuzzy dice/lava lamp vibe. This campus has more the UIC Chicago campus thing going on. Although it is a Sunday in the summer so I literally only saw a handful of people. It was actually a little bit creepy. It made me think that I was in some kind of deserted post-apocalyptic alcademic setting or at least like I was in that Simpsons episode where Bart gets a fake ID, rents a car and the only place that they can think to go is to Knoxville because Milhouse has an old coupon to the 1982 World’s Fair. When they get there, the only thing that is open is the sphere of the future that was turned in to a wig store.

Anyhow, I’ll start tomorrow and then actually be able to talk about something musical. Today I met a woman named Sarah who lives in the dorm here somewhere. She is an Irish dancer from Buffalo. I also met one of my apartment-mates who is called Ian. He is a fiddle player from Edinburgh Scotland. Don’t get me started about how nervous I’m going to be trying to fake Irish tunes whilst sitting next to a fiddle player from Scotland.

The other thing that I learned about an Irish Summer, which I actually like very much, is that as I type this, it is after 10 p.m. and it is just now getting to be dusk…