Dublin Irish Festival experience.

My friend decided to come down from Cleveland to see me this weekend. That's because my city, as I think I mentioned in my first post, has the world's largest Irish festival (that's not actually in Ireland). I think our goal this year was 100k visitors, and I think we might have made it; record-breaking turnout on Friday night seems to lean in that direction.

Anyways, AJ came in late-ish on Friday night after dropping off a girl he knew on Ohio State's campus. We decided that it was worth our entry fee for the day to go to the Festival for about an hour to see Gaelic Storm perform. Honestly, I didn't like them as well as some of the other bands I saw, but that's just me; they were okay. It gave AJ a little bit of time to see what he was really getting himself into with this whole stay-with-Jen-for-a-weekend shenanigans.

My brother left for band camp on Saturday morning, so it was just us four in the house for the rest of the weekend. AJ and I didn't really get moving to go to the festival until about 1:30, but by the time we got there, we still had plenty of things to see and do. Lots of vendors come in every year, and in particular AJ was entranced by some of the photography and paintings. There was one vendor who actually did cast paper. Think about it: you make a relief from wax, make a rubber molding of your wax relief, then press paper pulp into the rubberized mold. Voila! Cast paper. Then, of course, they were elaborately painted. Amazing stuff.

We got to learn about physics all day. One of the first events AJ wanted to see was some of the highlander sports that were available. The event was sheaf-tossing. (Sidebar: NOT SHEEP TOSSING. We have been trying to explain this to people over the phone for a long time, and everyone seemed to think that the bales of wheat would bleat as they were being thrown. NOT THE CASE. No animals were harmed during this Festival.) So we got to see these burly men trying different techniques, like where their pitchfork would grab the bag, where they would stand to hurl this (20-pound) weight over what looked like a pole-vaulting setup, etc. Too bad we got there too late for the caber toss. There was also some free-stone throwing going on (like less-glorified shotput, if there is such a thing.)

Then we headed to learn how to Irish dance, but it was mainly an elaborate square-dance and not the step-dancing (kicks, etc.) I was hoping for. We saw that there were dart lessons taking place in the 'pub', so we stopped in. More physics! A professional dart player (didn't know there was such a thing) stopped by and gave us a few pointers as to basic form, then set us loose knowing the rules of Cricket. (Yes, it is a dart game.) Basic rules: Get three each of 20 through 15 and three bulls-eyes. Whoever gets there first is the winner.

While we were throwing darts, AJ's brother Alex came up from Oxford. Diversion: What is it with Ohio and its international city names? There's Lima, London, Oxford, Dublin... Newark, although that's technically in Jersey so not too international. There's even a Hicksville (literally, that's what the town is named). So no, this isn't Oxford, UK, where I will be studying, although there is a university in Oxford, OH: Miami University. Which is NOT the same as the University of Miami, which is in Florida. OHIO IS CONFUSING. Anyhow. Alex met up with us while we were in the pub and joined in on our game of Cricket. After a while, my stitches started acting up, so I had to quit, but it was interesting to see how close the game was (with two amateurs, there wasn't much 'competition' per se).

Then we met up with my parents for dinner. They had been waiting at the rock pavilion, which is one of our five (yes) stages that we have set up for various performing guests to come in. I had fish and chips for dinner and one of those shake-up lemonades that you'll always find at the fair. Major carnie food available. Alex got some kind of stew in a bread bowl, and AJ got food from our local German restaurant (although, it must be said, they make good bangers). We met up with my parents and watched a band called the Young Dubliners. I thoroughly enjoyed them, to the point where I bought their most recent CD, Saints and Sinners. One of the guys in their band was playing some kind of bladder instrument that I couldn't quite make out, but it was the same guy who recorded some of the music for Braveheart. (Requisite cry of FREEDOM! included.)

Then AJ, Alex, and I realized that there was an entire half of the festival we hadn't even been to yet. (One of these days, I will find a map of how big this festival has become over the past decade, since I've lived here. It's HUGE now. Used to just be in the part we hadn't even gotten to yet.) On our way, in one of the artisan workshops, we saw a little girl who couldn't have been more than seven, pounding a chisel in order to create a wood relief. AJ and Alex, with their impeccable baby radar, were enthralled by this strange phenomenon.

Anyhow. In order to get to the other half of the festival, we had to walk by these period reenactors, and... you guessed it, MORE PHYSICS! We learned how to hand-make rope (this very interesting contraption that uses torque in order to force the strings to bind together in a twisting fashion). We also learned what is most effective in terms of the design of chain mail. Yes, there are different designs, and some help keep the blade from sticking in your mail and ripping off your shoulder. Also, helmets are cone-shaped because it helped the sword blows to the head from denting your helmet and instead forced the blow to glance off towards the shoulders, again a reason why your mail should always be facing in the right direction. More information about how heavy this stuff actually is (30 lbs. for a shield, 38 lbs. of full chain mail, 7 lbs. for a helmet, 5 lbs. for the chain mail that goes under the helmet, a 20 lb. pack on your back, plus weaponry) made me wonder why these people ever went to war in the first place.

While it was finally getting dark, we cruised around the vendors and food available in this all-new area, until we heard clacking. That's the mating call of the Irish step dancer, people. So we go to this stage, and it's the Richens Timm Academy of Irish Dance. And these people are not messing around. During the competitions that took place at my high school Friday and Saturday, these people had managed to train seven world qualifying dancers. Some had placed second or third in North American competitions.

Here's a story that you probably couldn't find anywhere else: At one point during this dancing, with mostly people my age performing, a little boy is sent out on stage. I look at him, thinking it's a gimmick, until he actually starts dancing. This kid is a progete. He's a miracle. He's dancing like I've never seen an adult dance before. And when he bows and leaves the stage, we learn that little Colin is six years old and that he's currently in third place in the world overall. Not just in his age group. Thus why I've created a new slogan for my city: Only in Dublin. Only in Dublin would you see this kind of horrifying yet gorgeous showmanship.

After watching more of their fabulous dancers, we headed back to the rock stage for the third time that night to watch Prodigal. Again, I didn't like them as much as I liked the Young Dubliners, but they were okay. More of notice during this performance was the amount of alcohol that had been flowing throughout the day was actually starting to catch up with these people. Stumbling, slurring, obnoxious behavior, you got it all. By this time Alex had managed to catch up with one of his friends from Powell, a small town about five to ten minutes away from where I live in Dublin. So the four of us are just trying to listen to this band relatively peacefully, but of course we can't, because we're sober and everyone else is not.

I don't understand how this phenomenon takes place at our Festival. We have a system by which you have to buy 'tokens' which are then exchanged at selected beverage stations for beer, wine, mixed drinks, soda, or water. Tokens are $2. Once you get to the beverage station, soda or water is one token, and alcoholic drinks are three. This means that each alcoholic drink costs six dollars. Yet before my eyes I'm seeing people who are definitely in the process of getting smashed. This means that these people have probably spent thirty dollars at least on just alcohol, let alone food and entry fees. I don't understand this, I really don't. It's not THAT much more fun drunk.

So, after getting hit on a few more times than necessary, I decided it was time to run back to my car, parked at the Mormon church, and call it a night.

This morning AJ and I headed out early so that he and I could get to our church services. AJ decided to meet up with his brother so that they could go to the Catholic mass spoken in Gaelic ("if it looks unpronounceable, it is"). I decided to go to the interfaith service with Justin (whatever, that's my boyfriend's name, no one else is anonymous here). His church sponsors the only service at the Festival that isn't Catholic, and I enjoy the one time a year that I go to hear his pastor. After the service, I bought funnel cake for breakfast. You can laugh or jeer if you want, but I had been craving one since last Thursday and I finally had what I wanted. Since it was Justin's first day at the festival, I mapped out where we should go. We went to see the Young Dubliners again once we had eaten breakfast. Their setlist was the same, but I didn't mind. After a little more wandering and a little more darts, Alex left us to go back home to Carmel (right outside Indianapolis, Indiana).

Around 2:30 we decided to start wrapping things up. At a certain point, even I get all Irish'd out. So we bought some candy from the import shop (and let me tell you, I can't wait to have all the UK candy available, though it isn't as good as Japanese candy for sure). We were almost home until AJ reminded me that he wanted to go see our quaint, historical downtown area for some local ice cream. Jeni's is fantastic. They have a lot of gourmet flavors. Black coffee actually tastes like coffee smells. I had a 'kona stout' taste today, and it did taste like stout, and then mild coffee. Delicious. AJ got this mixture of 'backyard mint', 'goat cheese with roasted red cherries' (like cheesecake ice cream), and some sort of cherries jubilee. He tried the chocolate cayenne, which is my brother's new favorite, but he didn't care for it.

After Jeni's, it was time for AJ to pack up, get his friend from OSU, and head back to Cleveland. He's texted me that all is well, and hopefully I'll have time to read his blog entry. (This one is almost as long as the ones he writes!) I'm exhausted. It was fun being a host, especially since I was used to having another boy in the house, but AJ is very high energy, and I can only keep up with so much at once. I'm exhausted right now, and I should probably sleep, but I needed time to document what turned out to be a very nice weekend.

This upcoming week looks like Secret Projects, plus a lot of work, plus perhaps going to COSI tomorrow with Justin. Ohhhh I'm so tired.

- Jen -