The Cottage Life

Okay so I had a request for actual life in Ireland, not our various trips so here it goes.

cottage #6! The rest cascade out to the left towards the hotel

We live in 5 person self-catering cottages on the Park Lodge Hotel property (…address mail to Michelle Hromatka, Park Lodge Hotel, Park, Spiddal, Co. Galway, Ireland) 1.5 mile outside of the “roaring metropolis” of Spiddal which is part of the Connemara. The Connemara is a Gaeltacht area, meaning it is an Irish speaking (they say Irish, not Gaelic) area and is regulated(?) by the government. Every sign must be in English as well as Irish, people who live in the Gaeltacht area are supposed to be fluent Irish speakers. Apparently some English wanted to build houses on the Connemara and their building permits weren’t passed because they don’t speak Irish.

living room, small fireplace, kitchen, dining room

So we live in these self-catering cottages, complete with three small bedrooms, two with two beds and one with one bed, a kitchen, a living room with gas fireplace and a dining room. They sound bigger than they actually are with that description but I love it! We pay for our electricity through a stipend the professors give us. We have to put 2 euro coins in the meter to keep the electricity running. We are a lot more conscious now about electricity: use the electric water heater for dishes, its faster than the stove, turn off the outlets (yes, the outlets have switches), take short showers at the times the water heater is turned on…etc. It’s pretty interesting to see how much we can go without when we have to pay for (mom/dad that’s not a suggestion).

the bathroom

me bedroom, bed on the left

For class, we have a classroom in the hotel which we have access to by a keypad. The class barely holds all 29 of us for the one class that we are all in (I don’t have a picture of it yet) There is a lounge with two computers, the classroom and the laundry room. Laundry costs 6 euro for wash and dry but the dryer is huge so you can fit quite a lot!

Our class schedule is like this:

Monday: Gaelic Archaeology and Culture 10 – 1

                   Study Abroad Seminar 2:30 – 4

our little kitchen, note the
fridge on the bottom R

Tuesday: Irish Catholicism 2 -4ish (still undecided)

Wednesday: Irish Catholicism 8:30 – 10

                          History of Ireland 11 – 2

Thursday: Study Abroad Seminar (sometimes)

So with one exception we get to sleep in everyday and the schedule is always up for grabs, like today we didn’t have class because instead we went to Thoor Ballyle (Yeats’ home) and Coole Park(home of Lady Gregory, patron of Yeats and altogether an awesome person) and the literature prof (I am not taking that class) read us Yeats’ poems in various spots throughout Coole Park. Next Monday we are “hunting and gathering” (no joke) around the hotel property and down by the ocean for nuts, berries and shellfish.  Going back to a normal class schedule and setup will be quite the rude awakening!

More to come later on Thoor Ballyle and Coole park… I have too much to write about those and this blog is already too long.

Slainte! (cheers!)

michelle