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<\/p>\nDia daoibh! I\u2019ve been in An Cheathr\u00fa Rua for almost a week now and it\u2019s still hitting me that I\u2019m here \u2013 In Ireland, in Connemara, in Carraroe. An Cheathr\u00fa Rua is more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. The houses are nestled into the rocks that line the hills and. I\u2019ve fallen in love with the stone walls that line the roads and crawl through the fields.<\/p>\n
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I started the program out in the Elementary course. I was a bit rusty to start and didn\u2019t feel quite confident that I would be at the right level to move up to the intermediate. I started out staying in the elementary. Based on the course description, I thought that the course would be a good way to perfect my grammar, and there were a few topics that I hadn\u2019t covered yet. However, after a few days in the course, I wasn\u2019t feeling challenged and decided to give the intermediate class a try. I moved in after lunch on the second day. I didn\u2019t exactly get off to a great start when I was asked by the teacher what I had for lunch today and promptly forgot the word for sandwich. When she asked what was on said sandwich (after I was kindly given the word by a classmate), I also managed to forget the word for cheese, so there was ham on my sandwich and \u201csin \u00e9.\u201d Since getting over my nerves, the class is at my level. I feel challenged by some of my classmates who are more advanced than me, but not intimidated. I look forward to learning from them, especially the many linguists we have in our class (It is not uncommon to hear a conversation in Spanish, Portuguese, French, or even Bulgarian pop up even though most everyone\u2019s first language is English). While no new grammar concepts have been introduced, I am being challenged with new vocab and to use my Irish in a way that allows me to live in the Gaeltacht.<\/p>\n
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On Tuesday, we had sean-nos dancing classes. I was tripping over my feet the whole time, but it was a great time. Lots of craic to be had. I look forward to learning more steps and more about the history of sean-nos. It was interesting to hear that of the 18 last Oireachtas winners, 16 were male. Most styles of dance seem to be dominated by females. It doesn\u2019t look like I am going to be changing that trend any time soon. On Wednesday, we had sean-nos singing. I wasn\u2019t much better at that either. The teacher was a great singer, and although he didn\u2019t claim to be a \u201ctrue\u201d sean-nos singer, he is going to bring his daughters next week, who he says are sean-nos singers.<\/p>\n
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Besides the cultural experiences, the studying, and the classes, the most important (and arguably most difficult) part of this experience is my conversation with the locals. Our house has a mix of levels from beginner to advanced, so we haven\u2019t been using Irish with each other at the dinner table or around the house, which is disappointing.\u00a0 We can\u2019t converse together all in Irish, but we\u2019ve started working together to use Irish phrases for \u201cpass the _____\u201d and \u201cI would like the ____\u201d in addition the hundreds of \u201cgo raibh maith agat\u2019s\u201d we shower our bean an t\u00ed with. I\u2019ve tried to linger around the kitchen a little longer each night and try to add something to the much more astute and grammatically correct conversations that the advanced students have with her. As I\u2019ve used more of my Irish, she has been super encouraging.<\/p>\n
My proudest moment so far was the conversation I struck up with a local on our walk to the beach on our afternoon off.\u00a0 We went to Tr\u00e1 an D\u00f3il\u00edn<\/a>.\u00a0 I had stopped to pet a horse at the house next to his.\u00a0 My group had walked ahead and so I was straggling behind a bit.\u00a0 He was standing out by his fence in knee-high wellies.\u00a0 I returned his \u201cDia duit\u201d with \u201cDia is Muire duit\u201d and from there we had a short-lived conversation that went something along the lines of<\/p>\n \u201cAre you going to swin?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not swimming today, but its lovely out\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is lovely, such a nice day\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre you on holidays\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I\u2019m learning Irish at the Acadamh\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, how great, Have a nice day!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGoodbye for now!”<\/p>\n It may not sound like much, but I\u2019d like to think it sounded more impressive As Gaeilge.\u00a0 Even though the coral beach was painful to walk on and I was sunburnt, this short little conversation made the hour long walk more than worth it.<\/p>\n Dia daoibh! I\u2019ve been in An Cheathr\u00fa Rua for almost a week now and it\u2019s still hitting me that I\u2019m here \u2013 In Ireland, in Connemara, in Carraroe. An Cheathr\u00fa Rua is more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. The houses are nestled into the rocks that line the hills and. I\u2019ve fallen in … Continue reading F\u00e1ilte go dt\u00ed An Cheathr\u00fa Rua!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2999,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290963],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sla-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2999"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2669"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2672,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2669\/revisions\/2672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/sla2018\/files\/2018\/07\/IMG-5301-225x300.jpg\")
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