Galway: 3, Jules: 0

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a big fan of packing lists, to do lists, and backup plans, and less of a fan of putting things in the universe’s hands. Now that I’m over the initial shock of the arrival, though, and more or less going about a normal working life, the past week has been an exercise in ‘you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to avoid every possible failure and indignity.’ A new city will surprise you, play tricks on you, and sweep you off your feet in every possible sense of the phrase.

Completely predictable embarrassment number one: the first real wind- and rainstorm hit this weekend, and blew me off my bike. No cars, pedestrians, or cows were harmed in this incident, and I incurred only a minor scrape. It’s actually comforting to know that some things don’t change between continents, and my being aerodynamic is apparently one of those things. Throwback to my freshman year, when I was blown off my crutches and down the steps of the Ruggles T station.

Embarrassment number two: I take a lot of pride in the fact that I’ve never lost a push-up contest, so when I had the chance to win €100 if I could hang from a bar for 85 seconds, I rolled up my sleeves and hopped on, and got an unpleasant surprise when I realized that this bar happened to spin. Luckily my roommate caught all of the flailing on video: if you look closely, you can see an air of overconfidence and impending doom. Shoutout to the outfit that the guy running the game was wearing. Where do I get a hat like that?

The final and most unexpected triumph of Galway over my carefully planned adventure came in the form of an older woman who struck up a conversation with me on the bus. The Irish are both very chatty and very blunt, which is actually refreshing, although it takes some adjustment. When she asked what I was doing here and I mentioned barnacles, she actually had the same reaction that a master’s student in my lab encountered multiple times: telling me about barnacle soup. This legendary soup is actually made from limpets, which are significantly bigger than barnacles and the bane of my research—they bulldoze barnacles that have already settled on rocks, take up bare rock space that the barnacles (my barnacles? Can I say that?) could’ve occupied, and lead to my doing a lot more math than I’d like to. I don’t know how an attempt at barnacle soup would turn out, but I think it’s one of those things that just because you theoretically could attempt it, really doesn’t mean you should. But it’s considered impolite to correct strangers’ taxonomic knowledge on public transit, so when she asked whether I’d tried the soup, I just said I hadn’t. The conversation ended when she got off the bus, but not before I’d been informed that I won’t be qualified to write about barnacles until I’ve stewed and eaten them. You win some, you lose some.