I've been busy since my last post with both work and play.
On the work side, I've finished a preliminary report based on a study in the meeting and convention industry and will see that presented during my visit to Atlanta for the ASAE Annual Meeting there, the business reason for our upcoming trip to the states starting on July 29. I also completed all the preparation for a presentation I'm doing at that meeting on an earlier governance study. All in all, quite productive on that front. I feel quite ready for Atlanta.
I also feel pretty good about our other plans while we are in the USA, including seeing family in New York, lots of friends in Washington, a family reunion in St. Louis, initial reconnoitering in Bloomington, Indiana in preparation for our return and two nights in Hot Springs, AK for a mini break on our own. It will be a busy trip but I'm quite optimistic that we've planned well and even the two days of 10-hour drives will be as much fun as driving can be, or at least not torture.
In the last week, I went to the Willie Clancy Festival in Miltown Malbay, County Clare for a set dancing workshop. There were classes each morning from 10 to 1 and lectures or cellis (dances with a live band) in the afternoons. On three days, I danced a total of 6 hours with the instruction followed by a 3-hour dance at a celli, including one evening event featuring the Kilfenora Celi Band http://www.kilfenoraceiliband.ie/ They played almost straight through from 9:30 to 1 a.m., the time just sped by.
This was my first celli experience and while some of the dancers were pretty experienced, most of them were OK with a relative newbie. Sometimes they were pretty unhappy about having newcomers in their sets, but mostly it was fine. Ironically, those who were not Irish (a lot of them either Americans or Germans) were the meanest about newcomers. Coming from an Irish family in America, along with my experience working for Aer Lingus, I have frequently encountered Yanks that are more Irish than the Irish. This is a source of great amusement among the people here, but they can be really annoying. My set dance teacher in Dublin was attending one of the cellis I attended at the festival and he told me that one of them told him that he was doing a dance "wrong." I was the only American in the group he told and all the others just laughed and exchanged knowing nods.
These folks need to know how ridiculous they are, but they seem not to and worse, to expect that the Irish will be somehow grateful for their ignorant aping. Apparently the editor of Set Dance News is an American and he's quite a source of amused annoyance. "Amused annoyance" may seem like an oxymoron but this is one of the bigger cultural differences I've noticed. When they are annoyed, most Irish will not under any circumstances make it clear, except to laugh it off. I think this is why people around the world think that the Irish are a happy people. They are no more happy or sad than others, but unlike the Dutch, they very, very seldom deal with a problem directly. Anyway, back to the set dancing news guy. He has a long, full beard but in all other respects has an Ichabod Crane appearance. His dance is full of high jumps, loud battering (stamping), and in one set in which I danced with him, he actually ran into an adjoining set during an "advance-retire" movement. He's in the foreground on the link for the Kilfenora Plain Set below.
But enough of that, on to the really great aspects of the week. I learned three new dances and figured out some of the finer details of two that I'd already experienced. There are links to all of them below. I definitely did what I set out to do in Miltown Malbay as far as dancing was concerned. I'm definitely a better dancer than I was.
Moycullen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-lbIvQXQSs
Kilfenora Plain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkzTQF7CWKg
Clare Orange and Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3XQ5fQldDk&list=PLqB7F2twvaSRLuOB4xIYIxmmAsqdnZ0Ht
Antrim Square https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnO2IdqvSEc
Mazurka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEhN3q2rGbY
I was less successful making new friends, but I think I made some critical errors in my planning. First, I didn't rent a car. I thought I could just get around OK by bike. Except for being the hottest week in all the time we have been here, with a day for Ireland's first ever "orange heat alert", that worked out OK during the day but it meant that I couldn't do anything after dark. The roads were all dark, windy and narrow, it would have been madness to try. Second was that I booked a place that was billed as 3km from Miltown, but was more like 3 miles out. It was much too far from the action, meaning that I couldn't even reasonably walk to any of the events. So, for the first three days, I spent the evenings reading. The house I was in was nice, but the other problem is that I was completely alone there. Even the owner was not present, so I just rattled around a huge "tiger built" house all on my own. That was pretty depressing.
By Wednesday afternoon, I abandoned the bike and met Geraldine, who had a car and agreed to take me to and from the celli that evening. That was really the turning point and I'd wished I'd abandoned the bike after day one. During that celli, I also met Fiona (said Fe-na, not Fi-own-a) and she invited me to spend the following evening at the house she was renting for the week with two other friends. That was a really nice evening. Unfortunately I left on Friday after the last workshop class at one o'clock. Still, I learned a lot, so all in all, it was OK.
Just before I left for the Festival, Mary, Dierdre, Valerie and I did the Howth to Sutton Cliff Walk http://visitdublin.com/pdf/iWalk08.pdf which was very nice. It was only 7km but there was a lot of climbing, maybe more than any of us thought, and it took quite a long time to get through it. It was a beautiful day though, and we certainly learned a lot about what we need to do when we're walking The Camino on days where there is climbing. First and foremost is to pack light. One of our group had a heavy pack, filled with a lot more than she needed and it was tough for her. Another is to be sure to carry lots of water, in complete opposition to achieving the first learning! I did use electrolytes in my water bottle this time and that made a big, big difference. We are planning another walk this Friday and I hope to get one more long one in on the 28th, the day before we leave for the USA.
We invited my 4th cousin, Shaunna Flynn, the evening of the Howth to Sutton walk. I was late getting home because it took so much longer than we planned, but Alan saved the day and prepared a nice dinner. I'd made a cake the day before and so it turned into a nice evening too. Shaunna is just finished college and hoping for a job as a primary school teacher somewhere around Dublin, she's the grand daughter of Annie Burke, my mothers friend here in Ireland. Annie just died several months ago.
We are headed for a spa for an overnight tomorrow featuring massage and seaweed baths http://solasnamara.ie/ and then an evening in a farm B&B nearby http://www.gortnadihalodge.com/
Lots to report, I have to get back to posting more regularly.
