Nayna and Somiah came to visit us recently. Nayna was just finishing up 6 months of holiday, and had spent 4 months in india and the other 2 travelling around Sri Lanka, etc. She was telling us about how she had defined and perfected slothdom while travelling, living on the beach for three weeks and having nothing more straining to do than manage to get up from the beach for a shower and dinner. She then looked in our dictionary, and *gasp* slothdom was not there. she wrote it in for us… It was great to see them, and I felt re-energized by Nayna’s enthusiasm.

While they were visiting we went down to west cork and up blarney castle (I was the only person who kissed the blarney stone! the photo is on somiahs camera though, we were silly and forgot ours that day) and up to clare. We met up in clare with some more canadians and hiked around the burren. This was a bonding experience – there is nothing like a little wind torture to bring people together. The burren was incredibly barren, the definition itself of windswept and very nearly godforsaken, except for the odd sign of humanity – cairns, shepherd shelters, and the ubiquitious stone walls. I wondered the whole time what the stone walls were meant to be containing. I decided they are just the human equivalent of peeing on trees… “this is my spot – find your own!”

We went out for a fantastic night on the town after that hike. The pub was packed, there were two guys with guitars and a guy on drums sitting in the corner, and they were playing everybody’s favorite songs. the word got out that we were from canada, and the singer started calling out “anybody here from cork?? YA LANGERS!!” and “anybody here from limerick?? c’mere, I wantcha!!” then “anybody here from canada?? bleedin’ SARS!!” If this doesn’t strike you as side-splittingly funny, try it in a packed irish country pub after countless pints…

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