Today on my bus ride to the city center it hit me how much Limerick and Eugene are alike. Limerick has sort of become the Irish version of home. Though it is the third largest city in Ireland, it is also very much a college city. Most of the foreigners here are drawn to the city because of the university and there are also a few smaller colleges in the heart of the city, which means that there is a huge student population. But what struck me as being the most similar between Eugene and Limerick was the fact that every other building is either a cafe, a bar (called pubs here obviously), or a sports store.
Limerick is often called the European city of Sport, and it is really amazing how many different types of athletic venues are present. There is horse racing, golf, soccer, rugby, hurling, fishing, cycling, and much much more. Eugene is the same way - albeit no horse racing and no rugby. But just as Eugene is home to the iconic Hayward Field and University of Oregon Stadium, Limerick has Thomond Park Stadium which is famous across Europe for its rugby matches, as well as the Gaelic Grounds which is one of the largest football stadiums in the mid-west.
As I sat on the bus looking out the window, I saw so many people out shopping and riding their bikes and walking their dogs, and I thought it was so great to find such familiarity in a place that is so far away from home. Ok, so they drive on the wrong side of the road and they have cool accents and you have to pay for grocery bags and even shopping carts, but the culture has a lot of really cool similarities.
Ok, so you're probably wondering why I posted a picture of a car license plate. At home I've always loved playing the license plate game where you try to find as many different states as you can (usually played on long car trips in an attempt to keep the terrible boredom at bay). But here I have developed a new version of that game: Guess what county of Ireland the car is from. All of the county/city names on the license plates are printed in Gaelic, and while some of them are relatively easy to guess as their Gaelic names resemble their English names others are not so easy. The one in the picture above is from Limerick, or Luimneach in Gaelic. That one was a no brainer for me since that word is posted everywhere here, especially on signs for the university. But every day as I walk through parking lots on campus and on days when I go to town I always look at license plates to ponder over where they are from. Dorky? Yes. But also really fun and challenging. This is my attempt to learn a little Gaelic while I'm here lol.
No comments:
Post a Comment