Today was a pleasant day. After an arduous night of significant drinking, I woke up rather late with a sore ankle and a gigantic bladder. An extremely lazy morning/early afternoon preceded a productive and interesting afternoon / evening that started with the All-Ireland Hurling championship match. So apparently hurling is one of the most popular sports here, one of Ireland's most unique sports in addition to Gaelic football (which I know nothing about) and is actually a really awesome game. Considered the fastest team sport game, the players (15 to a side) wield something resembling a hockey stick called a Hurl, and use it to whack a small ball that seems to be of the make of a baseball and the size of a hackey sack. The players are allowed to hold the ball with their hands and run 4 steps but otherwise have to bounce it or balance it on their sticks. They can handpass it to teammates by slapping the ball with their hands but cannot just throw the ball. Then there's the goal, which in addition to being a typical soccer goal, also has its goalposts extended ala the field goalpost in American football. Hitting the ball through the field goalposts earns 1 point, whereas getting it past a goalie into the goal is worth 3. So it's really cool that sometimes no one knows where the player might be aiming. The players often score field goals from really far away, over 50 yards out. We'll be looking at the screen and not even seeing the posts and then bam a guy would take a giant swing at the ball and it would fly way up in the air for a score. Kilkenny dominated the game, stealing the ball at will and scoring 3/30 to Waterford's 1/13. That score means Kilkenny had 3 goals and 30 "field goals" so they ended up winning by 23 points, but they give the scores in that format.
Afterwards I met up with Greg for mass at my local church. His Notre Dame program really takes care of their kids and they had a proctored mass today. Apparently the cathedral in Rathmines is the place to be, and really is quite ornate on the inside and has a giant green dome. I enjoy going to mass in different places, especially different parts of the world. Both the similarities and the differences of the services are really interesting, as are the revelations that a universal doctrine can be influenced by local customs. When mass ended, we grabbed a burger and shake at Eddie Rockets, which apparently is exactly like Johnny Rockets. Then I headed to a pub and watched some NFL action. There's a nice pub around my place that's also seemingly a good place to catch the NFL as an American was telling me, so it might become my new Lush. However they could only watch 2 games at a time and none of them involved the Patriots. So I watched the Saints play the Bucs and Reggie Bush rip off a 30 yard touchdown catch and run, and saw New England 17 Kansas City 10 in the top right corner. When I learned that Tom Brady had gone down with a knee injury, I dropped my Guinness. It's pretty devastating and I'm actually quite glad I'm in Ireland for it. If I had been watching the game this would be much harder on me. As is, my prediction of a disappointing Patriots season now seems inevitable, but hopefully Matt Cassell can step it up.
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