Submitted by Brendan Bond, Global Ambassador in Galway, Ireland

Within a few days of arriving in Ireland, I learned something very important about this country. I was told, “If you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes.” Moral of the story is that the weather here is fickle, always changing and never making up its mind on whether it wants to be sunny, cloudy, windy, dreary, warm, cold, misty, rainy or downpouring.

More often than not, it’s raining in some varying degree. Sometimes it’s a fine mist that you barely notice, until you reach the point where all of your clothes are soaked. Other times, it’s a soaking rain. It rarely is sunny all day.

Except, somehow I have been extremely lucky to get nice weather on the days that nice weather was needed. Except for our field trip to Connemara, when it was windy and wet and raw, every excursion I’ve been on has somehow seen ideal weather.

When I went to the Cliffs of Moher with friends, we were told that often it’s foggy and not all of the cliffs were visible. Well, I got to see them all. It turned out to be a bright and sunny day. The same was true the following day when our whole group went to the largest of the Aran Islands, Inis Mor. Both places would have been neat to see anyways if it was foggy or raining, but the perfect weather only added to the pleasure of seeing those stunning locations.

I went windsurfing last week with two other kids from the group, and although the day after the wind was too strong for groups to go out, we picked a day where the wind was ideal. There was enough to get moving but not too much where handling the board became unmanageable. Honestly, I never expected to go windsurfing when I came to Ireland, but I truly enjoyed it. It was one of those things that is harder than it looks until you can get comfortable standing on the board and adjusting the sail to move and turn. Once you’ve got that down, it becomes much easier than it looks. And it also became quite relaxing.

Finally, I went sea kayaking in a small group. Two days ago it was chilly and rained the whole day, but we got perfect weather. The water resembled glass with how smooth and calm it was, and it was actually the warmest day since I got into Galway. Of course, that’s not saying much given the heat waves back in the States, but I’ll take it. Again, it would have been enjoyable even had the weather been crappy, but somehow I got lucky with the weather again.

I guess that makes sense because I am in Ireland. Good luck can lead to a good craic (that means fun).

 

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