During my time here in Ireland, there’s been a couple things that have stuck to me. First and foremost is Armagh’s sense of community, and (I presume) importance of family and religion. I say this because everyone and everything opens and closes at the same time, and when I say that I mean you cannot go out to get a cup of coffee before 9AM or get anything to eat after 9PM, because nothing is opened. Yes, I realize that on days of worship things should open at different times to accommodate those who wish to go to mass, including store owners, but on a Tuesday morning if I wake up at 6:30 it’s just as deserted as it is at 11PM, which is not only also without any open establishments but also just as bright out. From what I gather, it’s all assumed that everyone is running on the same schedule. Which is okay, I guess, it’s just that I wasn’t on the same page.

Another thing that came ringing is how old the city is. I’m not saying that because it is in fact very old, I can tell from the size of the streets, they’re a size better fit for horse-drawn chariots rather than cars. There’s lots of areas that allow almost exclusively civilian traffic, and others where it seems the right size to accommodate a group of people that have a tiny sidewalk barely wide enough to fit one person.

A third dissonance is how absolutely deserted the streets are at night. It’s justified; there’s little reason you’d be walking around at 1 AM, because everything was closed four hours prior. Not a car drifting by, not a soul stalking the streets. It’s completely emptied once the sun finally sets. It’s nothing like Baltimore, nothing at all.

A fourth and final dissonance is the fact that I was unable to find a bottle of chocolate syrup that could be used to brew Chocolate Milk in Sansbury’s.