Ballinasloe

Well, here I am!

I've been in Ballinasloe for three nights now. I rolled in to town on the 5th around 5:00, and felt odd with my huge backpack, guitar, and other backpack strolling past the little shops. I must have looked pretty funny. I found my B&B, the Curra Mor house, run by a very nice woman, and got settled in. I called Fiona, and she said she'd pick me up the next morning at 8. So,after a bang-up irish breakfast of toast, tea, orange juice, cereal, an egg, sausage and bacon (the best bacon I've ever had, sorry Yard and Flagon)it was off to the site. Fiona is a small, elfin irish woman with a million things to do and a tiny little car that she drives like Michael Shumacher. After blazing down the winding roads for a few moments, I arrived at our site. It turns out I'm working with the mobile team, the one cleaning up the little satelite projects around the bigger ones. Our current site is a 19th century mill complete with the Millrace, cut out of native limestone. Beautiful. My coworkers are a very mixed bunch: Jason, from Adelade, Australia, Leslie, from Windsor, Ontario, Anita from northern Italy, Raphael from Poland (speaks barely a word of english), Sarah (I think..., crap, I forget her name for sure), an irish girl just here for a few days and Mick, our supervisor. All are characters in their own rights, and all are very pleasant. Mick, unfortunately, is moving back to Cork in a week or so. He is all you could ask for in an employer. He looks like an Irish, dark/grey dreadlocked/bearded Ewan MacGregor with a possible military background and a twinkle in his eye. Hell of a guy. He is extremely encouraging, and very passionate about his work, making everything interesting and exciting. He likes to provide exciting historical backgrounds, and to give out little projects, outlining an archaeological question about the site, and having you "investigate" the problem by digging a certain area, etc. Brilliant. Very open to ideas, as well. He'll be sadly missed, I'm afraid. Alas. The site has an interesting possible history, as the region we are digging in has an odd name "Coololla" that means Land of the Ulster Men, apparently. According to Mick, a number of linen makers were forced out of northern ireland a few hundred years ago due to religious reasons, and apparently settled in this area, though there was no hard evidence or record of where. Coololla implies it was there, but no one knew for sure. Well, now we've found a linen mill (with a lime processing spot nearby, used for linen production, among other things) where there are traditionally very few, and may have solved a bit of the puzzle. Fantastic!

Alas, the library is closing for lunch.

I gotta go.
Things are great!

Luke