Stephanie's Pilgrimage to the Emerald Isle: Art, Religion, and Life in General.

2007-04-29T17:50:00.000-06:00

29 April 2007

What an adventurous past few days I’ve had! Wow! I’ll catch you up, but today, I’m writing from Navan, which is a lovely little city situated on the Boyne river pretty much in the north central part of Ireland (what McDowell described as the Iowa of Ireland). I really enjoy the hotel where we’re staying because a) they didn’t serve the vegetarians pasta (I’ve had nothing but overcooked pasta in one bland sauce or another for dinner for the past two weeks. Uggggg…The Irish do not do justice to Italian cuisine) b) our hotel room is various shades of red with polka dots and big modern red and gold flowers c)our bedroom overlooks a cathedral d) the hotel is really old and quirky e)the window to room area ratio is just right, plus the windows open all the way and e)the beds are extremely comfortable. I’ll forgive the fact that we didn’t have hot water this morning. A little hypothermia in the morning wakes you right up. It’s lovely that this hotel doesn’t require a four minute walk from lobby to room and isn’t an old mental institution.

I suppose I’ll start from where Ieft off journaling. The first day after I left off, Dr. Mann was sick and we weren’t able to secure a classroom space, so we just had McDowell’s class in the stairwell and it was pretty boring because it was more material that we covered in my medieval lit class of last term. In the afternoon, I headed out to explore Sligo on my own. I found a nice little bakery and coffee shop and did some writing there and then just looked around until I found an art supply store. I bought some charcoal and chalk and a sketch pad, and for the first time since junior high, I went outside and sketched. It was glorious! It felt so good, and I think my eye has improved. Also, Mark, Beamer, Carsen, Gina, Ryan, and I made plans to go surfing for Friday. Thus I started getting excited.

Actually, out of order, the day before that, Tuesday, the class went to Knocknarea, which is a cairn (BIG man made pile of stones) on top of a mountain. The cairn on top of Knocknarea is said to be Mabdh’s tomb (or Maeve’s tomb in the anglicized version). Queen Mabdh is pretty interesting because she is supposed to be both a stone age or bronze age warrior queen (yup… I said both. The archeologists place her in the stone age (about 3000-5000 years ago) while the historians date her to be a bronze age queen) AND she’s supposed to be also the queen of the Sidhe or faerie folk. Both. Plus, the tales of her suggest that she was a saucy minx and the very first feminist. I like her. But I digress. So, we visited her tomb, where she is supposed to be buried standing up with a spear, facing her enemies in Ulster, under the huge cairn that is about a hundred feet in diameter and about fifty feet tall. What is especially cool is that this cairn is so old and visible from everywhere in the surrounding area that all the later stone age tombs are oriented towards it, so all the other passage tombs and court tombs faced Knocknarea. The climb up the mountain itself wasn’t too bad. After climbing Mangerton, everything else seems like a piece of cake. When we arrived at the top, we found that people had taken a lot of stones off the cairn and spelled out their names and various messages on the ground surrounding Mabdh’s Tomb. It offended our sensibilities as burgeoning archeologists/historians/folklorists, especially offending Dr. McDowell, so we were all encouraged to bring a rock or two back to the cairn.

I misunderstood and thought he meant that I should bring a rock up to the top of the tomb, so I picked up a hunk of pink granite from the middle of the “f” of “Fatima” and started up the really tall cairn. As I was making my way over, a little old Irishman passed me and said “Ah, looks like you have a really big wish there!” I smiled not knowing what he was talking about and straining under the weight of a really big chunk of stone, and he continued walking past saying: “Trust me, he’s not the right one!” I kept going up the cairn with my little boulder thinking mubling angry thoughts about little old men thinking that I would waste a wish on meeting the man of my dreams when I could wish about more important things like peace or environmental stewardship. That’s the problem with little old Irishmen: they think that if you’re young, female, and unmarried that your first priority in life ought to be finding a husband, and they’re not afraid to say it. They’re old and flirtatious and chatty. In a way, they’re kind of the last of an older way of thinking, so it’s a little sad, but I’ll be happy to return to a place where I can go to grad school and be successful and indepent without being considered unusual, though it does make me feel like I’m going to wind up a lonely old cat woman. What I don’t like is being considered just a pretty face who’s going to make some man very happy someday. Why can’t some man make me very happy someday? Or even better, why can’t we both make each other happy in a mutually supportive relationship that takes into consideration both of our equally important careers and ambitions?

But, I digress once more. I made my wish at the top, took a picture, and then headed down to do some more cairn re-building. I found this cute heart that someone had made out of stones from Mabdh’s tomb, and decided that I’d break another heart in the interest of monument preservation (if I had a dime for every time that’s happened…) So I made it my personal task to disassemble the heart rock by little bouldery rock. There is nothing more theraputic post-breakup than chucking rocks from a useless heart on the ground onto a great big pile of rocks that is a 3500 year old monument. Turning something broken and useless into productivity and healing, quite physically manifested. Plus, you get to throw rocks.

Anyway, I was summoned away from my righting the wrongs of my romantic ambitions by McDowell when he got pretty much the whole group together to form assembely lines of rock putting-awayness. It was a very physically demanding half-hour, but together, we managed to clear about a sixth of the mountaintop of the names and “hi!’s” and smiley faces besmuding the landscape. It was an amazing experience, working together and passing rocks. We sang songs too, in the true chain gang fashion. Though, we tended towards “Build me up, Buttercup” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” (including guitar solos) and the Beatles rather than spirituals or labor songs. It felt so good too, to put the rocks back where they belonged on the cairn. After that, we went to Strandhill to play on the beach, which, coincidentally, was the beach where we were going to go surfing. We popped down to the surfschool to confirm our reservations for Friday, chatted with the instructor, and the joined the rest of our friends on the beach. While leaping and dancing down the beach, I tripped over my feet and fell into the water, fully clothed. It was at that moment I truly understood why we needed wetsuits for surfing. The beach was lovely though, and the waves looked promising.

After sleeping soggily on the bus home, I had enough energy to play an amazing game of bridge and some more poker! I remain terrible at poker, though I did bluff everyone out of their hands on one round. Note to self: Abstain vigorously from strip poker if ever invited to play. We did play a game of hearts too, and let me tell my hearts playing friends back home that they better watch out because I count cards now because of bridge. Yeah, that’s right Andrew. You’re not the only card counter anymore.

Thursday we went to Yeats land: Drumcliffe, the church where he is buried, Benn Bulben, the cliff he wanted to be buried under and wrote about, and Parkes Castle (14th century norman castle, reconstructed) situated on the lake where resides the Lake Isle of Inisfree, the subject of one of Yeats’ most-loved poems. The lake tour via ferry boat was pleasant because of the sunshine, unpleasant because of the tour leader’s incessant touristy banter, but it is a gorgeous lake. The whole day, I kept thinking about surfing on Friday. Thursday night brought more bridge and poker, and I actually got third place out of six people.

Finally, the sun dawned on Friday morning and I was out of bed like a kid on Christmas! The sun was shining, and the clouds were dissapating, even at half six. The surf report looked excellent. In the morning we had a gallery visit to see some works of Jack Yeats (W.B’s little brother) also from the Sligo area, but I didn’t enjoy it very much because I was too busy daydreaming about surfing. After the gallery visit, a gaggle of us trekked over to the pizza parlor in town to take advantage of Four Star Pizza’s five euro “Lunch Special”. It was amazing, and definitely NOT pasta or granola bars, so I was happy. After that we had to book it down to the bus station to catch our bus out to Strandhill. It turns out that pretty much everyone in our class and the McDowell’s were planning to go out with us and have a little beach party. Unfortunately, that meant that my certain un-friend was coming with us, but I think she’s finally received the hint that I don’t like her and her unnerving demeanor, plus I would be surfing, what could bother me? Once we all arrived at Strandhill (luckily, some of our surf party that had to go back to the hotel caught a cab out to the beach without incident), we checked in with Paul and Paul, our surf instructors from New Zealand. The one Paul looked like a baby giraffe with his sun-bleached shaggy hair and ridiculously long eyelashes. The other Paul looked like an ancient Mariner. Their accents were absolutely amazing to hear, though, because they had a little bit of an Irish lilt, but the Australian-isms like “mate”, plus the surfer drawl. So, any given sentence would sound something like this: “Right, so you’re going to grab your board, mates, and head nose up into the surf, eh?”

We paid up and headed to the back room to get our wetsuits and boots (we didn’t need hoods or gloves because the water was about 15 degrees celcius.) Mark, Ryan, Carsen, Beamer, and Gina all got their suits without incident. Paul would just look at them, and pull a perfectly fitting suit off the rack. Impressive given that Ryan is 6’5’’ or something really tall like that. But I managed to trip him up. For some reason or another, everyone thinks that I’m much tinier than I actually am. I managed to squeeze into my wetsuit, which wasn’t too tight, but it was about four inches too short on the arms and the legs. I felt kind of goofy when I saw that everyone else’s fit, so I asked Paul if I needed a different size. He asked why, and so I pointed to my exposed legs to which he replied: “Well, shite, you’ve got some long legs, eh?” and got me a new wetsuit that was less tight and actually a little too long on the arms. Putting on a wetsuit is an ordeal and a half, especially because my second wetsuit was brand new. So, it was kind of like putting on panty hose over your entire body made out of quarter inch thick neoprene. But I was happy that it fit and it would keep me warm and toasty in the Atlantic.

After suiting up, we headed down to the beach, feeling like we were going on a lunar mission or something. We set up camp on the beach and got our surfboards: big foam numbers that would hurt less if we got smacked in the face with them. We set up in a semi-circle and proceeded to run through the steps for surfing on land. Which was pretty funny, truth be told, practicing paddling in the sand. I felt kind of like a very very warm sea turtle trying to make it back to the ocean unsucessfully. Paul instructed us how to hold the board, how not to hold the board (to avoid breaking fingers… his pinky looked something like this: ___/\___. No joke.), how to paddle, how to push yourself up and balance. Then, we took to the waves, with our friends snapping pictures like paparazzi. It was the most amazing fun! I love surfing! I even stood all the way up about three times. Beamer did the best out of all of us because he goes waterskiing every summer. It was incredibly hard work, with the hardest part being wading out against the current, like the going uphill when sledding. But it was worth it, soooo worth it. Once you get out far enough, you flip your board around to face the beach, hop on and hook your toes over the back edge, and start paddling to orient yourself in the direction of the wave and then paddle like crazy once it approaches you. Then all of the sudden, you feel this catch of the surfboard on the wave and you’re off! It’s up to you to push yourself up and slip your feet under you. That’s the hardest part, getting your feet under yourself. Once your feet are set, you stand up and balance and feel completely amazing because YOU ARE SURFING! WOOOOOOOO!!! Then, if you’re Steph, you tumble off your board or flip over or get smacked in the face with it or some other cool move. But it was completely justified, because YOU WERE JUST SURFING!!! YEEEEAAAAAHHHH!!!

In other words…. It was a blast. I don’t think I’ve been as sore as I am since I went up Mangerton in Killarney, but it was definitely worth all the stiffness and bruises. I think this was possibly my favorite adventure yet. And there’s nothing a little advil and 11 hours of sleep won’t cure. Yesterday was a long day on the bus and another cool stone circle, so I’ll just sign off here and leave you with this sentiment: YEEEEAAAAAHH SURFING!! WOOOOOOO!!!

2007-04-23T00:40:00.000-06:00

***Sorry I've been playing catch-up! The great lot of travelling we've been doing means that it's hard for me to whip out my computer and play the update game. But I'm all caught up now, so I think we're grand.***

22 April 2007

Here we are in Sligo! I haven’t ventured into town just yet because town center is pretty far away (about a 15 minute walk) and we didn’t get into our hotel until about quarter to six last night. We drove up the coastal road through Connemara, a beautiful “rugged” territory full of hills and mountains and lakey and streams. Lots of rocks too. Always lots of rocks. But absolutely gorgeous. We stopped at the Ceide Fields, which is a neolithic farming community. Archeology galore! I enjoyed it quite thoroughly, even though it was really really really windy. I almost got blown off the boardwalk. I picked up a book on bogs and found some really cool bog cotton grass. Well, I didn’t originally find it. Dr. Mann picked a fluffy little stalk for me and then the tour guide reprimanded me for picking the bog flowers. Dr. Mann apologized to me and to the guide though, and so she just laughed and said it was ok.

The bus ride was long because I was sitting next to the McDowell’s daughter the whole time, and though she’s adorable and quite clever, I’d forgotten how taxing playing make believe can be.

As I’m about to venture out (and check to see about surfing lessons for tomorrow, because apparently the surfing here is great) I’d like to mention the coolest thing about Sligo yet: the hotel. We’re at the Sligo Clarion, which is amazing because it is a renovated mental institution from the 1940’s. It wasn’t closed until 1992 when the newer facility was opened next door. Clarion purchased it and renovated it (a 45 mil. Euro job) and opened it in 2005. It is the biggest, most confusing, and creepiest hotel I’ve ever seen in my life. There must be something like 500 rooms. It takes me about 4 minutes to walk from the reception to my room on the second floor, and that’s if I book it. There are corridors upon corridors of narrow creepy hallways, made all the creepier by the maroon carpeting with occasional jagged orange designs woven into them, the mauve walls, and bizzare (sometimes violently so) modern art adorning all the walls. This picture here is of one of the paintings just before you get to my room. I like to call it Vein-Rune Study I. I’m not a big fan. It reminds me of Hannibal Lecter.

The exterior of the hotel is imposing gray stone, neo-gothic style with towers overlooking an enclosed courtyard. To take this picture, I had to go across the street. Exploring the hotel last night took a full hour, and I’m pretty sure there were still places that I didn’t get to. There’s even a very eerie old chapel on the grounds, that was shrouded by thunderclouds last night. I think that maybe I’ll go exploring again to take some pictures, but this time I’ll bring some bread crumbs so if I get lost, I’ll be able to find my way back to my room. If the cleaning personnel doesn’t vaccuum them all up. Hm… maybe a ball of twine would be a better idea. I do have quite a bit of yarn… Hm. Well, I’ll give you an update a little later. If I come back alive and sane.

------Update as of 23 April----- I played more bridge last night and learned how to play poker. I am a terrible poker player and am really glad I don’t play for real money. Maybe it’s because I have no poker face… Anyway, I ventured into town center, which is about a 10 minute walk from the hotel, and it’s a lovely little area. There are more trees around Sligo than elsewhere I’ve seen. PS: No surfing for Steph. It’s still too rough out there and the weather is nasty today.

2007-04-23T00:31:00.000-06:00

20 April 2007

Today I bid farewell to Galway (at long last, here is a picture of the River Corrib running into the Galway bay. The river runs extremely fast and there are life rings dotting its banks in case anyone falls in), as we began our move to Sligo via Wesport (where I am writing from tonight. Even though since I have no internet here, I won’t be publishing this entry and the last one until Sligo tomorrow or later.) I found a part of a poem that I’d like to share to express my feelings of leaving Galway after nearly three very intense weeks there:

“…there is always the anticipation
Of the change, the chance that what is wrong
Is the result of where you are. I have
Always loved both the freshness of
Arriving and the relief of leaving.”
(From “where we are” by Gerald Locklin)

Galway was the site of many an interesting/amazing/unfortunate/heartbreaking/mysterious/cheering/delightful/terrifying/humilating/wonderful event. Oh, Galway, I feel like I’ve known you for both a minute and a month. I’m sad to be leaving, but I’m excited for the chance to leave some of my more negative feelings behind and pick up fresh with a new town.

For my last night in Galway, my friends Crystal, Sarah, Colleen, Erin, Ann, and I decided that some spirit-lifting going out was in order, so we dressed up (Sarah fixed one of my shirts for me with my sewing kit! She’s very much appreciated.) and headed out in search of any cool pub with music. Just by accident, we ran across this one pub that had the “West Coast Swing Band” playing. Attracted by the word swing, and the prospect of a real 17 piece big band, we headed in and took a seat. I didn’t stay sitting for long. The band was great, and it was killing me not to dance. So, when it got to be too much to bear, Ann and I broke out the swing in the rather unpopluated back section of the pub where we were. Once again, Steph goes about intimidating guys by leading girls in partner dances. After we started attracting some attention though, we gave it a rest and I got whisked away into conversations with some Irish people. Some of them were more middle aged men, others were my age and kind of dorky, but my favorite were the little old Irish men. They asked me to dance, in fact, even though I was most definitely taller than them by at least half a foot, especially with my shoes on. I don’t think I intimidate old men.

The funny thing about all this, though, was the fact that though they asked me to dance and had good rythym, none of the men I danced with actually did swing dance, in any variation as I know it. They had a couple moves from swing here and there, one guy had some pretty nifty lindy tricks, but for the most part swing dancing consisted of turns (especially elbow turns) and then breaking into a jig in time to Duke Ellington. It was at once amazing, comical, and delightful. Definitely not swing, but very fun, and very Irish nonetheless.

It was very fun talking to people. I got a big (and slightly uncomfortably lingering) kiss on the cheek from an older, slightly intoxicated Irish man who was originally from Dublin, worked as a newspaper person in Zimbabwe for 27 years (that’s why, he claimed, he likes Arizona so much. The climate is quite similar to Zimbabwe.) and then has lived in Galway ever since. He’s now opened his own business distributing newspapers and is quite happy, except he’s “in the market for a partner… of the female variety” at which I must have looked slightly terrified because Tony added: “but don’t worry, you’re much too young for the likes o’ me. I have grown children older than ye.” We also talked about the shooting in Virginia for a little bit. Apparently, the Irish concept of America is one big big big place with much bigger temperatures, butts, egos and guns than Ireland. I surprised him by saying I was shocked by the shooting. He told me that the predominant Irish reaction was one of great remorse and pity, but not shock or surprise. It’s America, something like this was bound to happen sometime, is their thinking here. The media too, is putting a much different spin on it than we would at home, I think. Insantly, they made the central issue about gun control laws. A poll on the Irish version of CNN said that more than 80% of Irish people think that America needs to revise the right to bear arms amendment to be more strict or eliminate it all together. Part of that is because gun crime is on the rise here in Ireland, especially areas with heavier immigration, and they’re struggling to supress a burgeoning illegal arms trade, which is quite distressing given that guns are banned here and in the UK.

I also talked to a couple of middle aged men who said that they would ask me to dance because I was “a complete knock-out in that outfit and witty as well” but they didn’t because when they saw me dancing, they said that I was “top o’ the floor” and too good for them. Then, there were a couple of really dorky guys my age. Well, one, Stephen, wasn’t so dorky, but he seemed to be really nervous around me, and got along much better with my friend Erin, who is a self-professed non-dancer. But the one who wanted to dance with me, Scruff, was a bit of a dope. He wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box and admitted that he neither wanted to go to college AND doesn’t really have a job. He was a terrible dancer and a bit inebriated. I much preferred the old men. But it was really interesting that even this dope of a kid, who looked like a bobble-head doll when he talked and said things like: “that’s craaaazy!” or “goin’ wild!”, was familiar with Irish poetry. He asked what we were seeing around the Galway area and asked if we’d seen Coole Park, where Yeats resided quite a bit of the time. He didn’t have the attitude that you’d except of an American equivalent of his, the type that would shun poetry in favor of football or nascar or whatever. He didn’t once say anything like: “Poetry? That’s gay” or laugh at me when I said that I was studying poetry. He knew all the names I did and even snipets of poems from them. I couldn’t believe that I was having a conversation with this dopey kid who said that “Yeats. Oh man, he’s wild! Brilliant. Just brilliant.” Poetry is a huge part of the culture here, with a rich heritage, but also a vibrant continued presence that I find absolutely endearing.

Today I find myself in Westport, a midpoint between Sligo and Galway on the coast. It’s a charming town and I really enjoy it. The buildings are brightly colored, our hotel is bright crimson! (Yes! Red!) and there are lots of hills that remind me of pictures of San Fransico. There is a river that runs through town and there are periodic fountains (see picture). It really is beautiful. I’m sad that we’re not staying here longer, because it really is adorable. I found a little craft shop (where they sell knitting and other things that people have crafted) and it was a little mom and pop’s shop. The little old woman proprietor greeted Ann and I and invited us to take a look at everything. We chit-chatted for a little bit and then I noticed the beautifully hand-knitted items, knitted and designed by some woman from Westport. I was indicating the excellent craftsmanship and difficult open lacework pattern to Ann, and the woman told me that I had a keen eye and good taste to pick out the best work in the shop.

Other than that, Westport has been quiet. Ann and I watched some wildlife outside our window that overlooks the canal and some flowering cherry trees. There was a crow feeding frenzy on the roof, and then we watched some mice chase off a magpie and a crow! There were also some ducks we watched outside our window too, it being cold and rainy outside and just cold inside. I went to bed early after calling to wish Dad a happy birthday. The end.

2007-04-22T06:05:00.000-06:00

18 April 2007

Today, I took an art history midterm and studied for a latin midterm… which is pretty much like what I was doing all weekend long, except with more paper writing this weekend. Saturday, I studied and walked to the beach and the art gallery so I could get a better look at the works for my paper. Sunday, I walked to the beach and worked on my paper and studied and talked on the phone to home for a while. Sunday was a bad day (the first actually bad day I’ve had here). Monday I worked on my paper, studied, turned in my paper, ate an ice cream cone, and tried to read poetry but failed. Monday wasn’t so hot either.

Yesterday was lovely though. Yesterday the entire class went to Inismore, one of the Aran Islands. I think it was my favorite class trip thus far. We took a ferry out to the island (about a 40 minute ride from the mainland) and then, once there, we took a little bus out to this amazing ring fort called Dun Aengus. Dun Aengus is another ring fort, situated on a cliff face, so one of its sides is actually just a sheer drop 200 feet down into the ocean. After walking around the fort for a bit, I just wanted to sit and watch the waves. So I did.

Sitting at the cliff ledge, I recalled my favorite episode of my favorite NPR show “Speaking of Faith”, the easter one I heard with the Eastern Orthodox priest/gardener/author. He said that in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, similar to the Celtic monastic tradition, they see nature as a type of scripture to be studied just as they would the Bible or other holy texts. Forty-five minutes later and feeling much more at peace with myself and the ways of the world, I went with some of my friends and Dr. Connolly to walk back to the harbour village of Kilroran instead of taking one of the two mini-buses. It was only a three and a half mile walk, and the weather was absolutely marvelous. Very conducive to adventuring.

The first thing we encountered were rocks. Lots and lots of rocks. Our friendly bus driver was telling us (in Gaelic peppered English, Gaelic being the predominant language of the Aran Islands over English) that one scholar estimated that there were about 7000 miles of stone walls on the Aran Islands. That is a lot of rock wall for three rather tiny islands. But, I could see it. There are more tiny, stone-fenced little pastures than what would seem logical. Most of these little pastures are about the size of our hotel room, some slightly bigger or smaller, some more irregularly shaped. There is a reason for this too, though. Our driver was telling us that for years now the families on Inismore have divided the land into little plots and splitting it up so that no one farmer would get all the good land. By splitting it up, everyone would get (in theory anyway) some of the good plots and some of the rocky, unarable plots. Most of the good plots are good because people, over the years built up layers of soil over the rock by bringing up baskets full of seaweed from the ocean and letting it decompose on the plot to form a rich, fertile soil, a very laborious and slow-going process. There are still more rocks on Inismore than anything else, though, I’m pretty sure.

Moving along our coastal road, we happened upon a seashore, a beautiful sandy beach with turqoise crystalline water. It was so clear and the sand was speckled with washed up seaweed and shells and stones. Sandy beaches are a pretty rare commodity in Ireland, most of the costal regions being tidal mudflats, rocky shores or cliffs (cliffs being the worst for wading and sunbathing), so I felt absolutely inspired to shuck my shoes and socks and wade in the water. The only problem being that though the scene looked like something from Florida, the water definitely felt like the North Atlantic should feel: freezing cold. Really, truly, bone marrow-chilling cold. But it was worth it. I also drew a llama in the sand before I left. I didn’t play with any of the kelp this time, but I remain convinced that it is one of the coolest plants ever (Ann took this picture. It’s spectacular!).

But scintilating aquatic flora isn’t the only the Aran Islands has going for it. No, Inismore is full of interesting animal-life as well. Contained within a lot of the rock-fenced pastures are cows and horses. Unlike the mainland, sheep don’t do so well here, tending to wander into other pastures, goats just jump the fences and wander away (one funny thing: I did see goats on the island, but they were often tied together by their collars because it takes them a very very long time to figure out how to coordinate jumping the fence together.) So, it’s mostly cows and horses, though I did see one pasture/backyard full of several types of ducks [I included the picture of the duckyard here. Enjoy, all you friends of the fine feathered fowl] and determinded that it would probably be heaven to be a duck in the duckyard on Inismore. There is also a bar on the island (one of seven. Population of Inismore: 720. Number of churches: 3.)

But as we departed the beach, prancing around in one of the stone-fenced pastures was a fat brown pony. He was so cute! But his looks were deceiveing. One of my friends fed it an apple from her backpack and we were all petting the horse when: CHOMP! He bit down on my hand and wouldn’t let go. I’ve gotten nipped at before, and I’m pretty sure Calypso, the camel at the llama farm, has chewed good-naturedly on my face some, but never has a horse bitten me and not let go. I calmly said: “Ow. Um… Care to let go?” and lifted my hand up so it’d have to adjust it’s neck and unlock it’s jaw that was quite firmly clenching my hand. It worked, and my friends were all laughing at me, impressed with my nature-communication skills while I stood there with my bruising hand covered in horse spit and little chewed up pieces of apple. Ewwwww… I do have a nice bruise on the top of my hand now, but at least the stupid horse didn’t break the skin. Really, I figure it must have been pretty stupid not to be able to tell the difference between my hand (soft, veiny, pink, and full of blood) and an an apple (crisp, red and yellow, and full of sugar and apple juice). He should go back to pony school because looking cute, innocent, and prancey will only get him so far in life. Horses these days. Seriously.

After the horse incident, my friends Christine, Mark, Ryan, Kade and I decided to take a little side road up a hill to see where it led. It actually ended up leading back to the main road, cutting up over the hill where the main road went around it, but the adventure was worth it. About halfway up, I found a little natural well and explored for my friends who were unsure about it. I didn’t drink from it, but the trampled grass leading to and from it, and its location behind a fenced area without animals makes me think that it’s some kind of holy well. It was only slightly after discovering the holy well that we were chased by a collie who was sitting outside on the porch of a house looking very sentry-like. He was all bark and no bite though, so it was ok. The good conversation continued as we hiked back to Kilroran. I’m a little sad that these excellent people will be graduating this year and I haven’t gotten to know them until Ireland term, but I feel fortunate to be able to spend the time we have now with them. Walking through the countryside and chatting, we saw some really cool thatched roof cottages and some ruins of older houses from before the famine. I actually saw my first potato field too while I was walking about. Back in Kilroran, I finally found the Aran sweater I was instructed to find. I love it! Grandma Dixie told me that it was the warmest sweater you’ll ever wear and it’s so true. I spent a pretty penny on mine (well worth every cent, though!) because it is handmade. As a knitter myself, I really appreciate the beautiful cabling and the craftsmanship is superb. I love being able to know the stiches and appreciate the skill and time needed to create such a sweater. I look forward to it lasting me many wonderful years.

We took the ferry back, and slightly sunburned and tired, but feeling happier, I retired to bed after a late dinner. It was definitely one of the best days on the trip, ranking up there with Fota and mountain-climbing.

Day 44 - Galway

2007-04-14T12:17:00.000-06:00

14 April 2007

Oh, Galway. Such an interesting town. I don’t know. I really like Galway, but right now with midterms upon me and the strains of living in a hotel room catching up with me, I was worried that I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I could. I’ve been doing a lot of classwork this week because we’ve actually been in the classroom, as opposed to being out in the field. Yesterday, we did go out to the field and I slayed another dragon. Castles, ironically enough, are great places to slay the dragons of your mind. I was climbing up the stairs to the first floor of the keep of the Castle of Athenry (which the locals pronounce A-then-roy) when I could climb no further. They were lovely carved wooden see-through stairs, leading up a wall to a door some distance away from the floor. I thought “Gee, I don’t like these stairs much” before the first landing and then up to the doorway, I just couldn’t move anymore. I was terrified. Of stairs. Stupid see-through stairs. I can scale walls, cram myself into the tightest of caves, do handstands and flip into the air for swing… but I can’t handle see-through stairs. I was so embarrassed. These stairs weren’t half as steep as the ones at the Norman Round Tower at St. Briget’s of Kildare. But for whatever panic disorder related reason, I just couldn’t do it. My rational brain was furious, yelling at my irrational fear to get it’s scaredy pantsed rear-end up the stairs and quit making a scene. But I couldn’t until Ann and Sarah MacDowell and my friend Kade coaxed and prodded and talked me up the stairs, just in time for me to slip, quivering sniveling teary-eyed mess that I was into a back row seat of the little movie area on the second floor to see a slide show. I have never been more mortified in my life. It’s exactly the thing I’ve been dreading since I’ve had panic attacks—that they’d happen in public in front of my friends. Really, I have never felt so ashamed and in wanting to melt into the floor and dissappear, I managed to trigger yet another attack so by the time the slide show was over and everyone had gone, I felt awful. All because of some ridiculous see-through wooden stairs with larger than usual gaps between them. The worst part was that I knew I had to go back down them. I just waited around in the movie area until Ann came back and asked if she could help. I sent her to get my Xanax from my backpack in the bus (damn pills. I hate medication.) and I sat there trying to relax until Dr. McDowell came to check on me and I started blubbering all over him too. My adrenal glands have no sense of shame. But after all that, after taking my Xanax and waiting around for a while with McDowell and Ann, I knew I had to get down the stairs and I wasn’t going to let McDowell carry me down them with his coat over my head (his rationale: “It works for birds…”) so with the help of tranquilizers, Ann, and McDowell (not carrying me) I did it! I walked down all those horrible, horrible see through stairs! I think that I would have been very proud of myself if I was able to feel feelings then, but the Xanax stops feelings dead in their tracks. Vile stuff.

Luckily, it wore off in time for the after dinner festivities I had planned: SALSA DANCING! I’ve been scoping out numerous salsa joints here in Galway, figuring that an artsy place would have ample salsa-ing. I was right. Last night, I went back to Garvey’s (that place where the bartender hassled me before) and salsa has never felt so welcome. We weren’t sure exactly what time the dancing started, so we just showed up at nine and while I asked the proprietor what time the salsa class started, he said 9:30 and some of the guys at the bar volunteered to salsa with me right then and there. I told them I couldn’t, there was no music. They just looked confused.

So, Meghan, Ann, Erin and I waited around, and pretty soon people started showing up. The instructor, Barry, was a wirey hard-looking man who looked more like an ex-soldier or a farmer than a salsa instructor. But he was very nice and encouraging. He asked us whether or not we’d done salsa before. I said that I had, so he pointed me to the advanced class while his wife took Meghan, Ann, and Erin to do a beginning lesson, which was awesome for them because it was pretty much a private lesson for only 7 euro. But I digress… when Barry asked us if we’d danced before and I said yes, I volunteered to do the lead part (what they call “the man part”) if we were short on guys. (they laughed whenever I said guys. People here don’t say guys.) Sure enough, we were short on guys, so I found myself stuck learning lead in a different style of salsa dance in the advanced class. And I loved it!

It was pretty confusing at times. They use different terms in Rueda salsa (I think that’s what they called it) because rueda is like salsa set dancing or salsa square dance where the couples all form a great big circle and they rotate partners frequently with certain moves and patterns. If you’d say for instance “right hand cross over to switch partners followed by cross body lead into patty-cake breaks” you’d never get to any of the really cool moves, hence the caller would just say what sounded like “dime-ay” which means the same thing. “dee-dee con noy” was cross body lead into patty cake breaks, “sententa” was a wrap turn plus a man hair comb into a cross body lead. “enchufla” was a girl turn. “enchufla ‘dime-ay’” was a girl turn plus the partner switchy thing. Then there were some of the crazier moves like the basket, which was a swing-esque wrap combination, the sombrero, where the guy leads a two handed turn (right hand up) into a kind of sleazy disco behind the head thingy into a x-body lead, or the prima (a guy turn plus a partner switch) or my favorite “prima ala man ala family” where it’s the prima plus linking arms with your partner and circling around very hoe-down style. Classy. Sorry about that. I had to document it all somewhere because I don’t want to forget before the summer and swing next year. I ended up getting it all just fine, even if Barry’s pedagogical appraoch wasn’t so sound. I just found it very amusing that they were calling out the spanish terms with their thick Irish accents. I had a blast. Some of the salsa songs they played I knew (like the “ooh-ah” one or the ones from the cd that Tim got from Kumari), and some of them did not fit at all! The guy played cumbia for two of the circles, and it was ridiculous. That’s why people invented cumbia dancing, so they wouldn’t have to try to salsa to a cumbia beat. Or even worse were the times afterwards during the open floor when he’d play samba beats and everyone would salsa. Oy vey! Or as they’d say here: “Jay-sus!”

That’s the last time I ever do the lead – the “man part” – at a club. I think I intimidated a lot of the men there because I was a better lead and I’m six foot tall in my heels. So, nobody asked me to dance. I finally started asking guys to dance with me. Patrick, a skinny nerdy very stereotypically UK-looking type, kept apologizing for stepping on my feet and accidently spinning me into people. James, a better dancer than Patrick, was unfortunately about 5’4’’. A couple of the others were just as unsure as Patrick, and my feet hurt from getting stepped on. But it was so much fun anyway! And it was worth sticking around because I got to dance with the instructor and show him that I was a much better follower than lead. He was so sweet, calling me a “lovely dancer” and thanking me for being a good example for the other guys in the rueda circle. He, surprisingly, though, wasn’t all that great. I think he might have used up all his really tricky moves on me. I mean he was good and all, but it kind of made sense what Dara (one of the ladies I met) told me when I asked her about the salsa scene in Galway: “You’d best be going to Cuba, the club on the other side of the square. They have a live band on Wednesday nights at ten for free and additionally, more foreigners go there, so the dancing is always better.” If that whole grad school thing doesn’t pan out and I become a professional dancer, I’m moving to Galway because I will open up my own studio and win. It’s quite exciting, not being the most painfully Caucasian person in a room of salsa dancers. It’s just sad that I had to go to Galway, Ireland to be the most ethnic one…

So I plan to check out Cuba on Wednesday, because I like free dancing and I don’t like getting stepped on, but if my feet and hips allow it, I’d like to do one more rueda lesson at Garvey’s to really get it in my head and learn some cool new moves. I missed salsa so much! Oh, and I didn’t run into my bartender buddy there. Too bad. I would have torn up another coaster just for him.

Day 39 - Galway

2007-04-09T16:52:00.000-06:00

9 April 2007

Happy belated Easter to you all! I don’t have any pictures yet from Galway, I’ve not ventured outside city limits too much because everything is closed on Easter weekend and I’m still trying to get a taste of Galway city itself. And plus, Easter weekend is a big holiday time here with actual bank holidays on Good Friday and Monday (today) so the city is ripe with backpackers and obvious tourists. I’m starting to realize why I was getting funny stares before.

A portrait of the tourist: Tourists are very loud, talkative folk always staring at things and remarking about them quite obviously without regard for any local people actually going about business as usual. They’re easily excitable, and don’t often appreciate a comfortable silence at a profound location. I feel like I’ve been here long enough to fit in, and sure enough, I’ve been mistaken for a local with some regularity. When I open my mouth, of course, it all goes out the window, but until then, I just look like a regular university student. This is why I don’t want to be whipping out my camera down by Eyre Square. There’s a kind of begrudging tolerance for tourists. They’re spoken down to, and though the Irish people appreciate the money tourists bring to the country and do an amazing job of accomadating them, there’s still this mentality of stupid foreigners invading our country, not knowing our ways and being rude eejits that get in the way. Hence, they’re treated like seven year olds.

Tourism and its woes aside… Galway is lovely. On mediocre Saturday, I went for a run (as previously stated in the last update) and then went to the park to do some studying. Later that evening, I planned to stay in, as going out has left me somewhat apprehensive after the festivities of my 21st birthday celebration. But, I ended up teaching an impromptu salsa dance lesson in the lobby of the hotel to Dr. Connolly and his wife, Rebecca, the Dr.’s McDowell, and my friends Fran, Meghan, Mark, and Chris. It was quite fun. I feel flattered because though Connolly is inept at dance (but improving) and was trying my patience with his lack of rythym, he told me that I will be good in front of a classroom, and that really means a lot to me coming from him. We were having a grand time, until she who shall remain nameless intruded about 2/3rd’s through the lesson, seeing that I was teaching and assuming that meant I wanted her help teaching (I did not) and telling people my stories and my dance history (innaccurately at that!). I ended up snapping at her a little and I’m not usually a confrontational person, but I’ve learned that sometimes you have to stand up for yourself. And true, I could have handled it in a more diplomatic manner, pulling her aside at a later time, explaining my reasoning and having a heartfelt discussion about it, but she is the only thing stressing me out right now, and I’m sick of feeling like a fugitive any time Ann or I have to sneak out of the hotel to go do something on our own without her.

My friends and Dr. Mann and I ended up going in search of traditional music and upon not finding it, we decided to strike out on our own. On our way to another pub, though, we passed a lot of interesting street performers: a bagpipe player, a percussion ensemble, and a fire juggler. This being all at about half nine at night! I could see maybe a fiddler or something rather quiet, but no… When we found the pub, Garvey’s, they asked to see my ID, thinking that I didn’t even look 18 and they gave me flack about having an Illinois driver’s license and the bartender was just about to kick me out before the manager told us that we were ok. I was very disappointed, especially because this was the place where I wanted to go salsa dancing on Thursday. The cranky barman served me my drink in a cranky manner, and then proceeded to make cranky comments when I was frustratedly picking at my coaster, so I crankily put all my little frustrated coaster tearings into my empty glass when I was getting ready to leave, which he crankily observed. My friend Mark told me that he thought the bartender liked me and was hitting on me, I told my friend Mark that I thought the bartender was just a great big jerk. I hope he’s not there when I go back for dancing.

Easter morning came though, and I felt profoundly better and less frustrated. My friends and Dr. McDowell and I decided to go to 8:30 mass at a local cathedral, but apparently, it was an 8:15 mass and it was misposted, plus we were 10 minutes late anyway (“Late for church!! No, no, no!” shouted Steph’s brain.) McDowell said it was ok, the church counts it so long as you show up by the gospel reading and you can leave anytime after communion, but that wouldn’t fly in my church tradition, especially given the fishbowl-PK thing. But I guess it really didn’t matter anyway because even though Easter mass is supposed to be “all smells, bells, and yells” according to McDowell, there was no music, no incense, no chanting, and the priest had a squeaky voice. I had no clue what was going on, which didn’t bother me too much, I’m sure I looked very out of place, but it was interesting. I didn’t enjoy how dogmatic it was, though, and I didn’t learn anything. I guess the role of church in the Catholic tradition isn’t so much instructive or educational as keeping-you-in-line. The cathedral, St. Nicholas, was beautiful, though, and I’d like to catch an entire mass here, though, because I am still curious. Plus, I appreciate some of the elements of my own church heritage a lot more now.

I did feel a little sad and cheated by my mass experience (all I wanted to do was sing “Christ the Lord is risen today. A-a-a-a-a-le-e-lu-u-ia!” Is that so much to ask?) so I returned pensively to my hotel room. Luckily, Ann also felt the same way I did. (She’s more religious than I am, but we share a lot of beliefs, I think, and enjoy discussing our differing opinions too.) She is a fan of this preacher/religious scholar from Michigan called Rob Bell of the Mars Hill Bible Church, which is a big nondenominational church, but I trusted her judgement and she played a sermon of his that was posted online, and although it was a Lent sermon, it was amazing! I got so much out of it. It was very scholastic and relevant, but never maudlin or fiery. His logic was clear and his illustrations were superb. He did a lot of textual reference and went back to the original Greek (or Hebrew as the case were) and I was really impressed. If church at school were like this, maybe I’d go. Then, because we were still feeling like we needed an Easter message, I pulled up an episode of my favorite NPR program, Speaking of Faith, a wonderful program that explores the role of religion and spirituality in all forms in the world today. The Easter episode, available now for free download from their award-winning webiste (shameless plug!), was incredible, a look at Eastern Orthodox easter and gardening as a symbol of the resurrection. It really resonated with me, especially because a lot of the material we’re covering in our Celtic Spirituality class is very similar, with listening to nature as scripture and engaging all of our senses in experiencing the world and God. So intruiging!

Also interesting… I was talking to a little old man in a little restaurant in Galway on Easter Sunday afternoon after he asked me the time and found out I was from the states and he ended up sitting down with us and he told Ann, my friend Carsen, and I a funny story about getting rolls of mints blessed in the Holy Land and then he gave us each rolls of the blessed mints and then went on his way because he said that his wife sent him out for a carton of milk an hour ago and she was going to wonder where he was. I’m not planning to eat the mints, though, even though he said they were magical and blessed because Mike (the old man) said that the last young woman who ate one of the blessed mints was married and pregnant within the year… Not exactly what I was planning… My question: what is with people and fertility here? I’m not saying that I disagree with the appreciation of fertility and the rich tradition of the fertility worship stretching all the way back to pre-Christian Indo-European times. I think that fertility is intimately linked with being attuned to the earth/the divine and participating in a holy cycle and way of the universe that is not dirty, but reproductive and fruitful, and ought to be approached with respect and wonder at a proper time. Problem being that this is not exactly my proper time to be fertile and life bearing etc. etc… (much to the relief of my parents), but that so many of the men I’ve talked to here assume that’s what I want as a young woman: to marry and have a very large family. I think that maybe that’s because I’ve talked mostly to old Irish men since young men don’t really approach me in conversation or in any way, actually. So part of this notion of mine could be an unfair representation based on a generational gap in thinkning about the roles of women. And maybe it’s like this in the States too, it’s just that I really haven’t been mature or sensitive enough to notice it in a familiar environment. That is my deep thinking for the evening.

Today was spent doing homework and hanging out with Laura and Ann and Sarah. A lovely day!

Day 37 - Galway

2007-04-07T09:23:00.000-06:00

Hello all!

This is a much needed catch up journal post, so I apologise for the length. I suggest settling down with a cup of drip brewed coffee (since I have none of that over here) and preparing for a long read (at your own risk), or you could always just break it up. To briefly relate the occurances from Thursday night through today: Thursday night was the celebration of my 21st birthday in the King's Head Pub with many of my good friends here. It was delightful to see everyone enjoying themselves and I enjoyed myself quite a lot too, though my friends were far too enthusiastic about buying me drinks because Friday I did a lot of homework and took many naps and only ventured out once, which was sad because it was a beautiful day, but I had a headache. Later on in the even I did wind up playing bridge and causing mischeif (leaving anonymous notes on friends' and professors' doors with Sarah, Laura, and Ann, though the receiving parties figured out it was me by this morning). Luckily, though, today was just as lovely as yesterday and I was able to go running again, venture to the park to do some more reading and Latin homework, and I also bought a cheap pair of flipflops and have several blisters. Today was most amazing though, because I was able to go out without a coat, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The most fantastic part of my morning run is the causeway out to Mutton Island. I thought I found the causeway the first day out, but it was so foggy that it turns out I was actually running on the shore and I couldn't see the causeway at all. But I did find it today, and it was brilliant. Water on both sides of me, ocean and bay nestled in mountains. At the end of the causeway, I looked back and saw Galway city, and it was beautiful. There are actually a lot of palm trees here and the houses sometimes look pretty tropical. That's all from me today, though. Enjoy the rest of the post, and good luck...

4 April 2007

Cheers from Galway! At long last we have arrived. Yesterday, we travelled here via detours to the Cliffs of Moher (which were pretty, but we as tourists were kept behind many a fence since people have in the past had a habit of falling off the cliffs. Some call those mistakes and accidents easily remedied by a view-obstructing fence, I call it lack of common sense and natural selection.) I wish that I could have gone a little closer. Alas. Such is the tourist business. We also stopped at another 12th Century abbey and saw a really cool chancel arch. Then we wandered around for an hour in the Burren (pronounced “burn”) looking for the largest dolmen (a megalithic stone burial structure that looks like pi)… we finally found it, and while it was quite impressive and large, I had more fun cavorting about the burren, which looks almost like a lunar landscape with great big limestone chunks rising out of the ground having races with my friends to see who could jump around from rock to rock the fastest. We arrived at our hotel, which is located pretty much downtown Galway and settled down to boil some water.

That’s right. Galway is under a boil order, and has been for the past six weeks. That’s quite the boil order. McDowell is worried about us because we can’t use the water for drinking or tooth brushing, but the hotel is providing us with bottled water, and we have nifty little electronic tea kettles in the room (which previously annoyed me because the lack of coffee pot means only instant coffee… ew… ps: I’ve been taking my coffee black as of late. I knew it was only a matter of time. Coffee is not Ireland’s specialty. No wonder they invented Irish Coffee.) but the tea kettle is admittedly AWESOME because you fill it with water and poof! It boils within five minutes and you can have your cup o’ tea (the Irish tea is much better than their coffee. Quite strong.) I love the little tea kettles. The one in my room looks as though it will be my close friend throughout the duration of my stay here in Galway. The boil order is due to the cryptosporidium parasite in the water system from human feces. Lovely, no? Galway is the most rapidly growing city in Ireland and it has grown so rapidly that the infastructure and waste treatment system has not been able to keep up with the influx of sewage in the area. So, the water itself looks ok, but there’s that pesky parasite swimming around. I just count myself fortunate that I can bathe in the water here and that I can wash in it and there aren’t more dangerous bugs swimming around. Especially considering the conditions that my friends on India term are in. Boiling water is just fine by me. Not much of an inconvienence at all.

5 April 2007

Back again! Sorry, I had a tour of Galway to embark upon yesterday, so I wasn’t able to finish the entry. So…. More about Galway: Galway is a great city. Very bohemian and young and artsy. Quite to my taste. There are three universities in the area, so there are a lot of people “my size” (is how McDowell put it to us when we were walking through Eyre Square, a big green square in the center of town. He said “This is a college town par excellence and this is where a lot of younger people hang out, so you’ll be able to meet people more your size.” Oh, McDowell.) People really do gather quite a bit on Eyre Square. In the afternoons, it is swarming.

I went running this morning and found a really great little path along the docks and then out on a causeway to Mutton Island. It feels so good to run again, and maybe now I won’t get so fat from all the delicious Irish butter I’ve been eating. The fog was very thick this morning, though, so I couldn’t see across the causeway. I’ve never actually seen fog so thick. It was clinging to my hair and beading up on my eyelashes. People don’t actually run very much here, so I got some funny looks from folks, but after I nodded and said good morning, people smiled and humored me.

I think that I should play a little Killarney catch up. The smart thing to have done would have been to keep updating without publishing while I was without internet capabilities, but I was really busy and too tired to write much. Why so tired you may ask? Well, Killarney is a little tourist town in the western county of Kerry and during off-season time, it is filled with little old Irish people, many speaking Gaelic around the tourists to confuse us all. My favorite part of Killarney is its proximity to the Killarney National Park, a glorious, gigantic national park containing mountains and castles and reknowned for its lovely lakes.

The first day out, after class in the hotel pub (no drinking, just learning) we walked out to the national park to Ross Castle (see picture), a castle on the lake that over looks the biggest lake in the mountains and we took a tour with a tour guide who had a very slow drawling Irish accent. The castle itself was pretty interesting, but the best part was the lovely walk through the woods and the cherry trees in bloom at the feet of the McGillicuddy Reeks. The next day we went on a day trip to ring forts and the Beara Penninsula and had class on site. Thursday brought a trip out to the Dingle Penninsula and the beehive huts and oratories and monasteries. The mountains are lovely and they are my favorite element of Ireland thus far.

The weekend in Killarney was absolutely amazing. On Friday, Sarah, Laura, Ann, and I rowed out to Inishfallen Island out in the lake past Ross Castle to an old Abbey on the island. The island was beautiful with old oaks and the abbey ruins were amazing. I climbed up to the top of one wall and sat on it, and you could see out over the whole island. About a third of the island was wooded and moss-covered and it looked like a fairy refuge. While on the island, I saw a deer, and rowing back to shore, I spotted an otter!

My very favorite thing in Killarney, though, was the mountain climbing. On Saturday, Ann, Sarah, Chris and I decided to climb up Mangerton Mt (839 meters tall) to see the Devil’s Punchbowl, a spring-fed lake about 2/3rd’s up the mountain. We travelled about 14 miles that day, mostly uphill, since we had to walk five miles out of town, after stopping at a tourist shop to grab a map and an outdoor store to pick up a compass. The tourist shop actually didn’t open until 9:15 (random) so we had to wait outside. Luckily, the weather was fairly mild and not raining, so there were no complaints on our part. We made it out of town and started on our ascent. We passed some sheep that complained quite loudly as we walked by, but they were on the other side of a fence and we were safe.

We then turned into the park (the directions to the devil’s punchbowl from the book at the tourist centre were funny. They were something like this: “1)Walk out along Muckross road 1.2 miles to the posted left hand turn across from the Muckross Park Hotel. Turn left. Keep walking up that street until you reach a street the appears after a bad bend in the road, turn right at that street.” my favorite direction being: “Keep heading up the mountain across the boggy heath. The path will disappear and reappear several times.”) where we met a nice woman named Mirina who was taking her baby, Lily, and her two dogs out for a walk. Mirina chatted with us for a while and offered to give us a lift back to town or give us some water if we needed it after climbing because she lived right around the corner. She and I also exchanged phone numbers in case we needed “rescuing”. When we got to the base of the mountain and the car park (term used loosely. The car park was actually a wide spot in the one lane road. Not one way, mind you, just one lane for both ways.) we took a picture of the sign that I have included here for comic effect. Needless to say, after the shocked look the Killarney tourist centre desk assistant and Mirina gave us, we were feeling a bit daunted. But we set off anyway, into the misty moutains.

The hike was pretty tricky. The path really did disappear quite a bit, and when it was present, it was really just a dry streambed that was a lot of large loose rocks and a very steep climb. When it wasn’t present, it was bog that liked to suck the shoes off your feet. As we trekked upwards, we decided that we needed to sing the Lord of the Rings theme because it seemed particularly fitted to the sweeping and dramatic landscape. We then decided that we were the fellowship of the ring of kerry. (the ring of kerry being the road/region that we travelled the past few days for class). We passed several other hikers on our way up, all of whom were local. One man congratulated us and wished us luck because the Devil’s Punchbowl is beautiful, but only about 10% of Irish people ever get to see it because of the strenuous hike. Despite the beauty of the mountainside and our adventurous mentalities, we did start to get tired, and collectively decided to take a break to chat about whether or not to go any further, given that we had been looking for the lake for a good hour and a half and we felt we might be heading in the wrong direction. Dejectedly, I plopped down on a rock and popped open my can of pringles. Around the corner, though, came a friendly looking woman, so I asked her how far away from the summit we were. She said we were about forty-five minutes away, but that we should go just around the bend because there were a lot of big rocks and a lovely lake. The perfect place to picnic… We were about to quit literally 25 feet from our destination!

When we rounded the corner, I knew it was totally worth the sore legs I’d have the next day. Worth it and then some. The lake was the clearest I’ve ever seen, and the wind was buffered by the boulders and mountain top. A group of lads came down from the summit (only about a quarter of the way away from us) and started drinking from the lake, and we asked them if it was good water. They said it was the tastiest they’d ever had and cleaner than the water in Galway right now, so we drank too, and it was the tastiest water ever. Crisp, clear, and cold. Just the right thing to energize us for our hike down the mountain, which as the sign at the access informed us, was the most dangerous part of the journey when most people are injured. I escaped injury with the exception of an uncomfortable incident while using a gorsebush as makeshift portapotty. Gorse is prickly and while it inexplicably smells of coconut and it tall enough and thick enough to hide a full size person, that does not make it a suitable loo. (Just for reference, gorse is that yellow flowering bush in the picture above the one of me by the devil's punchbowl).

Gorse aside, we made it down the moutain without incident and took a few long moments to sit and admire the beauty of the mountains and hillside region before heading home. I think a little William Wordsworth time would do everyone some good. The trip home was long and exhausting, and I went to sleep very early that night, but I will cherish that climb in my heart for as long as I can. I feel so empowered and so accomplished, and not least, awed by the beauty that surrounds me here. I am profoundly grateful that I have been able to have these experiences and share them with such good people.

Day 32 - Limerick

2007-04-02T14:44:00.000-06:00

2 April 2007

Wow… It has been an incredible week in Killarney! Where to start? I think that I’ll actually start with today and work back. Today has been an interesting day. We traveled from Killarney to Limerick via Lough (Loch) Gur, which is a huge lake with two hills surrounding it and a whole boatload of megalithic and Bronze Age sites. My two favorite sites were the biggest megalithic stone circle in the world and the cave to Tir Na Nog. The stone circle (see first picture) was very big and very much tied to fertility religions and pre-Christian traditions, but it is still venerated today as a holy site by Christians and neo-Pagans alike. I was convinced by Dr. Connolly to walk around it three times in a sunwise manner, stand in the center of the circle and leave a little offering at a makeshift shrine for good luck this birthday year in hopes of finding inner peace and cosmic allignment. I’m not so sure that I feel any more cosmically aligned, but the walk was nice and gave me a good chance to thoughtfully admire the stone circle. I also tied a little strip of fabric (called something pronounced “cluty”) to one of the thorn [hawthorne] trees in a prayer tradition that goes back centuries. The trees look like they’re decorated with the cluties that people have tied to the branches in prayer. I tied a little strip of fabric to a thorne tree with a prayer for peace.

Even more exciting was the cave to Tir Na Nog that we found up on the hill Knockadoon. Tir Na Nog is the land of eternal youth in the old Celtic mythologies ruled over by the god of the sea, Manannan and inhabited by the sidhe (faeries). I, alas, did not find the land of eternal youth, but I did find a really cool cave that I explored with my spelunking skills and the aid of my friend Erin’s camcorder spotlight. I really enjoy spelunking back home (I’ve gone every since since being at Augie) and I was really excited to do some crawling about. To top it all off, I even got out without getting any mud on my silk shirt. Niiiice! It was great fun. Definitely one of the perks to being a rather flexible, rather small framed person, getting to fit into tiny cave spaces. The picture was captured by Crystal while I was lowering myself into the very snug passage way that I explored for the sake of adventure and to satiate my curiosity (and the curiosity of my classmates and professors too large or inflexible to explore it themselves).

Limerick, unlike Killarney, is a large and highly industrialized town with a lot of rough spots and actually a perpetual gang war as of a few years ago… So, we are actually staying on the outskirts of Limerick instead of Limerick town center. Which is fine by me. I have no desire to get shot in a gang war. Alas, that means that there has been very little celebration of the typical 21st birthday sort. I figure that this is ok, given that I am a) in Ireland so every day feels like it’s my birthday anyway, b)the drinking age here is 18 so 21 is rather anti-climatic, c)we traveled all today and we are travelling all day tomorrow so I haven’t the time to play around., d)it seems kind of selfish to celebrate a day dedicated to yourself and your birth because you’re that special, just like everyone else.

Ok, so maybe I’m a little sad that I didn’t get to celebrate. But Dr. Mann and I sang happy birthday to each other after dinner (it is his birthday today too!) and Ann gave me chocolate coffee truffles and my friends Sarah and Laura gave me a card that had goldfish and bad fishy birthday puns on it. Plus, I talked to Mom yesterday and both Dad and Jack called today. So, while we were in this shopping centre to grab lunch (which I didn’t grab because I brought my own food on the bus) I bought myself a much needed new pair of headphones (the old ones were breaking and falling apart most unfortunately) as a birthday present to myself. My friends and I were hoping to go out to the restaurant’s pub that sits next door, and McDowell said that Cork’s hurling team was supposed to be eating there (strapping sporty Irish lads!), but in fact, the whole place was sadly deserted and not a lot of my friends even knew when they were supposed to meet over there because we were trying not to tell the one girl who clings to me and tells my stories and is rude and obnoxious and fun-killing. Sort of like a social black hole. So, upon arriving in the empty darkish pub with nobody but Ann with me, I decided that I’d just take a raincheck on the whole celebration thing. Birthdays are overrated anyway.

And come to think of it., I’m pretty darn tired after all my adventuring today, so I think that I’m just going to hit the sack. I will catch up on Killarney tomorrow or later this week. Highlights include rowing out to Inishfallen Island, the Dingle Peninsula, and climbing up to a mountain lake!

2007-03-29T13:26:00.000-06:00

Eek! There's no interenet here in Killarney, so I'm at an internet cafe right now and it's costing me an arm and a leg. And I'm going hiking on Sat. in Killarney Natn'l. Park, so I really need all my limbs. But I absolutely adore Kerry (the county I'm in) it is absolutely gorgeous. Breathtakingly beautiful. Mountains, mountains, sheep, pastures, streams, and more mountains. But alas, I shall update with all my stories later. Bye!

Day 24 - Cork

2007-03-25T07:23:00.000-06:00

25 March 2007

Today, the time changed. Ireland (on Greenwich Mean Time) switches over to “Summer Time” about two weeks later than the US switches to Daylight Savings Time, which means that once again, we’re now 6 hours ahead of home again, instead of five. Today is a day of doing homework, but this weekend was a weekend of adventure. Thursday during the day, we explored a cute little town called Kinsale, visited the Cobh Heritage Center (Cobh, pronounced “Cove” which used to be called Queenstown was the biggest port of Irish emigration and was where both the Titanic and the Lusitania made their last port-of-calls before departing on their fateful voyages.) It was a very moving museum. And it was there that I found my penny whistle!! I love my penny whistle and I play it at times when I think I won’t annoy my fellow hotel residents, like the middle of the day. It’s great fun, and I’m learning lots of Irish ditties. I think I’m going to need a new book though, I’m pretty much through with the one that came with the whistle. After Kinsale, we went to the Charles Fort, which is a fort situated on the coast that was built by the British in the 1600’s. The tour guide was brilliant and I learned a ton. Not to mention it was so fun to be able to go and crawl around on the actual fort and explore whereever I liked. The history here is so wonderful because it is so tangible and easily accesible. By studying a ruined fort, you learn all about that period of time which it was made and what subsequent functions it serverd.

Thursday night we (the entire group) had a “movie night” where we watched a movie that helped explain the situation of the Irish civil war in the nineteen twenties. Which was a very noble goal for the first night of our weekend and a wonderful movie called “The Wind that Shakes the Barley”… unfortunately, it was one of the most depressing movies we’d ever seen and Ann and I (among others) spent the rest of the night crying and trying to cheer ourselves up. Not even chocolate worked, so we just decided to sleep on it.

I woke up late the next morning (Friday), because I accidentally forgot to set my alarm in my movie induced sadness. This caused me no small amount of anxiety and I very nearly had a panic attack. The whole morning I was a jumpy wreck and I felt pretty upset about it, especially when I dropped my silverware in the restaurant at breakfast. But that was soon to be remedied when I ventured with Laura, Sarah, Ann, and Meghan to heaven AKA the Fota Wildlife Preserve. This place was amazing. AMAZING. I’ve had dreams about a place like this. It is kind of like a zoo in the fact that there are a whole lot of animals there, but it is very unlike a zoo in the fact that they are allowed to roam free and there are no cages. There are some enclosed areas, like for the monkeys and (thankfully) the cheetahs and buffalo. But there are just huge pastures and chunks of forest where all that separates you from the animals is a double fence and a little rock barrier on your side. There were a lot of animals that were allowed to roam free though, like all kinds of ducks (Andrew, you would have been in waterfowl heaven. I thought of you when I got the “duck eye” numerous times) and geese, kangaroos and wallabies, tons of peacocks, cool south american rodents called Maras that look like they have the body of a wild hare with the head of a guinea pig, giant pelicans that could probably eat me whole if they wanted to, and CAPYBARAS! When I saw the real live capybaras about 5 feet away from me it was like I was reliving a childhood dream from the book “Cappyboppy” which I loved when I was younger. In fact, I was so happy that I started crying with joy. It was so wonderful. So amazing. Then, just when you think it couldn’t get any better… then came the wild Llamas called Guanacos. Being the llama expert that I like to consider myself to be, I greeted the llamas and petted them and hung out with them in a dust bath that they created in one of the gazebos, much to the awe of my friends, who are pretty certain that I have magical animal taming powers now because of it. I wish I did, but I just know how to handle llamas is all. Never thought it would come in handy. After bidding the llamas adieu, we went to the monkey island where I saw lemurs sitting on a roof and a little bitty monkey eating the chocolate off the stick of an ice cream bar which somebody had not properly disposed of (not me or my friends, though we did have Magnum ice cream bars (Mom, you are soooo right. They are amazing.) after our adventure.) And while the monkey was preoccupied, I petted him. I touched a monkey! It was great.

I did see a sign for red squirrels and found out that they are an endangered species, but then I also found my “soft toy” (sorry floozy pillow…) a RED TUFTY-EARED SQUIRREL!!! I was so excited! She’s perfect for fitting under my arm and snuggling with. Much better than any alarm clock or random electronic equiment snatched unwittingly from my nightstand. I am still excited. I named her Lucy and I gave her one of my headbands as a pretty little ribbon around her neck.

And just when you think that my weekend couldn’t get any more magical… it did! A very large group of us students went out to celebrate my friend Mark’s birthday, and it was great fun. At the first pub, The Old Oak, they played a song that sounded swing-ish. I couldn’t contain myself. Luckily, Ann couldn’t either, so I led, she followed and we swing danced. It felt so good! Apparently, we must have looked good too, because the place around the impromtu dance floor burst into applause. Nice! I felt a little embarrassed because of my need to dance, but I shrugged it off. Maybe if I was ever able to find a salsa club ANYWHERE on this darn island, I’d be able to vent my dance passion in a suitable environment, because it happened again about ten minutes later when they played a salsa-ish song… I just started moving in the salsa basic as unobtrusively as possible. Nobody else knows salsa on this trip, so I just had to move a little. No need for a partner. But one of the local guys spotted me salsa-ing and came up to me and attempted to do some sort of dance with me. I went with it and danced along and we got more cheers. The guy, while we were dancing asked me if I was really any good or if I was just faking it extremely well. I replied that I was pretty good, and he said that’s what he thought and that he was afraid to keep dancing with me, so he just gave me a hug and shook my hand and thanked me for the dance. (The picture is of Ann, my roomie, and I in our leggings! Woohoo for leggings! Before departing for our night of rock and roll.)

After that, some of us decided to head to another pub, Eddie’s, because nobody was dancing on the dancefloor at the Old Oak and Eddie’s had a live rock band playing. We walked into Eddie’s and that was where I saw him… the lead singer of the band… he was gorgeous. A mediocre singer of classic rock covers, it was unrealistic celebrity crush at first sight. Especially when we made eye contact. He kept looking at me, and I at him and then he dedicated a song: “Foxy Lady” to our table! Sigh… so lovely. I wish I knew his name. He had pretty blue eyes and short hair about the color of mine, meaning the color of dead leaves. He had a tattoo peeking out from under the sleeve of his t-shirt, but other than that he looked very clean cut and not grungy like the rest of the band. Edgy, yet sophisticated. He was witty and musical and cute. My big moment came when he asked for a volunteer, “preferably female”, to help out the band on the next number. After my pint and half (my self-imposed limit. No drunken antics for Steph. Don’t worry, parents. You’ve raised me well.) though I was feeling rather bold and helpful, so I raised my hand, much to the astonishment of my friends. Mr. LeadSingerMan saw (surprise) and called me up to the stage. He asked my name and handed me a tamborine, saying that it was my job to play the tamborine for this next song. Because it was loud, he didn’t hear my accent apparently, so he told me and the crowd that the girl who played last week was American, so it was my job to beat her and play as enthusiastically as possible. If there is one thing Steph Ewing can do, it is enthusiasm, so I told him I could beat her no problem. So the band started up and the song was “Are you gonna be my girl?” by Jet (actually, a newer song, not classic rock, but it sounds like classic rock.) It was glorious, being up there playing away at my tamborine while Mr. LeadSingerMan sang to me asking if I was going to be his girl… Swoon. I even had a tamborine solo. I think I surprised them all with my rhymical prowess (I know I surprised myself!) and when the song was over, they congratulated me, told me I beat the American from last week and the place cheered for me. My shining moment as a temporary member of the Limerick band “The Lynch Mob”.

I’m paying for it this morning, though. Not with a hangover, no. Responisible drinking leaves no hangovers. But in my tamborining enthusiasm and locally microbrewed deliciousness induced lack of precision (ok, so I have poor hand eye coordination anyway.), I managed to mangle my left hand, bruising the base of my thumb, the outside edge and the base of my pinky, the inside edge and the base of my index finger, and some random spot in the middle of my middle finger. I am really puffy and sore, barely being able to close my hand into a fist, so typing is quite the labor of love right now. But I’ve taken some advil and fetched some ice, and feel better.

Well, it is on to more homework and packing because tomorrow we leave for Killarney. Cork was grand, though. Cheers!

Day 20 - Cork

2007-03-25T07:16:00.000-06:00

21 March 2007

Today we took a day trip to Cashel, which is a complex of five ruins/castles/religious buildings from dating from the 11th Century. It was amazing. I loved the oldness of it all. I just wanted to hug the wall, and actually I did. So very overwhelmed I was! I could have stayed there forever and smelled the oldness of Cormac’s chapel for ages, that wet, musty smell of old. I just wish I had more time to sit there and just imagine everything, everyone that has gone before me in that place. That’s the hardest thing about ruins, it’s hard to imagine that anybody once actually used these buildings, that they were covered by Irish oak roofs and painted with frescoes. It was a bit chilly today though.

Yesterday it was cold too and full of class time. Ann and I stopped back by the yarn store for more yarn for her, my young apprentice. The wool store is great, but it’s testing my math skills. My new math major friends would be proud… or they’d laugh.

I’ve taken to working out in the gym in the basement here. It feels so good to sweat a lot again. I haven’t run here yet because I was too busy in Dublin and here the time of day that I would run is rush hour and that’s not a good time to go running. So, it’s the workout room complete with smelly eastern European men for me. They are really really smelly. I thought I smelled bad when I worked out, but this one gaggle of men really stunk to high heaven. I wonder if deodorant is a cross cultural kind of thing, because if it’s not, I think it should be.

That’s about it from Cork for today. I’ve got to write some reflective journal entries for class for tomorrow and eat dinner. Some latin homework sounds in order as well… Hopefully I’ll wear myself out so much that I’ll sleep like a baby tonight. Last night I had a dream that I was in the pageant again and that was no good. Good evening to you!

Day 18 - Cork

2007-03-19T15:06:00.000-06:00

19 March 2007

Well, I have experienced real Irish weather. The big Weatherman was taking it easy on me before, softening me up before the big hit. A sucker punch to the meterological gut. Sunday, it was pouring rain (called a “flogging rain” here) and then it started hailing and then the sun came out while it was raining and hailing all at the same time and it was seven degrees celcius outside (which is cold when you’re used to 12 or so). Beautiful, eh? My umberella flipped so much that it was completely useless. I figured out that moment why it is that you see umbrellas always discarded in litter bins or left on the side of the roads… umbrellas are weak sauce. A joke. God: 1, Umbrellas: 0.

That was Sunday. St. Paddy’s day night was spent hanging out at the pub in the lobby of the hotel because they had a traditional music band! It was so delightful to hear some fiddle and jigs. The band consisted of a fiddler, a squeezebox player, and a guitarist/whistle player. They were amazing. And the company was good, if a little rowdy. My friend Mark let me try a little sip of his Irish Whiskey. It was good the second sip, but the first sip tasted kind of like carrots and nail polish remover. The second sip was quite tasty though. I talked to a couple at the bar from Limerick about dancing. The woman, Caroline, loves dancing, but her boyfriend Mark, thought dancing was kind of “gay”, so we tried to convince him that girls love a guy who dances. I don’t think we were successful, but I really wish I had my fav dance partner there to show off some of our amazing moves. But alas…

Sunday, my friends Laura, Sarah, Ann, and I went to head to the wild life park, but unfortunately it was raining too hard to go. We only got a block away from the hotel. Then, because we were getting so antsy and very hungry, Ann and I tried to go to the grocery store, but then it was hailing from both directions so we didn’t get farther than the end of the block. The third time was the charm and we got home from the grocery store just in time to get soaked. I did some homework, washed laundry in the bathtub, talked on the phone briefly, and went to bed early, and that was Sunday. This picture is of the ridiculous weather that is actually cloudy and starting to rain on the left side of the picture and sunny and cheery on the right side of the picture. Craziness.

Today the weather was still tempermental, but I ventured out with Dr. Mann (my favorite professor) and about 15 other people to explore the churches and cathedrals in the area. They were gorgeous and I love them. The only one I didn’t enjoy was the biggest, fanciest one where they were actually holding a 12:00 mass. That was very awkward coming from my Congregational upbringing. Holy water and high church confuse me, and I felt profoundly uncomfortable and unwelcome. And though beautiful, the church (St. Peter and Paul’s) was completed and decorated in the Victorian neo-gothic style which is pretty much like regularly cluttered Victorian style except much grander… also very un-Puritan. I was so dissappointed. I looked forward so much to exploring a real, live Catholic cathedral, but was frustrated to feel so shut out of their little Catholic club. I feel like a religious palentologist, like I’m studying shells of churches when there are no people in them, examining the space, enjoying the silence, feeling close to God and my friends, and soaking in the atmosphere; but then I’m baffled when confronted by a living church celebrating mass with community members. I realize that it’s still so very liturgical and dogmatic and exclusive; I feel a little dissillusioned to be honest. I wish I could just go and pray in the cathedrals and read about the saints and not have to feel so excluded by their secret Catholic party. I guess I was just hoping that maybe Catholicism could fill in some of the holes where my puritan-descended protestantism left me theologically hanging. The other cathedrals were gorgeous and my favorite was the the Fransican church because of all the little grottoes with statues of saints and candles and prayer cards that were right in the sanctuary, making it look more cozy, welcoming, private, and mysterious.

Actually, my very favorite trip of the day was to the bell tower of St. Ann’s cathedral (spelled with no “e” just like my roommate!) where I got to don a set of ear protectors and climb up into the bell tower itself. I even got to ring the bells! It was amazing. Andrew, you would have loved it, getting to play an entire bell tower. Not a caralon, but an octave of very large real bells. I played “Do- a- Deer” and “Amazing Grace”. I would have played “Monkey Extravaganza”, but they were ordered from high to low and there were other people waiting to play. The tower of St. Ann’s is decorated with clocks on all four sides, but they’re called “the faces of the four liars” by the local Cork residents because the edges of the clocks are made of wood and the wood warps with the changing weather meaning that none of the clocks show the same time at once. The view out the top of the tower was great. I could see the whole of Cork city and I could also see the cute little dog that followed our group all through the Shandon neighborhood. I named the dog Francis and enjoyed his company until he left us to go play with a dog-friend he met that one of my classmates named Sam. All in all, it was a very good weekend.

Day 15 - Cork

2007-03-17T07:57:00.000-06:00

17 March 2007

Happy St. Paddy’s Day! Cork continues endearing itself to me. I know I have a lot of catching up to do, so here goes…

Cork is said to be the shopping and fashion capital of Ireland, which is suprisingly trendy. Much trendier than the states. I brought a pair of leggings to wear under my jeans here because I was worried about wind and rain, but it turns out that the eighties are coming back and the leggings plus shirtdress look is way in right now. So, as an early birthday present to myself, I bought a shirt dress at a very reasonable price of 12 euro (Steph is still the super shopper even abroad) to wear and decided to try out the look. I love it! Leggings are so liberating. They make me feel like prancing around merrily and announcing to the world: “I’M NOT WEARING ANY PANTS!”

I ended up seeing more army guys around the same building on my way to school on Wednesday, so I felt a little nervous once more. The guns, though real and very menacing, look like plastic to me. I can’t imagine what the army men are doing. They weren’t there on Thursday, though.

Cork is on a river and is much easier to navigate than Dublin, but I have not been feeling quite so adventurous during the week, as homework and studies take up much of my time and the constant travelling is cathcing up with me making me sleepy (I went to bed at 9 last night! Old lady Steph). It finally rained and rained with a vengence here on Thursday afternoon. Luckily it wasn’t very windy, though, so all was relatively well. Wednesday was class as usual, except that our religion class was especially engaging. The more I study religion, the more I can’t wait for grad school and my religion and literature PhD. Maybe it’s just because I’m tired of McDowell after having him two terms in a row or maybe Irish literature, like the early medieval literature, just doesn’t do it for me. My dreams of being a medievalist are no more.

Thursday we had class at the Ogham stones residing in the collection of University College Cork. Ogham is the ancient writing of the Irish (like runes, it was used mostly symbolically and for religious occasions, not everyday writing which didn’t arrive until Christianity in the late 5th century). Ogham was often carved on the axes of great big upright stones and used as territorial markers. I really loved the campus of the University and I was overcome with the desire to prance about. So I did (see picture). After that, we ventured around Cork and found the Cork Butter Museum. I now know more about butter (from it’s use in the Bronze Age to the butter boom of the 1960’s and the revival of the Irish market through the butter boom…) than I ever cared to know. But hey, if the English prof career path doesn’t pan out, perhaps I could become a butterologist. The butter here in the south/southwest is pretty darn amazing.

Later Thursday night, I experienced my first pub conversation. Connolly, Ann, Devin, Mark, Christine and I went to this little pub called The Bodhran (pronounced Boron, like the element.) named after a type of Irish drum. We heard there was live music there. And while the artist didn’t play traditional Irish music as I hoped he would (until the very last song) he did play some good classic rock covers on acoustic guitar. He was very skilled and had excellent tuning. Connolly, Mark and Christine headed out after a little bit, leaving Ann, Devin and I to enjoy the craic (craic pronounced “crack” meaning “good times”). We ended up chatting with this one older gentleman at the bar and then a couple more regulars came over. I chatted with a younger man named Brian who is actually the chef at the hotel next door to the Clarion. It was a pretty good conversation about cooking, Americans, the Irish (his theory: The best thing to happen to the Irish social scene was the smoking ban in pubs because it made men go outside and talk with each other over cigarrettes to avoid awkardness.) vegetarians (“OH!! You’re one of THEM. No wonder you’re so fecking skinny.”) the green movement and immigration. As Ann, Devin and I were departing he shook hands and kissed us on the cheek heartily in a truly European manner. Even the emotionally reserved Irish men can be affectionate after a few pints. Men. Geez.

The Irish men are pretty funny. There is a lot more holding to gender roles here than back home, I think. Men are expected to be social around men, and are either supposed to be really reserved or else are allowed to make comments that would be considered innappropriate in the states towards women. Either way, there’s this kind of a wall. But the women are expected to verbally banter back. Thank God. I’m good at that. There’s a saying: “Never insult an Irish woman because she can always outwit you” and I think I can dig that. But the men… oy vey. On the streets, if you make eye contact, the men look away and down at their feet. No smiling back. Smiling is not a usual way of greeting people here. A head nod is acceptable, but only from man to woman or man to man. If I nod my head to a man, especially an older man, he gives me a confused look. When I talked to the guys in the pub about wanting to be a professor, they got a little antsy. I suppose men are just a little ridiculous in any country.

Speaking of ridiculous men… I made another “friend” here. Ann’s and my room overlooks the atrium which is lit by this giant skylight for a ceiling that is hung with very Cirque de Soleil golden balls suspended by cables. This rooming situation bothers me more than a little because I can’t stand being in rooms that don’t have windows, something I discovered ever since moving to the upstairs room at home, and because our room over looks all the open walkways of the floors below us we really should have the shears drawn. It has been quite uncomfortable for me, so I just try to spend as much time out of the room as possible. Anyway… Wednesday, I had the sheers open and this little old man walks by on the fifth floor corridor/breezeway and looks up at me. Eye contact was made, but instead of walking by like a usual Irish man, he waved and grinned at me. I waved back confusedly and that was that. Thursday morning, Ann and I were looking out over the lobby and here comes my friend, this time in a bathrobe and hotel slippers. He saw me in the window, his face lit up and he waved and blew me a kiss. He waited by the railing forlornly until I blew him a little kiss back and then bowed “thank you” and strolled away looking particularly pleased about having secured a favor from his lady. I was so amused that I was recounting the tale to my friends and McDowell who suggested that the man was either French, Spanish, or Italian because it was too early for the Irish to be drinking and no sober Irish man would be so unreserved. Connolly overheard and asked if I found a “sugar daddy”. Sigh… professors these days.

Yesterday, Ann, Sarah, Laura and I trekked about Cork and secured a wildlife/plant guide for me and knitting supplies for Ann, who I taught to knit yesterday! I created a monster. She is a knitting-natural and will surpass her instructor in no time. We are becoming good friends, Ann and I! Well, I’m off to a St. Paddy’s day parade here (put on for the benefit of the tourists. The native Irish care not a lick about St. Paddy’s day, except the tourist euros it brings in. It’s kind of like Mardi Gras in the states. Celebrated in the big cities, especially New Orleans, but otherwise not a big deal and rather far removed from its religious origins.) Cheers!

PS: Woohoo! I just got back from the St. Paddy’s day parade. There were a lot more locals there than we expected. It was fun to see all the local organizations. There were a lot of colorful costumes and some interesting almost floats. I say almost because none of the floats were vehicle powered, they were all carried chinese new year style by men and women with posts. Some of the groups included dance schools, marching bands (that didn’t march with sousaphones, instead carrying regular tubas in braces/bags), a pipe and drums band, various international groups (like the French Speaking Children) and even various strange groups, like the Irish Romans… go figure. In the picture from left to right are Devin, Sarah, Dan, Laura, Ann, and Connolly at the parade.

Day 12 - Cork

2007-03-14T02:24:00.000-06:00

13 March 2007

I am in Cork! I’ve only been in Cork for a little under a day, but I already like it better than Dublin. Dublin was great, but I love being outside the city where it is expensive and always crowded and loud. Cork is much smaller and less densely populated. It’s a port city on the south side of the Ireland, pretty much in the center of it too. We departed from the Mespil in Dublin at 9 in the morning and took our time on the road, visiting important sites on the way, arriving at the Clarion in Cork at 6PM. Just to make a point of it: Drivers here are crazy, especially on small tiny little country roads. Sometimes our bus just kind of pulls off to the side to avoid collision. Fun, eh? It’s all like a big game of chicken.

Our first stop, in Kildare south of Dublin was a really old Cathedral called St. Brigid’s said to have been founded by St. Brigid herself on the land that she claimed when she said all she wanted as much land as her cloak could cover and her cloak miraculously grew and grew and grew. St. Brigid is pretty cool. I really dig her. She was extremely bright and selfless, she was even pretty too, though she prayed to God to make her ugly. I told Colleen that’s what I pray for every night and she jokingly punched me and said that she hopes I don’t. St. Brigid of Kildare was the patron saint of cattle, blacksmithing, and poetry, and her element was fire, therefore she seemed pretty awesome. The cathedral built on her land was very old, most likely Cisterian. The verger of the property opened it especially for us. I’m really glad she did because the chuch was gorgeous, and also present on the property was the only climable surviving Norman style round tower. (see picture) These things are huge. Great round towers. Really narrow. They were built in the early medieval period in Ireland as protection against viking raiders. The door, if you’ll notice, was built 13 feet off the ground, so if the monastary was under attack, the monks would scurry up a ladder into the tower and then pull the ladder up after them, shutting and sealing the door. Most of the towers are now in ruins, though some have been built up in later years.

Right about now, I bet you’re thinking (especially Mom, Dad, or Jack) that: “Steph, you’re afraid of stairs you can see through and heights! Did you actually climb the norman tower at St. Brigid’s of Kildare?” and the answer is: yes I did! I slayed a dragon! It was no easy feat, mind you. It was a whole bunch of see through stairs just to get up into the tower (since the entrance used to be reached by ladder-wielding monks) then the “fun” started. The tower was really narrow and there were ladder/stairs (permanent ladders with slightly wider rungs.) with little trap doors to go through to get to the landings. This was not an enjoyable experience for me. I was terrified and wanted to go back, especially because I could feel a panic attack rising. But I kept going with my friend Crystal behind me. I got to the top of the tower and it was really ridiculously windy. I held onto the wire fence that was at the top for dear life, but I appreciated the lovely view (see other picture). Going back down the tower was scary, but Aaron, my latin tutor/friend gave me a hand and I did it! Hooray! I was so happy to be back on the terra firma, but I was also so proud of myself that I climbed that tower and showed it who was boss.

Later in the day we went to see a couple of high crosses (big stone crosses, the ones with the circle around the top of the cross from the early middle ages where they marked boundaries and were carved with special designs and biblical stories used for instruction by the monastaries) and we also went to Jerpoint Abbey, an old Cistertian monastary that is in ruins. It was just amazing. It had the most surviving scuplturework from the early medieval period, and it was still dazzling. The artwork was so vivid and personal. The funny thing is that Cistertian monastaries were not supposed to have any decoration whatsoever, but the Irish monks have always been a little bendy on terms of the rules. The guide told us a story of how Cistertians were supposed to be vegetarians as well (WOOHOO! Veggies unite!) but that they went by a biblical definition of what was allowable meaning that they weren’t able to eat anything with four legs. This means that they ate a whole lot of fish and even rabbits because the monks said that rabbits spend a lot of time sitting on their haunches, thus they counted as two legged animals. I think that’s stretching it a bit.

When we arrived at Cork, we proceeded to the hotel and got our room assignments. The hotel is amazingly posh. Too rich for my tastes, my room at the Clarion is about two and a half times my room in my Andreen apartment. Though, I’m not going to lie, the french hot chocolate, tea water boiler, dancing room and self-unfogging mirrors are pretty awesome. I just feel bad because there are homeless people around the streets of Cork while I’m staying in a hotel where I get persimmons and real whipped cream served with dessert.

We had class today and that was particularly interesting. I love class here and I look forward to doing homework. Except for Latin. I never really look forward to doing Latin. It’s always an ordeal and takes up my weekend making me feel behind. If it weren’t for grad school, I wouldn’t be taking it. (I’m studying Latin independently with another student and one of our professors). Today though, as always, I have discovered more delicious foods. Cork is smaller and less expensive than Dublin (thanks goodness!) but it is much more Irish and less Americanized. I’ve actually heard someone speaking Gaelic here, and there is Gaelic written on the signs and the walls. The town center is really small, but it is vibrant and cheery, a lot less rushed than Dublin. My favorite thing thus far: the English Market, a huge indoor year-round farmers market with lots of different sellers and stalls. There are bakeries and confectionaries and I got the best fresh scones ever (aka lunch) for a euro ten. Delicious! Scones, chips, ice cream, and swiss pastries (aka little pockets of happiness) are my favorite food things here thus far. I’m waiting to find out about the wild life around Cork and whether or not there are red tufty-eared squirrels, but hopefully I’ll find out soon. I’ve been cooped up since 4:30 today doing homework and emailing, so we’ll see, I think I might just pony up the cash and get a book about the trees here.

**Ooh, I forgot to mention. Yesterday in my first excursion about Cork (with the class to our classroom at a local college a few minutes walk away) I was walking past this one building, Ann said, "Oh, Steph, look over there" and there was an Irish army regular in green cami's with an M16 in the middle of downtown Cork. I was bad, I stared. But I've never seen an army guy with a gun in that context. There were other ones there too, and they seemed to be guarding an alley. I was a bit nervous and walked a little faster. The army man looked like a baby, he seemed to be about 18 and had really big blue eyes. He looked kind of flustered by the fact that 30 of us were traipsing by, some oblivious. But there were a lot of gardai (police) around too, so McDowell said that he thought it was a drug raid. That was my adventure. The end.

Dublin - Day 10

2007-03-11T07:02:00.000-06:00

11 March 2007

I haven’t updated in a while, but I have been a busy kid. I’m getting a little antsy to get out of the city atmosphere of Dublin because I’m just not used to all the hustle and bustle, though it would be a people-watcher’s dream come true. Let’s see… On Friday, we had no class, but we had field trips to Kilmainham Gaol and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The gaol (jail) was a pretty impressive sight. It was where the revolutionaries from the Easter 1916 uprising were imprisoned and executed. To put that into analogy: If it were the USA, it’d be like if George Washington, Paul Revere, Ben Franklin and other revolultionary types were captured and executed. That’s how important the 1916 uprising was to Irish independence. The jail was somber, cold, drab, and generally miserable (imagine that) and the stonecutter’s yard where the heroes were executed was particularly chilling, the spot of their execution marked only with a single, simple black wooden cross. While at the jail, the tour-leader chose me to be the “prison guard” meaning that I had to look menacing and count up the rest of the group as we proceeded through the jail to make sure that we didn’t accidentally lose anybody. I was fine with the counting part, not so good at the looking menacing part. I guess prison guards don’t generally giggle and grin.

The Museum of Modern Art was pretty cool. I enjoy modern art a lot, so I had a good time. We had to choose works to write on for my art history class, so once I conclude this entry, I’ll be off to do that.

After that, Dr. Connolly, Christine and Mark, Kevin, Jeff, Dan and I went to tour the Guinness factory. We ended up stopping for lunch on the way at this little hole in the wall kebab shop where I had the most delicious veggie burger (it was like deep-fried coleslaw or something) and also I experienced the joy that is a fresh bag of “chips”. Not like potato chips in the US, these chips are like our steak fries. Except better. Fresh and hot from the frier, these deep fried little bits of deliciousness drenched in vinegar and lightly sprinkled with salt, clog my arteries and thrill my tastebuds. Oh, chips. How I love thee! The only problem I have with the take-away restaurants is that they don’t really give you napkins. This is problematic for someone clumsy like yours truly.

Chips finished, we arrived at the Guinness Brewery and Storehouse where we were ushered up an escalator greeted by a sign extolling “the magic of fermentation”. It was then I knew that I was in the Disney World of Beer. I don’t like Disney World, and I didn’t like beer back in the states, so I felt a bit turned off to the whole experience, especially when I found out that it would be 9 euros to walk through a gallery of beer. Not my idea of a good time. Luckily Connolly and the others, barring Jeff and Kevin agreed with me, so we left Jeff and Kevin to tour the factory and found ourselves the oldest pub in Ireland, the Brazen Head Pub, which has been in existence since 1198. Impressive. It was a lovely little afternoon stop and I chatted with my friends and the proprietor while sipping some Smithwick’s (a lager brewed by Guinness pronounced “smithix”, without the “w”), which I like a whole lot and better than Guinness because Smithwick’s is crisper and not quite so syrup-y. After a nice long walk home and dinner, Ann, Meghan, a group of others, and I headed out to find some traditional Irish music. We found it at O’Donohughe’s, a little pub a few blocks from the hotel. We did NOT find it in Temple Bar, the uber-trendy (and touristy) section of Dublin just north of the Liffey. Temple Bar is not my bag, though the night life is renowned throughout all of Europe. It was almost as bright as day time and crawling with young adults even though it was 11 PM! I’d much rather sit and chat in a little corner pub populated by older folks. I like older people. Maybe this is why I like to play bridge and knit and why I don’t like loud raucous music or fast cars.

Yesterday (Saturday) though was the best day of the trip thus far, which is really saying something because I’ve had a wonderful time here my first week. Yesterday, though, we headed down to Bray, a small seaside suburb south of Dublin. We (“we” comprised of Ann, Meghan, Christine and Mark, and I) took the Dart train (a commuter/metra type of train) down the coast and it was just gorgeous going along the seashore. It was like all of the sudden you rounded a corner and the horizon just opened up and there was ocean and bay and little cliffs and hills jutting out over the ocean. After leaving the train station we crossed the street to the ocean and played on the seashore. I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day, it was probably about 60 degrees and sunny. So sunny that I actually managed to get sunburned in Ireland in March, but then again, with my skin, I can sunburn if I just think about the sun for too long. I found some kelp that had washed up on the sea shore and it was great fun to feel how thick and strong it was. I threw lots of rocks into the ocean while trying to skip them, and I climbed up on big piles of boulders that accumulated at the point. After we got inadvertently soaked while arranging rocks on the little strand of sand we found, we decided to head out in search of some fish and the requisite chips (ohhhh chips….) We found them, but found no napkins and no place to sit so we wandered about to look for a park. What we found was a small green in front of a community college where we got funny looks and a little girl kept said as she was walking by: “There’s no picnic there! There’s no picnic! There’s no f**king picnic!”, but nobody else commented or even walked by and it was not private property, so we figured she was just a leprechaun in disguise or something. After our grand fish and chips, we wandered about town enjoying the fineness of the day. We found the Irish equivalent of a dolar store (the Eurostop) where I finally found something stuffed with which to cuddle at night (cue tangent)

So, my tangent… if you’ll kindly remember, I left Softcheeks, my stuffed animal bunny that I’ve slept with every night, back in the states. This made me sad. I tried to go without, but I found that wasn’t working. The extra pillow I asked for was too big and I’d just chuck it out of bed. Meanwhile, I had taken to grabbing random electronic equipment off my nightstand in my sleep and snuggling with it. The first time it was the alarm clock. The next day I woke up with my pedometer, and the day after that it was my cell phone still attached to it’s charger. Clearly, I missed Softcheeks. So finally I decided that I needed a stuffed animal surrogate Softcheeks before the computer or digital camera was next. I went into a toy shop in St. Stephen’s Green, but they only had expensive stuffed animals. So I saw a maternity store on the way out of the mall. Surely they’d have something probably very soft for babies, I thought to myself. I walked uneasily into the shop and the lady at the desk must have noted my confusion, “Are you alright?” she asked (side note: she wasn’t asking about my well-being, that’s just what they say here instead of “can I help you?”) and I replied that I was looking for a stuffed animal. She looked at me like I had an elm tree growing out of my left nostril. I explained that I meant a teddy bear or stuffed bunny and she went “Oh! So you mean a soft toy?” Apparently she was confused and thought that I meant I was looking for a taxidermied something or other in the maternity store. She showed me where the “soft toys” were and then asked me if I was expecting. I answered emphatically no, and decided that I don’t like maternity shops and that they are poor places to find soft toys.

I did find a soft toy at the Irish dollar store in Bray (well, a squishy little teeny-bopper pillow with a cartoon girl with unusually prominent cleavage embroidered next to the word “Floozy”) that fit the cuddle test, though I am disturbed by the sexuality being promoted to such young girls on throw pillows of all places. After some more wandering, we ended up by the seashore again and we found an ice cream kiosk. For only a euro fifteen, I experienced the sheer unadulterated pleasure that is Irish whipped ice cream. It’s like soft serve, but far, far better. They stick a little chocolate wafer in the side and drizzle chocolate syrup on it, and it is a little bit of heaven served up in a cone. What a dinner! (a completely unhealthy eating day. But you win some, you lose some. We walked probably about 8 and a half miles yesterday though, so I don’t feel too bad.)

Well, that concludes my magnificent day or two. (Ann and I stayed in last night working on some homework and watching opera and gaelic reality shows on the telly) and I now have more homework to work on. Cheers! And I’ll be writing next from Cork.

PS: Daylight savings time doesn't start here until the 25th of March and Mother's Day here is March 18th

Dublin - Day 7

2007-03-08T17:07:00.000-06:00

8 March 2007

I finally saw a squirrel today! A frisky little grey squirrel was scampering about the headstones at a cemetery that we saw today. After class today, we had a free afternoon and so Meaghan, Ann and I went exploring in a direction we’d never gone before, out south and west to the “suburbs”. The suburbs look nothing like our suburbs here, it’s just more houses and less traffic. Our wanderings took us to a beautiful (but big) cemetery, complete with old, old gravestones from the 1800’s, a couple old chapels, and some really cool vaults/mausoleums. On one of the doors, I saw a placard from the 1870’s that said “The Family Vault of Samuel Ewing Hamilton”. It was so odd to see my name there. Then, there was one of the vaults that was missing the covering of the window cut-out and I looked into it. It contained a wooden stand to hold a coffin and then there were shelves with coffins lining the wall. It was so surreal… I love walking through cemetaries. I don’t think it’s a morbid fascination, well, it is an interest in death, but you can learn a lot about a culture from how they care for their dead and you also learn a lot about life through looking at death. On their tombstomes, they write not only the name of the deceased, but often where they lived and occasionally how they died, who they were related to, and who erected the monument in their honor. The graves are often crowded together, and the bigger the monument, the more likely the name was British or decorated with a British crest. Many of the more maintained graves had little gardens in front of them. Some were decorated with flowers, figures of saints, and rosaries. It made me think about my mortality. If I could have it any way, I’d like to be tossed into a great big compost heap and turned into fertilizer and have a tree planted in my honor.

Yesterday, we went to the National Museum of Archeology and saw tons of amazing artifacts. Though the Stone Age artifacts were great, my favorite exhibits were of the medieval artifacts, especially the Irish reliquaries and the crucifixes. Medieval Irish art is sometimes very different from continental art. The interlace patterns and swirly patterns are distinctive, but the thing I appreciate most about the medieval art is the way it reflects the uniquely Irish version of Christianity. Because Ireland was (and largely still is outside the Dublin area) mostly rural, the power structure of the early church was spread out and centered in monastic life, rather than concentrated in the Cathedrals in the cities as it was on the continent and even England. It also has some more of the pagan influences because the church adopted a more synchretic (assimiliation) approach to conversion here than elsewhere. That’s probably the coolest part of the medieval church art, to see the intersection of continental and traditional Irish patterns.

That’s about all for this afternoon. Dinner is served in about half and hour, and then it’s some more bridge playing since class tomorrow is going to the Irish Museum of Modern Art (hooray!). I’ve got some more reading and journaling to do for class, but my brain needed a break. Bridge is pretty intense, but I like it, so the diversion will be quite welcome.

Dublin - Day 6

2007-03-08T17:06:00.000-06:00

7 March 2007

Only a quick entry for today… I have a plethora of reading to delve into. I’m enjoying it here immensely and though my search for peanut butter has come up short, I had rice for dinner today! Hooray! It was delicious.

Today I actually got lost for the first time in Ireland. Oddly enough, I felt completely ok with it. I enjoyed the wandering and the spontanaeity. It was so freeing! I know that I have homework to do, but I don’t dread it. I don’t dread my meetings or my appointments or my lessons or anything because I have no comittments. Initially, I thought I’d hate the lack of structure, but I am finding that I actually feel so much freer, so much more relaxed. It hit me sometime while I was wandering about somewhere downtown Dublin with Ann and Devin, knowing that we were lost, but not caring one whit about it. I knew where the Liffey was, and I knew where the Grand Canal was, and I was able to find my way home from there eventually. I love it. I feel like a different person. I’m looking forward to getting out into the country, since Dublin is said to be quite different from the rest of Ireland, being a very international sort of city.

No squirrels yet, but a guidebook to Irish wildlife said that both eastern grey squirrels and their red tufty-eared counterparts are supposed to reside in Ireland, if I have the patience to watch for them in the trees. I have yet to see a single wild mammal in Dublin, though… I bet the swans got them.

Day 5 - Dublin

2007-03-06T15:23:00.000-06:00

6 March 2007

Well, I found out what my “jesus birds” are called… they’re actually moorhens. It was somewhat anti-climactic. Darn. Moorhens? That’s all? Oh well. I was hoping for something more dramatic. Like the tufted ducks. Now they are dramatic. They look just like their name implies. Kind of samurai ducks with black heads and a tuft of black feathers all slicked back. I still like the moorhens, though.

Today was our first day of classes. We hiked through downtown Dublin with our professors along the Grand Canal south for about half an hour to get to the campus of Griffith College, where we are using one of their lecture halls for our three hours of class. Out of Irish art history, Irish literature, and Celtic Spirituality and Religion, the spirituality and religion class looks to be my favorite thus far. The classes are all a decent amount of reading and work, but the load is definitely lighter than what I am used to taking, especially without all the extracurricular activities. I really miss dancing already. I’ve mambo’d in the room once for a minute or two, and everytime I hear music I feel like grooving. Salsa doesn’t seem big here at all.

It’s strange to be sitting in a hotel room working on homework for class or listening to lectures in a classroom not of Augustana. I think it’s finally sinking in that Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore. As far as cities go, I like Dublin just fine. Actually, Chicago is a lot bigger and a lot more dangerous. Well, except for the traffic. The traffic here is crazy. Pedestrian traffic and vehicle traffic was summed up nicely for me when a little old man with a cane said to Ann and I while we were waiting for the crosswalk: “Just cross when you get the chance, ladies!” as he hobbled past us, very nearly colliding with an oncoming Ford. I was trying to figure out one day what the “rules” for foot traffic on the sidewalk were. For instance, do you walk on the right side or left side of the sidewalk? The answer is both and neither. The only rule is that there are no rules. Basically every encounter with an oncoming fellow pedestrian is a game of chicken: who will move out of the way first? It drives me nuts!

In my past entry I neglected to say that I experienced my first pub this past Saturday! A group of five other students, Dr. Connolly, and I went to the little pub called “Wellington’s” at the end of the street to hear some piano jazz (I wish it would have been traditional Celtic music.) and have a pint. The music was good, and oddly enough, so was the pint. Everyone at home said “Oh, Steph, if you don’t like beer, there’s no way you’ll like Guinness,” but, ah, they were wrong. It’s not my favorite beverage of choice, but I liked it and will definitely be ordering some more later. I don’t really remember what beer is supposed to taste like, but to me, Guinness (or “the black stuff” as the bartender called it) tastes like a combination of unsweetened coffee, dry wine, and flat pepsi. Not too bad. And Dr. Connolly taught me a nifty bar trick: I can now flip a coaster off the ledge of a bar and catch it with the same hand. No small feat considering my lack of coordination. He said he’d teach me another one once we got to Cork. Oh, the liberal arts education.

Yesterday, we saw St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Christchurch Cathedral, both of which used to be Catholic cathedrals which then became Anglican sometime when the English were in charge. We also saw Dublin castle (which is unfortunately mostly un-medieval), but I found that I adore cathedrals. I never knew just how amazing they were. The outsides are so intricate and beautiful, but even moreso, I love the inside. I was just dazzled by the stained glass and the stonework and the ceilings. A very unimpressive Boston College Chorale was singing there when we arrived, but I imagine a good choir would have endless reverb in there. The depiction of saints and Jesus and famous cathedral deans in statue form were just fascinating. Especially growing up UCC and especially in the more Congregational vein that descends from the clean uncluttered and plain Puritan style, the high church and very ornate styling is endlessly intruiging. After wandering around feasting my eyes for a bit, I found a little side chapel set aside for prayer and meditation where a small altar was set up behind a rope and little rows of candles flickered. I made a little offering that went towards a homeless shelter, lit a candle, and sat down to just soak it all in and feel close to God. It’s easy to feel close to God in a cathedral, or rather it’s easy to believe that there’s a part of you that’s connected. Not only to God, but to your most inner self, the sacred place you’re in, those who came before you, those who share the space now, and those who will share it later. Eventually, I got up and sat in very, very uncomfortable pew-chairs to listen to that less than mediocre choir, but that feeling of peace stayed with me the rest of the day.

Today we saw the Book of Kells, a 9th Century manuscript of the gospels created mostly, if not totally, in Ireland now housed at Trinity College. It was fantastic! The colors were so vibrant, and the detail was so intricate. That the book is so well preserved astounds me. I could have looked at it for hours. I tried to use my fledgling Latin skills to read it, but script is very difficult, especially when your Latin is poor. It looked so fresh and bright, though, not at all like the often dim or fuzzy photographs found in books.

I think that’s about it, now that I’ve completely caught up with missing a couple days of journaling. Oh, I do have a list of things I miss now that I think I’ll miss more as time goes on.:

1) Family/friends… though I am making many new friends here, I still wish the old ones were along for the ride at times and what’s travel without family?
2) A certain tall, studious, salsa-dancing vice-president of swing.
3) Dance. Singing. Clarence... but especially dance. Especially salsa.
4) Softcheeks, my stuffed bunny. I have nothing to snuggle with at night except an extra pillow. It’s sad and lonely with nary a stuffed snuggle buddy.
5) Peanut butter. I’m sick of pasta for dinner (the only vegetarian option here. They call vegetarians “veggies” here.) because I’ve eaten more Italian food since coming to Ireland than anything else. All I want is some nice peanut butter and no more of the fancy dessert the hotel serves. I miss my spartan collegiate diet, though it is nice not to have to cook. Complain, complain, complain… poor Steph.

Day 3 - Dublin

2007-03-05T03:32:00.000-06:00

4 March 2007

Yesterday was beautiful and sunny, with only a half hour of light rain in the afternoon. A perfect spring day. Today was a regular day meaning RAIN. Rain, rain, rain, and wind. A lot of wind. I’d whip out my umbrella to be Mary Poppins, except I gave up on my umbrella after about 5 minutes into my walk. Umbrellas are pretty much useless against the wind because even if the wind is blowing towards you, your umbrella will flip inside out.
Things I’ve learned about Irish Rain:
1) It is plentiful.
2) It is frequent.
3) Resistance is futile.
4) It is only nasty when it is accompanied by furious winds.
5) It is frequently accompanied by furious winds.
6) Don’t wear khakis in the rain.

But, while the sun is hidden by the rainclouds, allow me to reminisce about yesterday’s sunshine. We went on a walking tour of Dublin, seeing the GPO (general post office) which was a historic site of a political resistance, Trinity College, Parnell Square, the River Liffey, and the Marion St. shopping district. At the end of Marion St, there was a puppeteer with a marionette who was putting on a little show. There are street muscians all over the shopping district of Dublin on a Saturday morning. There are a lot of accordian players, a fiddler or two, and several singers and drummers.

After the tour, Ann, Devin and I decided to pick up a little something to eat at the coffee shop and then picnicked on a bench at St. Stephen’s Green, a beautiful park from the 1870’s just a couple minutes from our hotel. After that it was to the Stephen’s Green Mall where they have everything from a pharmacy to a fabric store. Ann and I then took a walk along the Grand Canal, southwards where we made friends with the aviary denizens of Dublin city.

First, there are pigeons. I am convinced that the pigeons are trying to get me. They chased my foot while I was sitting on the park bench, they flew within a foot or two of my head along the river. They’re pretty much ubiquitous in the city.

Then there are the ducks. I like the ducks. There are several outside our room overlooking the canal. A female and four males. They chase her with such vigor that I was afraid I’d be witness to more duck sex which can be summarized as “Oh darling, I love it when you bite my head like that”… traumatic to say the least. But Ann said the ducks are monogamous, and that it looks like one of the males is trying to protect the female from the other not-so-well-intentioned males, so we named her Guinivere and him Lancelot.

There are a variety of songbirds in Ireland: the little Irish blackbirds that have cute orangey beaks and little orange rings along the outside of their eyes, the tiny European robins with their bright orange faces and chests, and my favorites… the magpies. Magpies are great. They’re like crows, but with longer tails and a white torso. Like robins, magpies can hop along the ground, except they’re so big and ungainly, it always looks like they’re pouncing. They’re so fun to watch and seem like such clever birds!

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to figure out the name of the fun little black waterfowl that are my most favorite here. They’re great fun, these birds that I’ve taken to calling “jesus birds”. They’ve got thick duck-like bodies, but long yellow legs attatched to great big unwebbed yellow feet. Their black plumage looks very smooth and sleek against their yellow beaks with red turkey-like crests (on the top of their beaks, like a parakeet’s cere.) But the best part is how they move. These poor little fellows swim, but swimming without webbed feet is particularly challenging. The awkard jesus bird lurches through the water and gets tossed about in the currents stirred up by the giant man-eating swans. Poor little birds, thought Ann and I… until we saw the trait that gives the jesus bird its name. When the jesus bird is threatened, it flaps its wings as if to take off in flight from the water, but instead of really flying, it extends it’s long gangly legs and runs across the water. Not just a foot or two. No, the jesus bird we saw in action definitely made it most of the way across the canal. Amazing.

Lastly, there are the swans that look like they could eat a small child. These swans are the biggest swans I’ve ever seen in my life. Ever. They come up to about hip height and their feet must be the size of my hand, if not a little bigger. I wouldn’t want to mess with a swan here, I might lose. But I have tried communicating with them through honking and squawking, which works pretty well. I think of the swans as mafia bosses of the grand canal. They’re big, they’re cranky, they mean business, and if you’re not careful, they’ll be sure you swim with the fishes.

Day 2 - Dublin

2007-03-05T03:30:00.000-06:00

Slainte!

Thus commences my online travel journal. I bet your first thought is… ok, Steph, so what’s this “sidhe” thing which you are presumably in search of, given the title of your journal? Sidhe is both the name of the faery folk that used to be the old Irish gods, the Tuatha de Danann and are supposed, even nowadays, to live underground in hills also called sidhe.

If I am reading your thoughts correctly, I bet you’re thinking: so what? Faeries? What does this have to do with anything you’re studying? To that question I’d answer: I’m not really looking for faeries, but I am really interested in a culture that even partially believes that faeries still exist, and I’m also struck by the idea of a quest for something more, an outward and inward journey.

And that’s as philosophical as I’m getting this evening, because I am exhausted. The plane ride out was pretty innocuous. The weather held out and we even flew into Dublin airport early. Before the flight, my friends and I were chatting with a journalist from Dublin who was in Chicago to attend a friend’s wedding. He was very nice, and when we asked him if he knew of any good pubs to hear traditional fiddling, he gave me his card and told us to text him while we were in town because his parents used to run cultural tours of the city, and music was his father’s favorite. The rest of the plane ride was delightfully uneventful (thank goodness Aer Lingus didn’t strike), and horribly long. Soooooo long. Being cramped up in those little seats overnight was pretty much the anti-dancing. But Ann, my roomie here, and I made the best of it and really enjoyed watching the plane float through the clouds, like they were the sea instead of the air.

When we finally broke through the cloud cover, we saw green, green, and more green. Even from the air, and even in Dublin, the landscape is like none I’ve ever seen. Most of the borders seem organic, like they’ve grown out of the land into a patchwork quilt of different greens. As we pulled into the terminal, we saw the sun rise over the Wicklow Hills, a sight that I feel privilaged to have seen.

Meanwhile, I still failed to realize I was actually in Ireland. I made it through customs with no problems, but it didn’t hit me then. We took a taxi-van to the Mespil Hotel where we are staying and the driver took us round and around Dublin’s city centre, driving on what seems to me to be the “wrong side” of the road. Still nothing… Ann and I moved into our cozy, trendy hotel room with a beautiful view of the Grand Canal (funny story: the grand canal is deep enough in some parts to navigate a small barge, but the part that we see looks about the size of a small little creek. Not so grand.) but I still didn’t realize we were actually here. It wasn’t until Ann and I ventured out to do some money changing and provision shopping in the rain that I finally realized: I’M IN IRELAND!! And it was cool.

Then the jet lag hit, and that’s where I leave you now. Dinner was so fancy… It’s a good thing I’m not doing too much lunch eating because otherwise I would become really really rotund. But alas, I am just exhausted and it is time for bed. It’s funny to think that it’s 3 in the afternoon at home and 9 PM here. The plane ride was like a time warp, and it’s hard to think that it will be Saturday tomorrow, it felt like Friday never happened. I’m heading to bed. Goodnight all!