Dub-town

Okay I am back! Mom, no more sending me emails chastising me on my lack of blogging. 

Dublin - the River Liffey 

It’s been a busy past week and a half – we were in Dublin last weekend from Thursday til Sunday and the professors all started giving us essays at the same time. But we don’t have class on Fridays (nor did we yesterday, we went to a castle/abbey instead) so I now have time!

The cross marks where the chair was placed, the door
where the ambulance dropped the ailing prisoner off

We left for Dublin last Thursday morning and stopped at Kilmainham Gaol (jail) on our way into Dublin. Kilmainham was the main location for political prisoners during the many uprisings, most notably the Easter Rising which eventually led to the Irish Free State.  A little about The Rising – many people did not support it because they already had home rule (their own parliament) that would start once WWI ended but when the British government responded by executing 14 of the leaders—one of whom had to be propped up and tied to a chair—by firing squad it caused outrage and garnered more support for the revolution. We went to dinner that night at The Brazen Head, Ireland’s oldest pub established in 1198. I had the beef and Guinness stew topped, of course, with potatoes. 

the roof box is the cutout in the white stone above the door

Newgrange, see the people on the right for size reference

On Friday we went to Newgrange, a passage tomb made over 5000 years ago. It is the oldest still standing manmade structure that you can enter, if that makes sense. What makes it so cool is that on the Winter Solstice the sun enters the roof box (see picture) and lights up the passage leading to the inner burial chamber. Newgrange is 85m in diameter and 11 m tall… huge! I hadn’t heard of it until I did my summer readings for Ireland, but it is so worth going to.  

We also went to the Hill of Tara where the high kings of Ireland were crowned, this was not that interesting, it’s just a hill with overgrown mounds on it. At night we went on a pub crawl, ending in the one where they shot scenes from the movie “PS I Love You” The pub crawl isn’t something I would recommend, they give you some free alcohol but then you are stuck at a pub for an hour and all the bar drinks cost minimum 5 Euro. 

St. Patrick's Cathedral

 Saturday we did a bus tour all over Dublin. The presidential election is going on right now so we saw many candidates’ busses all over the city. In Ireland, campaign season is only five weeks so they have to go hard core for those five weeks. The president is also mostly a figurehead, their only real job is to say whether a law should be sent to the Supreme Court for review, the prime minister is a more legit position. They also vote by ranking all the candidates (7 this year) from 1 to 7, eliminate the bottom candidate, and see how the rankings fall etc. until they have a winner! Strange. After the tour we met our theo prof, Brother Colmàn, at the National museum and he took us to some of the artifacts that relate to our studies. One of the really cool exhibits is on bog bodies… bodies that fell into (or were put in sacrificially) the peat bogs and were preserved there for over 2000 years. They can tell all sorts of things because they are so well preserved like what their last meals were, the vitamins in their diets, etc.

 

 Sunday we spent at Clonmacnoise, a monastery established in the 6^th century. The site is known for the High Crosses, ornately carved crosses that stand 14 feet tall.  The cool thing about it was that it is located on the River Shannon, the North/South travel way, and a drumlin (hills created by glacial deposits) which is necessary for travelling West/East because of all the bogs!

Sorry that got a little long. Just a few more little tid bits…

On Thursday we went to Kylemore Abbey, a castle of 77 rooms that was turned into a monastery and school. It is gorgeous!

prom date and me!

The boys are planning Poitin Prom, poitin being the illegal moonshine made here in Ireland. They put all the girls’ names into a hat and drew names for dates and then they have to ask their date creatively! It is kinda funny because they are all so into it, more so than the girls are. Anyway, my date asked me by pouring Guinness so that the foam spelled “prom?” Anyway, one of the boys on the trip is also a photo major, so he will be taking all the awkward prom pictures and the music (yes, the playlist has already been created) is a mix of stuff from today and our awkward middle school days.

We are here until next Wednesday, then it is off to visit the rest of Europe! I am getting super excited for that trip and, as much as I love the group, it will be nice to all go our separate ways for a little bit!

michelle

Well, one month down two to go! Sasturday marked exactly one month since our group met at the Galway bus station. It seems like I just left home but then it also feels like I have been here for a long time. Anyway, I thought I would add a little bit more about life here at the Park Lodge.

My day yesterday:

downtown Spiddal

9:00AM  - roll out of bed and make breakfast (cereal, oatmeal, toast or yogurt) and go on the computer while I eat.

9:30AM – decide I probably should get dressed. This takes about 2 minutes to figure out which clothes I am the least sick of, are the most clean (laundry is 6 euro per load) and I haven’t worn in the last two days

9:55AM – grab my notebook, pencil, water bottle and cottage key and leave for class

9:55:36 – arrive at the classroom

10:05AM  - the teacher arrives. We sing “the Wild Rover,” a classic irish pub song, go over some Gaelic conversation which goes something like this:

A: hello!

B: Hello to you too!

Classic Ireland weather... half and half

A: How are you?

B: I am thirsty. Pint of Guinness please.

A: Here you go!

B: Thank you.

A: You are welcome

B: Where are the bathrooms?

A: There.

We sing “The Wild Rover” once more and our teacher tells us all about her weekend and intros the topic for the day but then decides she doesn’t feel like teaching that and we are too tired to pay attention so we decide to hunt and gather like Megalithic men and women. 

Spiddal beach

10:30AM - We all change shoes and grab jackets and wander around the Park Lodge property. We found blackberries, hazelnuts, rosehip and sloe berries (disgusting, they make your mouth dry) on the hotel property then wandered down to the beach. The tide was too high to get any shell fish so we meander our way back up the rocky beach and through some wood covered paths into a garden then go back to the hotel.

downtown Galway

11:15AM – Start talking about an actual subject, the Origins of Christianity in Ireland (for the 3^rd time) I don’t take notes because our one assignment for the entire semester is to put her notes in paragraph form, add an intro and conclusion and turn it in and I took notes on the first subject we discussed.

12:05PM – we get a break, run to the cottage ad grab a snack, talk to my roommates, check email, go on facebook and go back to class

12:15PM – go back to class, keep doodling in my notebook, make tentative plans to watch a movie in our cottage, keep doodling

12:55PM – class is over! Go back to my cottage and make myself a sandwich for lunch

1:15pm – read the 30 pages for class later in “Re-imagining Ireland”

1:45pm – take a mini nap on the couch

2:20pm – leave for class. This class you have to get to early because all 29 of us plus the two professors are in the class and there are only 28 desks.

2:30PM – start class, discuss the parallels between the Vietnam war riots and the events of Northern Ireland

trad on the prom

3:20pm – change to comparing about the music class we had in Spiddal last Friday and “Trad on the Prom” we attended last week. Aside: Trad on the prom is a traditional music, dance and singing show that features musicians, dancers and singers from Riverdance, Lord of the Dance, the Chieftains, etc.  At one point with all 9 dancers on stage there were 15 world championships among them

3:55pm – the professors hand out a sheet detailing all our assignments for the rest of the semester which got rid of a couple papers and shortened some others. Class over.

the hotel pub, JP randomly opens it for us 

4:15pm  - meeting in our director’s cottage about our final project which has to relate to our major/previous coursework.  I am working with two others and going to research how computer use differs in Ireland vs. the US in different age groups.

4:30pm – return to cottage, go on computer/read a book

4:45pm – find out our theo prof Brother Colmàn is sick so we don’t have his class this week on Tuesday or Wednesday (that means no class at all for me on Tuesday).

6:05pm – make dinner, ravioli and tortellini with fresh pesto we bought at the open air market in Galway on Saturday

8:30pm – go over to cottage 1 for some fun!

So that was a great day. The other classes we have are much more note/lecture/work intensive.

We also booked our plane tickets and apartments for our 11 day fall break at the end of the month.  We are going to Berlin, Prague and Krakow so if you have any suggestions on where to go in any of those places suggestions would be much appreciated!

michelle