There are many things that I have probably skipped so far in this blog since I keep getting distracted by other things here, like homework and site-seeing. Therefore for my own purposes I am just going to start from the day I moved into my UCD (University-College Dublin) room on June 30.
June 30, 2010:
Overall there wasn't a lot going on in the morning, Jenny and I took our time getting breakfast at the hotel and then we took a cab to explore our new home for the month. The flat at UCD is very nice there are only 4 of us living in a 6 person flat and it has a kitchen and living roomish area. I was so happy to see a kitchen so I can cook some meals and save some money. We did go do some laundry which is not glamorous but it needed to be done. Once all of the other students moved into their flats we all met at the bus station on campus and headed into town for a meet and greet including dinner. Though at this point I had been in the city for a week and didn't need the tour it was fun to do some small exploring with people that were new to the city! After a lovely dinner at Gallaghan's Boxty House in the Temple Bar district some people went home and others stayed out.
July 1, 2010:
This was my first day of classes here in Dublin and Father Jack wasn't able to come until the 6th so I only had my sociology class. Though the class is in its early stages I am learning a lot about the Celtic Tiger and its overall effect on the Irish culture. For those of you that have no idea what I am talking about, the Celtic Tiger was a ten year span in which the Irish economy was booming leaving behind many questions as to whether this boom was a good or bad thing. My soc class is about figuring that out by looking at the social change brought about in the past 50 years of Irish culture...stay tuned for more information as I learn about it!
After classes the whole group met downtown for the Hop-on-off bus tour, which is kinda cheesy but very interesting. We rode the bus through all the way to start and our driver gave us a lot of information that was interesting. Jenny and I then took another of these buses to the National Gallery of Ireland and the driver we had on this tour was fantastic...we were both amazed at the differences between the two and the information they gave to us. Since we were going along the same path we could have heard the same information but each had different things to say.
That was cool!! At the National Gallery there was so much artwork by Irish artists that I have never previously heard of. I loved seeing everything through the eyes of Irish artists instead of through the eyes of the classical Roman or Italian artists that I saw while in Italy. From the National Gallery Jenny and I went to the garden area that is right there that has the statue of Oscar Wilde in it. He is just chilling on a large boulder looking toward the house he used to live in
, it was the most bizarre sculpture of a person I have seen since he was so very much relaxed and in color. Later we took the bus tour thing towards our favorite pub in Dublin so far called the Pale. This bus driver was my favorite of all of them because of his sense of humor about everything, the drive was so funny!
July 2, 2010:
Another day of just soc class but once again I am feeling like I have learned a lot about the Celtic Tiger and its lasting effects on the culture. We also learned about the differences between the country in Ireland and the big city of Dublin. Many Irish actually feel like Dublin is not an Irish city because its too international and not Irish enough!! I have to agree with that from my own experiences but I will get into that later. Since this was friday Jenny and I had planned a trip to Galway for the weekend and needed to get to the train station.
Once we got to the train station and waited for ours out to Galway we had a chance to people watch. This is actually one of my favorite things to do in a foreign country because it becomes really easy to pick out the tourists from the locals. I almost felt like I was back in Chicago at the train station but it was a but too clean to be an American train station! Another big difference I can tell just from watching the people is that the Irish in general move at a slower pace they are not always rushing to get things done or to be in a certain place at a specific time. In Dublin of course there is more of the speed and needing to be somewhere, but as you head out into the country there is a lot less of it. The train itself to Galway was pretty uneventful other than Jenny and I trying to read a ginormous paper! We got into Galway kinda late and it was cold and rainy so we just went straight to our hostel and crashed.
July 3, 2010:
My first full day in Galway and we took a bus tour around the area to make sure we saw everything that was important in the area. There is no way we would have been able to see everything we did if we had tried on our own. The bus picked us up right at our hostel and we started out going to the Burren (the place of rocks)
which has a ton of limestone mounds or hills that have developed over many many years. The coast is along this area too which is really breathtaking to see in comparison with the rocks. The next big thing we saw was the Cliffs of Moher which believe me are AMAZING!! I thought the view from Mt. Vesuvius was cool this was 10x that! We spent a good 2 hours or so at the cliffs since there was so much to see and the scenery is something you just can't rush.
On the way to the cliffs we passed by the leprechaun head which is just a place in a rock wall that sort of looks like a face. I didn't get a good picture so I am not all that certain I can truthfully pass that off as being amazing. After the cliffs we went to Kilfenora which has an interesting little church things with lots of high crosses in the cemetery. We then saw this old castle which was called the Leamanagh Castle and had a story about a woman that married many times in order to keep control over her castle from others. The coolest thing aside from the cliffs was in the Poulnabrone Dolmen which is a cemetery thing from way long ago and they have a tomb that is a bunch of stones holding up a large capstone. It was so cool to see!!
The last main thing that we saw on our journey was the Ballyalban Earthen Ring Fort, it was spectacular to see how the inner and outer rings of earth are able to stay up and not sink. The fort is said to be a home of fairies but I don't think I actually saw any, I was looking though!!
July 4, 2010:
One of the reasons for Jenny and I to go to Galway was for her to see the castle of her Irish ancestors. So on sunday we figured out how to get out to the castle (we had help with the transportation advice from saturday's bus driver). We took a bus that was going toward the castle and the driver let us off at the road that led to it. We then had to walk about 2km until we reached the castle but it was totally worth it. The castle is in really good shape and it was really cool to see the way it would have protected itself and just how little room the people needed to
live 'comfortably'. After we spent about an hour or two at the castle we began the walk back to the road so we could either walk to the closest town or hail the bus going back to Galway. There was a golf club along the road and we ate lunch there. I was really surprised at how nice they were at the club because even though they had some sort of function they were preparing for they were more than happy to serve us lunch. After lunch we finished the walk to the roadside and waited for the bus going back to Galway. This is probably the strangest thing in my mind that I have come across, the bus just stops to pick you up on the side of the road if you hail it and it doesn't leave its main path. That would never happen in the United States, you can't just hail the city bus anywhere you please along its route, it would just blow you off, but here you can! After this adventure we had to head back to Dublin since classes would start up again on monday..it was a rather odd fourth of July since there was no fireworks, or hot dogs, or anything 'American'.
July 5, 2010:
Another day of just soc, but I once that was over I had to make sure my religion papers were completed so I stayed mostly in my room to do homework and catch up on my life, since the weekend was so crazy.
July 6, 2010:
Finally Father Jack is here so I had my first religion class here and LOVED it!! We are talking about the history of Christianity here in Ireland and for me its so interesting. I have been reading on this type of information for a few years so much of the current stuff we are learning I already know, but aside from that everything is so interesting. Another plus to this class is there are only 3 other people in my class so we all get to participate in class and there is a lot of learning..I like small classes!!
As a group we all went to the National Museum today and the most interesting thing I saw there were the bog bodies. There are quite a few bodies and other things that have been found in the bogs that the peat they were buried in actually preserved their bodies pretty much intact except for leathering their skin. It was so interesting to see the bodies of these ancient people that were sacrificed to the pagan gods. On one of them you could still see his finger prints! I feel like seeing those people really makes it hit home that they were not all that different from you and me, because when you are only looking at bones there is little that is completely recognizable and being like me, but these men looked so real! It was unbelievable.
Just to add some of my random thoughts and questions that I have come up with:
1. I agree with the many Irishmen that say Dublin is not a true Irish city, why? Well for many reasons. One, its very international and tourist based, I feel like I run into more non-Irish that I do Irish. Two, the country is more laid back and open to talking for a long time not worrying about time and Dublin is much more fast paced. Three, the country is really the Ireland many of us picture when we think of the scenery; green fields, sheep, cows, farmers, and less houses.
2. I have come across this question after reading the Irish Times for my soc class...why are the Irish papers so large? The paper when opened to read the inside of it is at least like 3 feet wide! It is impossible to read on a train unless you want to be really rude to the person sitting next to you. So what is the need of such a large paper?? I don't have an answer to this but maybe someone else does.
3. It has taken me about a week and a half to find ONE store that sells plain potato chips (or crisps as the Irish call them). Apparently the normal crisp flavors here are salt and vinegar, or cheese. Yuck!! I just don't understand that when a country loves the potato as much as Ireland does why don't they sell more plain potato crisps??
