An Encounter with Travelers

As I've mentioned there are two ways to get back to my flat from campus - the road through town passing by the St. Nicholas Cathedral and the shortcut through a field that approaches my apartment from the North. I decided to take the latter route Tuesday after lab as it would be dark ere I returned home. On a normal day I would pass five equine pals along the way; there's a nice little stretch of road with a house flanked on both sides by a field of horses. As I passed the first pasture I noticed the peculiar absence of one of the horses, a friendly black draft-cross, but didn't think much of it as there were one or two places feasibly out of sight of the road. It also struck me as slightly odd that one of the ponies was watching the bushes that formed the boundary to the yard, but as my mind was wandering elsewhere I just filed it away on the off chance it would come up again. Well... it did about twenty seconds later as I passed the driveway to the house. I noticed a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye and lo! There, in the flesh, was the missing horse. He was a bit skittish and the man in the house had come out to try and catch him, and there were two other onlookers. I managed to at least coax the horse up to the fence, but wasn't of much help myself since I didn't have anything to use as a makeshift halter. But we needn't have waited long as a van pulled up and three fellows hopped out. In minutes the two younger ones hopped the fence, cornered the horse, led him out of the yard by the hair under his chin, put a bit in his mouth, fashioned a headstall out of a bit of twine lying on the ground, clipped a dog leash to the bit, and one of the lads hopped up and rode off down the middle of the road away from the mount's home field, the van in hot pursuit.

I related this little chain of events to someone back home who suggested I had just witnessed horse thievery at its most spontaneous. I enjoyed his imaginative take on the scene but wrote it off as an actual possibility; surely there would be no one (or no group) so audacious as to commandeer a horse in broad daylight with witnesses! Well, the fellow was nowhere to be found on Wednesday when I passed by that morning, and the same held true Thursday. The whole situation started to seem more suspicious, and the more I considered it the more irked I was that these guys didn't have a proper bridle when they arrived. Or a halter. Or anything that a horse owner might have... We had a Butler group dinner that night and I tossed the story out to our group representative who went on a tirade about "knackers*", essentially Irish gypsies; she confirmed the notion that I had probably watched these folks make off with someone else' horse. I phoned in to the Garda today to see if there were any reports of a missing gelding, but they said there hadn't yet been a call. They took down the events anyway and said they would contact me if anything came up, so I suppose I'll just wait and see if I get a call or the horse reappears in his paddock...

Seriously!! I just never believed that such an absurd thing still happened, much less that I would see it!


*I later learned that Knackers is a rather insulting term, so it is more PC to call these folks "travelers" or "tinkers"...

Mission: Menlough Castle

Last Sunday Bethany and I decided to trek out to explore the ruins of Menlough Castle. We had the following information to go on:
-It is north of our apartment.
-It is on the eastern bank of the River Corrib.
-It is approximately a two mile expedition.
-One must traverse through a field with potentially waist-high grasses.
That's all of the information I needed. We set out in high spirits.

(skip ahead about thirty minutes of accurate navigation...)

We crested a hill and dead ahead was this:

The road bent away to the right, but it seemed to me much more likely that this old gate might lead us to the ivy-draped walls we sought. After a bit of discussion we trooped under the arch and up the road that quickly transitioned to a dirt path. We shortly came to place where the pastures on either side gave way to a forested area that had an esoteric, mythical charm to it (trust me, the photo just doesn't do it justice).

A bit further up the road we caught our first glimpse of Menlough Castle. Hopped a few fences, pranced across a field or two, and stepped into the shadow of the towering walls. (Allow me to digress long enough to point out we actually arrived at the other side of Menlough, but this was a better view...)

We ventured inside to the collapsed halls and roamed around for a good while, plus I managed to find a few places to climb up to to gain a better perspective of the magnificence that once was. In summary, an absolutely fantastic setting for adventure and definitely a place to inspire the imagination, and although not a castle in the typical sense of kings and battles and the like it still brought back a few childhood memories (I seem to recall a phase in my er... very young days that I may have wanted to be a knight...).

This Saturday's adventure: Bunratty Castle in Shannon...

Really, You Would Think I Would Know Better By Now...

I went on a hiking excursion around the Burren with the Mountaineering Club on Sunday. Gorgeous area, eclectic group of people. I checked the forecast on Saturday: pouring and cold all day. But I've hiked in worse, what could possibly go wrong? Well, nothing, actually... at least concerning the weather. I awoke to a lightly cloudy morning in Galway, and with Burren just across the bay things were looking dandy. Better than dandy when we stepped off the bus (well, I got a ride in someone's car, but that's irrelevant). There were some rather ominous looking clouds looming to the south, but our guides said not to worry, and how can you not trust that Irish accent?? I soon discovered why they didn't seem too distraught by the certain impending rain. We began the trek with a pretty steep accent, and before we were halfway up the wind had picked up immensely.

By the time we'd hit our first plateau I'm pretty certain that had I jumped I would have been carried over the side of the cliff that was a good hundred yards away. I made a point of keeping at least one foot on the ground at all times; no skipping through the Burren for me. :-(

But that meant that the massive black mass in the sky that had been threatening for the first hour or so blew over us in, oh, twenty minutes. And the rain was surprisingly light. Our expedition moved at a pretty leisurely pace, which was fine as it meant ample time for photographs (like this one!):

There were all sorts of ruins to be seen, monuments to times past. We stopped for a bit in a ringfort, a clearing surrounded by trees (or in this case a rock wall) used for cattle shelter and herding, protection from any invading forces, and sometimes more sacred rituals.

All in all a good hike, very worthwhile, etc. My feet didn't fare too well, though. I had to purchase new hiking boots because the Mountaineering Club has a strict policy about that... Well, I didn't bother until the day before, and I didn't wear them around that afternoon at all, so I have a blister or two to remind me of Sunday. I've only been hiking for seven years now, I mean, how can one really expect me to know that breaking in boots on a hike isn't a good idea?? But we (and by "we" I mean the privileged four of us who got to ride in the car) stopped at an awesome pub in something I wouldn't even classify as a village on the way home, so all was good.

A few more pictures from the day:

(I couldn't help it...)

I Need You!

To give me your address...
Really, the thrill of a postcard or other Irish goodies ought to far exceed the steep price of typing your address for me...

You've Spoken, I Must Respond Accordingly!

I've had quite a few requests to detail what courses I'm taking, so instead of waiting until I know for a fact what I'm registered for I'll indulge everyone with reports of academic fun!

Good news! I'm officially registered for a Microbiology course, Microbes in the Environment, and an Earth and Ocean Science course, Sediments in the Biosphere. Both seem to be pretty typical science courses: meet three times a week (though on a schedule... oh, er... timetable, right... that was probably figured out by throwing darts at a a blank page of days and times) and each have three hour labs once a week. I had to be approved for these courses before I arrived at NUI, Galway.

Bad news: I have no idea what English courses I'll be in. There are two types here, seminars and lectures. We're allowed to take as many lecture courses as we want, which are an hour each and meet twice a week. They also have up to three hundred students in them. We're supposed to be attending a few of those all of this week to see which one(s) we want to actually register next Monday. I've been told you can get into any of them; they don't really care if they have more students in the lecture hall. Ok, that should work out well enough. The English seminar on the other hand is a slightly different story. We're only permitted to take one because they limit it to fifteen students per course, and they only meet once a week for two hours. We register for that next Wednesday, so I suppose that means if I get the one I'd like I won't start until the week following that. That's a bit of an "if", though. There's also this little thing about registering for English seminars... Although the Irish students registered for all their courses last semester, they still have to wait and register for these seminars this coming week. Because the courses are so small and you have to physically sign up for which one you want, you're better of if you're further up in the queue. Ah, but the Irish are ambitious and academically driven! So they go out on Tuesday night (a common occurrence) and instead of getting a good night's sleep they head over and start queuing as soon as the pubs close. Since registration doesn't open until noon I'm pretty sure that means everyone just skips whatever classes they have that morning. I'm not too surprised; two of my flatmates didn't go in today because it was the first day of Irish weather - winds strong enough to give Texas a run for its money and rain alternating between spitting and pouring. Folks say you should get into one of your top... four... choices. But of course there are ten pages of options to accommodate everyone, so I'm confident I'll get into a course I would like to take.

Overall I have a pretty good timetable. I only have to be in by 9:00 on Mondays, I get the labs over with on Monday and Tuesday, and I only have one class on Fridays. The classes are all slotted for hour-intervals, but they start at ten after and the three I've attended so far ended at ten-til.

Toads: I met a girl trying to find our first class from California that knows Heather Back! (She's also now my lab partner for Microbes, which means at least one good lab partner for the semester; the other lab starts next week) In general everyone here is genuinely friendly. The guy I'm sitting next to in the EOS course is from Galway and a climber; he introduced me to a some of his friends and invited me out to watch a movie with them tomorrow. It's great - everyone seems to really want to incorporate us into their social lives so it hasn't been packs of Americans roaming around. Well, there have been those, but I've managed to steer clear. And my flatmates have invited me along anytime they go out to Eyre Square or just to go hang out with friends in the apartment over.

Actually, speaking of... heading over to Catherine's with them right now.

Cheers!

Historic Galway

I went on a University sponsored tour of Historic Galway yesterday. We had the neatest old chap, William, leading us about and telling endless stories about the history of the city and buildings and such. We ended the tour in the Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas, then three of us asked him to get a cup of tea with us at The King's Head so we could hear more of his stories. Good day.

Today's pretty quiet; it's been snowing since morning. Classes start tomorrow as well. Our last roommate, Lorraine, got in last night, so we're having a dinner party tonight. Something tells me it won't be quite up to the standards of Becca and Michael creations, but I am looking forward to it. Though it means I need to venture out in the next hour or so to get ingredients.

Band from our night out in the City Centre of Dublin

Bewley's Hotel - Dublin

Lynch Memorial Wall (we're into Galway now)

Collegiate Church of St. Nicholas

Street near the City Centre of Galway

Mural on the side of Sally Longs - a somewhat "rougher" pub that tends to host hard rock bands

St. Nicholas' Cathedral (I walk across this bridge and around the right of the cathedral on the way to campus)

Looking back across the River Corrib towards the City Centre from the other side of the bridge

River Corrib

Shop Street - leading towards Eyre Square

Looking back towards the Dunnes Stores (the bright spot of light a little on the left) from near Menlo Park

Home Sweet Galway Home!

I have arrived at what is to be my home for the next five months and amidst the meetings and destination-less ramblings I am working on settling in. We were dropped off at Menlo Park, a pretty small gated complex with a pleasant inner court, Wednesday afternoon, split between the two apartment complexes we are living in. They're about a five minute walk from each other... roughly four if you cut through a (currently icy) field and hop a low rock wall. Almost everyone (myself not included) is rooming with someone else from IFSA-Butler and shares a flat with two-four other people from Butler, another program, or Ireland. We were told when the keys were distributed that the Irish students were still away on holiday and would be back likely over the weekend. Thus I figured I would be alone for a while. I was a bit shocked to instead hear music when I came through the door, but bounded upstairs delighted to meet my new roommate. Her name is Lydia. She's from New England, and here for the whole year. She goes to college in New York. I'm reserving judgment until I know more about her. It's a slow process; only four words max at a time. Oh, but Brian... she does watch Top Gear.

We were pretty much (...ok, completely) left to our own devices after getting our room assignments, so I unpacked a bit (not that I really had too much to unpack) then made a short walk to Dunnes Stores to get sheets. We were conveniently provided with a comforter and pillow. Dunnes Stores is a rather large chain that essentially has a a bunch of different departments, except each is segregated into its own little store. But you get everything from groceries to, well, bedding. Wandered further down Headford Rd which leads towards the City Centre and Eyre Square, the main social hub of Galway. That's about 20 minutes away, and NUI, Galway is about 25 minutes from Menlo.

The weather itself was not as bad as I was concerned it might be; there was some snow on the ground, though mostly just a lot of ice. It was somewhat overcast, and a little breeze blowing, but manageable, certainly. The night was relatively quiet. Wandered about some more (just near Dunnes, not near Eyre Square) with Jaime, got a bite to eat, and called it an early night; just read for a while.

Up early the next day for a lovely jaunt through the cold over to campus for the first time. If I wasn't awake before I left the apartment it only took one step outside to fix that! Another overcast day; such a change from Dublin. I had been getting my hopes up that it wasn't as dramatically cloudy over here as people made it out to be. We had a morning-full of orientation speeches from NUI Galway. Fun fact: there are over 500 international students here for the semester. After a few of us roamed campus until we found somewhere to eat, then made our way to the quadrangle (a main area of campus) with some help from my internal navigation system for a tour that was supposed to start at half-two. In typical Irish-fashion I'm beginning to find, the guides each arrived independently closer to quarter past three (someone from a nearby office assured us they were coming, I wasn't just waiting around optimistically). The tour was one of the more pointless things I'd done all day, but the lad was cheery and funny so it was fine. Not exactly like I had anywhere better to be.

(Bigger version here if you're really ambitious: http://astro.nuigalway.ie/images/NUIGalwayCampusMapLarge.jpg)

I branched off on the way back from campus to check out Eyre Square and do some investigating about a little American Football; I had been give a few leads on places to try. Eyre Square is a nifty little place. Other than Hotel Meyrick, a neat Victorian building right at the base of the square, most everything had a surprisingly modern look to it. The first place, Fagan's, was below the hotel, but they weren't picking up ESPN America due to some glitch. The bartender took my name down though and promised to call if she got it playing again. I was pleasantly surprised when I actually did get a call from her three hours later apologizing that they weren't able to get the channel up. I moved on to another place, was directed to Fox's, and from there to Kennedy's. Success! Not only did they pick up the proper channel, but they were going to be open late that night and the bartender said he'd be glad to put it on for me. I need to find out a bit more about this, but it seems that most pubs actually close around half twelve because you have to have a license to sell alcohol after that, and most younger folk go to clubs later anyway.

After dinner I headed across the courtyard to find the guy I knew was interested in the National Championship, and found a bit of a party going on. I hung around with everyone for a while until they were ready to go out, then the fifteen of us made the twenty minute hike to town. We moved around between a few pubs and ended up at The Quays Pub which had a nifty layout spreading up and down several floors and half-floors, with traditional wood paneling and fireplaces scattered around, and a band playing that was above and catty-corner to the actual bar. Unfortunately the place was teeming with Americans, and even the band was playing Brown Eyed Girl and Sweet Home Alabama (ugh, Alabama... Hook 'em!). Most of the group got sleepy and went home, but we swung over to Kennedy's to watch the kickoff. Good start, Texas! I saw that we got up by 6... then the bartender started closing down. We more or less just went back after that. I checked the halftime score when I got back, and I wouldn't know who won but dear father gave it away today when I caught a subtle downtown today when he asked if I watched the game. Thanks.

Today was the first really cold day in my opinion. I'm pretty sure there were a couple of times that the fog was actually freezing and blowing about. Either that or the snow here is just really icy. It's been thickly overcast all day (unlike the previous two where the sun had come out in the afternoons) and there's supposed to be horribly weather coming in this weekend. I fulfilled a few more obligations about getting myself settled in, found a quicker route (by ten minutes!) back to the apartment, though it cuts through a field that looks like it could be soggy pretty frequently if it weren't frozen, and mostly have been hanging out in the apartment getting to know two of the other four house-mates (one's not in yet). Bethany also is here for the year, goes to Washington State. She's nice, though a little quite. Siobhan is from Donegal (up north) and quite nice. We've gotten along well so far. The other one gets in this weekend... if the roads aren't closed, which seems a popular prediction round here. The weather's also supposed to get worse for the next ten days before easing off. But everyone reassures me it's never this cold here, so I by the time the regular weather rolls around I'll think it's pretty balmy!

Sorry for the abrupt end, but time for some sleep I believe.

The Next Few Days Include...

I can't sleep. Nor can Molly (my roommate for our time in Dublin). We've been up since about 6:30 (half-six), so to kill a bit of time here's what we're up to for our next few days in Galway:

Monday, 4th January
9:15am All students meet in hotel lobby and are brought to orientation venue.
9:30am Welcome to Ireland
10:15am University meetings
11:15am Refreshment break (oh joy, that means meetings will be a bit dry before and after so we'll need time to wake up)
11:30am Safety talk with a member of the Garda Siochana
12:00pm Depart hotel and take bus to Trinity College
1:00pm Lunch in The Exchequer
2:00pm Guided walking tour of Historical Dublin
4:00pm Self-guided tour of The Guinness Storehouse, home of Guinness
- following the tour we are free for the rest of the evening

Tuesday, 5th January
9:30am Meet at orientation venue
10:00am Academics (what we're doing for the 30 minutes before this I'm not sure)
10:45am Refreshment break
11:15am Food, Cooking, and Health
12:00pm Lunch
2:00pm Student Services
3:00pm We're free for the rest of the day

Wednesday, 6th January
9.:00am Depart for Galway

Getting Drooled On is the Worst

Oh joy! I can officially say, "Howdy from Ireland" now! We arrived at the hotel at about 9:30 and of course our rooms won't be ready until noon, so we were treated to a nice Full Hot Irish Breakfast. So far the concern of the cuisine over here not being terribly tasty hasn't held up. Then again, I was pretty hungry so just about anything was fine by me. We're in Bewley's Hotel Ballsbridge while we're in Dublin (we head out to Galway on the 6th); it's a neat 19th century building. So now that everyone can breathe a sigh of relief that I am landed and alive here's a brief account of my trip thus far:

The Airport - not really noteworthy; there for five hours, met other folks on our trip, did the whole "what's your name? Where are you from? Where do you go to school?" questioning twenty times (of course we all had to repeat this every time a newcomer joined). Flight was delayed an hour taking off. Brief tangent: the group that came to Cork two days ago had to circle around Dublin for an hour because the runways were frozen, then started running low on fuel so flew up to Belfast where they had to wait another four hours before heading back down. So an hour on the runway? Not bad.

The Flight - props to Continental Airlines. Better than average airline food, a choice of forty movies on demand, and plugs under the seat should you need to use your computer. I was sitting next to a little girl and her mom that were on their way home from Disneyland. She was thrilled because she still had Santa Clause to look forward to because they'd been in Florida for three weeks. After a bit I was able to fall into a fitful sleep (surprising amount of turbulence). I woke up abruptly when a head fell onto my forearm. The girl, I suppose, had rolled over in her sleep and it seemed I made a very comfortable pillow. I didn't really mind and drifted off to sleep again. An hour or so later I woke up with a startlingly cool sensation on a particular spot on my arm. I couldn't see over her head, but it appeared near where her mouth was. Great. The kid was drooling on me. I didn't really want to wake her though; she was such a peaceful sleeper. Before I could make up my mind how to resolve this situation she readjusted, settling against my upper arm instead. I chanced a look down to see how disgusting it was going to be (she had, after all, been sucking on a huge green lollipop after dinner). Oh. Oops. Well... turns out the cabin had gotten a bit chilly during the flight and in turn my bracelet cuff must have gotten colder and... point being, no drool. That improved the rest of my flight, though I never could fall back asleep.

Once in Dublin - Everyone got their bags. Hooray! We found the Butler representatives easily enough. Grand. We're off to a good start. We head upstairs to find our bus. No, it's actually downstairs. We go back downstairs. Well really it's another floor below. Ok. We wander outside in the direction of a large bus lot. FYI, I'd categorize the weather as "crisp". Not bitter cold, but enough to wake you up certainly. We couldn't fit all of our bags on the bus. So six of us were shepherded off to a random bus. Both of the leaders got on the first bus, gave our driver, Mark (Marc?), the name of the hotel, and hoped they would see us there. Being as we were all pretty tired at this point and none of us actually knew anyone, we opted to just look out the window. After a while Mark/c finally spoke up.
"Are you all staying in Dublin or moving on?"
(me) "We're only here a few days, then off to Galway to go to university."
"Shame."
"...Er, why's that?"
"Galway's nice. In the summer."
Thanks for that happy thought. But at least we made it to the hotel.

A few other fun facts I've come across:
- it almost never snows in Dublin. And NEVER during December/January. If it's going to snow, it's usually March or April. Those are supposed to be the coldest months of the year. Guess I was a little off on my weather perception here.
- Dublin is divided into postal codes and referred to as such. So we're in D 4 right now. Odd numbers are for the northern half, even for the southern. There are maybe 24 areas? The mother next to me wasn't quite sure.
- our hotel is a converted school for girls.
...and our rooms are ready...
Cheers!