Weekend in Dublin

I am back safe and sound and still up late at night in Galway, so rest assured that the weekend with Brigid went swimmingly.

Thursday: I took the bus out that afternoon, getting dropped off along the Liffey River, and made my way to the Kinlay House via the mental map I had of that area of town. Brigid had gotten in about fifteen minutes before me, so after we cleaned up we headed out to Bull and Castle around the corner for a bite to eat and a free pint of Galway Hooker upstairs. It was early and a Thursday night so pretty quiet; we had the bar mostly to ourselves and quickly made friends with the bartenders although they were out of the Galway Hooker (or so they said... perhaps it was just a ploy to get us to come back the next night). We chatted for a while then headed off to the Brazen Head, a pub rumored to have good traditional music. It turned out to be a nifty, laid-back little place where the band was just sitting at one of the tables like everyone else in the small room, except that they were playing old Irish songs and singing along. We didn't stay out too late since we wanted to be rearin' to go the next morning.

Friday: Quick breakfast then walked out to the Guinness Storehouse which only took maybe twenty minutes. Toured that for a few hours, etc. Oh, and quick note to anyone that ever ends up there - you get a free pint by going on the tour and you can either use it pouring your own pint (I think around the 5th floor), and you get a certificate, or you can redeem your ticket stub at the top in the Gravity Bar. I highly recommend the latter option as this Bar has an almost 360 degree view of Dublin. We then grabbed lunch at a pub and headed for the Jameson Factory. [aside: yes, I know, this sounds ambitious and overly-alcoholic, but they were both a bit out of the way of most of the other things we wanted to see, and relatively close in proximity to each other.] Unfortunately we got there and it appeared to be exactly the same as the Guinness Storehouse, except it was whiskey which neither of us have a particular taste for, so we opted to pass on that. We made a detour on the way back, however, at the Four Courts, the courthouse in Dublin that overlooks the Liffey and wandered through there for a bit (sorry, not allowed to take pictures). We returned to Kinlay House in a rather roundabout way, passing through the Temple Bar area to see what all the fuss was about. Really it's just a huge tourist area with a lot of pubs. We had a little more time than anticipated when we got back so we took a very short nap then went back out near the Temple Bar to eat dinner and start a pub tour. We're near 7:30 at this point, FYI. We went to four pubs, nothing noteworthy, then decided to end the night back at Bull and Castle with our bartender friends. However we missed closing time by fifteen minutes, so we went back and were in bed a little after 2:00.

Saturday: Woke up nice and refreshed, again with a quick breakfast, then meandered out towards Kilmainham Gaol, the prison-turned-museum. It was out past the Guinness Storehouse and as we were walking we passed someone who looked like Claire Ferguson. It didn't dawn on us until it was too late to turn around and see if it was her, but we shrugged it off. Well, no, actually... we looked it up later and she was in Dublin that very day for a concert. And to think six years ago I was her tour guide for her overnight visit at Thacher. And I digress... We got slightly lost/didn't walk far enough because the jail wasn't clearly marked on our map so a friendly old man with a really thick accent helped us. We nodded and grinned and went about our way... still as confused as before. While we were puzzling over which direction to head another man, this time with two kids, stopped to ask if we knew where Kilmainham was. Perfect. We joined forces and carried on our way. We arrived soon after (we were closer than we had thought) and went on a very sobering hour-long tour. I highly recommend going there. We had a lovely lunch of fish'n'chips and continued out to stroll around Trinity College (perhaps a seven minute walk in the other direction of Kinlay House). The afternoon was spent hitting the typical tourist spots - Merrion Square, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Grafton Street, Dublin Castle - and stopping in a few little shops. One boutique I was particularly fond of was Cleo, a fabulous little wool store on Kildare Street. We ate dinner then went out to Duke Street Pub for a literary pub crawl. Relatively entertaining, there were two fellows leading who would do scenes from plays and tell us interesting stories about Joyce, Wilde, etc. Hands down the best part was winning a shirt for getting the most trivia questions right at the end of the night. Too bad it's an XL. It was snowing by the time we came out of the last pub (gargantuan flakes, mind you! think an inch in diameter - no hyperbole!)... We made our way back to Bull and Castle for the last time and met up with our bartender friends who were thrilled to see us and gave us free drinks the rest of the night. It was packed, too. We stayed there until closing then went back to... not sleep. Brigid had a flight out at 6:45am so she left at 4:30 so we stayed up until then. I slept from 4:31am until 8:45, got breakfast, and booked it out expecting to be able to sleep the three hours on the bus. Heads up: you cannot sleep on an Irish bus. They accelerate and decelerate much too frequently, take roundabouts and dizzying speeds, and stop in every small village along the way.

That was my weekend, though. This weekend I'll be going down to Kilkenny with Bethany and hopefully Noel (group project just assigned; we'll see if she makes it) to see Kilkenny Castle but most importantly to attend The Hibernian Orchestra's performance of Arvo Part, Mozart, and Brahms. I've been counting down the days to this ever since I found out!! It's sure to be phenomenal!!

And before I depart for bed, a few shots from Dublin:

Four Courts

This is what you should ponder next time you have a Guinness...

Here's to you, Michael

Inside Kilmainham

I almost went crazy when I was locked up in a cell in those dank halls, the silence pressing in all around! But I made it out without too much lasting damage... or that's what I tell myself.

Not escaping over these walls too easily.

Trinity College

A walk down this path in Merrion Square...

...led us here!

Doors of Dublin

Inside Dublin Castle

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Christ Church

ditto

Pancake Tuesday!

Have you wondered why you hunt for eggs at Easter? Actually... I haven't either. But I now have the answer! And it's all thanks to the wonderful little country of Ireland (or so I'm told). Back in the day it was very common for the Irish to give up eggs for Lent, so they would spend all day before Ash Wednesday making things that had eggs in the recipe to use them all up. Pancakes eventually became the food of choice to whip up, so for those of you who have heard of Pancake Tuesday but didn't know where it originated from (Nick), now you do. Then, on Easter, the Irish would go "hunting" for eggs to feast on. So there you have it! Now you'll never again wonder why you look for eggs of all things on Easter. So... does anyone know why the animal representing Easter is a bunny? (Seriously, I'm curious. I don't actually know the answer to that one yet...)

So I acknowledge that I haven not written in a few weeks. Hopefully no one has been kept awake at night wondering if I got brainwashed by the Irish folksongs and went native. Don't fret; I still have every intention of returning home in May. (quick aside: I've heard from a couple of sources that rumor has it I plan on sticking around here for an extra month, or the rest of summer - depending on the version you might have heard. I'll go ahead and dispel that; I still have every intention of coming home at the end of May, cross my heart!)

As to what shenanigans I have been up to in the past few weeks? If you are up to date with my adventures (really you have no reason not to be - everyone likes to procrastinate, not to mention you had plenty of time to catch up) then you will know that the next destination on the agenda was Bunratty Castle and Folk Park outside of Shannon. Noel and I met up to catch the 8:00am bus down which took about an hour. Once in the park we started out the morning with a cup of tea and delicious homemade scone at the Tea Room in the Folk Park. Since it was technically during the off-season we had the place mostly to ourselves; this made roaming around a bit easier as there were no crowds to fight. We spent the better part of two hours in the castle alone.

We toured a bit more of the Folk Park which was comprised of small cottages built in the fashion of homes from different areas of Ireland, then headed out of the park to get lunch. There was a restaurant called the Creamery Bar a little ways off with delicious clam chowder. Actually some of the best vegetable soup I've ever tried, too. Why are all the best restaurants out in the middle of nowhere? Well, Vernon excluded...

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the grounds of the Folk Park, a pretty extensive place with about twenty-three shops and homes we could go into. Actually it was mostly houses, then one area representing the main street of a village.

We got dinner and a pint at Durty Nelly's, a good little pub next to the castle, then headed home. Rating of this adventure: A- (since it was off-season the folks who usually work at the park representing various Irish livelihoods weren't there)


Other event worth mentioning: attended the Law Ball last Tuesday with Brad, a fellow from the states who was here last semester as well. Each department hosts a ball every year. I cannot speak to the rest of the balls but I have to imagine that they're all pretty similar. It was a nice affair starting with cocktails at the Galway Bay Hotel, dinner, then a band. I admit I was a bit disappointed that the band actually played mostly American music, but on the bright side I knew the majority of the songs. The shindig went well into the night/morning and there was an after party, well, after, but we ended up just heading back at that point.

(before I rendezvoused with Brad; this is one of the few pictures I have from the night. also, Beth is on my right, Meg on my left)

That's really all the craic (pronounced "crack" - can be used for anything from "good time" to "What's the craic?" which is essentially, "How are you?") here. Finally got out on a horse yesterday with the Equestrian Club. Just tryouts to place us for lessons (I think... they were very vague) but it was great to be back in the saddle (I know, curveball coming from me)! Headed out to Dublin Thursday after class to meet up with Brigid (buddy from Thacher). She's in Florence for the quarter and wanted to come to Ireland for a bit; she is a McCarthy after all! Needless to say I'm excited to see her after almost three years! Actually, I'm going to be out of town the next three weekends. Heading to Kilkenny the following weekend, then meeting up with Alex and Dub (also Thacher comrades spending the semester in Madrid and Florence, respectively) the first weekend in March. Anyway, that's all I have on the horizon at the moment.

Oh, and the horse? Still MIA...

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!