A Lovely Weekend (Or, Why Spring Has Sprung)

On Thursday I went to a play that was paid for by Champlain. I was surprised that more people didn't take advantage of this opportunity, but only four of us plus Claire, our head resident, wanted to go. It wasn't at the Abbey or anything, it was an unknown pay performed in a smaller, art-space type venue. But the themes were all about leaving home and experiencing the world--surprisingly relevant to the situation of a study abroad student. It was a little artsy, but the actors all seemed to be about my age which added to the meaning.

Friday our science class had a field trip to the Marble Arch Caves right over the Northern Ireland border. I don't really remember any facts about the caves, but all of the formations inside were really cool to look at, and there was a river running through it that we got to take a little boat ride on. Some of the stalactites had been forming for thousands of years, so it was pretty cool to have the opportunity to  see them.

Then on Saturday it was time to Green Up Dublin! Champlain teamed up with the EF Dublin School of English, which ended up being mostly Japanese students, to give back the community we've been living in this semester by sprucing it up a bit as part of the National Spring Clean initiative. We split up into teams and all had different routes to follow picking up litter, cans, and bottles. One good thing about Dublin is that the city is good about maintaining the main walking areas with street sweepers, but my team still ended up with several trash bags full of garbage. Most of what we found were cigarette butts and there was no way we could pick up all of them--there were thousands. But we all put in our best effort and ended up at the academic center where we had a barbecue with our new Japanese friends. I felt a little silly talking to them because most of them were engineers or studying biochemistry or working on space station plasma ions or whatever. But they were really nice and overall I had a good time at Green Up Dublin.

On a side note, I found the best cupcakes in Dublin on one of the most beautiful days of the year. I walked all around the city in the bright sunshine and even went out of my way to go to Merion Square. It's one of the most beautiful places I've been to in the city, and it was practically empty--everyone heads to Saint Stephen's and always forgets about this spot. The weather has been so pleasant here lately, I'm worried about what I'm going to be coming home to in a couple of weeks!

Happy Easter! Look for a post about my trip to Scotland after the holiday.

Home Coming (Or, Why I almost Got Thrown Out of A Museum)

My mom came to visit me last weekend!

In a sort-of-last-minute decision, she decided to make the hop across the pond to experience Dublin, and, of course, hang out with me, her favorite child ;-) . We had a great weekend together seeing the sites, eating good food, and hanging out, and it was awesome to have her all the way over  from the States!

Her flight got in around 10:20 on Friday morning, and after making her way to Stay Dublin, which is where she was staying and also where my apartment is, and handing over the Goldfish she had brought, I showed her my usual commute to the Academic Center, a half hour walk past the antique quarter and an area full of modern, professional buildings. After she met Stephen, the Program Director, and Lilly, the Operations Manager, and I gave her a tour of the building (with an abundance of stairs to climb). We went down the block to Cafe Sol, the place where I usually grab a take-away lunch once or twice a week, and then headed home via Saint Stephen's Green, where Mum was impressed with the spring flowers in full bloom, and Grafton Street, one of the main shopping streets in Dublin. Mum took a quick power nap, then we had some traditional Irish food at a restaurant on the Quays; bangers and mash with onion gravy for me, fish and chips and Mum.

The next day I wanted to take Mum to one of my favorite places in Dublin, the Temple Bar Food Market, which is on every Saturday. I love the wide variety of craft and food vendors there and I have made it my mission to try something from every food stall before I leave. As I munched my favorite breakfast crepe, Mum sipped some Belgian hot chocolate and picked out a pair of handmade earrings from a jewelry stall, then we grabbed a few blueberry scones and some fresh apple juice and headed to check out Christ Church Cathedral.

After eating our scones and relaxing for a bit, it was time to head to the double-deader hurling and Gaelic football match! My school had bought tickets for everyone who signed up, and luckily for me one of the students could no longer go, so she gave me her ticket for Mum and we headed to Croke Park with some of my friends to enjoy the festivities. We excitedly waved our free Dublin flags, waiting for the first match, hurling, to start, but soon after it began it started to rain.

Then it started to hail.

 We stuck it out for a little while, little white beads pelting us from above, but our seats weren't under cover and Mum decided she wanted to go back to the apartments and get warm so, map in hand, she made her way back. I stayed with a bunch of the other students, shivering and cheering for Dublin. We decided to leave before the Gaelic football game really got going, and I was glad because I was soaked through and not wearing a waterproof coat.

The next day, Sunday, Mum, Hannah, Ian, and I took the DART to the seaside town of Howth for the Dublin Bay Prawn Festival. I'm not really a big fan of prawns, and I don't think Mum is either, but there was a big farmer's market going on anyway, so we browsed around the stalls, bought some cupcakes, and walked by the water in the sun. It was a really pleasant afternoon, even though we couldn't quite figure out why, exactly, it qualified as a prawn festival because there didn't seem to be many seafood-y things around. But we left relaxed anyway and chilled out a bit before dinner.

 Mum, Ian, and I went to The Church, the restaurant Champlain had taken us to on one of our first nights here. We ate in the area where we could see the old stained glass and organ, and some live Irish music was playing. Mum enjoyed more Irish food as she tried Guinness Beef Stew while Ian and I had steaks and potato cakes.

On Monday, Mum's last day, I had class until 1:30, so Mum explored a bit on her own. We met up at the Molly Malone statue at the head of Grafton Street and found the National Art Gallery, only to see that much of it was closed due to renovations. But we wandered the few rooms that were open, admiring the paintings, until we came to a room with a large landscape on one wall over an ornate wooden table with a sign on it that said DO NOT TOUCH.

Unfortunately, I sometimes have the mentality of a small child.
I had to touch it. There was a big glob of paint sticking out from the canvas just begging to feel my fingertip. I made sure no one was looking and gave it a small poke.

Then a security guard came out and said "Ladies, the alarm's just gone off." He pointed at a blinking red light on the ceiling.

My face paled and I stammered something about my bag possibly hitting it. I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, but I didn't want to look to suspicious. So Mum and I looked at a few more paintings, tooled around the gift shop, and then left. When I told her what I had done, all she could do was laugh. I still think they are going to analyze my fingerprint and come after me.

After a bit of souvenir shopping and a tea and muffin break, we went to the Evensong service at Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Mum wanted to sit in one of those pews where you have to open a little door to get in, but we walked in as it was about to start and we couldn't figure out how to open it, so we just sat in one of the rows of chairs behind the pews. The music choir was beautiful and it was interesting to hear the gospel being read in an Irish accent. I thought um might be getting tired of Irish food, so we went to Ciao Bella Roma for dinner, an Italian restaurant where I got pizza with spicy salami and she got pasta with swordfish.

The next morning it was time for Mum to catch the shuttle back to the airport , so I woke up at the crack of 7 to see her off. I'm so glad she had the opportunity to come visit me in Dublin, and we had a great time! It's so strange to think I'll be going home in just a couple of weeks--it feels like I just started this blog yesterday!
Stay tuned--coming up next: Western Ireland!

Spring Break Part 3

And now, we come to the last leg of the Italian adventure: Rome

Note: the internet is really bad here at the moment so there are only a couple of pictures with this post, but I will add more soon.

We were so excited to get out of Naples and get back to Rome, a place we had felt good and comfortable, that we headed to the train station early. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a train until around 12:30, getting us into the city at about 3. We hadn't known when we booked the trip, but we were going to be in Rome for the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. There were celebrations taking place all over the country, and when we arrived and started walking around, we saw tons of people walking around dressed in green, white, and red and carrying Italian flags.

After we checked in to our hostel, we went to the Colosseum to meet up with Patrick and Connor, two other Champlain Dubliners who had been traveling in Germany for the beginning of the week. It was so exciting to see some friendly faces, and to be next to the huge ruin of the Colosseum, and after telling each other about our trips so, Patrick and Connor told us that they were meeting up with Greg and Brittany, two other Champlain students who were studying in Rome and could show us around. We got some gelato while we waited, and saw some amazing things just on our walk to our meeting place.

When Greg and Brittany found us, we followed them through crowds of people in the shopping district, looking into tempting clothing and jewelry shops. It was really nice to be lead around, and not have to stop to check a map every few blocks. They brought us to the Spanish Steps which, surprise surprise, were pretty much just steps (still very cool though). We climbed to the top, and after walking only a little further, made it to a park that overlooked not only Piazza Navona, which is considered one of the most beautiful piazzas in Italy, but the whole city.

  After our walk, Greg and Brittany showed us one of their favorite restaurants, a small place near their apartment. They told us that any place that had a person outside beckoning customers inside was bound to be touristy and not very good. We went in for dinner, and it turned out to be my favorite meal of the whole trip. Connor, Patrick, Ian and I ordered a bottle of red wine for the table and took our time eating and talking. I had lasagna made with homemade pasta, and tiramisu for dessert. Feeling happy and full, we met up with Greg and Brittany again for a few drinks since, in addition to Italy's 150th anniversary, it was also St. Patrick's Day! We went into a pub and were surrounded by tipsy Italians wearing festive Guinness hats and guzzling from table taps. Little had we known when we first entered, but this was a karaoke bar, and soon the sounds of the Italian national anthem filled the room as everyone around us started to belt it out. Then the tone switched to Italian pop songs and we tried to sing along with the words on the screen. Ian and I went back to our hostel and felt truly relaxed for the first time on our trip.

The next day we met up with Patrick and Connor again for a pizza lunch and a trip to the Vatican. We ignored the many, many offers from people trying to get us to go on expensive tours and instead jumped in line for the museum. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day so we didn't mind the wait. Once we got into the museum, we were overwhelmed by the beauty of everything we saw. Everything was so elaborate and there was so much to look at that we could hardly take it in. The Sistine Chapel was definitely a highlight, and even though the room was packed with people, we could barely stop craning our necks to gaze at it.


After the museum we got in line for St. Peter's Basilica. It was enormous inside, again with so much to see that it was hard to take it all in. We saw the giant archway the Pope stands under and found out that the remains of St. Peter were directly underneath. I'm not Catholic, but it was still a very spiritual place. There was a men's and boy's choir in the corner singing and adding a mystical quality to the whole place. We also went under the basilica to see the tombs of the former Popes.

Before dinner we headed to the Parthenon. Ian expected it to be a tribute to the Roman gods, but it was taken over by Christianity early in its history and was just another fancy building, so we went to have dinner. For our last dinner in Italy, the guys decided to do the traditional Italian dinner. There was bread, wine, a pasta course (which I stopped at), a meat course, and dessert. The restaurant was a little awkward because it was still early for dinner in Italy, but overall it was good.

The next day it was time for Ian and I to leave, but our flight wasn't until 8 at night so we still had a full day. We bought tickets to the Forum and the Colosseum, but didn't get to go inside the latter because the line was too long, and after Pompeii, the Forum wasn't as impressive. But it was still a good day. We had lunch (pizza for me again), headed to the hostel to pick up our bags, and went to the train station to catch our bus to the airport after one last gelato (mint for me, mango for Ian). The airport, it turns out, was a lot less sketchy than we originally thought once we passed through security.

We waited for a couple hours for our plane, and groaned as we saw that our flight was fully booked due to a class of about 50 teenage Irish girls all wearing pink and purple 'I <3 Roma' sweatshirts and caked in makeup. I was so tired and ready to go home that I kind of flipped out on some of them who were trying to get in front of us on the line to get on the plane (RyanAir doesn't assign seats).

But we finally made it home around midnight. The trip was fun, challenging, exhausting, and thrilling, and an experience I will remember forever. I'm ready to face the next weeks in Dublin and can't wait to see what else will happen!

Up, Up, and Away! (Or, Why There Won't Be An Update For Awhile!)

Today is Thursday, and Thursdays are my busiest, longest days of the week. I have a double session of Writing the City in the mornings and then two lit classes later in the day. But this Thursday is dragging particularly slowly because it is the last day of classes before I leave for spring break!

Kilmainham Gaol. ttp://tinyurl.com/65vlclc

To add to the snail-like pace of the day, first on the agenda was a field trip to Kilmainham Gaol, a jail that has an important role in Irish political history because many leaders of rebellions were held and executed there, including the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. It was interesting but freezing cold in the prison, and we had to take the bus which is always scary because there is no timetable and there are tons of busses with dfferent numbers and you never know which one to take or how much it will cost and you have to stick your arm out or the driver won't stop and you have to tell him where you're going or he also won't stop. Luckily, I don't take the bus too often.

But after today, I'm not going to update until I get back from ITALY because I don't want to bring my laptop for fear that it will get lost or stollen or broken. Our first stop is the relaxing Alghero, a seaside town on the island of Sardinia. From there we visit Rome and Naples, both places I have been before but am so excited to experience again. Ian and I will be gone from Friday til next Saturday. I can't wait for warm weather, gelato, pizza, ruins, and the Mediterranean!

Passing Through the Past (Or, Why Today Was One of the Highlights So Far)

I know, I know...I haven't updated for awhile. But that's because I haven't been doing anything you would be interested in! I'm sure you don't want to hear about my trips to the Writers Museum and the James Joyce Center, or the short story readings I attended at the Dublin Writers Center...really, none of that was very entertaining.

But I'm updating now because today has been one of the coolest things I've seen so far! My Early Irish History class took a day trip to Bru na Boinne, the Boyne Valley, to visit the prehistoric sites of Newgrange and Tara.

We have been learning about these areas in class for a few weeks now, and all of the buildup had me really excited to see the sites in person. Taking this history class has reawakened a passion I had when I was young for archaeology. We've been studying things that used to fascinate me, and that interest has been rekindled the more I've learned. I almost felt lik I was going to meet a celebrity when we walked up to Newgrange. I apologize for the history lesson that's about to follow, but this trip really excited me, and it's more meaningful if you know what you're looking at!

Newgrange

Newgrange is a burial tomb built in the Neolithic era of prehistory(3100-2900 BCE, predating the pyramids and Stonehenge by 500-1,000 years) . It is called a passage tomb because inside there is a long stone passage that splits off into three chambers that housed the cremated remains of the dead. Stones on the inside and outside are adorned with some of the most fantastic examples of Neolithic rock art in Europe, and there is a roof box over the entrance that aligns with the winter solstice, indicating some kind of religious significance.

The white stones on the outside of the tomb are not original; they were restored when the site was excavated in the 60s and 70s. However, the inside of the tomb has remained completely intact since it was built. We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but it was one of the coolest experiences of my life. The inner passage was long and narrow; a lot of people had to duck to walk inside, but it opened up into a large inner chamber that was about 6 meters high. It seemed impossible that people could have built such an enormous structure--the stones they used all had to be brought many kilometers and shaped into the correct form. Being inside Newgrange was surreal and wonderful--I couldn't believe I was touching stone that people had touched over 5,000 years before me. Here are a few more pictures of the outside:

The famous entrance stone covered in Neolithic rock art. The triple spiral is characteristic of Newgrange.

Hannah outside of Newgrange

More rock art on one of the kerbstones surrounding the mound.

More rock art

Newgrange surrounded by a circle of standing stones that were added about 1,000 years after it was built. 

After Newgrange we headed to the Hill of Tara, the traditional seat of the High Kings of Ireland. Although there wasn't much to see here besides some remaining ditches and mounds, it was still interesting. Tara holds an important place in the Irish psyche and has many myths and legends associated with it. Here are some pictures!

The Mound of the Hostages, where hundreds of cremations were discovered.

Hannah outside the entrance to the Mound of Hostages

 There's a stone at Tara and if the true king of Ireland hugs it, is is said to emit a noise, so of course we all tried.

A rag tree where people say a wish or a prayer and tie something on the branches.

An area known as the "Banqueting Hall," but that is actually a ceremonial cursus or pathway. 

I've said I was sick of walking around looking at history, but this was different. Today was more than staring at a kind of old building in Dublin where something kind of famous happened. This was real history.

Northern Ireland (Or, Why I Saw More Blood Than I Expected to This Weekend)

On Friday morning our whole class piled onto a coach bus and headed to Northern Ireland for a fantastic overnight trip! It was really eventful, so this will be a pretty long post—feel free to skip ahead!

Political murals in Belfast. Photo by Jordan Hamilton

In case you didn’t know, Northern Ireland is a different country from the Republic of Ireland and is part of the United Kingdom. Its history has been plagued with violent religious and political conflict, called the Troubles, that occurs between Nationalists (mostly Catholics) and Unionists (mostly Protestants). However, after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, most of the armed civilian groups have stopped their campaigns, but the memories of what happened there still scar the people today.

In order to better understand the country’s turbulent past, our first activity was a taxi tour of Belfast, the capital city where much of the violence took place. Our taxi drivers were also tour  guides who had lived through the Troubles, and they brought us around to some of the city’s many memorials and murals and explained some of their history. We also got to write a message on the Peace Wall that divides Belfast in half, separating Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. After the tour we all got the chance to explore Belfast on our own. Once people had used the ATM to get pounds, we went into a semi-outdoor mall that had a tall glass dome and looked out over the whole city. Hannah, Ian, and I also visited City Hall and saw the staircase that the builder of the Titanic based his ship’s grand staircase on.

Looking at some murals in Shankill Road. Photo by Jordan Hamilton

Group shot in front of the Peace Wall. Photo by Jordan Hamilton

Belfast City Hall. Photo by Hannah Long

The Grand Staircase on the Titanic was based on these steps. Photo by Hannah Long

 We weren’t spending the night in Belfast, so everyone piled back into the bus and we headed for Ballintoy, a village consisting of ten houses, two pubs, 243546578 sheep, and the hostel we were staying in. As we walked around the town, we kept seeing signs advertising the “Scorpion ABC Fight Night” at one of the pubs. Perfect after-dinner entertainment! At 7:30 we rushed over, excitedly anticipating the brawls we were about to see.

“I can’t wait to see some tough Irish guys beating the crap out of each other!”

“I want to sit in the splash zone where I can get hit by the blood!”

“If a tooth lands in your glass you have to down it!”

As we sat down and time continued to tick on, we realized that we had not, apparently, had to get there so early. The fight didn’t look anywhere near to starting and we hadn’t even seen any of the boxers arrive yet. We were noticing, however, how many kids seemed to be there. Even as people crowded the bar and ordered drinks, more kids seemed to be piling in. They all looked the same too—gelled and spiked hair, athletic pants, sweatshirts that said Scorpion ABC…

Oh, God.

This was not a tough-guy Irish boxing brawl.

This was a kids’ sports match.

We were about to watch little kids beat each other up.

Suddenly I felt kind of creepy.

Photo by Jordan Hamilton

 The matches began with the smallest kids. They entered the ring with their protective headgear and gloves that looked too big for their skinny little arms to hold up. They barely swung at each other as they circled and bobbed up and down, and in the end the referee held each of their hands up, but it was still kind of frightening to watch. But it was only about to get worse.

Photo by Jordan Hamilton

The next weight class up was a real match. Within minutes there was blood splattered over one kid’s face and he began to well up as he realized he was going to lose. Actually, someone got a bloody nose in every single subsequent match; the ref had to keep stopping the fights so that the coaches could wipe the blood away from their athletes’ faces. There was blood everywhere—the faces, gloves, uniforms, floor, ref…oh, the horror! If I was a parent I would never let my child participate in a sport like that, let alone cheer them on—“Go Ryan! Double up on him! That’s it, get him in the head!” The small town youth boxing match was surprisingly violent—we still got the carnage we had been hoping for, we were just slightly more horrified by it.

Photo by Jordan Hamilton

The next morning we made our way down to the beautiful Ballintoy Harbor to soak up some sea air and take in the scenery. 

Photo by Hannah Long

That's me up there! Photo by Hannah Long

Photo by Hannah Long

Then we headed to our next activity for the day, the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. This was a small bridge between two cliffs that led to an island where you could walk around. It wasn’t quite as thrilling as it had been billed to be, but we still had fun crossing it. 

Hannah crossing the bridge!

Me crossing the bridge! Photo by Hannah Long

The Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge from afar. Photo by Hannah Long

After the rope bridge we stopped at the Giant’s Causeway, a breathtaking geological phenomenon where lava cooled in hexagonal patterns and created natural step-like structures.

Photo by Hannah Long

Photo by Hannah Long

Ian and me at Giant's Causeway. Photo by Allyson Locke

Stephen, our Earth Science teacher, explaining the rock formations. Photo by Hannah Long

Finally, our last stop before heading home was Dunluce Castle, but by then we were all so tired that after walking around for about 20 minutes we were ready to head back home to Dublin, even if it meant piling back into the coach bus that was starting to smell. It was a packed but exciting weekend!   

Ian goofing around in Dunluce Castle. Photo by Hannah Long

Photo by Hannah Long

Photo by Sam Maslak

Horsing Around (Or, Another Weekend Report)

When I was a little kid I used to have an imaginary horse named Bradley. He was brown with a black mane and a black tail. Later he turned into my two-wheeler and I would ride him around the neighborhood, down to the new street where the good hay was. I always wished that Bradley was real and that I could actually ride him.

On Friday I got my wish!

Photo by Lilly Johnsson

The school organized a trip to Bray to go horseback riding and so a small group of us signed up and made the trip with Lilly, the Operations Manager who's very nice and an avid horse-lover. When we got to the riding school we put on long black riding boots (shoes for Ian, since the boots wouldn't fit over his manly legs) and helmets and were introduced to our horses. I quickly realized that being on a horse would be a lot scarier than I had initially anticipated as they were enormous and had really big teeth. My horse, Levi, was the smallest horse available, so we were a good team. He was a sweetheart and made me feel very at ease. He was like, "dude, don't worry, I got this," and didn't need me to steer or stop him at all. He had ridden the trail plenty of times before and knew exactly what to do. It was a really pleasant outing.

Photo by Sam Maskak

The next day we went to the Temple Bar food market, also known as Heaven on Earth. It is now my Saturday morning tradition to make my way to this farmers' market and buy a crepe, maybe a loaf of bread, sometimes some produce. They have everything from organic apple juice to an outdoor oyster bar to bakeries and veggie vendors to artisan cheeses and fresh kebabs. Wandering around the market not only makes our mouths water, but lets us pick up on more of the Dublin culture.

Photo by Sam Maslak

It was sunny and warm on Saturday, so after the market a few of us made our way over to Phoenix Park and rented bikes for a couple of hours. The park has many kilometers of bike paths so riding around was easy and fun. We saw the Irish president's house, a few cool monuments, and a field of about 50 deer who were munching on the grass and seemed perfectly unaware that there were people staring at them only a hundred feet away. By the time we made it all the way through the park the sun has gone away and it was cloudy and cold, so we returned the bikes and headed home to warm up.

Photo by Sam Maslak

Today Ian and I celebrated Valentine's Day! It's not really until tomorrow, but since it's still the weekend we thought it would be a good day to do it. Ian cooked for me which is always a treat, and tonight it was simply amazing--surf and turf! There was salmon, steak, garlic mashed potatoes, and carrots. I made dessert--Bailey's white chocolate pudding with homemade whipped cream and Cadbury chocolate shavings; I know, fancy, right? I think we're a good team--he loves cooking, and I love making dessert! Ian even surprised me with my favorite Little Debbie Valentine cakes that he had shipped all the way from the US by his parents! (THANK YOU!) It was a great way to end the week! Back to classes tomorrow, and then Northern Ireland next weekend! Stay tuned!