There's no place like home
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Leaving, on a Jet Plane
Well, I'm finally back home in Minnesota. As good as it is to be back, I'm more than a little sad to have left Ireland. I really enjoyed my time there, so much so that I would have willingly participated in my own abduction in order to stay!! I guess that means that I'll just have to go back, hopefully sooner rather than later.

The flight over was relatively uneventful. I actually managed to hold myself together until we landed in Minneapolis. It wasn't until then that I started to tear up, and since I tend to wear my emotions on my face, even the customs officer noticed, saying that I looked sad. Well, I was sad! I was happy to be home, but sad to have left Ireland.

The airline managed to 'misplace' one of my suitcases, even though it was properly labeled. Fortunately it wasn't lost forever to the bowels of airline bureaucracy!

Two brights spots upon coming home was that I went to go see 'Billy Joel's Moving Out' with my friend Kate (it was AWESOME!!!!), and my two nephews are in town with my brother Ken and his wife. That and my bed, and microwaves. Oh, how I missed them!!

I've transfered all of my pictures onto my computer here at home and hopefully will have my scrapbook done soon. Just a little task of putting it all together.

This will be my last blog. My time in Ireland was wonderful and exciting and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity for the experience. It sounds cliche, but it truly was the experience of a lifetime.

So this is Andrea Middendorf, signing off. Good luck and good night.

Bank Holiday Weekend in Cork
Mood:  energetic
The weekend was absolutely fabulous!!! Starting out Friday with my spa day, which was sooooo wonderful, and then my time in Cork, I think that it was the best weekend I've had while here.

It's been pretty rainy here in Dublin, so to get out of the city for a while was a huge relief. The weather down in Cork is much more temperate and mild as opposed to Dublin. Fairly sunny skies and NO RAIN graced me all weekend.

The train ride down to Cork on Saturday was mostly uneventful with the exception of a bunch of very obnoxious drunk teenagers on their way to a Techno Festival in County Cork. Lets just say they were very excited to be going.

Yet again, I failed to get a map of Cork so that I could easily find my way from the train station to my hotel, but that's just all part of the adventure. My journey would have been a bit easier if the Cork city council hadn't renamed the street from Mulgrave Street to John Redmond Street. The people whom I asked directions from got the most quizzical expressions upon their faces when I asked for directions to John Redmond Street.

I eventually found the hotel without too much trouble. Upon entering my room and after dumping my bags on the double bed :) I inspected the bathroom and I had what can only be described as one of those pure Hallelujah moments. Not only was there a bathtub, but it was HUGE!!!! By the end of the weekend, I had not one, but TWO baths. Hee, hee, hee!

Of course, I was so tired from being on the train that I wasn't up to exploring the city looking for a place to eat, so I decided to avail myself to the hotel's restaurant. Can we say yum? I started off with an asparagus and prawn salad with a light pesto dressing, and went onto a main course of steak and garlic mashed potatoes (with the obligatory side of veggies) and finished off with strawberry cheesecake with chocolate dripped across it. Accompanying my meal was a very wonderful Chilean red, very nice. Needless to say, I was a bit tipsy after my meal!

Sunday I went on a tour of Blarney Castle and the village of Kinsale. I booked it through Roadrunner Tours at reception in the hotel and I couldn't be happier with my decision. Neil, our tour guide, was the perfect balance of giving information about what we were seeing and giving us plenty of free time to explore on our own. As it turned out, a couple of the other students in the program had gone on the tour before me, but I didn't know that at the time.

Blarney Castle was a lot of fun. The grounds are amazing and the castle was pretty cool too. And, yes, I did kiss the Blarney Stone. I had one of the other people in the group take my picture, but it didn't turn out very well as you can see in my photo album, and I ran out of time, so I couldn't get the ?10 picture they took. Oh well, maybe next time!

After Blarney Castle, we went to the village of Kinsale, and I think that I've found the place where I want to live. I haven't posted any of those pictures yet, but I'm sure you'll agree that it is a most picturesque little village. There are lots of little shops and something like 68 pubs! The village isn't all that big, set right on the water with decent marina. Yes, I could definitely live there.

I got back to Dublin midday on Monday, which was a Bank Holiday here. Which essentially means that many places were closed. A bunch of us went down to Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dunleary), as our TA Brian invited us out for some snacks and some fresh sea air. While there I got to see Joyce's Tower where his protagonist in Ulysses lives. Whoo-hoo.

Later that evening four of us went to go see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. So worth it! I very much enjoyed it. Much better than the earlier saccharine Gene Wilder version. I think that Roald Dahl can stop spinning in his grave now.

Til later!

Chillin' Out in Dublin
Mood:  silly
Oh happy day!!

I'm so tickled that I'm going to have a spa day on Friday that I can barely contain my glee. Happy dancing feet! Yah-yah-yah! :)

We're gearing up for the end of the summer session here in Dublin. :( Only about two weeks left or so, and then it's back to reality...kicking and screaming I say.

I'm really excited for the Seamus Heaney reading tomorrow night. Everything I've heard has been great, and he's even going to give us the chance to get books signed and stuff, so I won't feel like a complete dweeb going up to him after the reading and begging for a signing.

Thinking about going to Cork this weekend after my SPA DAY :D on Friday. There's going to be a land based whale-watching event on Sunday that I'm thinking about going to. Should be really cool. :) Hopefully as cool as my SPA DAY will be! Can you tell I'm excited? I was practically dancing in their lobby this morning when they had an opening for me. Tina (one of the girls here) had a good laugh at my expense, but, as you can see, I'm not caring to much cause I get a SPA DAY on Friday!!! Hee-hee-hee!

Weather here has been just grand lately, not to rub it in. Not too hot, not too cold, just right. It'll be weird to come back and have to wear shorts and stuff again.

So as the grand master of chillin Pauly Shore once said in that fabulous movie Encinoman:
We're just chillin, chiillin here in Dublin.

Toodles!

Six Days in Belfast
Mood:  don't ask
I'm just going to do one super long blog for Belfast simply because, well, I'm being lazy. So ya'll with just have to deal. :)

We left Dublin last Sunday around 1100 for Northern Ireland and Belfast, with a stop at Castle Ward along the way.

Castle Ward, as far as I can tell, was a walled estate that was pretty much self-sufficient in its heyday and is currently under the protection of the National Trust of the U.K. as a historic site. There was a tour of the house that one could do, but as I hadn't changed my Euros over into Sterling, I opted out of that experience. The grounds were more than large enough to suck up the two hours we spent there.

A small group of us, Laura, Katie, Caitlin and I, wandered around the grounds, slowly making our way to a spot on our roughly drawn maps that was dubiously marked 'The Temple.' As it looked like the coolest thing to see, we decided on that as our destination, and we weren't disappointed.

It took a bit of doing, but we finally managed to get around the small lake and climb our way up the hill to where the Temple lay. Laura and I even found some wild raspberries and strawberries to munch on! The view from the top was amazing. Being as it was a clear day, one could see for miles and miles, to quote The Who song.

We finally arrived in Belfast later that afternoon. Our accommodations were, to put it mildly, a disappointment. The only highlight being the kitchen with BOTH a microwave and a television! This discovery, I thought, would make up for the very scary mattresses in our rooms. I would discover later in the week, that this was not to be true, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

After what was supposed to be a brief meeting on our schedule in Belfast, about ten of us set out into the city to find something to eat. We found a wonderful Chinese restaurant called The Abacus. I think, after we were finished eating, that that was the fullest I've been since coming to Ireland. And the food was so good!

Monday we had our first day of classes and a city tour. Breakfast was interesting. Apparently this country has something against orange juice in large glasses. I don't get it. A body wants, no needs more than a shot glass's worth of OJ.

The city tour was interesting and kind of scary and depressing at the same time. Our fearless leader, Dr. Peter Collins, took us into some of the shadier parts of Belfast to show us the murals on the gable walls of houses in both Catholic and Protestant areas. We were also shown the 'Peace Wall' that was put up to prevent people from either side from killing each other in the night. Think Berlin Wall, only no Germans. Don't worry, they didn't let us off the coach. It probably wouldn't have been a good idea to march some fifty students down the streets!

That evening we had a special guest reading by Northern Ireland poet Medbh (pronounced Maeve) McGuckian. Like the city of Belfast itself, her poetry was interesting and moving, but at the same time depressing and kind of scary.

Tuesday was a much happier day as we headed up the Antrim Coast to the famous Giant's Causeway and Dunluce Castle. The pictures I got are amazing. I haven't posted any of them yet, but be patient. They will come.

Whether you prefer the legends of Finn McCool or the geological explanations for the creation of the Giant's Causeway, it's a pretty cool place. We weren't able to walk all the way down the path, as part of it had collapsed in the last few years, but what I did see was amazing.

Dunluce Castle was probably the coolest castle we've seen, and not just because it's rumored to be haunted. Granted, that added a bit of appeal to the place, but even without the ghost, it's still amazing, if a bit creepy. I didn't see any ghosts, but one could almost feel them around you.

Wednesday we had more classes and a visit to the Stormont Buildings. After we toured the chambers of Stormont, one modeled after the House of Lords at Westminster, the other after the House of Commons, we had 'roundtable talks' with representatives from Sinn Fein, the SDLP (Social Democrat Labor Party, and the UUP (Ulster Unionist Party). A member from the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) was also supposed to be there, but apparently he forgot....yeah right.

'Roundtable talks' is kind of deceiving as the questions were submitted by us ahead of time and the party members also got to see them before the session. Even so, some of those who were asked to stand up and ask the prepared questions still were able to throw the politicians a few curves balls by not sticking strictly to the script. It was great. I've always enjoyed watching elected officials squirm and maneuver haphazardly for an intelligible answer that won't betray their party.

I don't know if it was reassuring or not to see that politicians are the same the world over....

Thursday was our last full day in Belfast, and I couldn't be happier. There is a conscious weight to the city that presses down upon a person. I wasn't the only one to feel it, thank God. Otherwise I would really begin to suspect that I was going crazy.

I spent the morning with Laura and Kate (not to be confused with Katie) shopping in the City Centre. We had skipped out on the Visual Culture session as none of us were in it. I was going to attend just for shits and grins, but quickly decided that I didn't want to be cooped up in a classroom more than I had to be.

After spending the last four nights on that horrible non-supportive mattress, my back was feeling more than a bit sore, but full-out rebellion didn't happen until we were at the evening reception with the Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast. Full muscle spasms and no Flexeril in sight, and because the sidewalks roll up around six o'clock here, there was no chance of getting anything that would bring relief. Seona, our administrative director put me in a cab with Sara (a friend I've made while here), and sent us back to Elm's Village where we were staying.

I managed to get something that purported to help muscle spasms the next morning before we left to return to Dublin. I spent the rest of the day once we got back to Dublin pretty much in a semi-comatose state. I'm better now, but I don't think that I'll be running any marathons any time soon. What am I talking about? I've never run any marathons, and don't see myself ever running one. Must be the drugs talking. :)

Needless to say, most of us are glad to be back at our homebase in Dublin. The air here is much lighter, even despite the goings-on in London as of late.

More excitement to come later!

13 July 2005---
Mood:  happy
Tonight we went to go see Oscar Wilde's Lady Windemere's Fan at the Gate Theatre which is located at the top of O'Connell Street. The play was really great and hilarious, but one should expect that from Wilde, shouldn't they?

It's so nice to go to plays again. I haven't gone to this many since high school and I had forgotten just how much I like going. The Samuel Beckett Theatre on Trinity's campus is putting on Waiting for Godo, which I want to go see as well. It's not part of the program, but I don't care. The Gate Theatre is producing A View from the Bridge starting 2 August and seems to be starring Chris Meloni of Law & Order: SVU fame. A whole bunch of us want to go see that as well.

We finally got the schedule for the rest of our time here. We're going to be pretty busy while we're in Belfast, going to see lots of different things, the Giant's Causeway being one of them.

But what I'm really excited for is that when we return to Dublin after Belfast, our special guest lecturer for that week is Seamus Heaney!! He's a wonderful poet, at least I think so as do many others.

So lots of things to look forward to. It's hard to believe that my time here is already half over. It makes me sad. A part of me really doesn't want to leave, but I guess that we all must return to reality eventually.

Posted by dragon3/irelandtrip at 12:01 AM CDT
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7 to 10 July---Adventures in County Sligo
DAY ONE
It has been a while since I've written and there's good reason for that. I spent last Thursday through Sunday in County Sligo which is in the northwest area of Ireland.

I took the train after classes on Thursday as I've more than had my fill of buses as of late! The ride went pretty smoothly and made me wish that the rail system in the States was as good as it is here.

Three and a half hours later I arrived in Sligo City, only to realize that the hostel where I had a reservation was two stops previous. I wasn't paying attention, or something.

So I hopped back on the train and got off two stops later in a little town called Ballymote. It hit me then just how far off the beaten track this hostel was....17 kilometers from Ballymote! Talk about poor planning. The only person I can blame is myself and the person who wrote the directions to the hostel. They weren't exactly what one would call clear.

I managed to hire a taxi to the hostel, but even the driver hadn't heard of the place. This is where I was beginning to get a little, shall we say, concerned. Imagine if you will, a single American tourist that doesn't know the country all that well and is being driven out into the boonies to a place that the town cabbie hadn't heard of. The evening was dark and gloomy with the persistent rain splashing on the windshield. I was beginning to wonder if I'd fallen into a horror film.

Between the two of us, we managed to find Gyreum (the name of the hostel; don't ask me to pronounce it), and now my concern was heightened into something like alarm.

The hostel appeared desolate. Heavy fog and rain shrouded the hills, obscuring the view and only adding to my sense of misgiving.

I began to wonder what the hell I had gotten myself into this time.

Once inside, I was a little confused as to who exactly was in charge. I was greeted by two Slovakians and through their broken English I gathered that they weren't the ones in charge. At this point it definitely seemed like a willy-nilly, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation.

I should probably give a bit of explanation to the actual structure of the hostel, as it is definitely unique.

Gyreum's construction is loosely based on that of the passage tombs one finds scattered about Ireland. The main, chamber, I guess one could call it, is large and round with a sunken-in circle in the center where an old wood stove rests against a plaster wall that leads up to a loft/skylight area. The plaster wall is lattice-shaped with a solid center. Within this center, large concentric rings follow one another to the middle, reminiscent of the circular rings one finds within authentic passage tombs.

Bedrooms are set off to one side, kind of like the side passages in the tombs, and the kitchen rests opposite them. Since the building is circular, the ceiling slopes down to the earth towards the edges of the building, making moving about the edges difficult for anyone over four feet tall. I was a little concerned for my head when I saw that the head of the bed rested against the exterior wall, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

So here I was, standing in the middle of this great circular room, wondering if it was too late to get the cab back. I was even considering chasing him down at one point, but I decided to 'buck up' and see it through.

After about ten minutes or so (at least it seemed that long), the Irish guy whom I assume is the owner appeared. I began to feel a little better about the situation after that, but not a whole lot. I thought of all the things I wanted to do while I was in County Sligo and saw that fly out the window as the only transportation I had were my own to feet, seeing as I haven't quite mastered the ability to transport myself from one place to another as of yet.

My rumbling stomach soon brought another, more pertinent, concern to mind. What was I going to do about food? As it was a self-catering accommodation, it was up to me to figure out my meals. They weren't exactly clear about that on their website. In fact, there were a great many things they weren't clear about on their website. But anyway...

I inquired the ringleader, Collum, I think his name was, and discovered that the closest thing resembling a market was about three or four kilometers away. Looks like my feet were going to get some practice.

That first night was more than a little unnerving, but I was determined to make the best of it. Perhaps it was because I was exhausted, but I had the best sleep of the trip so far that night. It was the quiet I think. After I got past all my worries and concerns I realized just how quiet it was there. Quiet and peaceful. One really got the sensation that it was a place where one could find oneself, if one were to go looking.

DAY TWO

Friday started off misty and with a light drizzle, but I couldn't let that stop me. I set out on the road after reaffirming the directions to the store. It wasn't such a bad morning for walking actually, not too hot nor too cold. The hills were blanketed with mist, lending a magical aspect to the morning.

I was about halfway there when a plaintive mewling came to my ears. It didn't take long for me to find a wee little kitten shivering on the stone wall that ran along the road. The poor thing was upset, probably due to hunger and loneliness, as its mother was nowhere in sight.

Well, I just couldn't leave it there on the side of the road to die now, could I? I tucked it into my raincoat and it snuggled immediately against me. My next thought was, okay, now what?

Fortunately I saw the Collem, the owner of the hostel, and another gentleman walking down the road behind me. The kitten got really excited at this point and jumped out of my arms, nearly howling now. The farmer scooped of the kitten and said that he'd take it back to his place. Relieved of my tiny burden, I continued on my quest to the grocery.

My host directed me the rest of the way as he was heading to Galway for a film festival that weekend. I gathered that he was some type of director or script writer or something, but wasn't too sure.

The grocery sits at Heapstown Crossroads. Now, there's a reason it's called Heapstown. There's a story behind everything here I'm finding. About a quarter mile up the road lies Heapstown Cairn. It's a gigantic passage tomb that it unexcavated, so it basically looks like a huge pile of rocks. Hence the name. Heap. Stone. You get the picture.

I was going to visit it after I raided the grocery, but the rain started in earnest by then, and having already flirted with pneumonia earlier in the week, I wasn't looking forward to a repeat so soon. I managed my way back up the hill and spent the rest of the afternoon reading. Yeah, kind of boring, I know, but it was very relaxing at the same time. We had a turf fire going and Lucas, one of the Slovakians, made me some tea. He even remembered that I like sugar in mine from the night before, which I thought was pretty amazing.

A nice family from Belfast joined us that night. It seems that they wanted to get away from the city while the Unionist parades were going on, and I can't say as I blame them. From what I gathered from the mother, many of Belfast's residents escape the city around this time of year...those that aren't Unionists anyway.

DAY THREE

Saturday I decided to make up for my laziness of the day before and see a bit of the countryside. I walked to Castlebaldwin, which, strangely enough doesn't appear to have a castle in it. I'm not sure about Baldwins as they don't seem to have phone books in the public phones here.

As there was a bit of a wider selection as the gas, excuse me, petrol station's's convenience store, I picked up some more food and continued on my way. I didn't realize it at the time but there was another cairn just west of Castlebaldwin called Carrowkeel. I'll have to save that one for another day.

I retraced my steps back towards Gyreum and decided to take a detour to Riverstown. A ten kilometer detour as it turns out, but well worth my time. I saw a lot of the landscape, farm and grazing lands mostly, but one can also see the surrounding hills and even the mountains to the north. I can understand now why Yeats loved this area of Ireland so much. It's wild and rough and has a unique charm all of its own.

Riverstown is a charming little village where it would be very easy to settle down in. One definitely got the sense that everyone knew everyone there. The one thing the town was lacking was socks. The only socks the town offered were the TED hose kind that people wear to prevent deep vein thrombosis and I didn't think that I was at any risk at that point of DVT. Blisters, yes, but not DVT.

Chalk it up to poor planning again, but I had neglected to pack any socks before I left Dublin. I hadn't thought that I would be doing as much hiking as I ended up doing, so I didn't even think about it. At least I had some rather shoes. Shoes that I'm not too fond of at the moment, but that comes later.

There's a circular route that runs from Heapstown to the next crossroads and through Riverstown. Apparently many people walk or bike it, and I can't say that I blame them.

I must say this, however, the gardens here put any I've seen back at home to shame. They are so lovely. It's obvious that they take pride in them. There are, of course, the expected gardens that are scraggly and weed-strewn, but they seem few and far between. So much color too. There's a veritable rainbow of colors washing across each lawn.

Late in the afternoon I made it back to Gyreum, with a quick stop at Heapstown Cairn. I was going to get up closer than I did, as it was a historic hiking trail, but the VERY LARGE cows changed my mind. They weren't particularly friendly if you get my meaning. It was like they had the racial memory of being tipped in a past incarnation and were eager for revenge. That and the mind-field of steaming cow-pies deterred me from my task. Hot and sore as I was, I wasn't exactly feeling up to it. Ah well.

It wasn't until I got back that I realized how sunburnt I was. I just hadn't thought of sunblock, dolt that I was. I had even forgotten to put the moisturizer with sunblock on that morning as daily showers were out of the question, so I had fallen out of my routine.

Oh, I haven't mentioned the water situation yet, have I....

Let's just say that it was precarious at best. Being situated out in the boondocks as we say, the hostel depended on well water. Apparently there was a problem with the well, as in it was running dry. I know, a crazy thing to happen in Ireland, but it's true, I swear it.

We had to flush the toilets with water from the pond out front, which created several, interesting aromas. Just to be safe, I didn't drink any of the water from the taps either. I didn't want to risk dysentery and the peculiar manure smell of the water wasn't encouraging.

One can imagine the smells emanating from yours truly after my hiking jaunt, but this didn't stop the Slovakians from inviting me to join them with their meal. I don't think either of them have sinsuses, but they were nice enough to share their meal with me, so I'm not going to wonder. I also think that they believed I was doing some type of fasting ritual, and judging from the food I had, they couldn't be blamed in that judgment.

DAY FOUR

I had set my alarm on my ipod the night before, knowing in advance that I would need to get up early to start walking towards Ballymote and the train station. I was not looking forward to the trek as several blisters had made their presence known the night before and my legs were pretty stiff and sore, but seeing as I had little choice I set off after a hearty breakfast of tea, bread and biscuits.

For the first time all weekend I managed to rise before the Slovakians, so the only souls to see me off were the two dogs and two cats that also take up residence at Gyreum. It was nice to be around animals again, but it makes me miss the resident dog at home. Don't worry Izzy, any belly-rubbing was done under force. They hypnotized me with their eyes. Seriously.

I must have really been out of it when I reached Castlebaldwin, because it didn't even occur to me to call for a cab. It should have considering the pain my feet were in, but then there was the question of money as well. As in not wanting to spend any.

It was another ten kilometers to get to Ballymote, but I fortunately only had to walk five. Not long after I past a little Protestant church at the five km mark, a nice older couple stopped and offered me a lift. I must have presented quite a pitiful site:
sunburnt, limping, and carrying a fifteen pound pack on my back that felt like fifty.

Normally I wouldn't haven't considered accepting, but extreme circumstances call for extreme measures.

They kindly brought me to the town center of Ballymote and from there directed me to the train station. My first stop, however, was to the local grocery for refueling, as I'm sure that I had excreted any and all forms of it in sweat. My other goal was band-aids. I had wrapped my heals that morning in anticipation of my trek, but one of them had already burst and I knew that it needed tending to. I didn't even look carefully at the box until after I had gotten to the train station and had eaten my lunch.

It was then that I saw that these particular band-aids required the use of a scissors.

If anyone had been around me at that point, they would have tread carefully around the mad American, for I was laughing my fool head off. It was the only thing I could do at that point. Either that or cry. And of course I didn't have any type of cutting implement with me and the ticket office was closed. Seeing as I wasn't going to move from my spot against the wall, in the shade mind you, until I saw that train pulling up to the station, I decided to do without the band-aids for a while longer.

Of course wearing my shoes in the proper way was out of the question, but I managed.

One might think that my tale ends with me boarding the train heading for Dublin, oh, but you would be wrong.

The trains, at least the second class compartments, don't have air conditioning, and it was like sitting in a sweat tent without the benefit of a roll in the snow after. Matters weren't helped by some idiot dropping pipes onto the tracks when we were not fifteen minutes from Connolly Station in Dublin. The only saving grace of that delay was that we were in the shadow of Croak Park and there was a hurling match going on. Not that we could enjoy the game at all.

Because they do work on the line between Connolly and Pearse Stations, there was no service between the two. But that short jaunt was nothing compared to the marathon I had just completed. I tell you this though, my tiny bed in my room never looked so good and the minuscule shower never felt so great.

So there you are, sunburn, aches, blisters, and all. A great character building experience, don't you think?

5 July 2005---Flirtations with Pneumonia & Other Adventures
We had another field trip today, and guess what. It rained again! It's that darn Murphy, I just know it.

Today was more of an archaeological field trip to the Boyne Valley. Our first stop was to the Hill of Tara, a place of great mystical and historical power. The rain started in earnest by the time we reached Tara, so most of us weren't able to fully appreciate it. In fact, I think that more than half the group was ready to call it quits at that point right there.

On a clear day, one can supposedly see for miles and miles; something like 16 of the 32 counties of Ireland. The ground is very uneven with mounds and ditches and one must be especially careful of the steaming mounds! Tara has environment lawn mowers, otherwise known as sheep. You can imagine the smell that arose on the bus once we all got back on! :)

Even despite the rain, I'm really glad we went there. One can sense that it was and still is a place of great power, even if we don't fully understand exactly what the full purpose of Tara was to the ancients beyond a burial mound and a place to crown the high kings of Ireland.

Our next stop was to Castle Trim in, well, Trim. I didn't realize this until we got there, but a good portion of Braveheart was filmed there. Good ol' Mel built up alot for the filming, so you can't really recognize it, but being the good guy he is, he left it the way he found it.

The cool thing about Trim is that it is relatively unchanged since it was built by the Normans over 800 years ago, unlike Dublin Castle which has been changed and modified so that it is unrecognizable from its original construction.

A good portion of the original curtain wall, the outer wall surrounding the keep, still stands, as does some of the inner bailey's stone structures. Nestled along the River Boyne, Castle Trim was of huge strategic importance in its day.

Unfortunately the weather was still uncooperative, very much so. Can we say torrential downpour? And of course this happens when we're waiting in the bailey for the tour of the keep. Even though they had split our big group basically in half, there wasn't a whole lot of cover to go around. We did have the opportunity to go onto the roof of Castle Trim, but as the rain gods were being especially generous, I decided that it would be prudent not to risk it, given my accident prone history and all. I had already almost slipped once on the VERY NARROW spiral stairs that led up into the keep.

Lunch was the high point of the day at that point. Warm chicken panini....yum!

After recharging our batteries we headed to the Loughcrew Cairns. This was my favourite stop. It was a bit of a climb to get up thehill, but it was well worth it in my mind. Loughcrew Cairns date back to the neolithic era and maybe even further. The cool thing about Loughcrew is that like some of the other chamber mounds in Ireland, the sun shines into the entrance at certain times of the year, lighting up the interior of the mound. The thing that's different with Loughcrew is that this happens on the equinoxes, whereas the one up in Sligo that is associated with Queen Mebd happens on the Winter Solstice. The ancients were geniuses!

Atop the hill one can see for miles. As the weather finally decided to cooperate for once today, we really could see for miles. The view is spectacular. I only hope that my pictures do it some justice!

We actually got to go inside the one excavated mound and into the first chamber. It was a bit claustrophobic with about eight of us crammed in there, but it was still very interesting. You could see the ancient carvings on the stones and wonder what they meant. One theory about the mounds is that because the ancients held them in such high mystical/spiritual(pre-Christian) regard, that they would have all their important events take place there, even births. Now I didn't have too much trouble getting up that hill, but it's hard for me to picture a nine-month pregnant women in the beginning stages of labor doing it!

Our next and last stop was in Kells to view a couple of the Celtic Cross monuments at the church of St. Columba. I'd have to put this one on the bottom of the list, as we had already seen examples of Celtic Crosses at Glendalough, but it was painful by any means.

Tonight we had one of our special seminars and the guest was Claire Keegan, an Irish writer. She read a couple of short stories and as she read, you could feel yourself being drawn into the story and the world she had created. I'd definitely put her on my list of must-reads!

4 July 2005--Stranger in a Strange Land
Well, as you can guess, we didn't get the day off for Independence Day. We did get jelly beans from one of the program directors though. :)

We have different professors for the same class sometimes, but today for Gaelic Culture we had the head of the Irish Department at UCD (University College-Dublin) again. He is, well, like one of my classmates described him: a foulmouthed, belligerent little hobbit, but not in a way that's offensive. I just wish that I could take credit for that moniker!!!

We learned about the great Irish Epic, Tain Bo Cualnge or The Cattle-Raid of Cooley. A brief way to describe it is that it's about a fight between two bulls......

Obviously there's more to it than that, but it would take WAY to long to explain it and it's nearing 2300 my time here.

The main characters are Queen Mebd (pronounced Maeve); Aillel, her husband and the great Irish hero: Cuchulain (Coo-hulan). Mebd is Queen of Connaught and Cuchulain is a warrior of Ulster.

It's starts with a dispute between Mebd and her husband about how much wealth they each have and they discover that they have exactly the same amount of wealth, except that Aillel has a bull where Mebd does not.

Queen Medb of Connaught gathers an army in order to gain possession of the most famous bull in Ireland, which is the property of Daire, a chieftain of Ulster. Because the men of Ulster are afflicted by a debilitating curse, the seventeen-year-old Cuchulain must defend Ulster single-handedly.

The interesting thing about The Tain is that it was written in prose, whereas the other epics, The Illiad, The Odyssey, were written in poetry. This just goes to show how intelligent and advanced the Irish were!

It's impossible to date it as it was at first an oral story, passed down through the generations, but within The Tain there is no mention of Christianity at all. It is entirely pre-Christian. It wasn't written down until Saint Patrick came to Ireland, bringing the art of writing with him.

It's a pretty cool tale with some very nice writing in it. You can google The Tain and come up with a good number of hits, if you're interested.

As far as the rest of my forth went, it was relatively uneventful. The girls downstairs in house 61 made this huge American-style meal...burgers, corn-on-the-cob and all, which was very nice of them.

Until later!

3 July 2005---HURLING!!!!!
Just a clue for all who've enquired....while there is a version of hurling that involves consuming mass quantities of alcohol and then seeing how much square feet you can cover in your own vomit, THAT is not the type of hurling I'm referring to. :)

We attended the Leinster Hurling Finals Sunday afternoon at Croke Park and it was definitely an experience. I learned a bit more about what hurling is and saw some guys in short shorts in the process. (Sorry Dad)

There are up to 15 players on a team and the positions are similar to those of soccer with forward, mid-field, and defensive positions. Each team has a goalie defending a net, but the are also football-type (American) goal posts above the net where a member can also score.

Every team member has an Ash or hurleys which basically looks like a miniature hockey stick with a really fat wedge. Actually if anyone has seen those Fischer-Price plastic putters for kids, they kind of look like that, only made of Ash.

The ball, or sliotar, is dropped in the middle of the field and the objective is to get it to your opponent's goal and either get it in the net, worth three points, or between the goal posts for one point.

It is a contact sport and as you can imagine, there's a bit of whacking going on, both with limbs and Ashes.

There are 30 minute halves with a ten minute break in between. At halftime a bunch of wee hurlers (think peewee hockey) came onto the field to play. They were so cute!!! And actually not that bad either. Very different from the halftime shows we see in the States!

Croke Park is pretty cool. It's open air and huge! It's where U2 played when they were here the first weekend we were in Ireland. I guess some of the girls tried to get tickets outside the park and they were upwards of ?300! Much too rich for my blood, even as cool as it would have been to see U2 in concert.

Anyway, back to the game. There were actually two and we arrived in the second half of the first one. They play both minor and major 'league' together, which is a bit different. The minor's of Dublin and Wexford were playing when we arrived, and Dublin beat the pants off Wexford. A huge hog pile grew on the field and then they ran around the field with the trophy.

The next match was between the major teams of Kilkenny and Wexford. Since we didn't have any team loyalties, it was a bit hard to know who to root for, but we ended up rooting for Kilkenny. Good choice that, since they won! It was a pretty close match too, with Kilkenny trailing in the beginning, but they were the underdog hero of the day.

I can really see how people get so involved in the sport. It's also kind of nice to see that an ancient game like hurling is still active today. Hurling is considering Ireland's oldest game with the first written records showing that it arrived on the island as early as the 5th century, but some scholars believe that it arrived with a band of nomadic Celts around 600 BCE. The ball used to be made of twine wrapped around itself. I saw an example of an old ball and Ash when I was at the National Museum at Collins Barracks. Pretty cool.

That's all for now folks!

2 July 2005---Wandering Dublin's Northside
Today I decided to stay in the city and explore it a bit more. Since I've mainly stayed near the City Center, I decided to go to the north side of the River Liffey and explore.

Immediately crossing the bridge I came across a memorial to The Famine. I wish that I could post the pictures of it right now. It is very powerful. There are about six statues done in a sort of rusty clay technique, showing the victims of The Famine. Nearly one million Irish died during The Famine and a good number more emigrated to the States.

The expressions on the statues faces gave me a sense of the grief and sorrow many of the victims of The Famine must have suffered.

I then walked westward and got a picture of the Abbey Theatre, just because I thought that I should have one.

I continued westward and eventually ended up at the Nation Museum for Decorative Arts & History at Collins Barracks. I'm not sure how much time I spent in there, but it was a good chunk of the afternoon. The curator's choice exhibit was my favorite I think. It had different examples of art from across Ireland's history.

Collins Barracks is named after Micheal Collins, the early leader of the IRA. On the ground floor they have his uniform, gun and sword displayed in a case with a very brief synopsis of his life. In 2006 they'll be displaying the military history in Ireland. Kind of makes me want to come back and see, especially considering that most of the museums in Dublin are free!

After a small lunch I continued westward toward Phoenix Park, the largest public park in Ireland and maybe Europe, but I'm not sure. The People's Garden is just off the south gate entrance. Being a lovely day, many families were there, playing, feeding the ducks, etc. The garden wasn't as impressive as Powerscourt, but it definitely looked much more manageable!

It was kind of strange, knowing I was in the middle of the city, but for all intents and purposes, I could have been in the country, especially when I reached the FIFTEEN ACRE expanse in the middle. And lets just say, for those who know me really well, um, well my sense of direction is not what one would call keen, especially once the clouds blew in, obscuring the sun.

I somehow managed to find the house of the American Ambassador, and the very nice gentlemen at the gate directed me back to the south gate entrance. Yeah, tough gig that. If I'm ever appointed ambassador to a country, I think that I'd choose Ireland, just for where the residence is!!

They must have been gearing up for a Fourth of July party because there sure was some loud music coming from the grounds! And to answer some questions, no, we don't get the fourth off. To some of the kids in the group, this might be a little difficult, but I've worked and missed more than my share.

We're going to a Hurling match Sunday. Still not quite sure what it is, but I saw some people playing (what I assume is) it in Phoenix Park. From what I could gather, it's some kind of combination of hockey, baseball, and something else. We'll see!

Ciao.