Pages

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Pumpkins, Movies, and Great Craic!


A couple weeks ago, my friends all gathered for some serious Halloween craic. We went to my friend Kelsey's apartment to carve some pumpkins, watch some Halloween movies, and just have a fun night together! We got a few pizzas and plowed through those in a few minutes. Kelsey bakes, so she made us some banana-chocolate muffins, which were AMAZING and I think I ate five or six. We then set out to carve our pumpkins, which I haven't done in a few years, so I was ready. 






I loved getting messy and watching everyone's creativity flow. We had some seriously creative stuff going on, and all kinds of skills flying around. Some of the people in our group had never celebrated Halloween before, so we Americans had to show them how it's done. ;) They all turned out beautifully, if I do say so myself!







We separated the seeds from the goop and roasted them with some olive oil and salt, and it was quite a lovely snack to accompany "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and "Hocus Pocus," the Halloween movies of our childhoods. It was such a fun night, and I was so glad we were able to all get together and share a fun American holiday with our friends :) Much more Halloween craic to come this week!



Friday, October 25, 2013

FIELD TRIP!!

I'm enrolled in a class here called "Discovering Ireland: Landscape and Heritage," and literally the class consists of two field trips and a final essay and THAT'S IT. It's pretty grand.

Our first field trip was last Saturday, and we went to three different historical sites. We had a lovely day for it, and even though we had to leave early in the morning, it was well worth it.










Our first stop was Castledermot, an old Protestant church in the middle of a farming town. It was neat to see the history there, with the cemetery around it and the round tower on the side. We also learned about the high crosses, and how they are carved with picture scenes from the Bible. It was a beautiful site, and our professor had a lot to say on it. To be honest, I don't remember most of it, but it was still pretty cool to see. 





Now, this isn't just any ordinary pile of rocks. This is a megalithic tomb, literally in the middle of nothing. All that surrounds it is a large field, which may or may not still be used as farmland, I couldn't tell. But this was one of my favorite sites, because I learned so much. It's estimated to be around 5500 years old, and no one's really sure how it got there, since the stone on top is guessed to weigh 30,000 tons. But what we do know is that at this time, the people in the town around it would cremate their dead and put their ashes in the middle of the pit under the large rock. It was a sort of "sanctuary" for life and for death, and I felt the spirituality when I was standing next to it. 










Our final stop was Ballymoon Castle. It doesn't look like much, and that's because it was never finished. It was completely abandoned, and my professor has been doing research on this site for practically his entire graduate career, and according to him it went like this. The people building it were under an English Earl (or something) and when the Irish attacked them at this castle during building, they left everything and fled. Then the Earl died, and the funding stopped, and it was just abandoned. It was much more interesting when he was telling about it, but the castle was still cool to see. We could tell where the window wells were, where toilets were supposed to be, and where fireplace shafts were put in, which helped us figure out where different rooms were going to be. We also learned that the castle itself was probably going to be about two or three times the height it is at now. 

It was absolutely grand to visit this site, and all the others as well. It was a long day, but I saw and learned some Irish history, which, let's face it, is indeed what I came here to do. :)

Sunday, October 20, 2013

National Gallery

I have returned from a hellish week of obsessive reading, midterm papers, and perpetual exhaustion. But, I have come out refreshed, satisfied, and ready to get back in the tourism game!!

I have a few different events to blog about, so instead of creating an extra-long blog post, I'm going to do separate posts on each of the three events, so you don't get a butt cramp from sitting to read my extra long blog post.

On Monday, I took a break from studying and went to the National Gallery of Ireland, or NGI. It's the big art museum right next to Merrion Square Park; I've passed it several times, and I've been anxious to visit. Plus, it was free, so I figured, why not!

I'm sorry to say it, but I was very disappointed... I suppose I'm spoiled because the Cleveland Museum of Art has a series of SPECTACULAR collections of all different media from all over the world. The NGI had mostly realism paintings and a few (I really mean a few) sculptures from Europe only. Don't get me wrong, it was nice to see, but I got very bored very quickly, and it only took me about forty minutes to see everything. I did enjoy some paintings, and I took some pictures of my favorites, so enjoy them!














Friday, October 11, 2013

busy Busy BUSY

This week... and last week... have just been... OMG.
We're approaching the mid-term mark here at UCD, and you know what that means!! Mid-term papers.

Luckily, I only have three papers to write, each around 1000-1500 words (which, really, isn't much at all). Still, those three papers have been causing me a lot of STRESS. I just finished up a book, 'Jane Eyre,' which I am using to write one essay, and let me just say, that was a tedious read. I think had I had more time to read it at my own pace and absorb it more, I might have enjoyed it. But I was reading analytically, and I had a deadline to meet. I finally finished today, and I would consider it a good book, just tedious. My Drama essay is on analyzing a play I saw last weekend (which was fine), so that paper shouldn't take me long. I think the most difficult of the three will be the one for my Islam and Christianity class. I have to do a document analysis on a portion of the Qur'an. I've never done a document analysis on anything in my life, especially not a religious text. I'm hoping to God that some secondary reading will help me out with this task...

I have a week from Monday to get everything done, and in the meantime I'm supposed to be reading two more books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'A Star Called Henry.' Both of these books I actually do want to read, but I think Alice is gonna have to wait a bit, seeing as I have to answer a discussion question on Henry in class on Wednesday.

All of this rambling (which you probably don't care much about) aside, I'm saying all of this to explain that I just haven't had time for any awesome Ireland adventures to share with you all. I've been hanging out at Starbucks cafes all week, and I probably will be all of next week too. BUT as soon as something interesting happens, I promise I'll let you know.

Stay tuned!

Friday, October 4, 2013

Cliffs of Moher

This past Monday, I went on a day trip with Paddywagon Tours (I highly recommend them) to the Cliffs of Moher, one of Ireland's top must-see attractions. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint.

I must apologize for the poor quality of photos; my camera died as soon as we got off the bus... 
Anyway, we began our trip departing from the City Centre at 8am, bright and early. We drove about two and a half hours to get there, and our first sight to see was the Burren. This is an area of hills with large amounts of exposed limestone, and we were completely surrounded by this rocky landscape. In the middle of the Burren is the ruins of an old abbey, which we stopped to look around at for a little bit.







After this, we visited the Baby Cliffs. Not nearly as big of an attraction, the Baby Cliffs don't have any fences or barriers or walkways along the edge--so I was able to get right up to where they drop off into the sea. It was extremely windy, but even though I'm usually terrified of heights, I wanted to climb over all the rocks and get right up close and personal with the cliffs.




Our next stop was lunch (thank goodness, by this point I was starving). We ate in a little fishing town called Doolin at Fitzpatrick's Pub. I had a delicious pesto-cream-sauce-pasta dish and a chocolate chip cookie the size of my face.
We then set out for the Cliffs of Moher. My GOD. I cannot even put into words how absolutely breathtaking it is to stand and look at such a sight. I could have stood there for hours. Unfortunately I couldn't, because it was windy and rainy and we only had an hour and a half before we had to get back to the bus. 





There were a whole bunch of cows grazing on the top of the hills on the other side of the footpaths from the cliffs, and I made nice with Cow #214, whom I decided to name Meredith. 

Our final stop was a nice castle in another small town about 30 minutes away from the Cliffs. We looked at the castle a bit, but at this point all the castles are starting to look the same... so my friend I was with and I decided to go get snacks instead. We found an old phone booth on the way, and I insisted on a picture (I mean, how can you pass that up...).


It was a long day, but it was great craic (lots of fun) and I am really glad I went with this tour group. Our guide, John, was such a hoot and definitely knowledgable. I can't wait until my next adventure... who knows what it'll be!