Galway! Hooray!

Sorry, lame title, moving on.

So I've got to get back in the habit of writing regularly so that I don't end up two weeks behind, as has happened all too frequently. Also, I need the writing practice so I don't forget how to turn a phrase intelligently. If I ever knew.

SO! The train left me right smack in the middle of lovely little Galway. Now, when people said Galway was a small town, I thought they meant that it was like...small. And a town. Like, I don't know, Wells, or Keswick. Galway is not small. It's small compared to, say, Everett, but not compared to Snohomish. But no matter, because it's cute, and as any new pet owner can tell you, being cute makes up for a lot.

I hung out in the hostel for a bit, waiting to check in, but eventually got fed up by the long line and was lured away by the warm sunlight. I wandered through the town to the cobblestone pedestrian shopping area to actually do some shopping. I'm looking for a Claddagh ring, since my last one broke and the ring originated in this area. I spent some time perusing the shops and getting an idea of the price range before heading off to see more of the town. I walked up the canalside promenade to the impressively huge stone cathedral, and from there dropped by the local university's lovely old quadrangle before heading back to the hostel.

I finally got checked in and met some of my roommates, who told me that they weren't expecting to come back from partying until about 3am--eurgh. Getting hungry, I headed back into town and ended up at a small coffeehouse near the quays, where I had a wonderful salmon quesadilla for dinner. I got a cappuccino to go and headed out to walk along the beach as the sun set. A ways along, I found a causeway leading out to a lighthouse perched on an island. The island was off-limits, but I stopped to chat with an older Irish gentleman who was fishing off the causeway about his catch of mackerel. When I could hardly see him anymore, I headed back through town to the hostel.

Looks like the plan for tomorrow is to visit the Aran Islands. Hopefully the weather will be tolerable. I'll let you know what I think. So far, this seems to be a lovely corner of the world.

Dublin Revisited

Hello again!

Missed me? I hope so. I haven't posted anything in a long while, mostly--okay, entirely--because I've been stuck on writing the post about Edinburgh, and my OCD won't let me post anything out of order. But as you can see, that's now been fixed. Hooray!

So. Today is the first day of September, if you can believe it. September! What happened to the summer? I seem to recall something about cow bells and cream tea, but beyond that...

(I have a theory about the "time flies" phenomenon in memory. Ask me someday when you get tired of living.)

I'm on yet another train, looking about the window at...well, an embankment covered in blackberry bushes, so I could be just about anywhere, but I'm not; I'm heading across the middle of Ireland from Dublin to Galway. Galway is the second-to-last stop on this long venture of mine before the pull of Germany becomes inescapable. I'm also hoping to buy a new claddagh here, as my last one is fairly thoroughly dead.

I arrived in Dublin two days ago and managed to find Heather with a minimum of trouble. I went out to dinner with her and her friend Anya (that name may not be right, sorry) at a Mexican restaurant, then we headed back to Heather's house. I met her family, who are very lovely and welcoming people, and their utterly adorable puppy (AHHHH PUPPY SQUEEEEE!). Heather and I stayed up watching telly and chatting for a while, making plans for our day of sightseeing.

We headed into town the next day and got one of those open-top tour buses around the city. It's something of a comeuppance for me; I always see those things go by and laugh at the tourists, and there I was, avoiding eye contact with the people on the sidewalk laughing at me. Somewhat surprisingly, the bus was rather convenient; I mean, clearly people use them for a reason. They do connect all of the important tourist sights, provide commentary, and make sure you don't get lost.

Our first stop off was Trinity College. Oh, let me explain something first:

This is not my first time in Dublin. Two Februarys ago, I was in Germany and my friend Jewell and I decided that, since it had been over a month since our last epic adventure, we were overdue for another. We called up the Ryanair website and hey, they had a special fare round-trip to Dublin! So, Dublin it was. We had a fantastic time, despite almost everything with our accommodations going wrong, and I totally fell in love with the city of Dublin. Ask me sometime about Andrew and Diego and the burnt pizza and being drunk on fail if you want to hear the whole story.

Anyway, Jewell and I had come to Trinity two years before, but the Book of Kells had been off display for restoration. Despite the steep admission price, I couldn't pass up a second chance to see it, so I left Heather outside and went in. It was totally worth it, not least because I know an (admittedly tiny) bit more about the subject now that I've taken some book arts classes, so the bookbinding displays were even better than last time. And the book is simply astounding--gorgeous penmanship, with some letters enlarged and embellished with stylized drawings of men and beasts, their limbs wound into Celtic knots and their faces suitably bemused. The illuminated pages are simply breathtaking, not only in the richness of color, fineness of detail, and exquisiteness of design, but simply in the knowledge that just as you lean over those velum pages in awe, an artist leaned over them hundreds of years ago, painstakingly planning every line. The book is a window into the creativity, dedication, and genius of people long gone. Plus, it's just gorgeous.

The exhibit leads up from the book's display room to the Long Room of the old library. I've talked about this with my friends before, but they really should bottle and sell the smell of that room, because it's one of the best smells in the world: the soft mustiness of old books and leather, the sweetness of wood and the golden warmth of sunlight. Like the main room in the Rylands Library, the Long Room is a vaulted two-story space packed with old books and display cases and busts of famous thinkers. You feel older and wiser just standing in a room like that and breathing. Except for the other visitors, everything in there is perfect--that fantastic smell, the glow of the sun dimmed to protect the books, the dark brown wood, green and red and brown leather with glints of dusky gold on the spines of innumerable volumes.

I don't know how I tore myself away, but I met up with Heather again and we got back on the bus to Temple Bar, where we stopped for lunch at the Elephant and Castle. If you're in Dublin, it's worth going just to try the chicken wings. We grabbed some ice cream and got back on the bus, this time to St. Patrick's Cathedral, where we wandered in the cool dimness, admiring the stained glass windows and the tattered flags of battalions honored in the cathedral. I particularly enjoyed reading the memorial plaques on the walls; it's easy to pass these by, but some of them tell amazing stories of valor and love. One told the story of a young officer--a lieutenant, I think--and his eleven or so men, who had held back the advances of the enemy to protect their retreating army and had all fallen.

From the cathedral, we headed to our final stop: Kilmainham Gaol. Much of the Dublin tour revolves around the Easter Rising of 1916, the fifth and final rebellion against British rule in Ireland, which eventually turned the tide of public opinion against the British and led to the War for Independence, followed shortly by the Irish Civil War. Some of the statues on the main boulevard, O'Connell Street, have bullet holes in them, as does the post office, which was right in the center of the fighting. Anyway, after six days the leaders of the uprising surrendered and were taken to this jail, where they were held awaiting execution. Their treatment and execution, not their uprising, was what eventually inspired the Irish to revolt. We visited the cells of the leaders, where they sat and waited for dawn to break: innocuous little rooms, whitewashed and featureless. In these rooms the men wrote their last letters and said final goodbyes to their families. It's strange to be standing in a place like that, that seems so clean and guileless, that has been the spot of so much anguish.

After we left the jail, Heather and I returned to her house, since she had a date to go to a concert that night. I had dinner with her family and considered going out to a movie, but eventually decided against it in favor of planning the last few days of the trip and getting to bed early. I also got to talk with Heather's family, who are very wonderful people, and got a good night's sleep.

I left quietly this morning and took the bus into town, got some breakfast, and got on the train, where I find myself now. I have to say that I'm really touched by Heather's family, who took me in, basically as a complete stranger, and gave me my own bed, fed me, and took great care of me. I had a lovely time with Heather as well, being tourists together in her hometown.

Now I'm on my own again, although not for long. I have two nights in Galway, two nights in Dingle, and then a flight to Frankfurt Hahn and a bus to Cologne, where the orientation will start. It's less that a week away now...

Being Boring in Belfast and Pottering around Portrush

I trundled into the city of Belfast from the airport on the bus and made my way to the hostel to drop my stuff off, then headed straight back to wander around a bit. My first stop was the St. George Street Market, a huge, crowded, noisy event filled with families munching crepes and little booths selling overpriced jewelry. I loved it and looked around for a while, but the market closed just an hour after I got there. I therefore headed out into the city and tried to maintain interest in what I was seeing, but my sight was getting bleary and I couldn't breathe through my nose. I made it to the Victoria St. shopping center (the first proper mall I've seen in Britain), went up to the observation tower for a good view  over the city, and took a look at City Hall, but by the time I finally staggered into the TI, my body was in full mutiny. My ears were so stuffed with cotton that I couldn't hear either myself nor the information guy, who took one look at me and suggested that I just get some rest. This sounded pretty good to me, so home I went.

It was still mid-afternoon, but 1) there was nothing in particular that I had my heart set on doing and 2) I felt awful. I know I said that I wouldn't complain anymore, but I'm trying to faithfully record the events as they transpired. I decided that it would be a better idea to just take it easy, so I watched some videos on the iPlayer and chatted with my mother until dinnertime. I bundled up for the cool evening wind and tottled down to the Tesco, which did not stock any real fruit juice (!) so I got fruit instead. Oh, and chicken soup; my Portuguese, Canadian, and Australian roommates agreed that this is the best food for a cold, so maybe it's a universal cure. I ate my dinner and chatted with the aforementioned roommates as they primped to go out for the night, then I just Internetted until I finally fell asleep.

As a side note: What is so wonderful about "going out"? I cannot understand it for the life of me. First, since you're traveling, you have to bring extra clothes, shoes, jewelry, makeup, etc., which all translates to more weight to lug around. Second, then you have to take the time and energy to get dressed up. Third, you then have to go out through the cold to a too-warm, too-loud pub/bar where you have to shout to be heard, where everyone around you immediately sets about getting themselves thoroughly besoffen, and all chance of intelligible and even vaguely interesting conversation goes out the window to find a nice cafe where people are less drunk. I wouldn't be interested in doing this even with my own friends (although they probably wouldn't be too interested in it either; we're kind of "drink Mike's Hard Lemonade, watch movies, play board games, have interesting conversations" kind of people), much less with people I'd never met before.

And yet, sometimes I wish that this sort of thing appealed to me. I wish occasionally that I had the desire, much less the self-confidence, to do something with my hair, wear a stupidly uncomfortable dress, and drink beer. (Eugh.) The problem is, I simply, genuinely, don't. Everything I say to the sort of people who do comes out tied in knots. It's ridiculous. I've been lucky enough to find friends in my life who like to do other, more fun and less alcohol-focussed things with their evenings, and I hope I can find more, but wherever those wonderful people, they don't go backpacking through Britain in August.

Anyway.

Feeling significantly better in the morning, I packed up, checked out, and headed to the Botanic Gardens and Ulster Museum. I gave the museum a quick once-over, lingering for a few extra minutes in the exhibits about Ireland, and then took myself off to the Mela, a big festival being put on by the Indian community. I had a train to catch, so I only saw the very beginning of it, but it looked epic--Rama, , and  were there on stilts and everything. I got myself a bowl of stew and headed reluctantly to the train station.

Since I had a day to spare and Belfast wasn't keeping my attention, I'd decided to spend the extra night somewhere more up my alley, and I have a soft spot for oceans. With a bit of guidance from Rick Steves, I found myself gasping and gwaping out the window like a four-year-old as my train pulled into the gorgeous seaside town of Portrush.

Portrush is...well, it reminded me quite a bit of Cannon Beach in Oregon. It's pretty cute, but almost everything there is holiday-oriented, and since it's getting cold (September comes in just a few days!), most of the summer crowds are gone, so the whole town feels a bit abandoned and deflated. This suited me just fine; I dumped my stuff off at the hostel and caught the next bus up the coast to the Giant's Causeway for a bit of nature therapy.

The Giant's Causeway is, essentially, some oddly-shaped rock formations that the ancient Irish decided must have been made by giants. ("Obviously." -Sherlock Holmes) It's actually not too hard to see why; the Causeway is made up of hundreds of hexagonal stone pillars, all interlocking but separate, that extend out into the sea towards Scotland. It's the bizzare regularity that's striking, really, because the whole structure isn't very big. Although, being American, maybe I'm biased, because "big" in my book is like Bryce Canyon or something, and we're not talking f****** huge until we get to the Grand Canyon. THe scale here is a bit different. Anyway, although the Causeway was interesting, the best bit was just walking around the cliffs, hearing the crash of the waves, enjoying the sea air and the dramatic ocean views.

You know how they say that people tend to resemble their dogs? On the way back up from the Causeway, I inadvertantly started to talk to an older gentleman that--and I mean this in the nicest possible way--resembled his bloodhound in every respect except for the giant floppy years. Despite moving at a snail's pace as he huffed up the hill, in the time it took to get to the top he told me that he and his wife had been breeding champion bloodhounds for years, that they were going to a wedding in Scotland, that some relative's son had killed himself, and that people who persecute homosexuals are usually closeted gays themselves. Imagine hearing all of this in a North Irish accent, with no warning or connection between topics  whatsoever. I did a lot of nodding and smiling.

I had dinner back in Portrush at a cute little cafe and then took a walk to the end of the spit of land upon which Portrush is perched. The wind howled and shoved me all over the place, but I watched the sun go down in a somewhat unimpressive splutter of pinkish orange before heading to bed.

I dragged myself out of bed this morning much later than I'd hoped, but I still had a couple of hours for a leisurely walk on the beach before my train left. I padded down the soft sand, admiring the wind and the waves, all the way down to where the beach encounters some imposing white cliffs strongly reminiscent of Dover's. It was such a relaxing treat to just meander and look out over the waters, but eventually I had to get back to the train.

Which gets me to where I am now: on a train. I'm heading to Dublin to meet Heather, a relative of some sort of one of my mother's patients. It'll be nice to have someone to talk to!