Archaeology Day!

Today we took an all day field trip to visit several famous archaeological sites in Ireland. Naturally, this was my favorite day in Ireland so far :)

First, we visited the Hill of Tara, an ancient ring fort with many archaeological finds. First up was the Mound of Savages, a passage tomb dating back to 3000 BC. They used to let you climb into it, but now have bars over the door. Still, I was able to go up and touch it, which was pretty cool. Archaeologists have found tons of cremated remains within the tomb, and interestingly, a skeleton buried on top of the tomb (this unburned burial suggests he was a foreigner to the area).

Mound of the Captives

View from the Hill of Tara (also, it's sunny!!)

Next on Tara we were able to see the stone of destiny. Legend has it that when a local king wanted to be high king of all Ireland, he would have to find two wild horses and hook them up to his chariot and drive it past the stone of destiny. If the gods favored him for high king, the stone would cry out when he rode past, signaling the gods' okay.

The stone of destiny

Hugging the stone of destiny

For our next stop of the day, we traveled to Trim Castle, located in the heart of Co. Meath. This was also the site and castle they used to film most of Braveheart, so it was pretty cool to see it in real life. The castle itself was built in the 1170s, and has been remodeled several times. It's original owner was in constant fear of being attacked and his castle burned, so he designed Trim Castle to be completely attacker-proof. Through many ingenious ideas such as a collapsable wooden enclosure for archers that doubled as a flaming missile, "murder holes" to pour hot oil through, four foot wide stone walls, and three reinforced doors to get into the castle, Trim was never taken by force.

Trim Castle

The castle keep (aka main part of the castle)

A wall!

Leaving Trim, we made our way to our final (and coolest in my opinion) stop of the day. Our bus driver had gotten a little lost by this point, so we were all pretty confused when he told us that we had arrived at our destination: Loughcrew. After climbing up a ton of stairs and the side of a mountain, we arrived at the top. Let me just tell you, it was worth the climb! From the top of Loughcrew, on a clear day you can see more than 18 counties! (There are 32 total) On the top of this hill, the main focal point is another passage tomb, this time built around 3800 BC. That's almost 6000 years ago!! And this one, they let you climb into and take as many pictures as you want! This was the coolest experience for me, being able to stand in a tomb built almost 4000 years before Jesus, and actually touch some of the stone carvings in the back of the tomb. Similar to Stonehenge and Tara, the tomb is aligned with the east, so on the equinoxes, the sun shines directly into the tomb and illuminates the carvings on the rocks. It was an amazing experience and a great day!

The passage tomb at Loughcrew

Standing in a tomb

Some of the wall carvings

Irish Music and Dance

While at school here, the staff has put together various night time activities for us to "enrich our learning environment." Basically, this consists of poetry and book readings from famous Irish writers, field trips to various areas, and occasional seminars. Tonight's seminar was all about Irish music and dance, and we had several Irish musicians come in to play for us. Some instruments were familiar to me, like the fiddle, violin, and flute, but there were others that weren't as much (like this pipe instrument that sounded vaguely like a bagpipe). There was also a singer, which was very interesting to listen to, and traditional Irish dancers who incorporated volunteers into some of their performance. Thankfully, I wasn't chosen to participate, but a guy from my program was. I didn't have my camera at the time, but I definitely wished I did with some of the faces he was making while he was dancing! After laughing about it for a while after, we decided to head to bed early in preparation for an all day field trip tomorrow!

Blarney, Killarney, and the Ring of Kerry

This weekend was my very first weekend trip in Ireland! A group of girls and I decided to go to the Cork/Killarney area, and see several attractions along the way. While this was initially a source of great debate where we would go and see because there are so many cool things, we finally narrowed it down to Blarney castle and the Blarney Stone (a must see in Ireland), and the Ring of Kerry tour, a six hour bus ride in Co. Kerry, known for it's incredible scenery.

We left for Cork in a bus from Dublin at 7AM, and arrived in Cork around 1:30. From there we took another bus to Blarney Castle. The castle itself was actually pretty neat, and they let you explore for yourself, which I enjoyed. I crawled through caves in the dungeon, walked up and down a narrow stone spiral staircase in the rain, and generally tried to picture what the castle would have been like at it's prime (anything wood being now gone unfortunately).

Blarney Castle

Trying to imagine the inside of the castle with a floor right below the fireplace!

More Blarney castle and the view

After climbing several hills and 100 steps to the top, we finally got to the Blarney Stone (which, of course, they save for the very last thing you do). Set in the castle in the 1400s, this stone is rumored to give whoever kisses it "the gift of the gab" or of eloquence in speaking. Numerous famous people have kissed it, including Winston Churchill, Bono of U2, and of course, me. To actually kiss it though is pretty scary, because it includes about a three foot drop headfirst. There are rails to hold onto and someone to grab onto you, but still, it's a little scary!!

Kissing the stone!

After that, we wandered through the castle grounds for a while, and came across a site where the ancient druids had once worshiped and lived. I even got to stand in a druid circle and sit on the ancient alter. By that point though, the rain had gotten to be too much, so we headed inside for some soup and shopping at the Blarney Woolen Mills.

After that, we caught the bus back to Cork, and then another to Killarney, a really cool tourist town a couple hours out of Cork. I really really liked Killarney! They had good food and plenty of shops to look around in, including an Irish candy store, a Claddagh jewelry store, and the European equivalent of a dollar store (which is not as cheap given the exchange rate unfortunately).  We went out that night and wandered until we heard good music coming from a local pub. Although the musician played primarily American music, he was still very good and it was a good night! I even stayed in my first hostel ever, which was pretty exciting, sharing one room with seven other people, including two random, but very nice, French guys.

The next morning, we woke up pretty early to go on the Ring of Kerry tour. Our bus driver was a very interesting person, and drove the bus a little scarily on the narrow mountain roads. Still, despite some pretty awful fog and rain blocking some of the views, I really enjoyed the tour and stopping in small towns along the way.

Some of the views from various Ring of Kerry locations

After this weekend, coming back to Dublin was a very welcome return to reality, although I would highly recommend both the Ring of Kerry and Blarney Castle to any visitors wanting to go to Ireland!

First Day of School!

Apparently studying is part of studying abroad, so today was the first day of class! They encouraged us to sit in every lecture for the first week, just to see which classes we were most interested in taking. Today, I listened to lectures about Irish history, economy, drama, literature, and Gaelic culture. I really enjoyed the drama class, and especially the professor! He is one of the top drama scholars in Ireland and throughout the world, and took us on an impromptu field trip the very first day to the Temple Bar district to show us what is left of Ireland's first indoor theater.

Irish classes are a little bit different than American classes, at least in my experience at Trinity College. The students (there are about 25 of us) sit in the same room for each class, and instead of moving classrooms, have the Professors come to us! This means that we are sitting in the same room, in the same spot, for over 6 hours today. Tomorrow will be much less class, however it is still a little intimidating and hard to pay attention for that long!

After class, I was lucky to have an opportunity to talk to both my mom and my boyfriend Jeff, and that was a nice way to keep the homesickness away!

 This is my campus! 

 Some Trinity buildings

Trinity College is the oldest University in Ireland, being over 400 years old!

Where's Wally?

Today was an extremely fun day out on the town in Dublin. We started off running errands, and buying necessary items (phones, wireless internet stuff, etc.). I was excited to finally have an Irish cell phone, although my phone is actually pretty difficult to text or call on because the technology is so old compared to my American cell phone! However, it was still fun. We went to the phone place on Grafton Street, a main shopping district in Dublin similar in my opinion to State Street in Madison. There were street performers, and these really cool guys who did tricks with soccer balls.

After the eventful morning, we came back and took a nap (jet lag sucks!), then prepared to go out for the World Championship Street Performers Festival at Merrion Square. The night before, we had met a couple dressed like the characters from Where's Waldo?, the popular children's series. Apparently "Waldo" is known as "Wally" outside of the US, and Dublin was hosting a Guinness Book of World Records attempt at the number of Wally's they could get in one place at one time. Naturally, we had to join in.

Us as Wallys! 

The festival itself was huge, and the Wally event was attended by almost 4,000 people, shattering the record before it.  Some locals told us it would be on the front page of the Irish Times, the daily newspaper. Breaking a world record and being on the front page of the newspaper? Not bad for my first week in Ireland! :)

 The crowd of happy Wallys

Found Wally!

Co. Wicklow

Today we took an all day field trip to County Wicklow, right outside of Dublin. First, we visited Avondale House, the birthplace of famous Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell. We learned about his influence on Irish home rule from the British, a goal never accomplished in his lifetime (Ireland reached home rule in 1914, and gained their independence in 1921), and also saw some of his furniture and lots of other old stuff.

 Avondale House and gardens

It was a gorgeous day (sunny!), but Ireland definitely has bipolar weather. Wisconsin changes weather daily, with one day being 94 and the next 65 degrees, but Ireland changes by the hour. It will rain for an hour, and then get really sunny and warm for another hour, then back to rain. It's definitely necessary to wear lots of layers and always carry a rain jacket or umbrella with you. From there, we went to Powerscourt, a beautiful mansion with tons of gardens, set right in front of the Sugarloaf mountains. They call it Sugarloaf because of the quartz on the top of the mountain, which makes it look like it's sprinkled with sugar. I'm still not entirely sure what this place was, probably because I fell asleep on the bus while the tour guide was explaining it, but it really was gorgeous there.

 Sugarloaf Mountain and some of the gardens of Powerscourt

 They had an entire garden devoted to roses! 

The house itself

After that and a quick stop for lunch, we went to my favorite place of the day, Glendalough. It is the site of a former monastery and most of the buildings are over a thousand years old. It was raining at the beginning of our tour (again), but the place itself was beautiful, set between two lakes. I especially liked the old high crosses, many of which have dates of them from the 1700s. We also went into a former church, with a stone roof that was still on. The acoustics in that place were absolutely incredible, and several of us (including one of our professors!) sang a song together there. Then we took a short walk down by one of the lakes, and discovered this really cool waterfall. 

 Glendalough in County Wicklow

 The ruins of a church that is almost 1000 years old

 Sunny Glendalough

The waterfall 

From there we headed back to Dublin, where I had my obligatory pint of Guinness (I'm not a fan...), and we toured several local pubs, including one called the Fuzzy Lemon. Despite the name, we had a good time, and overall it was an exhausting, but good day.

Finally in Dublin!

After almost 48 consecutive hours of traveling, Ann (my friend on the trip who was on my first flight to Atlanta) and I made it safely to Dublin, having picked up my other friend Kate in New York. Our scheduled flight plan was from Chicago to Atlanta and Atlanta to Dublin, departing on Wednesday night around 10PM. The flight from Chicago to Atlanta would get us in around 6:30, so plenty of time to wait in Atlanta. Because it had rained heavily in Chicago that morning, every flight out of O'Hare airport was delayed. Still, Ann and I thought we would be okay because we had such a long layover. We ended up leaving O'Hare around 4:45, instead of 3:30. Still, we were excited to be on our way.

While we were on our way, because of bad storms in Atlanta and other parts of the south, we were rerouted around West Virginia and other states, waiting for Atlanta to clear up. However, because we were rerouted so many times, we ran out of fuel and the flight crew reached the end of their 13 hour shifts and we made an unscheduled landing in Memphis, Tennessee. While we were there and refueling, the workers found a huge slash in one of our tires. While changing the tire, they found out that one of the brakes was completely cracked, and could have broken and stop working at any point during the flight or during landing. All in all, it was very good we stopped in Memphis, however, because of all of this, we ended up missing the flight from Atlanta to Dublin.

After talking to the airlines, they agreed to put us up in hotels for the night, however, they couldn't get us to Dublin until the following day (leaving Thursday night, arriving Friday). Our program had orientation and a girl's birthday dinner that Thursday and Friday morning, but because there was no choice, Ann and I were stuck in Memphis for the night. While the hotel was very nice, it was still kind of a bad situation, and we didn't get much sleep.

The next morning, we arrive at the Memphis airport around 7:30AM, and stand in a huge line of people who were supposed to get to Atlanta the previous day. We finally get to the ticket counter around 8AM and the woman tells us that she has no record of Ann being scheduled for the 9:15am flight to Atlanta that we had negotiated the night before. Not only that, but once we got to Atlanta, there was no more room on the Atlanta Dublin flight.  Not about to be separated after everything, and certainly not stuck another day, the woman finally found us a flight to Dublin leaving from JFK in New York. The only way we could get to JFK however, was to fly standby on an 8:30 flight to La Guardia and take a cab to JFK. We could also take a 2:30 flight, however, we would be cutting it close for making the Dublin flight.

By this time, it was around 8:10 am and Ann and I still had to make it to the terminal and go through security in order to get these seats on standby. Luckily, everything worked out and we made it to JFK, where we began our nine hour layover...

Ann really excited to be in New York (and out of Memphis!)

After all this, landing in Dublin this morning felt pretty great. We were beyond exhausted, hadn't showered, and were late for orientation, but at least we had made it. After orientation, we took a bus tour around Dublin and made stops at St. Patrick's Cathedral, which is beautiful. After that, we went shopping and got some groceries (we have a kitchen in our apartment), and tried to find our way around the campus a little bit.

Overall, a very long, stressful and exhausting trip over here, but I can't wait to start my Dublin adventure!

 St. Patrick's Cathedral

 The inside of the Cathedral

 Gorgeous stained glass windows