Irish Film Institute

-------Sorry I haven’t gotten the chance to update my blog recently, I’ve been super busy having adventures all over Ireland and Scotland the past week and a half! So here’s the stuff I missed-----

 

Today we went to the Irish Film Institute to watch Irish movies for the morning. We watched a cute short film called “Yu Ming is Ainm Dom” about a young Chinese man who spent 6 months learning Irish, only to move to Ireland and find out that everyone spoke English. Next was an absolutely shocking movie named “Six Shooters” that was the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen. That’s all I can say about that movie unfortunately. It’s supposed to be dark humor, but if it was funny, it was definitely too dark for me. “Pentacost” was about a boy torn between being a good alter boy in the Catholic church and following his love of Gaelic football. It was a pretty funny short film. We watched a feature film next called “One Hundred Mornings.” This was sort of an Irish post-apocalyptic movie, and I’m still not sure what the point was of it at all. While the acting was amazing, the plot was too artsy for me to enjoy. However, all of these movies are winning huge awards for Ireland in International film festivals.

Scotland is the most beautiful place in the world

On Friday a group of friends and I went to Scotland for the weekend. We spent Friday in Edinburgh, which was an amazing gothic city. It was so beautiful, and definitely a city I want to come back to! We even went on a ghost tour, because apparently Edinburgh is one of the most haunted places in the world. The ghost tour was kinda hokey though, so I would love to go back and go on a real one.

On Saturday and Sunday we went on a two day tour of the Highlands of Scotland. We made various stops including Dalwhinnie scotch distillery, a visit to Highland cows, the William Wallace monument, Glencoe (the most beautiful place I’ve ever been) and spent the night Saturday night at the cutest Bed & Breakfast on the shores of Loch Ness. Despite a slight windshield wiper malfunction, which was an issue considering it was Scotland and it rains a lot, the weekend was amazing! I highly recommend Scotland to anyone who wants to travel. 

Loch Ness

Glencoe (the pictures can't do it justice)

Hamish the Highland Cow

Stormont and HARRY POTTER

Today we had a very unique opportunity to see the Northern Ireland Parliament building, and actually meet with members of Parliament in various parties. Some people even got to ask them questions about policy and their opinions, which was really neat. After that, we went to go see the last Harry Potter on opening night in Northern Ireland, which is technically part of the UK, so that was cool! It was a lot different than I expected, honestly. Because Harry Potter is such a big deal in the US, I was expecting it to be much bigger in the UK. I was super worried that we only got to the theater around 10:30PM, expecting we would probably not be able to get good seats at all. Very surprisingly, the movie was not sold out at all! In addition, we had all dressed up as various Harry Potter characters, and were the only ones who had! It was definitely not what I had expected, however the movie was excellent. 

All dressed up for the movie!

Antrim Coast

To get away from some the excitement and danger of downtown Belfast, today we took a bus to the Antrim Coast to spend some time in the country. Our first stop was Dunluce castle, another very pretty castle. While I really enjoy castles and old stuff, I’ve seen so many castles in the past month I can’t even tell you why this one is important.

Mermaids cave below the castle

Second, we went to the Giant’s Causeway, a natural wonder of the world where the ocean has made almost perfectly pentagonal and rectangular blocks of stone. It was really cool to just sit out there by the ocean and admire how beautiful it was. Luckily, we had an amazing day, and were even able to go out in short sleeves!!! That was kind of a big deal here.

We ended the day on the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge and the surrounding island. Again, this was another picture taking opportunity, and I was shocked at how blue the water was! It was almost like we had left Ireland and had went somewhere tropical instead.

Carrick-A-Rede Rope bridge

So pretty!

Belfast

Today was the Twelth of July, which is a holiday here in Belfast with a parade to celebrate. Protestants celebrate this day as the defeat of Catholic King James by Protestant King William of Orange. This was a huge Protestant victory back in the 1700s. However, because of the continuing tensions between Catholic nationalists (support a united Ireland, not having Northern Ireland as part of the UK) and Protestant unionists (who are proud to be British) since the troubles in Northern Ireland, this is also a very tense day. Last night there were various bonfires around town, as big as an entire city block. We weren’t allowed to go see these because of the danger, many riots broke out around them because they are usually fueled also by alcohol. Because the economy of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is so bad right now, there are not very many opportunities to do anything for people my age, and this boredom leads to riots and violence. There was actually a huge riot in the West side of Belfast where some nationalists threw Molotov cocktails and rocks at police officers and firefighters, burned buses, and generally just caused trouble. (Fun fact: Northern Ireland is one of the only places in the world where firefighters and EMTs are not viewed as heros, and are actually attacked). The scary part of this was that was where we were going that afternoon on a mural tour.

Bonfires the day after

Belfast is famous for it’s murals depicting both sides of the struggle, as well as various famous historic events, such as the hunger strikes in the 1980s. The city had been mostly cleaned up by this point, but it was still a very real reminder of the troubles, while officially ended in 1998 with the Good Friday Agreement, still continue today. 

Mural of the first hunger striker to die, Bobby Sands

"Boys I ain't never seen nothin' like a Galway girl"

The title of this post is part of the lyrics of a song by Steve Earle called "Galway Girl" which is the most popular pub song (literally, at least once a night), and is also featured in the movie PS I Love You. As you can guess, this weekend we went to Galway! We woke up super early Friday morning and took a two and half hour express bus to Galway's city center, where we checked into our hostel and boarded a ferry to the Aran Islands, a rugged area off the coast of Western Ireland. It was downpouring in Galway, so we were pretty sad about spending the entire day outside in it, but happily when we got to the Innis Mor, the biggest of the three islands, it was sunny! We actually had an amazing day weather wise. Because we didn't have that much time and I wanted to see everything, I took a tour bus around the island while everyone else biked. Our first stop was Dun Aonghasa, an ancient ring fort on the highest point in Innis Mor. While it was definitely a hike to get up there, the view from the top of the ocean and the island was absolutely incredible. Plus, there were no fences or anything, so you were able to get really close to the edge if you wanted. Then we saw various other stops on the island, none as cool as Dun Aonghasa in my opinion.

Beach on Innis Mor

View from the top of the cliff!

The next day we got up early again and took a bus out to the Cliffs of Moher. This has been the background on my computer since Christmas, so I was super excited to finally see them in person! While it was kind of expensive to take the bus there, and it took two hours one way from Galway, I definitely recommend doing it that way for anyone interested in seeing the cliffs. We drove all through the Burren and Connemara regions of Western Ireland, and it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been in my life. I would love to come back some day and go hiking through that area.

After the Burren we finally made it to the cliffs, and they were everything I could have dreamed of and more. We stayed there for a couple hours and ate a lunch overlooking the cliffs. This was such an unbelievable experience that the pictures I put up won't even come close to summing it up. Definitely a place everyone should visit at least once.

From there we headed back to Galway in time to go to their famous market, where we had delicious home made donuts from the Galway donut man, and shopped around their Quay and Shop Street areas (kind of like State Street). Overall a great weekend with lots of amazing photo opportunities!

Kilmainham Jail

After class today, we went on a field trip to Kilmainham Jail, a place where many famous Irish revolutionaries were held and where some lost their lives. The jail itself was built in the late 1700s, with a "modern" addition about 50 years later.

When the jail was built, it was very progressive and one of the first jails to have cells. Before then, most jails just held all prisoners in one big room and said "have at it." Men, women, and children were all imprisoned in Kilmainham, and not surprisingly, the population of the jail surged around the time of the Great Famine in the late 1840s. In a tiny cell, there could be as many as 8 people living in it for weeks.

My friend Amber demonstrating how small the cells are!

The jail was actually super creepy, and to stand where 15 of the leaders of the Easter Rebellion in 1916 were executed by firing squad (two weren't executed-- one was American and one was a woman) was really eerie. Seeing where many other prisoners were hanged, either publically or later privately, was also a little scary. After an hour inside the jail, I couldn't wait to get out and be back in the rare sunshine!

Creepy jail

The names of the 15 executed

Where they were executed

22!!

Today was my 22nd birthday! While it was exciting to celebrate in a different country, and especially on the 4th of July, I definitely missed all my family and friends (so I appreciated all of your facebook messages)! I even got to talk on the phone with my mom, brother, and Jeff, in addition to a really sweet email from my mom. The day itself went by pretty fast, with the first (and probably only) time I had class on my birthday, and that in itself was a strange concept. After class, we had cake as a celebration for Independence Day and I was surprised with flowers and a card signed by everyone on the program, which was super adorable. Next came dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe Dublin, where I had probably the best meal I have had in a long time (also probably because I have been cooking for myself these past couple weeks and so have existed on mostly cereal lol). I had a salmon pasta with alfredo and spinach sauce, and two summery drinks. It was delicious! After that, we all went out and had a great time in the American touristy part of Dublin (Temple Bar). After everyone had a few pints in them, we all started singing God Bless America, and surprisingly a lot of people joined in (Irish and American). Still, we probably still annoyed most of the Irish people in the area. Overall, a great fourth and a great birthday! (Pictures to follow!)

A weekend in the city

This weekend, we decided to not spend most of it on a bus and stay in Dublin instead. On Friday, a bunch of us decided it would be really fun to go see a movie. After google-ing movie theaters forever to find one within walking distance, we finally found one. Once we got there, we found that it was completely worth the half hour walk to get there. This movie theater was amazing! After standing in line for about 20 minutes (it was super crowded), we finally bought tickets for X-Men and tried to find our theater (a hard task considering there were 16 theaters and 4 stories in this building!). The theater also had a bar, concessions with tons of food, and a Ben and Jerry's ice cream place. The theater seats were really comfortable too, and the movie was very good!

On Saturday, we got up pretty early and went to the Dublin Farmer's market in the Temple Bar area. While we originally had trouble finding it, we ended up loving the market! Not only was there delicious food (I got buffalo mozzarella cheese from Ireland's only buffalo cheese manufacturer and organic cherries that were better than Door County cherries), but there was also jewelry and clothes.

After the market we went to a Riverdance show! It was really awesome to see kind of the evolution and different flavors of Riverdance, stemming from Spanish flamenco to American jazz and tap, and Irish traditions. We even were given upgraded seats, so we were only a few rows in!

Then on Sunday morning a bunch of us really wanted to go to St. Patrick's Cathedral for church because of their apparently amazing boy's choir. We wandered around for a while, trying to find the Cathedral, and ended up getting there late and not being let in. We walked around and shopped until we were able to go to another service at another church. After church we headed off to Croake Park for the Championship Hurling match between Kilkenny and Dublin. The best way I can describe hurling is to say that sometime in the distant past, the Irish got together and combined every sport into one and called it hurling. The sport included aspects of other sports like cricket, soccer, baseball, football, paddleball, and lacrosse. Unfortunately, Kilkenny ended up winning 29-18, despite our cheers for Dublin.

Croake Park

Hurling!