Tuesday, February 20, 2007

I've been in hiding.

It's been a long while since my last post. I think that may be because I haven't done anything so exciting that it should be documented, but the reason for that probably is I'm finally settling into a routine here. When I walk outside, I am still baffled by how beautiful is here, but it's starting to be a ritual. Everyday I rediscover that I am in Ireland when I step out the front door. Now that it's been cleared up why I haven't written on here in a while, I'll do a recap of my life from the past few weeks...

I've decided that I don't really like Galway City that much anymore. It's always a hustle and bustle there, there's no time to just relax and there's always way too many people. It may be because we can only go on Saturdays, but I think that it seems busy all of the time because the city is so dense, kind of like Dublin. When we went to Galway the other week it was to get some essentials that we can't really get in Ballyvaghan. So the whole time we were running around the city, didn't get a chance to sit at all, which probably didn't help the situation. I was really glad to come back to a quieter place. Last week on Thursday a few of us headed to Ennis (like Tennis but without the 't') which is a city in the middle of Clare. It's not as busy as Galway which is nice, and it just seemed like my kind of place more than Galway. Ennis is the perfect sized city. We got there a little bit late, so most of the shops were closed, but we got to go to the €2 Store and an art supplies store, which is like sending a child into a candy shop. I wanted to buy a lot of the supplies, but I didn't, only bought a couple of things, and everyone should be proud. HA! After that we all kind of split up and went to find a place to eat. After walking for about a half hour maybe less we found a somewhat cheap sitdown restaurant. They had burgers, and all four of us got one. We're a little deprived of burgers here, not too many places serve them. After we all were stuffed we went grocery shopping and came back home.

On Friday of last week we had Irish Studies and we went around to a couple of ecclesiastical sights. All very nice places, and as the day went on it got nicer and nicer. The sun started to peak through the clouds and soon the clouds dissappeared all together. When we got back home, I decided that I wanted to go down to the ocean seeing as I hadn't actually been down there since we had been here. Laura, one of my housemates, let me borrow her bike and I went for a ride. I found this really amazing spot, called the Bird Hide, where there are all these small trails through a small patch of woods and some grass butting up against the water. I went and sat on the rocks next to the water for a long while, I needed the alone time. Living in a house with 11 other people is not a good environment for a quiet life. I then rode out about a mile out of town to a small beach and walked around for a bit. Once I got back to the house we all sat around for a bit. Once night rolled around we headed into town because there was a Welsch music festival going on. Every year the weekend after Valentine's Day, a large group of musicians come into Ballyvaughan to play music in the local pubs. The music was great. The next morning it was another really nice day so I headed into town at about 11 to go sit on the pier. I sat there for about and hour and a half just watching the tide come in. After that I picked up some groceries and looked in some of the shops that had opened for the weekend. The town was so busy. I have yet to see it that busy. People were all around, there was no place in town to have a quiet moment. However, I didn't really mind it so much. The town is finally getting some life. The rest of the day was rather uneventful and we went to listen to the music again that night after a great dinner at the seafood restaurant in town, Monk's. On Sunday I decided that it was going to be my day to do whatever I wanted, and what I wanted was to sit around all day in my pajamas doing absolutly nothing. Once night rolled around I got a bit of cabin fever, but made it through. This week was the beginning of the midsemester critiques (or tutorials as they call them here). I'm pretty confounded that it's already midsemester. It doesn't feel like we've been here for that long, and it's odd that schools halfway over...I don't know what to think of that right now. Maybe I'll have some reflection later.

The sun's just come out, I think I may head down to the water.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Oh good lord, IT'S SNOWING!

It just snowed! I finally got to see my snow, but it was like the snow that we get in Michigan in like September. But still, it almost never snows in Ireland so it was completely unexpected. I LOVE IT! That's all that needs to be said.

Friday, February 02, 2007

6 mile hike up a hill, you know, a normal Friday...

Today for Irish Studies we learned about the neolithic man in Ireland which was pretty neat. There are all these tombs around Ireland from different times and they're all different kinds too. After that we had a break for tea (that happens a lot here) and after about an hour we left for our afternoon out and about in the Burren. This is what happens every week in Irish Studies, but this is the first week where it hasn't been a soft day or just plain raining. In fact it was BEAUTIFUL out today. There were barely any clouds to be seen all day long. Gordon D'Arcy, our teacher, is freaking amazing because he's in his 60s and he hikes all over the place like he was twenty something. He decided that we were going to go on this hike up to see a caern on top of one of the hills near Ballyvaughan that's about 3 to 4 thousand years old. A caern (spelling may or may not be correct on that one) is just a pile of rocks in any shape or form, and that fact may or may not be correct. Anyways, he dropped this bomb saying that we were going to go on a hike and then told us that it's 6 miles and going to be a couple of hours. I just got really excited about the whole thing, We normally only go on a bus around and get out at random times, but this was going to just be us walking. Then we left finally heading to Bell Harbour, one town over, to head up this hill (when I say hill I really think I should be saying mountain because they are huge but everyone around here says that they are just hills).

We started out at about 12:30 on a cattle herding path up, up, up the hill. It's all pretty much grass and mud at this point. We don't really stop until about a half hour in. We stopped at this holy well (there are a lot of them all over the Burren and Ireland) and rested for about 15 minutes. Then we were off again. Still kind of on soft ground that rapidly turned into limestone. It's so hard to explain how it was up there. We climbed over one of the many many walls and started to ascend into oblivion. We had to pretty much find our way up these huge cliffs. It actually was much easier than it looked, but it was still hard. Everytime we got over one of these cliffs there was another one to climb. They just kept surprising us. I seriously think we went over at least 6 or 7 each time thinking that it was the last. Finally after probably a half hour or more of trying to climb up these we were on flatish land and stayed there for a while. We walked around this enclosed area (probably about a quarter of a mile across maybe more and once we were done hearing what Gordon had to say (which I never really heard because he was always waaay too far ahead of me for me to hear, seriously he's like a 60 year old goat) we started up some more steep landscape. There weren't too many other cliffs but it was very hard to walk up. Even though it was less rocky, on top, it still was really hard to walk on. There was just grass on top of this rough landscape which meant that there were plenty of places to fall into a crevace or hole that didn't seem to be there until you were on top of it. Once we were finally at the top we were at the caern. This is where we had some lunch. We were there for about 20 to 30 minutes before heading back down. It was amazing. You could see everything. All around. Once we were done eating and relaxing we decided to make the descent. It was so difficult. There were the same steep cliffs going down that there were going up. You had to be strategic. I fell a couple of times and I have scratches all over my hands and arms from the thorny bushes and sharp rocks. I don't know how long it took to get back down but the loose rock beneath our feet probably didn't help. When we finally got back down to the bus it was about 4:30. We were hiking for 4 hours which is just amazing to me. It felt like so long but at the same time seemed shorter than 4 hours.

On the bus I felt the need to reflect on what had just happened. Also I was really glad to be back on steady ground. I rolled my ankles quite a bit. And also almost fell straight into a rock so when I caught myself it really messed up my arms and back. I ached all over but it was worth it totally. When we got back to the house we all relaxed in the kitchen and then watched The Gremlins. In the middle of the movie one of our housemates, Isa, came in from outside and said that we needed to see the moon. We went outside and it was one of the coolest things that I had ever seen. The moon all orange and yellow rising above the misty blue mountains in the purple blue sky. I can't even explain it. We stood out there for about 5 minutes just watching it. That was probably the perfect ending to a great day. Upon reflection I can't believe all of the stuff that I did and to be perfectly honest I am proud of myself for doing it. Even when it got really hard I kept going and I'm so glad to have done it. It's been a good day.