More Blarney from Belfast (Part 2 of 3)

I know the hot topic right now is my spring break country-hopping, but before I get to that I have to do justice to my Belfast trip. So sit tight while I think back to the distant past and remember that Friday night with Natalie in the city of her dreams.

We spent that evening just hanging out with Natalie, who shared what she knew about the conflict (her specialty) and the experience of living in "Norn." As always she had a lot of great insights. One that really stuck with me was that, apparently, a lot of Northern Irish nationalists have quieted down considerably since the economic crisis took root in Ireland, because if Northern Ireland were to join the Republic now, they wouldn't get the same economic benefits that the UK is able to give them, and they'd be dragged into Ireland's recession. I found it really ironic that people would back away from lifetimes of violence, intolerance, and bitterness not because of the horror of it but because of monetary concerns. In a way that idea seemed almost as sad as the fact of the violence itself.

But moving on to a more cheerful subject--namely, the legendary Giant's Causeway--I now bring you to Saturday, our bus tour day. There's nothing like spending a total of six hours staring out a window at the Irish landscape, with occasional chances to jump out and snap a few pictures of a ruined castle.

Really, though, the scenery was lovely, as it always is on this island. In the higher altitudes, there was even snow on the ground, which is about as common here as palm trees are in Minnesota. Anyway, Giant's Causeway, the fourth-greatest natural wonder of the UK, is several hours away from Belfast so we had to go all-out with the fancy coach bus, and the driver providing quirky commentary and bad jokes, and the periodic stops for sideshow pieces like the Bushmills Whiskey Distillery. We were given 25 minutes at said distillery, not enough time to actually take the tour, but enough to buy something at the gift shop and sample the product, which the driver turned us loose to do, with the warning that he would leave without us if we were late. So this experience ended up breaking down thus:

5 minutes: taking pictures of the outside

5 minutes: waiting in line for the bathroom

5 minutes: getting our whiskey (a first for me)

5 minutes: posing for photo-ops with our whiskey

And then, just as we were having our first sips, Emilie checked her watch....

Emilie: Guys, we have five minutes left!

Me: Oh no.

Jessie: Chug it! Chug it!

Me: I can’t!

(They all chug; I take a swig; it burns.)

Me: Oh my God.

(Claudia and Kelsie finish. I take another swig)

Me: Jesus Christ.

Claudia: You can do it!

Me: I’m doing it, I’m doing it, I have no choice!

(Jessie and Emilie finish. I take a longer swig.)

Me: Aghhhh!

(I finish. We run to the bus.)

With that milestone behind me, it was on to the main event. Giant's Causeway is one of those things that's really hard to describe. The best I could come up with was "a unique and awesome rock formation along the coast, formed by volcanic activity about a zillion years ago"...and that's not the least bit enlightening. Pictures may not be much better, but I'll throw a few out there just to cover all my bases.

The rocks are cylindrical...

...most of the time...

And there are tons of them.

The Causeway is the land-based equivalent of a constellation, in that it inspired the imaginative, or drugged-up, people of olden times to say to each other, "Hey, man, doesn't that group over there look like a [insert something it doesn't look like at all]?" and then create back-stories to go with the perceived shapes. According to popular legend, the Causeway was the handiwork of the mythical giant Finn McCool (a character who's gone through as many permutations as the spelling of his name; Fionn McCumhaill is to Finn McCool as Saint Nicholas is to Santa Claus). Hence, many of the more oddly-shaped rock clusters are named after things connected to Finn, like his boot (see above picture) and his grandmother. (Yes: his grandmother. Long story.)


Anyway, we had two hours to wander around, get our feet soaked through our shoes, and marvel at Finn's achievement. Not being one of those people who yearns to see the Grand Canyon before I die, I never thought I'd be as wowed by natural beauty as I have been on this island, but I honestly could've stayed there all day. Alas, we had to move on, because there was one more stop to make before we headed home. 


Earlier, I'd grudgingly and grumblingly given in to peer pressure and purchased and overpriced ticket for what turned out to be the most memorable aspect of the day: the chance to cross...wait for it...a rope bridge. And I know you're thinking, as I was thinking, "Dude. Seriously? A rope bridge?" To which I can only respond: "Dude. Yes. Seriously." Because it was actually really cool. This particular rope bridge stretches across a 60-foot-long, 70-foot-deep chasm from the mainland to a dinky little island where fishermen used to set their nets for salmon; every day they'd cross the bridge to go collect their catch. Now tourists get to cross it to admire the breathtaking view. The actual act of crossing the bridge took about eight seconds, but it was worth it to get to see this.

So that was actually a highlight. Just goes to show: never judge a rope bridge by its price.


And then it was time to head back. By the way, our bus driver/guide spent most of the time making sly comments about KFC and his alleged mistresses, but early on he also slipped in a token earnest remark. Addressing the fact that, a few days previously, several policemen had been shot in (I think; it's been awhile now) Derry, he noted that these acts of violence are as repugnant to 99.9% of his fellow citizens as they are to us, and that "the sooner these people [i.e., terrorists of any persuasion] get off our backs, the better." He also said that we should feel safe and welcome, which was something we heard repeatedly that weekend, and something we did feel. (The KFC jokes helped.)


Before I wrap up this post, one more never-to-be-forgotten incident still needs to be recorded. When we finally got back to Belfast that night, our first thought was that we desperately needed to use the bathroom. So we ducked into a Burger King. I was the last to relieve myself, and while I was gone I left the plastic bag I'd been carrying around with me in Claudia's trusted hands. This bag contained, along other things, the muddy but precious rocks Kelsie and I had picked up at Giant's Causeway as souvenirs. When I came back, we left Burger King in search of real place to eat dinner, and about halfway down the block I remembered...


Me: Oh, I can take my bag back now.
Claudia: It's fine, I just put it in mine. And I threw away the trash. (By this she meant the bag-within-a-bag containing a few apple cores, banana peels, and...)
Me: You didn't throw away our rocks, did you?!
Claudia: What rocks?
Me: Our rocks from the Causeway! They were in that same little bag!
Claudia: All I saw was trash!
Me: Ahhh! Claudia!
Claudia: You didn't tell me there were rocks in there!
Me: Because I didn't think you were going to throw it away! Kelsie, our rocks are gone!
Kelsie: God damn it!!!
Claudia: How was I supposed to know!?
Kelsie: Wait, did you throw it away just now? At Burger King? Because that's right back there...
Me: All right, let's go back for them. You guys go ahead...


But Claudia insisted on coming along too, and she kindly fished the little bag with our rocks out of the Burger King rubbish bin (as they would call it here), although not without some understandable grumbling. Thus, we were reunited with our rocks and could proceed to dinner with light hearts. And on that uplifting note, I'll pause for now. To be continued, as always....

What Rick Steves Doesn't Know: An Ode to Cork

Preface: At least 2/5 of my family are in love with Rick Steves. The consequences of this can range from the disturbing (those pictures are still plastered to the walls on my sister's side of the bedroom, I believe) to the shockingly convenient (want to navigate the London's National Gallery without buying a floor plan? Just flip to the appropriate page of his guidebook). But Rick Steves has absolutely no appreciation for Cork. He doesn't even mention the city in his Ireland guidebook, except to brutally bash the Blarney Stone and opine that the Jameson distillery nearby is better than the one in Dublin. Well, he's missing out. Nor is he the only one; when we visited Dublin, people seemed to think we must get really bored in Cork as there was obviously nothing to do here. False. And lest you followers of mine (hmm, makes me feel uncomfortably like a cult leader) think that my only interesting experiences are happening elsewhere, I thought I should sandwich a Cork-centric post between my epic foreign adventures.


It's true that a typical day for me doesn't involve anything incredibly exciting. I go to class, run errands, and spend time with friends, which often just involves making/eating food, watching movies, and hanging out, just like at home. But I've also been to plays (the aforementioned Lady Windermere and a combo performance of three Samuel Beckett one-acts, which lived up to Beckett's reputation for being next to incomprehensible), seen bands (the wittily vulgar and eccentric RubberBandits, who performed for a very enthusiastic crowd at UCC, and the alt rock group Fight Like Apes, who brought down the house--for free--at one of our favorite pubs), gotten a taste of the local pub culture, attempted archery, experienced Saint Patrick's Day, and just generally soaked up my distinctive surroundings. 


Last night some friends and I went to a pub to listen to a trad session (traditional Irish music); the trio of ordinary-looking guys, whose ages ranged from thirties-ish to sixties-ish, plays at that place every Sunday evening, and it was clear from their rapport with the patrons that they've established a fan base. I really like this kind of pub atmosphere--warm, relaxed, and calm without being dull. The livelier places, which draw a younger and wilder crowd, are certainly fun for a night out, but it's really nice to be able to just sit and listen to music and people-watch. We probably went a little overboard on the people-watching; the group sitting in front of us doubtless would've been mortified to know that we were extrapolating their pasts, futures, and personalities based on the interactions we were witnessing. (Blue-Shirt was a sleaze and a fake who thought he was way cooler than he actually was; Guitar-Playing-Boy was painfully awkward but adorable, and fully deserving of our sympathy as it became more and more obvious that the girl he was serenading during the intermission was going to soul-crushingly reject him...Siren-Girl was too much under Blue-Shirt's thumb to behave decently to her earnest suitor, because Blue-Shirt was obviously sitting back and watching Guitar-Boy's implosion with amusement, and rubbing salt in the wound by suavely chatting up Pink-Dress-Girl just to prove he could, and Siren-Girl cared more about what he and Pink-Dress-Girl thought of her than about the heartache of Guitar-Playing-Boy...etc.) Anyway, the music was wonderful. There's something about traditional Irish music that always makes me feel as if it's taking you on a journey--sometimes a happy journey, sometimes a sad journey. Either way, it moves you. It's not music that would ever lull you to sleep, even when it's quiet and slow and mournful. It always engages you fully and makes you want to follow it wherever it's going. 


So that was a nice night. Nothing dramatic happened (except at the neighboring table, and even that owed most of its drama to our imaginations). Blue-Shirt did decide to talk to us on the way out, though we'd all conceived such a strong, possibly unfounded, dislike for him that we were practically oozing go-away vibes. So we didn't even come away with any good flirting stories, as sometimes happens (not to me, alas) on more eventful nights. Even so, it was a night I'll remember--one that could never be duplicated in the States.


Ditto with Saint Patrick's Day. I'm sure Dublin was a madhouse last Thursday, but Cork achieved just the right level of mayhem, without being overwhelming. The parade (which our Cork friends assured us would bore us to death) actually really impressed me, as much for its diversity (so many ethnic groups that I never would've expected to find here--Hungarians? Congolese? Bagpipers?) as for its creativity (a giant chicken float? Dancing eggs? Aliens of various shapes and sizes? All the extras from the opening scene of The Lion King?)...and although the streets were crowded, we managed to stop off at our favorite pub for green pints and to make a few memorable purchases from street vendors (a leprechaun beer-belly for Jessie...don't ask) without being trampled by hordes of drunken Irish people or, worse, tourists. We spent the rest of the day making and consuming food (and beverages), watching The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Maren, you did forewarn me; I was prepared), and celebrating Ian's birthday. (He turned 27--yes, that's not a typo, 27--that day. Did you know it was possible to buy packages of letter candles that spell "You're Old"? Handy.) Again, nothing outrageous--which will doubtless disappoint a few people who expected me to suddenly turn a corner into epic territory on this day...but it was still a great experience. It was especially nice to see how Cork's citizens approached the festivities. Paddy's Day (as most of them call it) isn't nearly as big a deal in Ireland as it is in, say, Chicago. It's a bank holiday, a day off of work and school, a chance to sleep in, an excuse to wear silly green hats (which we saw in abundance), a treat for little kids who like parades (and we saw tons of them, as spectators and participants, all exponentially cuter than any American child I've ever seen), and an occasion to  meet up with friends for a pint a few hours earlier than usual. It's not the leprechaun apocalypse, and I appreciate that.


I also appreciate that Cork isn't heavily frequented by tourists. Apparently Rick Steves has scared them all away--steering them to Dublin, where performers and vendors attract crowds of wide-eyed visitors on every major street, and where you'll see hotels and restaurants with names like "Blarney" simply because the owners know that'll ring a bell with foreigners, even though Blarney is four hours away in freaking CORK. Which is not to say that Dublin isn't a lovely city, because it is. But Cork is just as lovely and is free of much of that hype. Here, a street performer causes no more of a stir than a roving dog (of which there are plenty). On my way from my flat to the supermarket, for instance, I regularly pass at least three people playing instruments or singing (or at least attempting to do so). Some days there's a middle-aged guy with a pseudo-operatic voice. Some days there's a woman with a banjo singing folksy stuff. Some days there's a cute guy with an accordion. My favorite is the guy who'll sometimes be on the bridge with a tin whistle, playing wistful old ballads that I remember from my toddlerhood. Passersby occasionally drop change into their hats, but there's nothing ostentatious about these people. 


Nor, by the way, is there anything ostentatious about those who choose to just sit cross-legged with the hat in front of them or a Styrofoam cup in their hands. I usually see them on bridges, less frequently along the side of the street (where they're more likely to be shooed away by the garda, as I saw happen once). Sometimes one will say, "Got any spare change, love?" or something to that effect, but more often they just sit. It's a subtle but powerful contrast to my memories of Chicago, where panhandlers are apt to shake their cups of coins or hold signs explaining their predicament or just generally be more aggressive about getting your attention. Here they make themselves very small--as if they'd really rather not be noticed. 


Now might be a good time to note that Ireland is in the middle of a massive recession. I don't get too many daily reminders of that, aside from those unobtrusive presences and the occasional political flyer taped to a traffic post. One day, though, I happened to be in Tesco when an employee brought a whole cart of food over to the "reduced to clear" shelves. While she was sticking new price tags on each item, a crowd quickly gathered around her, waiting for a chance to peruse the marked-down offerings. Over the course of the next ten minutes, the crowd kept growing, and a couple of other employees drifted over to keep an eye on things and--I assume--make sure the waiting customers didn't get out of hand. They didn't; most of them were older people, standing motionless and grim-faced. When the girl finally finished relabeling the items and setting them out on the shelves, the onlookers silently swarmed in. By the time I drifted over a minute or so later, only a handful of items were left. Everyone had been quiet and orderly, but there was no mistaking that they meant business. While I'd been idly thinking, "Oh, hey, it'd be nice to get some cheap deals," they were thinking, "What can I afford to buy for dinner tonight?" 


That's something I wouldn't have witnessed if I'd just been visiting Cork for a day or two. And there are so many other moments--some sobering like that one, but most just interesting--that add to my overall sense of what this place is like. Of course I don't presume to say that I'm having a more "authentic" experience in Cork than I would if I were in Dublin or Galway. I hate the word "authentic"--and yes, Mom, Rick Steves occasionally uses it too--because really, how does one measure what's "authentic"? I can't claim I'm having an "authentic" Irish experience because the fact is that I'm not Irish and am only here for a few months...but have I even had an "authentic" Indiana experience? I was born there and lived there for 18 years but I never had any close encounters with a cornstalk. I never watched the Indy 500. I never voted Republican. Sooo...am I an authentic Hoosier? It's a moot question. I'm me, and I see the world around me through my own eyes, and my experiences are mine. My experiences in Cork have been meaningful and memorable for me (even though I haven't documented each and every one of them). Cork itself is fun and beautiful and special, and I'm glad I came here. I honestly think that, given a chance to make the decision again, I wouldn't choose to study abroad anywhere else.


That said, I do plan to resume my Belfast recap shortly, because Belfast was fantastic and fully deserving of two more blog-chapters. (They really are more like chapters than posts, aren't they? Dear me.) 

"An old long walk of a day-i-ay-i-ay": Belfast, Part One of Three

First, a note on the title: One of the many great things I discovered in Belfast this past weekend was the song "Galway Girl," which is apparently wildly popular in Northern Ireland. As someone who prides herself on having known Irish drinking songs from the cradle, I was dismayed to come across one I'd never heard...till I realized it was actually an American country song from, like, 2000. Still insanely catchy, though. I am, in fact, listening to it as I type.


Moving on. So yeah, I went to Belfast. This involved about seven hours of bus travel, beginning around seven on Thursday evening when we boarded the "magical blue bus" (as Jessie called it) from Cork to Dublin. We'd all brought snacks with us, some of which were more favorably received than others. My aging bananas were dismissed as "sketchy," and few of us were brave enough to try Kelsie's salt-and-vinegar flavored rice cakes, aka "death cakes," purchased in error and regarded with great skepticism ever since. 


We got to Dublin circa midnight and had to switch buses. As we "waddled" through the cold, I couldn't help grinning at the familiar sights--the statue of Daniel O'Connor on his namesake street, the train overpass, the River Liffey..."Good memories here," remarked Emilie. "Yeah!" I beamed. "Isn't that cool? We have memories here!" 


The bus to Belfast, which prudently bore no trace of a "Bus Eireann" logo ("Eire" being a somewhat charged word to put on a bus bound for Northern Ireland), dropped us off at our destination around 2:30 a.m. Our plan had been to walk to the hostel, which was only about ten minutes away, but this seemed less appealing now that we were here, exhausted and shivering violently (having forgotten how much farther north Belfast is and consequently how much colder it would be). The minute we stepped off the bus we were accosted by a cabbie offering us a taxi, and although each of us had turned him down independently as we disembarked, we decided about thirty seconds later to take him up on it. This time, Claudia had the address written down and I actually had it memorized, but the driver had no idea where it was and had to radio for directions. After a couple of U-turns, he delivered us to the right spot (and proceeded to upbraid the Australian staffer for the lack of a sign on the hostel door), giving us an entertainingly colorful first taste of the Northern Irish accent. (Side note: our Irish friends swoon over Northern Irish accents the way we Americans love all accents from these isles.)


In the morning (i.e., six hours later), we started off our visit with a Black Taxi tour. Background: During the "Troubles," buses were being bombed left and right, so the IRA (Irish Republican Army = militant Catholic nationalists in favor of breaking off from Britain to join the rest of Ireland) set up a taxi service as an alternate, safer means of transportation. Later on, this taxi service morphed into a tourism service that now takes visitors to various parts of the city, mainly the "contested" areas (neighborhoods that are still predominantly either Catholic/nationalist or Protestant/unionist...sectarian neighborhoods, if you will). Our driver, Walter, had been driving Black Taxis since 1984. When we told him we were studying in Cork, he did a spot-on imitation of the Cork accent, which made the difference between that accent and his own accent much more apparent to me. 


Walter drove us around for almost two hours, starting off with an innocent photo-op stop at Queen's University, a lovely campus just down the block from our hostel. Then we moved into more serious territory, literally and figuratively. A few minutes after leaving Queen's, we pulled over in front of a mural that informed us, "You are now entering Loyalist Sandy Row, Heartland of South Belfast." Just in case we weren't sure what that meant, the statement was accompanied by an image of a masked gunman--a member of the UFF (Ulster Freedom Fighters = militant Protestant/unionist group). Welcome to Northern Ireland. Though Walter was happy to take pictures of us every time we stopped, I didn't feel comfortable posing for a smiley photo in front of this or any of the other murals. And there were a LOT of other murals. 


Much of Belfast is divided into Catholic and Protestant sections, separated by the infamous "Peace Wall" and by various gates that are open during the day and closed each night. In both areas, the residents' backgrounds and loyalties are represented by murals painted on the sides of buildings. In a Catholic neighborhood, we saw long wall full of images paying homage to other separatist movements throughout the world. (Northern Irish nationalists tend to identify with pretty much any other "resistance" movement they can think of. They're big fans of Che Guevara, Palestinians, Basques, and so on.) In a Protestant neighborhood, we saw an almost suburban layout of houses that sported elaborate paintings of Oliver Cromwell--complete with Cromwellian quotes about the need to "crush" the Catholic Church--and the Red Hand of Ulster, a symbol used by both sides and rooted in Irish mythology. (One version of its origin goes like this: The ancient kingdom of Ulster--which roughly corresponds to present-day Northern Ireland--had no heir to the throne, so a boat race took place to determine the next ruler, based on a prophecy that whoever's hand first touched Ulster soil would become king. The guy who was losing decided to chop of his own hand and throw it onto the rocks, thus fulfilling the prophecy and winning the kingdom. Good story, tell it at parties.) In both areas, murals paid tribute to people who had sacrificed for their beliefs, whether it was women who had smuggled guns through the city in baby prams, hunger strikers who had died in prison, or victims of street violence. Some of the murals are chilling; others--like the one that proclaimed "Every child has the right to..." (insert images of playing, learning, growing up)--are touching in their appeal for a positive future. 


The struggles in Northern Ireland were/are incredibly complicated, and I'm only just beginning to get a sense of them myself, but I think the most important thing to bear in mind is that both sides have enacted and suffered from terrible violence. We stopped briefly at a Catholic memorial for fallen IRA members--some of whom were only kids in their early teens who'd joined the youth arm of the organization--and it included a mini-wall listing the names and ages of civilians who'd died when they got caught in the crossfire. When Emilie asked me, "What is 'civilian'?" I was almost too choked up to answer. 


The culmination of the tour was the "Peace Wall," which includes one section where visitors can write their own messages. The wall has been in place since the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969, but in recent years they're muralistic (not a real word) content has been overhauled to reflect more, well, peacelike sentiments. A quote from Bill Clinton--who brokered the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that helped bring an end to the Troubles--was featured prominently in very expensive 3D metal lettering. People are encouraged to write uplifting messages on this part of the wall; Walter gave us each a marker so that we could write something. I spent about ten minutes holding my marker and looking at what other people had written--their names and the dates of their visits, along with platitudes about the merits of peace or song lyrics to the same effect...and then the occasional random comment, like, "Belfast is sexy! Lovin' the accent!" The others managed to think of good things to write, but I kept drawing a blank. I just stood there holding my marker and feeling small. But that in itself was probably valuable.


Walter dropped us off in the city center, where we got a good look at the Europa Hotel (still going strong despite being the world's most-bombed hotel) and the elegant Crown Liquor Saloon (built in 1849 and still at the height of fashion) before catching a free tour of City Hall. Observation: Irish city halls, much like Irish post offices, are actually quite beautiful buildings, rather than the drab, functional structures I'm used to encountering in the states. Belfast's city hall was breathtaking. There was a wedding going on there when we arrived, and we couldn't help thinking that getting married at city hall would be a much classier affair here than it is at home. Highlights of our tour--aside from the gorgeous architecture--included Queen Victoria's original 1888 charter upgrading Belfast from a town to a city; a statue of the last Earl of Belfast (Kelsie: "He was hot!!") whose early death prompted his mother to deal with her grief proactively by commissioning several memorials for him; a Titanic-themed chess set on display (with each piece in the shape of a person who'd been involved with the ship--Captain Smith as the king, little children in life jackets as the pawns); and the Lord Mayor of Belfast. Yeah, he just walked by, sporting his absurdly heavy official gold amulet thingy, and obligingly stood still while everyone took pictures of him. (He even removed his coat to provide a better photo-op.) 


Backtracking a bit: after the Black Taxi tour ended, I got a text from my very own Belfast contact, the fabulous Natalie Pavlatos, letting me know that she'd be done with work at her internship around 3 and would try to meet us afterward. The city hall tour started at 3, so I let her know where we were and figured she could come meet us by the time it was over. 3:45 rolled around and Natalie was still en route to city center, having been driven all the way home by her program coordinator (the famous Nigel) rather than dropped off at city hall as she'd been hoping. While we waited for her to show up, I perused the historical exhibit on Belfast's development as a city, which was conveniently located in (of all places) the city hall coffee shop. Apparently Belfast linen conquered the world in the early 1800s, and Jim Larkin was "one of the most effective union organizers in Ireland or the UK." Note the diplomatically ambiguous use of the word "or." Belfast in a nutshell right there.


By this time Claudia finished her tea, the others were dozing off, and Natalie was still MIA, so we wandered over to the Linen Hall Library, which has a fascinating (and sobering) collection of political posters on display. At last, around 5:00, just as the others were poised to give up and go back to the hostel (we were literally standing on the doorstep of the library, umbrellas at the ready) Natalie appeared on the rain-drenched horizon. I must say one of the weekend's best moments was when we tackled each other for one of our classic biffle (derived from BFFL) hugs. And since the rest of this post has been so somber, I think I'll end on that cheerful note. Tune in next time for an account of Saturday's adventures and more long-winded musings on Important Matters Beyond My Grasp.

Bi-winning (or even multi-winning!) in London

Here begins the long-awaited, hotly anticipated London post. It shall begin with a timeline and then devolve into chronologically sketchy highlights.

5:30. Woke up. Already packed (including liberal supply of sandwiches, cereal bars, and oranges). Win. 

6:40. Caught bus to airport. Did not get off one stop early as a friend apparently did the previous weekend, thus adding significant walking time and confusion to this leg of the trip. Instead got off at the right spot and checked in without mishaps. Another win.

7:30. Me: "People are lining up..."

Kelsie: "Queuing up."

Me: "Oh, right. Do we not have boarding groups?"

Claudia: "It's like Southwest, they just have a free for all."

Me: "Ahh....Should we queue, then?"

Claudia: "That requires moving."

7:40. Claudia: "They're supposed to be boarding now, aren't they?"

Me: "Yeah...I don't see a plane, though."

Claudia: "Damn it. We're gonna get delayed."

Me: "Should we at least get in line? Queue?"

Claudia: "Mehhhhhh...."

We queued.

7:45. A little boy--three years old, max--in the line ahead of us said to his mother in his adorable accent, "Do we have luggage?" Who knew the word "luggage" could sound so cute!?! 

7:50. Yup, the flight was delayed. Queue dispersed. Everyone sat down.

8:00. Claudia: "Oranges, anyone?"

8:15. I got up to go to the bathroom. Walked into the wrong bathroom. Never done that before; most instructive.

9:00. We boarded.

9:15. We took off. 

9:16. Claudia fell asleep.

10:30. Landed. Got cash. Got really excited about British money. "Look, they have the queen on their money! Oh and wait, who's this? Adam Smith!? No way!!"

10:45. Dashed out to catch the bus that was about to leave and snagged the last seats available. 

10:46. Claudia fell asleep.

the next 1.5 hours: Looked out the window at England. Not as scenic as Ireland. But I saw a castle tower just chilling in the middle of an otherwise nondescript town, and a kite flying off in the distance, and the faraway figures of a mother and child holding hands while they walked across an open field...not all in the same place, but I can condense a little bit.

Noonish. Arrived in London. Got out booking confirmation printout from the hostel only to discover that it included neither the address nor a phone number. Fail. All we remembered was that it was by the northwest corner of Hyde Park. So we took the tube to that general area and found ourselves in a neighborhood full of hotels. The first street we walked down was dominated by a block-long white pillared building that looked like the summer home of an obscure member of the royal family. Concluding that this wasn't nearly shabby enough for the price we'd paid, we proceeded to wander around for the next hour and a half, inquiring at the reception desks of no less than four different hotels about the whereabouts of our hostel.
Concierge #1: "It's either on [insert street name] or the next one over..."
Concierge #2: (having drawn us a map) "Hyde Park, yes. Hyde Park."
Concierge #3: "Uh, it's probably on Leinster Street. There are loads of hostels there."
Me: "Ohhkayyy..." [receives weird look; Claudia cracks up] You have to understand, this is the third place we've tried and we still haven't found it, so we're just a bit trepidatious..." [yes, I used the word trepidatious]
Concierge #3: "I understand, ma'am," [I suddenly became a ma'am...scary] "but I'm ninety percent sure it's on that street..." [He was wrong.]
But concierge #4 came through for us after I asked her to just Google the hostel, click on the first link she saw, and see if it showed an address. So will call this, ultimately, a win, because we did find it. And yes, it was in the massive elegant building we'd passed up about five minutes after we got off the Tube. This settled, the visit commenced "proper."


And now for the best parts.


The usual suspects. Big Ben was smaller than I expected. Westminster was bigger and more beautiful than I'd envisioned. Buckingham Palace, dutifully flying the Union Jack, was surrounded by about as many people as will be watching William and Kate's wedding. The Tower was just really cool (it kept being expanded outward over the years, so the oldest part is the 12th-century "white tower" at the center, which isn't actually white anymore because it hasn't been painted in centuries). Trafalgar Square was lovely, especially at night with the big fountain lit up. 

Hyde Park was lovely too, full of trees that (I like to think) might've been saplings back in 1536 when Henry VIII made it his hunting grounds. Now, instead of royal game animals, the place is teeming with adorable dogs whose owners all wielded ball launchers (hooked staffs that I swear I've never seen before; reminded me of shepherds' crooks). 

The reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe (which is a tad off-target from the original location; they found this out after they'd built it) has the distinction of being the only building in London with a thatched roof. (After the 1666 fire, folks decided thatch wasn't really the way to go.)  The London Eye makes so much money from hosting weddings (!!?!?wtf!?!?) that we figured it didn't need a donation from us, and besides, we got to see quite a bit of London by other means. Specifically...


Ghost-themed walking tour. Our guide was a gregarious middle-aged man about as tall as Daniel Radcliffe, who said "innit" a lot. He showed us, among other things, the house where the famous diarist Samuel Pepys (Jana, are you listening?) once lived and where his ghost is said to occasionally look out the window chuckling to himself (doubtless in hopes of spying the specter of the naked lady who resides next door); Saint-Dunstan-in-the-West Church, which is referenced briefly in A Christmas Carol (quite a stretch from the "haunted" standpoint but still a little bit of nerds-and-fuzzies for me, thanks to my force-fed intimacy with that book); and the alleged location of the alleged bloody deeds of the alleged Sweeney Todd and his alleged lover the alleged Mrs. Lovett. We also randomly passed by the house where Ben Franklin lived during his time as envoy to London. It's now a small museum, and the young staffers were just closing up as we walked by. Our guide said, "Hello, ladies, are you in charge of running this lovely little place?" And they reolied with radiant enthusiasm, "Someone's got to do it." (I WOULD DO IT. Just pay me under the table since I don't have a visa....)


River cruise. We got to go on the Thames. On. The. Thames. Okay, either you vicariously feel the excitement, or you don't. I have this cruise to thank for the chance to sail under London Bridge (freshly repainted in a sprightly baby blue pattern), a fantastic view of the city, and a hokey scripted narration. (At least I hope it was scripted. I'd be concerned if both that guy and the guide on the bus independently came up with the same Big Ben joke--"Queen Victoria thought about naming it after Sir Benjamin Hall's younger brother, Richard, but...")

Museums. We spent several hours apiece in both the British Museum (Mummies! Headless statues! Jewelry! Small countries...well, no, but there was enough room to fit a few...) and the National Gallery. I think I've admitted before that I know essentially nothing about art and have very little appreciation for a lot of what are apparently the greatest works ever. But seeing things like Monet's water lily painting up close turned out to be very impressive. You can see the layers of paint. Paint that was put on that canvas a hundred or two hundred or five hundred years ago and is still there and still shows the same image. How amazing is that? Claudia's life was complete as soon as she saw Van Gogh's sunflower painting, but my real geek-out moment didn't come until we'd already progressed to the gift shop and I saw a postcard-version of this portrait:

Meet Christina of Milan. Based on this portrait, she was strongly considered as a candidate for Henry VIII's fourth wife. He was really into her, but he already had a bad rep thanks to his first two wives. Sixteen-year-old Christina allegedly told the English envoy that if she had two heads, one of them would be at King Henry's disposal...aka, he should back off. He ended up married Anne of Cleves instead, which turned out marvelously. Good story, tell it at parties.


Anyway, I dashed back into the museum, into an area we hadn't been through, to look at this portrait. Hans Holbein the Younger (aka the rockstar of portraiture at Henry's court) painted it after a three-hour sitting. How did he do that? How did he capture the folds of the skirt and the black threads on the edges of her sleeve ruffles? (This is the kind of stuff you notice up close.) It's, like, wow.


Anyway, we estimated that we got through about one wing of the gallery (out of about half a dozen) and I don't even want to guess at what tiny fraction of the British Museum we covered. You could literally spend weeks in there. (Entry's free, after all.) But we had other things to do....


The not-so-usual suspects. Raise your hand if you knew there was a Sherlock Holmes museum at 221 Baker Street. That's right. It's a house furnished and decorated to look as if the great detective lived there--full of items that were featured in the stories themselves. Hardcore Sherlockians (and believe me, there were people there who were unabashedly wearing deerstalker hats and matching coats) can smoke Holmes's pipe, examine his laboratory equipment, poke through his correspondence, and get friendly with some rather freaky wax figures of his clients and adversaries. (Moriarty should really blow his nose more often.) Okay, now raise your hand if you've ever eaten a pot pie. Keep your hand up if you've eaten it in London. Keep it up if you've bought it at the Borough Market from a cute English guy manning a stall that specializes in them. HA. 

Best lunch ever, and possibly the coolest market ever. Pictures do not even hint at its size and vibrancy and crowdedness and aromas...ah, food. 

And now raise your hand if you've heard of Grosvenor Square and if you know that the U.S. embassy is there (along with a small, understated, moving September 11 memorial and a random statue of FDR) and if you care that John Adams once lived in a house right next to this square, as did his wife when she joined him for the last few years of his ambassadorship, as did Thomas Jefferson's younger daughter when she stayed with the Adamses for two weeks en route to France after her father had her kidnapped. K, I think that just leaves me with my hand up, again. But here's why I was so keen to see this spot: London is a modern, dynamic city that, like most cities, is constantly changing with the times. So there aren't a whole lot of places where you can stand and say, "So and so stood where I'm standing and saw what I'm seeing now." Everything burned down in the London Fire, so there goes a lot of continuity with the pre-17th century...and things get replaced or rebuilt or or lost all the time...and even the path of the river has shifted...so despite the rich history of the city, going there isn't an automatic trip back in time. If you want to really place yourself in the past (which, being a dork, I do), you have to make an effort. So I wanted to go to Grosvenor Square--not because I thought it would be the same as it was back when the Adamses and Polly Jefferson knew it--but because it was at least still there, and still a square, not a supermarket or an apartment complex, and not something that costs money to see, like a castle. Hence, my quest. We planned to swing by there on Saturday, and at one point I even had the foresight to remark, "You know, we might want to go before it gets dark so we can actually see to look around," but of course this part of the plan was a fail. We ended up walking there after sunset, with me squinting at the map to make sure we wouldn't get lost. Once we arrived, Kelsie used the light from her phone to illuminate the inscriptions and informational plaques of the memorials, and I used my imagination to picture this little green patch of a glorified courtyard in daylight 230 years ago. So we'll call that an overall win.


And of course, the visit itself was a big win--despite several memorable and (in hindsight) amusing mishaps, of which some of you know more than others...and I think we'll leave it that way. Suffice it to say that everything turned out fine in the end, and I shall always remember, among other things, the sound of a little English toddler saying "luggage."

Dun Dun Dun...Dublin! The finale

Monday was a sight-seeing day. Not that the other days didn't involve seeing sights. But Monday was sunny and peaceful and leisurely; we didn't have any grand time-consuming items on the agenda and didn't need to be on time for anything except the bus home. (Heh. We'll get to that.) We were able to just walk and look and absorb. Things we saw included...

O'Connell Street. It's Dublin's main street, and on either side, everywhere you look, you see beautiful buildings. Buildings that now house offices or shops or McDonald's knockoffs. There's nothing significant about them; they're just old and pretty, and the very fact that they count as ordinary amazes me. At the same time, there were plenty of significant things to see--mainly statues of famous people. Ireland has a lot of famous people. Famous revolutionaries, famous statesmen, famous martyrs (actually, we could make this a Venn Diagram with martyrs in the middle)...and most of them can rest peacefully in their graves knowing that 26/32 (you can't reduce that very effectively, can you?) of Ireland is independent now and they have statues in their honor in Dublin. 

The Custom House. This is a massive, beautiful building that the IRA actually burned down in 1921 during the Civil War (oops, there go hundreds of years of historical records...oops, looks like a lot of our men are getting captured in the mayhem...we'll call that a victory...). It was rebuilt a few years later with not-quite-matching Irish limestone and has aged quite well.

Famine Ship. While we were by the Custom House, I glimpsed sails in the distance and went "Ooo! Ship!" Emilie thought at first that I was saying "Sheep," but we soon straightened it out. We didn't get much closer to it, but I realized later that it was a replica of the Jeanie Johnston, a merchant ship that transported Irish emigrants to Canada and the U.S. during the Potato Famine. Remarkably, there were never any casualties aboard this vessel. Usually "famine ships" had horrible conditions, but the captain of the Jeanie Johnston was careful not to avoid overcrowding and keep a doctor aboard. Yay! An Ireland anecdote that doesn't involve death!

The Garden of Remembrance. This one does involve death. This lovely little park is a memorial to "all those who gave their lives in the cause of Irish freedom." I know I sometimes sound a bit flippant when I mention the rebellions and unrest that played such a huge role in Ireland's history--and I must say I'm not a fan of the high-minded talk of noble blood sacrifice that was used to pump up nationalist sentiment over the years. (I'm looking at YOU, Yeats.) I prefer the philosophy of Daniel O'Connell (the statesman for whom O'Connell Street is named), who famously said, "The altar of liberty totters when it is cemented only with blood." But that doesn't mean I don't respect the efforts and ideals of a lot of the people who worked toward Irish freedom. Americans got their independence on the first try; if our "founding fathers" had failed, I don't know if the next generation would've had the tenacity to give it another go--let alone the next and the next, over and over in the face of repeated defeat. The Irish struggle is very powerful and moving in that it spanned so many years and consumed so many lives. Anyway, the memorial is really beautiful. There's a cross-shaped pool with a green-and-blue-stripe-y design on the bottom that looks lovely in the sunlight, and there's a big statue with a big backstory. It's based on this Irish legend, the Children of Lir. Lir has a daughter and three sons, and his wife dies, so he marries her sister, who in classic evil-stepmother fashion decides she doesn't like the kids and proceeds to turn them into swans. So they spent 300 years as swans, until either the tolling of a church bell or the blessing of a priest returns them to human form. (And then they die. But it's peaceful and they go to heaven and whatnot.) So the statue is of four human figures (a woman and three men) and four swans rising above them, but also intertwined with them. And the human figures are bowed down and look like they're struggling to rise, and their posture mimics that of the swans, which are flying straight up into the air. I didn't realize at the time that the statue was based off the story, so all I saw were these prostrate but clearly striving humans mirroring these birds who were flying away. And really, that was all I needed to see to get the meaning. Trust me, it was really moving in person. (Sidenote: this is why I generally don't like art that's overly abstract. I don't tear up looking at a triangle. I just don't.)

So after I composed myself and we sat for awhile just enjoying the weather and the beauty of the park, we went to meet Katherine and her mates at another park--Merrion Square, which used to be a private park for the owners of the nearby Georgian houses (like Number 29) right up until the 1970s. Fortunately, today it's open to the public, and it's quite pleasant and pretty, and Oscar Wilde presides in statue form over one corner of it. I'd assumed it would be fairly easy to get a photo-op with him, but it turns out that he's sitting on top of a massive rock that his fans have to scale in order to claim a seat beside him. I only got part of the way up with my traction-less shoes, but Katherine, the true Wilde fan, managed to get cozy with him. We were also accosted by an excitable little dog named Banksy. ("Like the artists?!" Katherine practically squealed. Affirmative.)

On our way to get food, I stopped to peer into the Huguenot Burial Ground (the only one in Ireland other than the tiny one in Cork, I believe). I don't know what I'll do when I get back to the U.S. and find myself no longer surrounded by old graveyards at every turn. It's become a sort of scavenger hunt here.

At lunch, we made sure Katherine tried Irish stew and soda bread to complete her Ireland experience. (I myself have only had a few bites of Irish stew. It's tasty if one doesn't dwell on the baby "ships"...)

Then it was time to part ways. Claudia and Emilie and I had to go back to the hostel to retrieve our stuff, then head to the bus station in time to catch the 4:00 bus. At this point Emilie's leg, still recovering from a recent handball injury, started to pain her. By the time we'd collected our bags and gotten halfway to the station, it was 3:42 and we realized we weren't going to make it. Rather than wait for the 6:00 bus, which would've gotten us home at around 10:30, we sprang for a cab. The driver asked if we'd gotten any Valentine's Day candy, and we had to tell him no. (Though Claudia had bought us some beautiful flowers. There were flower sellers set up along all the major streets, which made for quite a festive sight.) When he dropped us off, we owed him six euros and of course we didn't have exact change--only a five-euro bill and a two-euro coin. Since he couldn't reimburse us for the extra euro, he just gave the coin back and told us to buy some chocolate with it. With our day thus made, we got to the bus just in time.

And THAT is the end of the Dublin saga. Thanks for bearing with me. Pictures will be on Facebook soon, and if I survive my sojourn to London, you can expect several long-winded posts about that experience next week. 

Grace Gifford's Ring and Rugby: Dublin, Part Three of Four

On Sunday, we caught the bus to the Kilmainham Gaol, the famous Dublin jail. (For those who find this stuff interesting--coughDavidcough--bus fare here depends on how long you're riding, instead of being a flat fee.) The jail was another of those deceptively pretty-on-the-outside buildings with a tragic story for every square inch of the inside. When it was originally built in the 1790s, it was meant to reform its inmates--as opposed to other jails of the time, which were like garbage dumps for people; anyone who was bothersome just got dumped in and forgotten, as space filled up and the smell got worse. Anyway, Kilmainham in its early years wasn't really much better (still overcrowded, still unsanitary, with the bonus of being freeeeezing in the winter because there were more windows to let in "fresh air") but eventually new wings were added and conditions improved somewhat--just in time for a bunch of famine victims to deliberately commit crimes so they'd be thrown in jail and get fed. But the most compelling stories came from the 1916-23 period. I could go on for hours about the people and events of that era, but I'll settle for just one anecdote--which, thanks to Maren, I was familiar with before my visit.


So this guy named Joseph Plunkett was heavily involved in planning the 1916 Easter Rising, which was supposed to be a widespread rebellion against the English and ended up being kind of like that group project where you're the only one who shows up to work on it because everyone else just decided to sleep in. E.g., it didn't go so well. The folks in Dublin briefly took over the post office (and to me, this didn't seem that impressive until I saw the post office--it's actually an enormous, very imposing building) but had to surrender a few days later. So all the leaders were arrested, including Joe Plunkett, who was engaged to an artist/political cartoonist/fellow revolutionary named Grace Gifford. (Their wedding date had been set for Easter, but obviously Joe had had a schedule conflict.) Anyway, at the jail, we saw the cell where he was held, as well as the chapel where he and Grace were married a few hours before Joe's execution, and the cell where Grace herself was held a few years later during the Civil War. (She was arrested without charge or trial because she spoke against the treaty with Britain that split Ireland into its current north/south condition.) In the museum attached to the jail, Grace's wedding ring (which she went out and bought after she learned that Joe had been sentenced to death) was supposedly on display somewhere, but we weren't able to find it. I could've wandered around that museum for a week at least, but we couldn't stay that long because Emilie had her heart set on seeing the Ireland/France rugby game that afternoon, and we still had to tour the Guinness Storehouse between now and then.


The Guinness Storehouse is one of those places you have to have a really good excuse not to visit if you go to Dublin, sort of like the Eiffel Tower if you go to Paris. The prospect didn't set my heart on fire, but I was really hoping that, against all expectations, I would find myself enthralled by the history and process of beer-making. Not so much. Still, it was entertaining to see the passion (or over-the-top marketing) behind the exhibits (seven stories of them!)...lots of "Here at Guinness, we really believe in what we do. This is a calling. Every pint we brew contains a little bit of our souls...OH MY GOD, ISN'T THIS THE MOST AMAZING BARLEY YOU'VE EVER TASTED? TRY SOME!" Yes, there were samples of barley. Along with samples of Guinness Draught, which turned out to be the only alcohol I consumed there; by the time we reached the top level, where we could redeem our tickets for free pints, it was almost time for the much-anticipated rugby game and we didn't have time to drink a whole Guinness. So we got soft drinks instead and admired the panoramic view of the city (along with the epic five-minute-long Guinness commercials playing on the TV screens...I swear, one was an only slightly condensed version of the Odyssey, but with Guinness as the hero). The thing that really struck me as I looked out at Dublin was that, after a point, it just stops. And beyond that, you can see untouched hills, instead of a gradual anticlimax of suburbs. It's the biggest city in Ireland, and yet it still hasn't completely taken over the landscape. The horizon is still green.


And we interrupt this philosophical musing to bring you a rugby match. We'd figured that the pub scene that afternoon was going to be crazy, what with all the French people crowding in with the Irish people to watch the game. Emilie aspired to be one of those French people risking the wrath of Irish rugby fans, so we rushed out of the storehouse and ducked into the first pub we saw. Which turned out to be dead silent and occupied by about seven people, all of them Irish and over 50. The match was on the TVs, but the rowdiness we'd counted on was nowhere to be found. It was too late to back out gracefully, so we ordered tea and sat through the first half of the match. (The owner was nice enough to bring us some biscuits to go with our drinks, so that made it a worthwhile stop.) As soon as halftime rolled around, we moved on to a more crowded and lively pub. To Emilie and Erell's disappointment, there didn't seem to be any French people here either, but they didn't let that dampen their enthusiasm. I returned from the bathroom to find that they had hung a French flag over our table, which made for a good conversation starter with the guy at the next table over. It must've been a good-luck charm too, because France squeaked out a victory, and we didn't even get attacked by the disappointed Irish fans.


Immediately after the match ended, I spotted Katherine and co. walking past the pub and ran out to catch them. (They'd spent the last three or four hours at the Jameson Factory. Enough said?) So we all teamed up again and walked back to the city center for dinner, with Claudia sporting the French flag as a cloak. On the way we stopped along O'Connell Street to get a look at the post office (where the bullet holes from the 1916 Rising are still visible in the pillars) and, at the opposite end of the significance spectrum, the Millennium Spire, which is just a giant needle pointing skyward that means pretty much nothing--the Irish equivalent of the Bean in Chicago. After dinner, when looking for a good pub, we followed the advice of a friendly Irishman and ended up finding two nice places--one where we behaved like the unabashed Yanks we were by dancing to the music (something Irish people don't generally do), and another where we got to hear a trad session (traditional Irish music) and where Katherine was propositioned by one of the musicians. Oh, and this whole time, Claudia still had the French flag draped around her shoulders.


Before I wrap up, I should just mention that the London contingent was very impressed by the openness and warmth of the Irish people we encountered. That's something I appreciate too. From the guy sitting by us during the rugby match, who graciously congratulated Emilie on France's victory, to the guy who offered us pub suggestions ("What kind of scene are you after?"...and when we thanked him, "Ah, don't be daft!") to the lady who checked us in at the hostel the first day (before the Portuguese/Italian/mystery people took over), who was clearly overwhelmed by her hectic day but still managed to be personable, everyone had been more than pleasant to us. One of many things that makes Ireland special.


Whew. Three days down, one to go. Writing about it is almost more exhausting than the experience itself! (I hope reading about it isn't as much of a challenge. I know I ramble, but you were all forewarned....) At this rate I should finish up the Dublin recap just in time to head to London next weekend!

A Dose of Dublin, Part Two of Four

First, some sidenotes: There's a huge general election coming up in Ireland in the next couple weeks--one of my professors, who's in her sixties, said she expected this to be the most important and interesting election of her lifetime--so Dublin was completely plastered with campaign posters. I counted at least five different parties, some of them embellished with amusing graffiti. Also, Dublin was hosting a very important Ireland v. France rugby match on Sunday, so tons of people--specifically tons of French people--had poured into the city to see it. We had breakfast at the hostel with a group of middle-aged French guys who, according to Emilie, made immature jokes the whole time. And everywhere we went, we kept hearing people speaking French. ALSO, to our amazement, the weather for the next three days was unusually sunny and spring-y (if we don't factor temperature into calculations of spring-y-ness). I kept wanting to take pictures of the sky to prove it could be that clear here.

I think that sets the scene properly. Moving on...

Our first stop on Day 2 was the National Gallery, where three or four centuries of Irish (and English--shhh) art were available for our (free!!) viewing pleasure. I'm not much of an art connoisseur, but I really enjoyed wandering through the chronologically organized rooms. First there were portraits and landscapes, which I found inexplicably fascinating--mainly because the really good ones are lifelike enough for me to imagine what it would've been like to see these people in the flesh or see these places in person. We're always saying how photographs can't do justice to real life, and neither can paintings, of course, but I'm constantly amazed by how much they do manage to capture--and to think that someone started with a blank canvas and managed to create an image that looks real, a guy that looks like he could sneeze at any second, or water that literally seems to be reflecting its surroundings--is just incredible to me. Of course I got a little more leery as we progressed into the more avant-garde eras. I like realism. I don't find it boring. I'm not crazy about random shapes. But I couldn't help liking Yeats (Jack Yeats, brother of William Butler "I can't actually write dialogue for normal people so I'll have Lady Gregory write it for me and take the credit" Yeats)...his paintings managed to evoke moods and emotions even though they got more and more abstract as he got older. Plus the colors were just pretty.

Next we moved on the history/archeology branch of the National Museum (also free!). Highlights included...

--a 5000-year-old gold jewelry that any celebrity would kill for (imagine the red carpet interview: "And where'd you get the jewelry?" "Oh, just an ancient Celtic hoard, you know, it was buried in the third century BC to keep it safe. And the dress is Victor & Rolf.")

--items that had been preserved in bogs for hundreds and even thousands of years, including clothing and tools from medieval times all the way up through the 1800s, the frothy remnants of butter (which people used to store in bogs to keep it from going bad), and  human corpses from the Iron Age in various degrees of completeness (one upper body, including displeased face and fancy hairdo; one lower body with very buff arms, etc)

--objects from the everyday lives of medieval Irish nobles (with the Fitzgeralds and Butlers making yet another cameo)

--and much, much more! (Just ask Rick Steves)

After a quick lunch break, we checked out St Stephen's Green, which happened to be right by our hostel. 'Twas lovely, and--thanks to the unusually mild weather--packed with adorable children, snogging couples, and swans. Oh, and statues. Lots of statues of republican martyrs.

Me: Ah, Robert Emmet. (takes out camera) 

Emilie: Who's he?

Me: I have no idea. I'll google him when we get home. (snaps picture)

Robert Emmet, by the way, was quite a fascinating fellow. Tried to start a rebellion in 1803 with two of his friends. Guess how that turned out.

My favorite part of the day was our stop at the Georgian House at Number 29 Fitzwilliam Street--my personal addition to our itinerary.

Erell: What's special about this house?

Me: (with look of despair) It's just...old...

It was built in 1794, as a matter of fact, as part of a new wave of upper-middle-class houses sprouting up on what were then the outskirts of the city (not that far from the poorest section of Dublin, ironically). For just two euros, we were treated to an entertaining video about the house's background and its broader historical context (narrated by the ghost of Olivia Beatty, the original owner) plus a tour of the house that gave us a step-by-step overview of what it was like to live there in the late 18th century. Claudia was deeply opposed to time travel by the end; once she found out that women slept sitting up in bed to avoid tussling their hair, which they washed once or twice every six weeks in the hope of attracting a husband so that they wouldn't have to become governesses and spend the rest of their lives sewing and teaching rich children grammar...it was understandably a turnoff. But SO INTERESTING. (I was relieved that the others thought so too, or I would've felt guilty about dragging them along on such a nerdy quest.)

On the way home we stopped long enough to take a token picture of the Oscar Wilde House, which is basically a house with an "Oscar Wilde was here" plaque. Then we reunited with Katherine and her roomies for dinner, but of course it had slipped our minds that A) It's Dublin, B) There were a ton of people in town for the rugby match, and C) It's Dublin....e.g., we should've made reservations. After a few no-goes, we managed to get into a restaurant, and then we decided to venture to Temple Bar, hub of Dublin nightlife and a prime example of why no one ever got an Irish temperance movement off the ground. See the aforementioned conditions for an explanation of why we only stayed there long enough to take a picture and get beer spilled on us. 

So we got home at a reasonable hour, which was a good thing, because we had a full agenda for the next day....