UK excursion weekend part 2

So to resume the recap of the UK weekend, we were on the South Downs. My story for the South Downs is another story of how Catherine lost her phone. We were strolling along the hills, and our Resident Director encouraged us to let out our inner child and roll down the hill. Well, it doesn't take a lot to convince a bunch of college kids, and it was so much fun! However, someone while rolling, my phone, which I had forgotten was in my pocket, fell out and I didn't realize it was gone until later that night. Thought I had lost it for good, but thankfully a great guy found my phone, and thus the phone tag game started from him to my dad to me to my Resident Director back to me. I now have my phone back, but it really was an adventure for the books.

Later that day we stopped and toured Venessa Bell's house. For those that don't know, she was Virginia Woolf's sister and quite involved in the literary and art worlds in England at the time. Her house, which she and many of her artist friends decorated, was fascinated and strangely beautiful. I loved that everything was hand-done, from upholstery patterns to wall paintings, even a bathtub. It was easy to imagine the large and very nontraditional family actually living there, the space changing from year to year when they had a great idea or new style. That night we again had dinner at my Resident Director's house, which was lovely, and we planned all our trains for the next day.

On Sunday, we took a tour of the castle in Lewes, and climbed to the top, which had incredible views. We also walked around the town, and got to see all the historical buildings, like Tom Paine's house, and colorful gardens. Inside one of the castle rooms, there was a dress-up station, so our silliness from the South Downs returned. We all dressed as kights or princesses, and took a group photo. It was a blast!

After the castle, we made sandwiches at my RD's place and then headed out on what was supposed to be an hour walk along the hills just outside town. It was absolutely stunning, and we ate our lunch overlooking the most magnificent landscape. Plus, the weather was just perfect, temperate and sunny! However, the fun was cut a bit short when we realized we were significantly behind in timing, and I had to run with the RD down, back into town, and kept running without saying goodbye so I could catch my train. Well, I was running or spped walking along with one other girl who was supposed to catch the train with me, and we quickly raced to pick up our luggage from the hotel, got all the way down to the train station to find we had missed the train by 2 minutes. Literally, 2 minutes. So that was a bit disappointing, but then I had a good hour's chat with Jen, who was great to talk to, and we later met up with others that were on our walk who were taking the later train. I was a little nervous that I might not make the flight, but I knew I'd work it out one way or the other. And I was right. Thankfully, nothing else went wrong, and I arrived at the airport at 4:00 for a 4:40 flight, but I made it. Didn't have a lot of time to catch my breath, but I was so relieved I didn't have to deal with changing my flight and all.

Anyways, that was my adventure, and the next week in Dublin seemed a bit dull in comparison :)

Today I just got back from Scotland, which was also amazing. I know I'm a little behind in my blogging. I'll try to catch up this week, although it's another week of assignment after assignment. Thanks for your patience! Oh, and of course, Happy Halloween! I hear there's been crazy snow at home, but here it's just absolutely pouring all day. Still, everyone is getting dressed up and going out. I love all the decorations and spirit here, but they're lacking one key element: no trick-or-treating! Apparently they don't really do that in Dublin. What fun would Halloween be for kids? Still, I've loved baking and sewing my doll a witches costume, and carving my pumpkin! My roomies even carved me a pumpkin! (Their new nickname for me is HouseCat.)

Lastly, here is photo of my best Halloween treat, or at least the most photogenic one!

Ta ta for now! Hope you all have an exciting (and safe) Halloween!

Halloween prep and shopping

Yesterday I went into the City Centre of Dublin because I wanted to do more sightseeing. I feel like I have unfairly avoided doing Dublin touristy things, and I can never seem to get myself to just go. Well, yesterday wasn't much different, but I did end up having a great time. My first stop off the bus was to Henry Street, off of O'Connell, which is sort of the central street of the downtown area. Henry Street, which I discovered last week in an attempt to find a fabric store, is a huge shopping area! There are great stores packed in there, and it's fun just to walk down and see everything going on. I made another stop at the fabric store, and browsed other shops for fun. (Back story on the fabric store: my lovely mother sent me a Rapunzel doll in the mail with some dresses to practice my costume design because I've wanted to get better at that for a while.) So I ended up buying little stuff so I can make a Halloween witch costume for Rapunzel.

On the mindset of Halloween, I then went Halloween food shopping, over near Grafton Street, which is the main street on the other side of the river Liffey. I have been planning out sweets that I can try to make and fun Halloween treats for me and my roommates, who now think I'm the new Martha Stewart and keep calling me "the best roommate EVER!" I had so much fun checking out all the Halloween displays everywhere- Ireland is as crazy as we are in the States! Over at Grafton Street, I also picked up a few other things I needed, like more Christmas card supplies, and ingredients to make dinner.

But the best part of my shopping adventure yesterday was the unexpected of a fresh market near Grafton Street! I've been up and down there probably 50 times already, but this was, I think, either the first Saturday I've been there or just the first time I noticed it. The side street was filled with stalls of fresh fruits and veggies at ridiculously low prices, like 8 pears for 2 Euros, or a whole bag of potatoes for 1 Euro. I didn't buy a whole lot because I didn't know how much fridge space I had at home, but the next Saturday I'm in town, I am absolutely going there and stocking up on fruits! There were even little store and stalls that sold Asian and Spanish and Polish produce and other foods. Apparently there's quite a Polish population in Dublin, I've run into countless all-Polish supermarkets and delis.

With my heavy bags in tow, I headed back to the bus because it had already been a few hours and it was raining almost the whole time. As I turn onto the street with the buses, one of the paper bags I was carrying broke open, and all my stuff fell out onto the sidewalk. A true testament to the kindness of the Irish people, the woman working in the store I was in front of when the spill happened, immediately rushed out with a plastic bag to give me, and helped me pick up all the things that dropped. She didn't say anything or stay long, but I was so touched that she not only noticed what had happened, but came to help so willingly. It was very sweet!

After that, I had a great night with one of my American roommates who didn't go to Scotland with the other two because she had a friend staying who left early Friday morning. I made some of the Halloween treats I'd been dying to try out, and she kept me company and helped and kept telling me she felt like our kitchen was the Food Network. We had a lot of laughs succeeding, or failing, in making things edible or cute. Everything turned out really well, though! We both ended up not exactly eating dinner, but we did make decorated biscuit cookies, peanut-butter balls, and the cutest Halloween graveyard puddings.

So, in short, even though I yet again did not do one main Dublin attraction, I had a blast in the city for the day!

UK excursion weekend

Sorry for the long absence! It's been the Irish equivalent to Midterm week here, and just today I turned in my first UCD paper, thus completing my work for the week. Hooray! I had other assignments as well, but now I finally have a moment to share my incredible weekend with you all.

This weekend was the second and final Rutgers excursion, in which all the UK and Ireland Rutgers Study Abroad students who signed up ahead of time went away for the weekend together. This time, we all went to Lewes, a small town in East Sussex, in the South of England. It's also the town where my Resident Director, Catherine, lives with her husband, Roger, and dog, Sam. On Friday, I took an early-afternoon flight out of Dublin to London Gatwick, and then took the train to Lewes. Once there, I checked into the White Hart Hotel, an historic hotel where we stayed, and found out that I got paired with my roommate from last time, which was a lot of fun!

Catherine met us all in the hotel lobby later in the evening, and walked us all down to her house for dinner. The  dinner was wonderful, and it was great to chat with all the same people from the Connemara trip, plus four more. It was particularly nice because they had the same things going on now being abroad, but we could easily talk about home too, and not have to explain ourselves. We ended up staying until almost 11, when Catherine told us the itinerary for the next day and threw us out. :-)

The next morning we had a usual hotel breakfast before we met Catherine again. From there, we made an unscheduled stop at the cheese shop she had mentioned she works at, because we were all dying to see the place and try some cheese. We had a little tasting, and tried cheese specific to Ireland and the UK. Being a complete cheese fiend, I absolutely loved all of them! After that, we got onto a bus and headed to nearby Pevensey Castle. This castle is historically inmportant as the place where William the Conqueror's army landed in 1066. At that time, it was on the coast, and since has been involved in several wars. We had the chance to see the amazing views from there, and step into what would have been the dungeons and archery towers. Thankfully, we also had the absolute perfect weather all weekend!

From the castle, we had lunch at yet another adorable pub with good food. I had what was referred to as "bubbles and squeak" as a side to my dish, which it turns out was a lovely mash of potatoes and cabbage, and maybe a few other veggies in there. After lunch, we head to the South Downs and Beachy Head- a place right along the coast with big rolling hills, chalk cliffs, and beautiful views of the never-ending landscape.

Oops, it's way too late at night, and I'm heading on an all-day Aran Islands tour, so I have a long and early day ahead of me! I will be sure to finish my trip to the UK, but for now, I have to go to sleep! Until tomorrow...

Gaillimh- Galway: Rutgers Trip to Connemara

This weekend I had the privilege of going with 8 other girls and my resident director (RD) to county Galway. We all met at Galway train station, where it was surprisingly easy to find each other. From there we met our bus driver that would accompany us for the weekend and drove out to Carna, in Connemara, where we stayed through Sunday. The nine of us split into two groups for the purpose of staying in our B&B's, which were lovely! We were the only guests in our house, and each morning we were provided with a wonderful full breakfast and the most delicious homemade bread! The butter out there is also incredibly good!

The first evening we spent in the bar area of the Carna hotel. There we met several locals who had been invited to join us, and five of their kids who played as a band for us. We had a fantastic (and very unhealthy) buffet dinner and a drink, and we all chatted with each other. After dinner, we listened to some traditional Irish music, played by these kids who were 13-18 years old and really good! We learned about different types of songs, and even got to see two different Irish dance performances by some of the women there. We were taught to sing traditional Irish Sean-nos songs, which are usually about lost or unrequited love. Then we were even taught some dance shuffle steps and some group dances, which was a blast. The people there were so welcoming and friendly, it was certainly something I never could have done on my own! Below's a photo of the band that played for us. They didn't have any music or anything, and just started with a melody and improvized the rest- it was amazing!

Then on Saturday, we had a long hiking day that was equally fun and impressive. We started the day with our lovely breakfast, and then met with a local whose profession is basket-weaving. He taught us about the Sally rods used to make the baskets and the different kinds of baskets, and demonstrated the actually weaving to us by making a basket for us! We were able to try our hand at making a Celtic cross with two sticks and a thin Sally rod. I think the most impressive basket was a huge lobster pot that was completely woven. It was beautiful!

After basket-weaving lessons, we drove to some of the mountains near the coast, I'm not quite sure where. We had a guide with us who told us about the history of the hills and the specific environment. Apparently, thousands of years ago Ireland was nearly all forest, and that when humans began deforesting the island, areas like this with heavy rainfall became more acidic without the trees to absorb it. This, I was told, was then trapped under the ground, which was covered with moss, and turned the soil into peat, creating many peat bogs. Near the base of the mountain we climbed, we were able to stand on a peat bog and see how the ground just shakes underneath you when you bounce on it. We also heard some horror stories about what happens when you jump on a peat bog and it splits. Supposedly bodies are often found from really far back of people who are guessed to have accidentally fallen through the bog. I think it's a great start to some kind of magical underworld tale.

We continued up the mountain, which was very slippery and often very difficult to find footing. I was so glad I had worn my rain boots (I'm sorry, I should call them my wellingtons) because you could hear the sloshing the whole time up, and down, the mountain. About half of the way up we got to see a 4,000 year old tomb that was just resting there on this mountain side. It was simple, but very cool, and as always, it was mystifying that such an old artifact wasn't protected or guarded or anything. Being the art history nerd that I am, I had to get my photo with it though!

We kept walking up to the top of the mountain peak, about an hour and a half in total to get up there, and the sight was stunning. It really might have been the prettiest and most awesome physical landscape I've ever seen. Photos don't even capture the scale of it all. On one side of the hill was the coast, with its fluorescent golden seaweed, and on the other side was a serious of 12 more mountain peaks with a huge, somewhat barren valley between us. All I could think about up there was how much I would love to bring paints up there and just be inspired. It would be rash and insane, but I would definitely move out there it was so gorgeous. 

The way down was even trickier, and I also fell a few times. When we got down all the way, we hopped on the bus for a short ride to the town of Roundstone, which is supposedly the most photographed and painted town. Ironically, I didn't get a chance to take any good photos of the place. We stopped there for a pub lunch, and I think we were all so tired that anything would have tasted wonderful, but the place was great. After we finished, we rode again to another trail, this time up to a castle. The path was beautiful, and thankfully, not wet or slippery. It ran alongside some body of water (in this area it's hard to tell what's a small bay to the sea and what's a river) that looked as black as onyx. The plants were majestic too, and, I admit, it looked a bit like home. We saw a small round castle on the water on an artificial island, as well as the castle on the hill, which was a restaurant that looked charming.

After this finishing hike, we were driven back to our B&B's around about 7 PM or so. We had an hour to ourselves, and then we went for a more formal and private dinner at the hotel again. It was lovely, and the food amazing. I've been continually impressed that every single place I've eaten in this country has at least one vegetarian option. I had fried stuffed mushrooms (amazing!), a rice and veggie stir-fry, and the chocolate gateau (which truly deserved the snooty name-it was fabulous!). I loved the mix of having our own entrees, but family-style side dishes of potatoes and vegetables. It actually felt kind of nice too that it started raining around dinnertime. We had the most perfect crystal-clear calm day for our walking, but a cozy raining evening.

The next morning, since the weather was again very nice for us, we went to the horse farm of one of the men who joined us the first night. He showed us four different Connemara ponies of different ages, all of whom were beautiful creatures. We learned that the Connemara pony, after living in the hilly, slippery surrounding area for centuries, had adapted to become very fast and exceptional jumpers. We were given a show of two of the horses abilities, and one of them jumped over a 5 foot pole! After the demonstration, we were invited inside for coffee, tea, and fresh scones. I think they were meant to just be hospitable and to encourage a chat, but when we all came in, suddenly we were devouring the scones. I think each of us had at least two (they were homemade, warm out of the oven, and unbelievably good!) and a few pieces of fruit, as well as coffee and tea. Our guests must have thought we hadn't eaten in a week! They were so sweet to us, and invited us over to tea if we ever came back. I'd love to be able to take them up on that sometime! The couple even gave us the rest of the scones in a bag to take with us. From there we went to the train station again to return home.

I had a few hours to kill in Galway City before my train, so I did some shopping, and hung out in the main park, and stopped by the cathedral. It was beautiful, and I was struck by how different it was from what I'd seen in Paris last summer. It looked much more Byzantine, like it came out of Eastern Europe. I got bored and it was a little rainy, so I sat and sketched for a while, listening to the organist play.

Well, then I took my train home, and took the bus back to UCD. And that was my weekend. It was absolutely one of the best trips I've ever had, and the people that came with me were great and so positive! We all had the time of our lives, and I can't wait for the UK trip with them in two weeks. If you want more photos, hopefully I'll be able to get them (and the Cork photos. Sorry!) up on Picasa. I've already put them up of Facebook, too. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the vicarious experience of traveling to Connemara! I always enjoy relating my experiences! As for the rest of the week and this weekend, tonight (after midnight) is my roommates 21st birthday, so we'll be up partying, and then Capoeira class again tomorrow! This weekend I'm going to treat Dublin City like a tourist, and go around to the museums and everything, so I can really get to know the city well. I still have to plan it out. Anyone have suggestions for what I should do?

Capoeira Class

In other, more recent, news, I had my first capoeira dance class tonight, and it was unbelievable! I had forgotten how much fun it really is. We spent the first hour just practicing kicks, moves, ducks and some acrobatics. We did floor exercises and stretching and I learned two new high kicks, one duck, one duck and low kick, and one high kick that turns into a hand-stand cartwheel thing. I'm still going to have to work on the last one...There were only ten of us there, including the instructor, and everyone was very nice and welcoming. There were eight guys there, one other girl, and me, and I think four of us were beginners, so it gave a good dynamic to the class. Apparently the club is very new to UCD, so its quite informal.

After practicing either on our own or in pairs, we all got into a circle and "played capoeira." This means that the leader holds a berimbaus, which looks like an archery bow that is hit with a metal rod attached to something that makes a maraca sound. Then we all clap and sing along to whatever the leader chooses. It's very simple and rhythmic. Then two people meet in the middle of the circle and begin using their moves on one another. It's sort of like dance meets martial arts, but you also get to sing and sometimes play instruments. If you want to learn more about capoeira the Wiki page is very helpful. Below I am including a video of what capoeira can look like when it is done well and by masters:

That's about all for tonight I think. Tomorrow I head off on yet another adventure. This trip is with the Ireland and UK kids from my home university, and I think there are only like eight of us going. We will be headed to stay in Carna, in county Galway out on the West coast, and will have all of Saturday and Sunday morning full of planned activities. I'm excited, and I have so much to do before I leave! I will try to give updates on twitter if I have internet access, but I might be technologically quiet until Sunday or Monday. Have a great weekend everyone, I know I hope to! Once again, thanks for reading!

Corcaigh agus Bhlarna- Cork City and Blarney (day 2 & 3)

The second day of my weekend, Saturday, I spent the majority of the day in the city Blarney, about a half hour outside of Cork by bus. I hopped on the bus in the morning, and got there shortly after the park opened. I didn't get to see much of the town of Blarney, just the main street of pubs and shops leading from the bus stop to Blarney park and castle. The grounds were just beautiful! Although there definitely weren't the trees that we have at home, the gardens and few trees were gorgeous with the fall colors. I think here is probably a week or so ahead of home, although it seems like maybe the yellow leaves just last longer. Once I paid for my ticket to get in, of course the first thing I did was head up to the castle to kiss the Blarney stone! As an art history student, I loved seeing the castle and imagining all the rooms and how they were decorated or used. I also even braved the tight spiral staircase going up to the top that was jammed with people! Not my favorite thing in the world- the ceiling caved inwards the farther up you went.

When I got to the top I asked the people behind me in line to take my picture, and they did a great job! When I got up there, there was a mat to sit on, and you had to skooch your butt up to the end of the wall, and then grab onto the bars behind you. There is even a man who sits there to guide you back and clean the wall after each kiss. I did it really quick, and I shut my eyes because I was terrified of looking down. You all tell me, my writing and eloquence any better? Haha.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the gardens and grounds. I even saw what was called a "Poison Garden" that had all poisonous plants, but was very pretty! That evening I spent out around town in Cork again. The next morning it was just pouring. I had planned to do some things around Cork but most of them were outdoor things, so I had to rearrange my schedule a bit. I did, however make it over to where the Cork harbour used to be and briefly saw the outside of St. Finn Bar's cathedral. There was a service going on at the moment, so I wasn't allowed inside, but I reveled in being able to identify saints and calendar scenes and  motifs in the three portal entrances.

I also had the privilege of visiting the Cork Butter Museum. Yes, a Butter Museum! It was actually one of the highlights of my weekend. I met the sweetest Irish old man, who had an accent so thick I could only catch about one in every seven words. my favorite moment was when he was starting a movie for me, and I'm the only one in the museum. He turns to go back to the front desk, turns back and says "Oh, and if you want to take pictures, please do!" He seemed so delighted to have someone come enjoy his small museum, it was fantastic. I think the only thing that would have made that little place even better is if they had slices of toast with Kerry Gold (Irish) butter waiting for you on the way out.

By the time I was done with all my rainy-day activities, I still had about two hours until my train, but I figured I'd pick up my overnight bag from the hostel and leisurely head over to the station. It started out well but after about an hour of walking and getting increasing unsure of the route, I finally found someone along the road who I asked for directions. She looked at me like I had just walked to Ireland from New York, and told me I was going the wrong way. Thankfully she gave me a shortcut that turned out to be immensely helpful, but I was really glad that I had left myself all that extra time. By the time I walked back and headed down the right road, I had about 10 minutes to wait at the station before my train arrived. For all those who don't know many of my travel stories, this is a common occurance. I'm always doing ridiculous things that take me as far away from my destination as possible, but somehow I still always get to the places I really need to be on time (thankfully)!

Anyways that was my weekend in Cork. I will post photo's on Picasa, which means they will show up as a slideshow on the right-side panel of this blog, or in more full screen if you click on that image on the right. I will also post a link to the photos on twitter and facebook. I'd like to let everyone know as well that I have changed the comment format because I heard there were some issues with that, so now everyone should be able to send me a nice warm hello! Also, I have to give a shoutout to my cousin Amy, who has listed my blog on her site Phollowing the Phillips! You can check out her blog and read about her family's fun activities and for photos of her adorable kids! That's about all I have about my weekend, so thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave a comment! :)

Cork City (day 1)

As I mentioned I would last post, this weekend I visited Cork and Blarney! I left Thursday evening after class, and arrived at the Cork train station around 8:00. From there I walked to my hostel, where I had booked a private room in case the other guests were sketchy. I followed the directions I had written down before I left on how to walk to the hostel, but next time, I don't think I'd arrive after dark in a foreign city, by myself, trying to find a hostel. It wasn't that the area was a bad part of town, but, being in a typically European city, I didn't exactly follow main roads in a grid or with fantastic lighting. At one point a road turned into stairs, and then led to an alley that had a small path at the end. It was strange, but the hostel was very nice. My room was fine- I shared a bathroom, but also had a small sink in my room. I was even close enough to the computer room that I could pick up wireless, which came in handy for planning the details of my adventures.

The next morning I had the free breakfast at the hostel (which apparently for the Irish means toast and tea/coffee) and then headed just outside of Cork City to see the City Gaol. This is the cities historic jail that is now a museum and supposedly in a pretty area. Well, I followed the vague directions I had, but my lack of a navigation gene meant that I got WAY off track, and after two and a half hours of walking around the Cork suburbs and the University College Cork campus (one of our sister schools) I decided I'd just go back into the City Center for lunch. On the way back, I finally found some signage to the Gaol, but it was no one in sight, so I abandoned my hope of getting there. I did, however, have a wonderful time wandering around Cork's City Center. I found a good sandwich place that had typically Irish sandwiches- they will put anything on a sandwich! The normal sandwich options, besides lettuce and meat and cheese, are mashed potatoes with butter, stuffing, or mayonnaise. Yes, mayonnaise is an option by itself. Heart attack much?

I also let myself browse the shopping downtown. There were a lot of higher-end American stores there, and I think half of the island that is the City Center is one big Dunnes store (something like a Macy's or FNAC with a supermarket on the lowest floor). I also stumbled upon a lot of smaller, independent stores, which were adorable. I'm glad to see a revival of women's dress hats here- I've seen at least one hat shop in both Cork and Dublin. Really wild, outrageous hats too, worthy of the royal wedding! I also stumbled upon the Crawford Art Gallery, a free art museum for the city that I had on schedule of things to see anyway. They had a great collection of work by Irish artists, which is something new to me and very cool. They also had a few old rooms with 18th century furniture and glassware that was great.

Heading back in the afternoon to have a quick break, I also happened upon one of the churches open to visitors in Cork. It turned out to be the building next to my hostel, and while I didn't get to go in- I had missed the opening hours- I walked around the outside and spent some time in this lovely park adjacent to the church. I also heard throughout my three days there the tourists ringing the bells, sometimes even creating a tune. I heard the American anthem a few times, and some Christmas carols. That evening I went back into the City Center for dinner, and I was also on the lookout for Culture Night events. Culture Night is apparently something they do all over Ireland, and there are activities and festivals and concerts for anyone in all the cities. Well, I was looking for a concert, but yet again got lost and couldn't find it. But I did find the English Market instead, which I had been dying to see. It's the oldest open-air market in Europe, 150 years older than the one in Barcelona (although much smaller) and it was open for culture and serving small portions of different foods for cheaper prices and giving out free wine. It was so packed it was hard to move in the three alleys that made up the market, but the energy was so fun and people were so relaxed and not aggressive that it really didn't matter. In fact I waited in a line for food for like 45 minutes, and everyone was really polite to each other and I struck up several conversations with people.

It was sort of late when I finally got out of there, so I wandered around a bit, and walked along the river before heading back to my hostel. I also had to plan out the details of getting to Blarney the next morning.

Ok, well this is already long and I have to go to class in a minute (Folklore and then Irish class). I will post the rest of the weekend later! I did take lost of photos though, so that will be a post too! Have to have something to entertain my readers during the week, when all I do is homework and class (ok, not ALL the time :-p). Hope everyone else had a great weekend! Now it's class, then GNIB to get my real visa and afterwards weekly shopping!