Date:	2006-04-11 09:49
Subject:	a tale of serendipity and mishaps...
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy

back now from the biggest trip of the year which started in london, was spent in rome, and surprisingly ended up in paris. i have loads of pictures, but like all myother ones that have yet to be put up, they'll come about-eventually. but right now a chronicle of my misadventures and such. during this trip i experianced both providence and being the butt of the great cosmic joke, go figure. so without further ado... the tale of mishaps and providence... and just as a warning, this is a very long entry, but hopefully it will be an entertaining read...after all, it is me...

Day 1 of Misadventures (Friday 31, March 2006)
Fly into London successfully and look about for a place to lay down my weary head. After deciding that the Stanstead seats are deceptively comfortable and not being able to sleep i hear a group of american voices and decided to follow, found myself in the middle of a group of other JYA-ers on holiday themselves, all trying to figure out whether or not to believe me when i said i was from the States. because you see i sound very irish..... great group of girls, and by half four we were all fast friends, promising to facebook eachother and the such. another hour and london awaits...

Day 2
London! I ride on the first train into the slowly lightening sky into the heart of London, staring at the dark cityscape around me warily. perhaps i took too early of a train, but i only had a few hours, i wanted to make the best of them. finally arrive in the train station and enjoy a wonderful mcdonalds breakfast as the sun rises slowly over the tall buildings. i find myself wandering all over the streets that are mentioned in a book i was reading, so i as i walk over fleet street, cheapside, london wall, etc, im walking through so many stories... I get to go into St. Pauls, even tho it wasn't really open for visitors, but the matron let me in if i would be quiet and not disturb the anglican prayers in the corner. the church was awe inspiring and as i wandered about mouth wide open i tried to take it in. sat down in the nave and said a decade of the rosary-hope that wasn't sacrilige ;) silly brits...
walking down the road i have my second near international incident in a week as the local london coppers decide that this very irish looking backpacker wandering lazily down fleet street with her camera looks suspicious. probably didnt help that the thick irish brogue that came out of her mouth placed her in cork before she could say she went to school there. as they let me on my way i thought desperately who they thought i could have been, because honestly, what could an irish 20 year old with a camera be doing....then it hit me, damn they think im a sinn feiner, lovely. bad things seem to follow me when i go from the republic to the UK, pox on them. spend the rest of the day wandering, get soaked in torrential rain, a bit frozen, but end up in the london museum, first in besides this conferance. then back to the air port, because i was tired and a bit bored.

Day 2 continued...arrival in rome
Getting to rome is not that hard, nor is finding my hotel, thanks to some very kind italians with very good english. checking in however seems to be beyond me as i struggle to make the man at the desk understand that no i dont have a key, that i need to actually check in, and no im not looking for mary breen, im part of her group.... 5 minutes and several desperate but unanswered phone calls later we finally come to this understanding and he pulls out the list that says my room and sends me up. i walk in to see an excited katherine, but blow in stating frankly the need for a shower and sleep. sleep wouldnt come for a bit, but the shower sure did, and after a night in stanstead that was heaven.

Day 3
Bright and early eat loads at an amazing buffet breakfast that was to be my main source of food through out the week. never had so many croissant thingy's in my life- and they were all quite nice let me tell you! First tour with Eammonn our intrepid Irish guide as he takes us through Rome. Every morning we went on a walking tour with him and it turned out just brilliantly, he is a wealth of information with a wonderful way to present it. It being culture week we hit the jack pot as we are able to get into things that are never open and into other museums for free! oh i love being a student at times. katherine and i spent the day trying to contact our respetive friends,and succeeded! met hers, while still yelling at my phone to get ahold of becky 2.0 .. more happened that day, but i kinda forget. (and no dad that has nothing to do with wine, yeesh...)

Day 4
Much gelato has been consumed by this point and the justification for us girls being well after all this walking that we're doing, we have to make sure we have energy and our blood sugar doesnt drop too low....hehehehehehehehe mmmmmmmm gelato....... huge breakfast, apple and gelato for lunch, some kind of good pasta dinner, yeah sounds pretty good to me.
we go to the vatican today! (i think it was monday anyways) and we survived the lines through the vatican museum and sistine chapel. by the way folks, when they say dont take pictures, honestly respect the poor sods who have to walk by your stationary bum and just dont take them, makes life a whole lot easier for the rest of us. thanks loves.
more wandering about, plans for hard rock made, then broken, finally end up at becky's hostel, convienantly located next to st peters, manage to survive a trek to find the night bus and sat there realizing, even late, rome really isnt that bad...whole lot safer in the parts i was in than most of DC...

Day 5
More adventuring! And now Becky comes with! We see the Capitoline Museums, the Pantheon and such, then general wandering. Becky and I take our lunch in the beautiful Plaza Nuvona (i know i spekked that wrong, im lucky to even get the name right) which has numerous art sellers around this beautiful memorial fountain (i forget who it was for tho). we then take her brothers advice of what to do in rome-and get lost. picking a direction and wandering we get to the trevi fountain about 8 scarves and lots of silliness and giggling later. my hyper chatter was more than amusing to a pair of americans who were walking ahead of us, so hyper, and so happy. yes we did start skipping down the street. yes we did scare some ppl, but did we care? not one lick. ended up at a loyola dinner in a fabulous place called Luzzi's and sat with mary and eammonn and were treated to Eammonns generocity regarding very cheap, but very good, liters of wine... resulting in a well fed, happy, and tipsy pair making their way to the metro and back to Becky's hostel. by this point she has convinced me to follow her along to paris, all depending on the prices of tickets and such of course...

Day 6- and now the fun begins...
Papal audience today! woot Papa Ben! and Becky got to come with as well because Mary had an extra ticket with her, which worked out brilliantly. but before hand, at about 0'dark'thirty i arrive at becky's hostel door to drop off my stuff (we had to check out of the hotel that day) and to further research plane tickets and such. we get online, find the ticket prices havent changed and i continue to debate them in my head as i had all morning, but finally take a deep breath, decide the chance to spend two more days in rome and a couple days in paris was worth it. after booking and checking email walk up to the hostel desk to request a bed for me for two nights when it hits...oh we dont have any beds available. what????? that starts a mad search on line for hostels, all of which have an opening for thursday night, but not for wedsnday, that night. we go off to the papal audience deep in thought as i try to figure out what i can do to avoid camping out in front of st peters for the night. then i remember my mother telling me that many of the convents run hostels.... (by the way, dont try convents near the vatican on the anniversay of the popes death, not a good idea, those are filled) after the audience we start on a mad search for a room for me. it leads us first to the vatican youth center, a chill place which just happens to be the home of the WYD cross and alot of the planning. your one there takes care of us, gives me a list of places to inquire and tickets for the youth rally happening the next evening-with the pope! we leave in high spirits certain of providence.... about a half hour later not feeling so high, the cosmic joke begins. first i cannot seem to call any roman numbers with my phone, which then promptly dies anyways. then i discover that i can't for the life of me figure out how to use the local pay phone either. the convents we inquired at were all full, the others scattered all across rome. our search took us from convents and hostels to even the door of a poor house, where im not poor enough to stay of course, and much of me talking in spanish and desperately trying to understand the italian being spoken back to me. end up in near tears at the poor house and start wandering back to becky's trying to figure out what on earth i'll do. we get back and by then i have decided that i will throw myself to the mercy of the jesuits as their main church, the Gesu, etc is near by and that as a student at a Jesuit university i will claim their charity and demand that, either that or pound on the door of a nearby church calling out "sanctuary, sanctuary, sanctuary..." turns out neither was needed. just as i was steeling up my nerve to decend on the jesuits we get back to the hostel and find out, oh there is a bed available now, oh for both nights... i quickly book in and find that this bed just happens to be-right next to becky. we sink ito our mattresses laughing and shaking our heads-providence and the great cosmic joke for sure.

Day 7

We get up early-not as early as i had wanted, and earlier than Becky would have preferred, to go and wander about the Vatican. Finally get to spend some real time in beautiful st peters which just takes the breath away. other churches just pale in comparison. it has this wonderful elegant and classic beauty to it, in the way that colored marble rather than copious mosaics is used, its not a glittery church, but its sheer size speaks of a confidence that it doesnt need ornamentation to proclaim its importance or beauty. surely a masterpiece in architecture and design....
we climb up to the cupola (ok, so we actually took the lift for most of it, but we climbed 551 steps and counted every single one if brad every asks) and look out at the 360 view of rome...inspiring and amazing all together. did stop at my favourite little souvenir shop, but it would seem the fiesty nuns must have gotten too feisty becasue now there is only one order there and things are a bit more sedate. no fun. we also got to go through the vatican treasury which was really cool, and we decided to be good honest citizens, becasue earlier we actually got to cheat our way in because the gift shop before you get in doesnt have a credit card machine-but the one inside does... but we were good girls and came back around to pay our entrance fee and get the little audio tour thingy's before we set about wandering.
had the youth rally that night, so cool, a mini WYD, just wish i understood more of it! but there goes going to rome for something, yeah most of it will be in italian, listen hard, brush up on your spanish and deal. tho the fact that i keep thinking in irish doesnt help matters...
so i got to see the pope twice in two days! and were really close, so i got some really good pictures,a nd was kissing my telephoto lense (which by the way was the only lense i had becasue my kit one took a bit of a bump while in antrim...) tired and proud of ourselves we wandered back to the hostel.
However before we get there we go to the train station to inquire about tickets for the night train the next day...i successfully leave in tears as the rates drain the last of my account and i know i dont have enough to cover all my expenses. the rest of the night is spent in tense anticipation as i go online to see the horrible truth, try to call my parents, beg with the hostel guy to let me back online after time to get the correct number, and go out numerous times to the roman street to find a pay phone and call home. a teary hysterical message and a few calls later i finally get a hold of them and everything is sorted, im in debt big time, but i would be getting back home to ireland. i sink down to sleep thanking God for my parents and exhausted physically and emotionally.

Day 8
Last Day in Rome! Becky and i go to check out the crypts at the Vatican, tears welling up in my eyes as i kneel to say a quick prayer by JPII's tomb. he was such a wonderful man, pope, priest...everything. and sorely sorely missed. Benedict is good and all, but he's no JPII...
Becky sets off for the Vatican museums which i had not the patience to deal with for a second time. luck followed her as she got into a relatively short queue only to turn arond and see that a few seconds later it had doubled its length. i wandered around the market and the streets for a last chance to appreciate the wonderful city that is rome. finally find a bit of a park and sit myself down to enjoy the sun i never seen in ireland. i by the way even have a little bit of color now, although one arm is darker than the other, but no matter, there are tan lines and i can prove it! it was a very good day to close out our time in rome.
we run to get to our train, are early, then sit there craving gelato and not being able to get it while staring at the board waiting to learn our platform. finally get to our train, and find our cabin after a bit of confusion. we're set up with two nice lads, one italian/north african and the other south korean. turned into boys against girls, but we all got along grandly and there was some singing, and cultural sharing as we passed around respective foods and i managed to demonstrate irish dancing in a moving train-yeah im that cool. train ride was uneventful except for a 2:30am call by the train man to discuss the north african lads appearantly lacking documentation, he did not have a passport like the rest of us, but some other kind of paper. after much discussion your man there is satisfied and leaves the lad, who is visiting his sister in paris, alone. those of us who woke up take a deep breath, thank God for our passports and roll over for sleep.

Day 9
Paris! we arrive early in Paris and then spend the next hour and half trying to find our hotel. first man we ask at the metro gives us the completely wrong place, so we make our way to said plaza, involving the help of a good chunk of a very jovial french police force as i learn to count to three in french and bring out what ever little shreds of french i have and many gestures. they took some amusement when ones asks "you speak english?" and i answer with a very hearty "Yes!", all good natured, and the lads chief was cracking me up. but all it did was get us to the wrong plaza, so then i asked the lady at that metro and she looked up oru street, which isnt on our maps, and told us the subway route to take there. this one was right.
we get to the hotel finally and shower and just relax. sure being in paris we prolly should have been in the door and out again to explore some great thing and catch her aunt and mum when they got in , but first we didnt know exactly when they got in , and we were pretty well knackered. so we took a day to rest, wandered about the immediate area a bit, found some really really good food (crepes by the way are wonderful). the only channel in english is the travel channel and i decide that becky and i shoudl host a travel show, because we'd be pretty darn funny, she's the sane half normal one- and i'd be the one who's always next thing you know dancing around the fire with the locals singing loudly in a language i dont know. brilliant tv really...i think someone should hook us up for that...
her aunt and mum finally come late that night and i get to meet the women who i've been hearing oh so much about. there is story telling and lots of chocolate passed around before we ourselves pass out.

Day 10
Paris! I wake up early and go to a beautiful mass in a beautiful church down the street, understand next to nothing of what was being said, but enjoyed the experiance anyways. come back, avail of the free break fast and lunch that iw ould make out of it and come back up to chill and read while waiting for the others to rise. we got a late start, but we all needed the rest. traveling will do that to ya. hit up paris, decide that buying the day pass for the metro is a very very good idea as we got adept at wandering through the labyrinth that is the parisan metro system. go to Notre Dame, smaller than i expected! but then after running around st peters for a week, anything would seem small. im taking pictures galore when suddenly the worst happens, my camera battery dies! nooooo!!!! so then i end up grabbing their cameras quite often through out the trip to satisfy my little photographer self. we get to the Louvre, run into a friend of mine, but are there just as they are about to close, so we look around a bit that we can without paying and then leave to the next adventure...the eiffel tower.
let me say that the best time to see the tower is at night, to time it so that you are watching the sunset from the tower then see bejeweled paris in all her beauty as the cloak of darkness covers her. then to come down from the highest heights of the tower (very recommended by the way) to gaze at the glowing shining beauty... i dont really have words for that experiance except to say that i was giddy as a five year old and very happy and excited and hyper and it all made it worth it. and watching all the couples in one of the most romantic spots in the world made me wishin' a whole lot for a certain someone back in the states....
we eat dinner in a lovely little cafe where i get real french onion soup-in france! and it is certainly the best i've ever had!
a short sorjourn in paris, but i promised myself to come back, becasue there is just too much to see and experiance....

Day 11 - the long way home.
Wake up early, grab breakfast and a cup of tea, able to say goodbye to the lovely guimont clan that took me in and took care of me, then off to the post office to try to figure out how to mail some letters before starting the long journey home...
ended up surrounded by a lovely french family with the cutest little boy on the metro who helped me through getting to Charles de Gaul air port which by the way is much easier said than done. finally get to the air port, to the right terminal even (the place is huge!) and find, oh the self check in machines are broken, and i dont have a printed itinerary... but i was smart enough to write down all my info on a easy to read sheet and the desk is able to make one for me herself and stamp it to make it look official and so after standing in a horribly long and slow queue i speed through while many of my other compatriots are struggling and getting hasseled. come on now lads, you're my parents age, certainly you know this by now, when it comes to airports, if you make it easy for them, they'll make it easy for you.
survive check in and wander my way into the waiting area, meeting ppl as i usually do. have an interesting conversation with a few from wisconsin (who didnt know eachother and were all happy to find neighbors practically) who loved how irish i was before getting on the plane, meeting another couple of really nice californians who i kept talking to as we wound ourselves through the british airways system to our next flights. i get to heathrow and im all ready knackered. i just want to go home to ireland, it was a great trip, but im just so ready to be home, missing irish voices and people and the land so much, i figure i might just kiss the ground when i get there.
finally hop onto my aer lingus flight that takes me home. upon sight of those green fields i break out into a big giddy smile, nearly cry i am so happy. home, finally home. course once i land the cold irish weather breaks a little bit of that up, but still no matter, i was home, and thats all that mattered. i was home.

and so thats the story! an eventful trip for sure, with a good mix of good and bad, crazy and extreme ups and downs...but certainly one i wont forget. but it sure is good to be home. i am always amazed by how much i miss ireland when i leave it and how happy i get as soon as i get on that plane home. gotta love this country....

and my parents come today!

Date:	2006-02-21 14:25
Subject:	Malaga/Torremolinos
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

Back from the latest European adventure! Me and the girls jetted off to Torremolinos which is on the southern tip of spain. us and the rest of ireland/england/austrailia it seems. you know you've hit a major tourist area when in many restaurants the union jack is marking all the english menus. oh and i counted three irish pubs in torremolinos alone. no i didnt go to any of them..the harp was closed when we went out!- i was sorely tempted to go and have a pint in an irish pub-in spain, or least just get a picture of sitting in one.
Torremolinos where we stayed is a smaller city/town on the coast that in many ways reminds me of the retirement populatoin of parts of Florida-but it is beautiful. the place is full of mountains and hills and the city itself is built into the hill so that one just continues to go up and find more terraced roads and plazas. truly seeing an old world town for the first time, brilliant.
malaga, which we were in name visiting, we got to once and it wasn't the most beautiful city ive seen, but we got there in time for carnival and walked by this huge production going on in a main square. and one of the main roads into malaga reminds me very much of savannah.
the natural beauty of this region...enormus. the mountains rise up so high and clear and the water is a perfect saphire blue to match the sky. just off in the horizon i was sure i could see the morrocan coast as a dark brown line over the brilliant blue. me and the girls spent two days lounging on a beach in the mediteranean-life doesnt get much better than that!
we also found our own little pub, which never seemed to have many ppl in it, but we had good craic joking with the locals and our bartender (yes we've claimed him as ours). the hostel (which i was very pleasantly suprised wtih ) was grand as well, even during a street wide black out. yes mobiles can be used for party lights...
all in all, a very good, very needed retreat and trip for the three of us as we were extremely humbled in our command of spanish and grateful for the kindness of some of those that we met. ciao!

Date:	2006-02-16 03:05
Subject:	Ceili time!
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy

For those that don't know what a ceili is, its a big irish dance event, similiar to going square dancing in the US or original barn dances, but we dance reels and such and it degenerates into general hyper chaos, but its absolutely brilliant, wonderful craic all together! i had forgotten how much fun a ceili is...and my tolerance to getting spun so that i ought to be stumbling dizzy.

i've managed to insert myself into another group of irish as the ceili was held by An Chullacht- the irish society and so i sat listening to essentially english/irish creole all night. brilliant. its so cool to hear things and realize..wait...i know that!

my accent continues to be a general source of amusement and amazement for irish friends. recently i have been welsh, irish, scottish, and northern irish....all in the same conversations it seems... interesting...

slan!

Date:	2006-01-31 04:23
Subject:	recent adventures...
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

all right, so i really don't update this nearly as much as i should, but i have an excuse! i was working like mad last week, didnt get any decent craic till thursday night at all like!
okie, sooo last weekend i went to Glendalough with Jenn and Katherine and amidst all sort of transportation issues we learned about the kindness of the irish again and when we finally go there...wow, soo beautiful! yahoo was being mean and wouldnt let me put all of my pictures up, but i got a few decent ones up there...
hehe and i saw city slickers for the first time over there. NORMAN!!!! :-D

more recent adventures... its official, the new favorite irish past time is not hurling, nor speculating on the personal life of bertie ahern, its figuring out just what county my accent is from and shaking their heads in disbelief when i tell them im american. i had to show my drivers liscense and garda id to prove it tonight.....again. i mean i was getting the accent pretty bad last term, but truth be told i was still identifiably american a good chunk of the time. now, american, what american? i thought you had an irish housemate! i am now known among gaetan's friends as the american girl who sounds like she's irish and we all thought she was irish. but what is really mad is that irish kids, from both the republic, and northern ireland, think im irish...wow, its actually really cool, but im kinda getting tired of the dumbfounded look on their faces... i really oughta just say im third year arts and i grew up in douglas, because thing is, they'd believe me.... one lad tonight was swearing up and down i was a cork girl, some friends of mine were holding a debate of where i was from ranging from northern ireland, germany/ireland, or cork/kerry. assimilation has officially set in- especially since i was seen at a pub wearing a shrug and my jeans tucked into my boots-its official... ive blended in...

Date:	2006-01-16 16:50
Subject:	Lovely Eire....
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

I realize that it has been such a long time since i've updated this one, i'll try to do a better job on it, i promise!
so recent adventures...
Lately i've been going to the ovens pub on saturday afternoons for their trad session that they hold there. and as i've been going ive been getting to know teh musicians, members of their families etc. its a wonderful eye into irish culture, beyond the classroom, being as that is only a small portion! oh and i learned quite a bit about Cornwall and the Cornish thanks to Paul's (the flutist) sister's boyfriend, who is from Cornwall and darn proud of it! I think the man may just have more pride in Cornwall than the average corkman this year. and that is saying alot. who never knew the cornish were such fiesty buggers? or that they hated the english so much, or that they have retained a certain amount of autonomy, some are moving for a free republic again, and thanks to their mining resources, they might actually be economically viable. resources the british shut down to buy their minerals cheaper from brazil. yeah they werent too happy about htat, or anything the british do for that manner. so he finds a welcome home here in ireland.

next adventure was dinner at mary's while this shouldnt sound like an adventure, it is worth mention because when else am i going to be that well fed! mmmmm such good salmon, lasagna, mashed potatoes and even a bit of wine, and oooo ice cream! and oooo i got to have seconds!!!! came back and was in such a food coma, mmmm nice and stuffed. i was joking with one of the girls that that was my food for the next two days. oh and yes we're all 20/21 and we're still 12, the boys all sat in one room and the girls all sat in the other :-P we;re so cool.

on a side note i have been doing my rendition of a 15 year old boy for the past few days, something that earned me some brownie points in irish class today for trying to talk anyways, and exempted me from the marjority of participation. yay!

Date:	2005-12-03 21:30
Subject:	inniu i gCorcaigh
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

today in cork...

so having a strict to do list for today turned into wandering aimlessly around cork, my camera in hand, actually accomplishing the errands i needed to do, but not getting anything done at home.

its been awhile since ive just wandered around cork and i had some fun adventures while i was at it. i must admit this is waht i like about living in a foreign city, or traveling on my own, is that i can just wander and i end up meeting people and doing things i probably wouldnt have done if i had had friends with me. i always seem to find myself in the middle of someone's family. honestly, like it hasnt happened yet, but i wouldnt be surprised to be the kid who gets taken home for dinner while she's wandering around some random little irish town by herself.
todays adventures:
breakfast at gingerbread house with attempted studying

sang in the street (with some ppl trying to raise money for the homeless)

had to endure subsequent conversion attempt (convert the heathen catholic!!!!)
-side note on this, it both amuses and annoys me when ever this happens :"are you a christian?" "yes" "grand!" -10 minutes later- "oh wait, so you're catholic?" (and saying this proudly) "why yes i am" "oh...." convert heathen button is subsequently pushed. i mean its good to hear the gospel from the mouth of a stranger and get reminded of it and you can't really deny half of it and it serves as a reminder to us all, but oy the "well....so have you accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior???" ummm, i serve as a Eucharistic minister occationally and just hit up confession at Peter and Pauls, i think im pretty good on that one, thank you. sometimes i think its a bigger deal to try to convert a catholic than a buddhist, yeesh....-

anyways....stopped in a pub for a trad session
spoke in irish
studied my irish
moved from the edge of the "audience" (families of the muscians) to sitting in the middle by the mothers and children
was given candy
felt wonderfully at home

took lots of pictures, wandered around corn market street
sucessfully managed to make myself look sketchy by taking pictures on corn market street
found what will do for advent candles (proper ones were less than what i found, but i have a serious lack of a wreath and taper holders...) i love how my advent wreath is four little candles sitting on a makeup compact with a red calender candle pushed up between them. yup i am that cool
search for said candles took me all over cork.
and this was all roughly before 4pm, ending with me finding said candles and finally wandering back home.

i cant wait to see people at home, but im going to miss this country like whoa as i was telling Essie at the pub.

oh and laura is my hero for cuddle duds that were well used last week and that i shoulda brought with me when i had gone to scotland. oh and for knorrs soups. laura i love you.

Cronaim thu!
Is maith liom tu

Date:	2005-12-02 20:51
Subject:	Nollaig Shona Dhuit!
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

ok, so its a little early to be saying merry christmas, but see cork is gearing up for it and the lights throughout the city are up and shining, patrick and plunkett streets were packed today... i had this whole eloquent phrasing of my observations today, but that has since now fled and followed the Lee to the sea.

cork is looking wonderful and i cant wait till one of my housemates comes home becasue we're going to set about making the place a little ready for the season! it'll be good to go home for a visit, although it means that all my semester only girls are going to be gone!!!! that is a tragedy, but it'll be good to be home, to be with family, and come on y'all, its december! christmas is coming up! hehe

oh i love how there is a country music american idolesque program on TG4, the all irish tv station. just had to note that the local love of country music is something that continously amuses and amazes me. an irish friend of mine told me once that country music was the vernacular music of ireland, not trad music, and as much as ive seen little bits and pieces (and they love elvis in cork, much to my memphis roommates dismay) i must agree with him, but it is still to my endless amusement. only in this country...

also note, i have irish exams coming up, which means there will be even more unreadable gibberish up here than normal!

Sla`n abhaile

Date:	2005-11-25 13:22
Subject:	turkey day!!!
Security:	Public
Mood:	content

Thankgiving went off brilliantly yesterday, for the first one away from most of our families, i think we all fared pretty well. the food, all us, the turkeys- perfect, even still got to be a little bit of a carnivore, which was just grand. we had becky's brothers and dad there so there was a bit of a family presence, and of course gaetan who has as the oldest of us appointed himself the father figure, aya now i have a french "daddi", its funny tho, at least someone is looking out for me right?

anyways, the food and company were amazing, looking forward to turkey and stuffing sandwhiches for the next like week. this is my first thanksgiving away from home, but you kno what, i survived and i actually had a really great time. having such great housemates and friends here is one of the things i was most thankful for at this years thanksgiving.

ok, so it's been forever since i've updated this thing- ta` bron orm! anyways since the last post i've....

run around scotland
run around with irish and french friends
had misadventures dealing with public transportation
went to a charity ball with a bunch of friends
and just put one of my closest friends on a plane heading back to the states.

edinburgh and glasgow were grand, it was sooo cold though! glasgow strangely enough reminds me greatly of baltimore, although the people are nicer. i really can't understand a word they say, but they are just so nice and helpful! and im bummed becasue security from ireland to scotland is less than going seriously from atlanta to JFK, so no cool little scottish stamp in my passport, but i do have lots of scottish pence left...

went to the charity ball run by iona(college chaplaincy) to raise money for africa with the girls and my friend was finally able to get there in his dress blues despite all sorts of misadventures including an emergency landing in newfoundland! had a great weekend and now its time to start getting ready for Thanksgiving!!!! woot! we're going to have turkey and everything! it'll be weird to have my first thanksgiving away from home, but it'll be with ippl are pretty much like family anyways so it'll all be just grand!

so im loving one of my sociology classes, sociology of the middle east, because finally i feel like its something im ready to just walk into, and im proud to be one of the champion hand raisers in the class, its so nice to be out of basic and intro classes into a small class where you can really discuss etc. our teacher is an american actually and i love the fact that shes a sociologist for once actually qualified to teach a certain perspective, after living for 15 years in palestine/egypt (mostly in palestine). some of the things she brings up are challengig, but thats good, and ok, but most of it is stuff that while i havent read the sociologists she has or done her fieldwork, i pretty much already believed thanks to my experiances with muslim coworkers and friends. and ive known for awhile that my opinions differ greatly from a majority of my countrymen. has it been because i dared to befriend the "Other" (big sociology term..) because i couldnt truly accept everything the media said, especially after doig journalism courses and knowing just how biased and immflamtory it is. thing is im not afraid of islam or muslims, unlike so many other people i know. muslim to me is my coworker, my friend, hailing from iran, pakistan, india, n. africa etc. we cannot deny the Golden Age during Islamic Spain that while the rest of Europe was in teh dark ages, on the iberian there was algebra, astronomy, medicine, art , music, greco-roman texts preserved and translated into arabic etc.
so what happened? the crusades, the inquisition (also known as the reconquista) and other such events.
i just get so angry when all i hear is references to the muslim population as one barbaric whole when that is nothing but a very narrowminded and orientalist point of view. nothing is ever that simple, and im sorry, but my friends are not babarbaric, nor are their husbands and sons. history is always written by the victors and is colored accordingly. i think we need to take a serious look at that coloring before we continue to pick up the verbal arms. if we get so angry when people do that to us, then we are no better than biblical pharisees when we do the same. there are good people there, many, and by the way, not everything about the west is perfect and good, and everything has to be understood in a historical context, to not do so is to completely miss the mark. and thats me being a sociologist for the day thank you. my "fieldwork" may not be as indepth or professional as that of some, but i learn very quickly and the one thing i haver learned, is whatever your views of the war, islam, or the east, the biggest mistake is to lump them all in as "the Other"

Date:	2005-10-25 11:31
Subject:	Ta` se` grianmhar!
Security:	Public
Mood:	Ta`im go hiontach

Irish for "It is sunny!" yay! days of rain finally gave way (my weather report to everyone back home for the past week has been "its still raining") so happy! brilliant! its a beautiful autumn day and despite only 5 hours of sleep everything is just grand! i get to meet with the photographer i'm doing an internship with tommorrow and show off my pictures (which predicates that i work on them tonight...) and even better yet it is only one more day until my sister arrives in ireland!!!!!! i cannot wait until mi princepesa gets here from Roma, between her, me, and emily it is bound to be some good craic. what will be left of cork we cannot say, but it will have been worth it!
in other great news, just found out that in april my grandma mary will be sailing with some friends around england or so, and being as im only in ireland, there is a chance that they can make cork a port of call! i love living on a harbor, makes so many things possible! so that just completely made my night last night, my housemates (my room seems to have become a gathering place for three of us) were laughing because i was jumping up and down so excitedly as well as one of my friends who was on webcam. i can't even begin to explain how absolutely brilliant that all is! Ta`im ar muin na muice! (lit. "im on the pigs back" use. "im great!!!!!") in such a good mood today! (oh yeah, i cant see to make the "fada"'s work right, so a` is supposed to be a with accent on top)

Irish for "It is sunny!" yay! days of rain finally gave way (my weather report to everyone back home for the past week has been "its still raining") so happy! brilliant! its a beautiful autumn day and despite only 5 hours of sleep everything is just grand! i get to meet with the photographer i'm doing an internship with tommorrow and show off my pictures (which predicates that i work on them tonight...) and even better yet it is only one more day until my sister arrives in ireland!!!!!! i cannot wait until mi princepesa gets here from Roma, between her, me, and emily it is bound to be some good craic. what will be left of cork we cannot say, but it will have been worth it!
in other great news, just found out that in april my grandma mary will be sailing with some friends around england or so, and being as im only in ireland, there is a chance that they can make cork a port of call! i love living on a harbor, makes so many things possible! so that just completely made my night last night, my housemates (my room seems to have become a gathering place for three of us) were laughing because i was jumping up and down so excitedly as well as one of my friends who was on webcam. i can't even begin to explain how absolutely brilliant that all is! Ta`im ar muin na muice! (lit. "im on the pigs back" use. "im great!!!!!") in such a good mood today!

Date:	2005-10-16 14:23
Subject:	oh the craic
Security:	Public
Mood:	peaceful

It's been a truly marvelous weekend, good times with the international european students and my emily on friday night, with the american's for a birthday last night. I've met a whole new set of people through Tae Kwon Do and its jsut lovely to have an extended group. Tae Kwon Do as well- brilliant, just grand to be able to get back into gear, into the discipline and everything. and bit by bit im feeling my way around the school dojang and eventually i'll have found my place as a returned senior student. and i've been invited to join the hapkido classes as well so that i have a place to use my jujitzu training. if all goes to plan i'll be having quite a bit of martial arts this year, and i don't mind that one bit. its wonderful to be in that again- despite the fact that all my muscles hurt today.

Another wonderful thing today was finally going to the Honan chapel for mass- a good proper one! this place, ireland as a whole, and then the campus min i know i can find here along with some other campus opportunities- it makes the past two years at school worth it to come here. it really does.

Date:	2005-10-12 17:32
Subject:	Kerry
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

so yet again, every time i think i've been to the most beautiful place in ireland i find another- this time Caherdaniel in Co. Kerry. The Loyola kids went there wiht Mary Breen, our falculty lady that takes care of us, and we stayed in the this darling little summer home of a poet who's from cork and now lives most of the year teaching in vermont! i read a book of his poems while there- brilliant. its so wonderful to be able to read those poems and to know what he's talking about, when he mentions cork i know! i know where patricks street is, this and that walk, the general character of the city etc, and its so cool that i can get into that!
the view from the house was magnificant, i woke up at the dawn both days to take pictures, absolutely gorgeous. you could see the moutains all around, then the bay, and the sand flat that is covered in high tide and walkable in low. its a slice of heaven!
katherine and i went for a walk around and i just kept stopping and going "My God this is beautiful" its breath taking and wonderful. i talked to a classmate from Kerry yesterday and told him i was there and he was all about it and how beautiful it was as well.
oddly enough however, i didnt feel as much of a connection to this place as to the little rock off the coast of galway known as inisheer, perhaps because it was missing the rough, raw beauty being in a more protected harbor, i dont know, but it is easily one of the most beautiful places i have ever seen.
off in the bay are many small islands and they recede into the mist reminding you of some fantasy story. yet why should that be surprising when most fantasy literature is of celto-brittanic legend tradition, the world of tolkien and others must have been inspired by places like the west of ireland. you could easily see Oisin coming back to these shores after centuries in Tir na Lugh, amazing really....
and then to top it off, if having a retreat practically in this amazing place where we could sleep, write, read, and walk, on sunday morning we got to ride horses across the beach! i did quite decently on english saddle if i do say so myself! i didnt want to get down, an hour was too short a time! been sooo long since i was last on a horse- and i want to go again!
we also met these two wonderful ladies, Elenor who is 83 and still an active artist, and her friend Snoo who is 73 and into all sorts of things, they are both Mary's students at the UCC outreach center that is providing degrees for ppl in the area. i would love to do a photographic essay on both of them, they are such wonderful characters, my own Grandma Mary would fit right in for a cuppa at Elenor's table. :)

oh yeah forgot to say that in dublin there is this place called the covered market, and its got shops on the outer edges and in the middle improvised little stalls, shops, stands etc, i have never seen such beautiful skirts and scarves as i saw there, some of the most beaituful i have ihave ever seen, all made from sari's or in that style, embroidered, beaded, you name it. i wanted to buy everything and in the end bought nothing. :( but i got coasters, always remember the coasters.

Date:	2005-10-03 12:29
Subject:	Adventures in Dublin
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

So i've officially now been to Dublin, seen most the sites and i must say- it never really hit us that we were there. its alot like cork really, just bigger, and with tourists. lots of them. there's a river, some buildings, narrow streets, a couple outdoor markets, lots of ppl, and of course, lots and lots of pubs. like the celt, or temple bar.
been there, seen that, got the tshirt- saturday sat down with the girls at the imfamous Temple Bar for a pint- proceeded to snatch as many of the different little beer coasters that we could and people watched outside the window.
By far my favorite experiance in dublin was our time friday and saturday at teh Celt. this pub was right around the corner from our hostel and was recommended to us by the hostel manager (who looked like he oughta own some pizza shop in NYC, but i think he's from limerick)who also went there with us a couple other kids the first night. this is a place for the locals, where everybody knows eachother, and even after teh lights come on and the last call made, the owner is picking friends out of the crowd and throwin them the mike to make them sing some more.
sitting there, with terms, phrases, and theories from sociology class, watching teh evident display of communitas, i couldn't help but think "God I'm going to miss this country". Ended up dancing a bit of a storm there saturday night, afterwards i found myself inexplicably airborn thanks to an engergetic old latvian who was just smitten with irish culture that night. this place is like a little hole in the wall, and yet is so welcoming.... when we went back on saturday i met again ppl who i had seen the night before and they were so happy to see us, knew that i had two friends with me and all that. oh yeah and i had an american thinking i was a local at one point. that was funny let me tell you.
so that was dublin, oh and guinness chocolate bars rock my socks.
oh also, what is with this thing about charging us to go to a church? if you're not there for a service, you have to pay to go into christ church and st patricks cathedral, and appearantly into st finnbarr's here too. ok, here's my short little rant, but come on ppl, this is a church! they say its because there is no funding and im thinking, what about the church of ireland, can they not keep their own churches intact? now many ppl may complain about the accumulated wealth of the catholic church and how much it has and what is uses are for etc, but here's the point- it doesnt cost you a single euro to enter st. peters, the shrine back in dc, thomas moore, or st mary's in dublin. not a penny. you can go into any catholic church, free of charge, and take pictures, or pray to your heart's content. not so for the church of ireland's big churches. sooo yeah, there is my rant...

okie so i know i havent updated in awhile- nothing much interesting been going on around here since last time, but now for the adventures of this weekend.
Early Start semester ended on thursday and the class had a great dinner at a local hotel and there were adventures to be had afterwards.
Friday was the school Ceili! I was so excited because it was the first ive been able to go to and it was so fun. Because everyone there was international students, no one knew what they were doing and so it didnt matter that we all made absolute fools out of our selves! Walked over there with my new French housemate and got into his group for one of the reels- me and three French kids, that was hiliarious. so had alot of fun there!
then came home and it was girl movie night, Marena had brought some marvelous cookies....mmmm...cookies....

Saturday me and the girls first wentto Fota wildlife park and then to Cobh were most of the irish emigrants left from and where the White Star and Cunard lines made their ports of call and the last stop for both the Titanic and the Lusitania. The cathedral there is absolutely beautiful! the rain held out until we were back on the train going back home to cork. and then we walked home in the monsoon.
its all right though, because once we were all dried off the cooking began and it went off just brilliantly. a combined effort between both houses produced: wine, tossed caesar salad, chicken alfredo(from scratch), garlic bread, and a wonderful dessert from scratch that involved apples but whose name we're fuzzy on.
we had second girls movie night after that, all happily stuffed and sappy. all i can say is thank God i live with a bunch of girls, thats the only way that wonderful events like this come into being!

Date:	2005-09-18 17:41
Subject:	Who needs men, i have an island...
Security:	Public
Mood:	hungry

So we went to Inishere (class trip) and i fell in love with that island, it is added on my ever growing i know list of places that i would like to, could live. it is a place of rugged, raw natural beauty and human warmth. the community was described to me as close knit and yet your privacy was respected. the islanders are a different breed, independent, proud of their island and their gaeltecht culture. every time i think i have found the most beautiful part of ireland i am surprised by yet another part. it is on the western coast, from the heights of the cliffs of moher on the mainland that you truly see why ireland is called the emerald isle. it is an emerald with a splashing dark saphire sea around it in a range of beauty that i have not seen in such a long time!
On the way there in Spiddel, i acquired my new friend Inish- my very own bodhran! i'm glad i waited because i got a better price and of the drum i got. it is hand made by one of the few hand makers of bodhrans left in ireland, i bought the drum from him, got a bit of a tutorial and everything. its so cool for an instrument like that to have it leave the hands of its creator straight into the hands of its new player. that was on thursday. i played in my first session friday night. :) so this is my new friend that has been attached to me since, sooo happy!
we also saw teh cliffs of moher, from which i could see my island (and vice versa) plus the irish country side, arguably one of the most beautiful places on earth.
every new place i see in irelandmakes me want to stay. especially "my island". it is windy and cold, but it is beautiful, and peaceful, with people, and yet without them. if i could ever live there... i cant wait to go back, in a way it feels like i'd be going back home...

oh and i'm cooking dinner for becky! not the other way around! yay!

Date:	2005-09-14 12:41
Subject:	Being "Irish -American"
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative

Its amazing how the cure to a temporary bout of homesickness can be cured by going to the local pub and hearing irish music. the difference between this and every other pub is that i could dance, and not just tap my foot, but kick off my burks, grab a classmate and twirl around or attempt to step. notice i was doing this while wearing a bright red cowboy hat. and the line between an american do-si-do and the bits and pieces of set dance that i have picked up are not that much. and i was wearing a cowboy hat, but speaking in what reportably came out as a scottish accent. its funny, no one can believe im american, even when its blatently obvious. i love it. the cowboy hat comes from simply living in cork and having team spirit- the team is called the rebels and for various political and social reasons these title is a very important one to the ppl of cork and never is it more evident than now. everywhere can be see the shirt that says "peoples republic of cork"- in english or gaelic. even the heineken adverts on st patrick street are themed this way. they have taken these phrases and symbols and made them their own, in ways that are perhaps troubling to the average american. mention of communism makes most of us ancy, but worse was seeing the confederate flag, yes the confederate flag, being waved next to the cork red and white. thats also where the cowboy hat comes from we figured. their take on it is obviously much different, but it was quite unnerving and unreal to see these three symbols all come together in one place. its funny how things can be taken from one context and then completely changed to fit another.
but back to being irish american. i was called one night by an irish chap i had been talking to "Irish-American". I had been very surprised to hear the title, but i understand, we had just been talking about my upbringing with irish music and culture, my love for it, the nearness of an irish pub to my house, and the accent that i had aquired that night after a couple of pints it seems and a decent pronunciation of a gaelic phrase i can no longer remember.
so monday night i was feeling very "IrishAmerican" in that i was both a student at cork, yet very american in dress (down to the hat) and manner, i danced an irish dance, but took the male parts in the set dance (the hat) with a bit of a western flair. i readily and quickly identified myself as being from DC, yet appearantly spoke with a scottish accent ( i knew i had one, but i wasnt even trying to place it). then there was the music. now the country/bluegrass/applacian music of the american tradition stems from the scotch-irish immigrants that moved into those areas. you see their legacy in the line dances, square and barn dances, in the ballads, the fiddle, the songs and so on. and in the pub i heard songs that could very easily have been the older generation before immigration. there were many songs that were brought to america and then adapted, changin place names etc, but still essentially the same song.
so while reeling about in an essentially irish pub (low tables and stools, settle benches) to music from every province i was feeling the most at home. and thats the grand irony isnt it? sometimes the traditions that were brought over are the first to be forgotten in the home country, and the last to be forgotten in the new

Date:	2005-09-11 18:41
Subject:	We won!!!!!
Security:	Public
Mood:	bouncy

Woot! we won the Guinness All Ireland Hurling Championship against Galway! It was an amazing game, won by 5 points, the teams were neck and neck the whole way through, almost getting point for point, it was great to watch! Went to the Old Oak to watch the game with everyone else and the joy that went through there when we won.. one area looked like WYD with the big waving Cork flags and ppl dancing and singing- and that was just in the pub. The pubs are going to be wild tonight! Tommorrow there is a welcome home parade for the team and the homecoming also held at teh Old Oak, tonight is going to bed early, doing laundry etc, and tommorrow is more hurling stuff! So proud to be running around in my cork polo- sporting the mighty red. WE DID IT! GO REBELS, THREE YEARS IN A ROW!