Recent Adventures

This blog post is dedicated to my nana, Carol Boyle and my roommate Kate's nana, Vera Dubenetsky. Both of these amazing women passed away this week, but we love them very

much and will never forget how beautiful and stong they were.

It is now Thursday so I have had all of my classes twice. I'll tell you a little bit about them!

On Monday I have science in the morning with Stephen, who is also our program director. He actually makes learning science fun! I never knew that was possible!

After his class I have Northern Ireland history with Kelli, which is a very interesting class about the British and Scottish settlements here and the fight for the land that the Irish feel is rightfully theirs. But Kelli mentioned something that I think pertains to many different areas of the world as well. She said that the British, at this point, have been settled in Northern Ireland for longer than America has been an independent country, and it would not be fair to kick them out just because the Irish want to be an entirely independent country. Food for thought if you will.

On Tuesday I don't have class so I generally try to work on my blog but yesterday I had the opportunity to go the the National Museum of Ireland with the Early Irish History class (also taught by Kelli) where we looked at the stages of Irish history prior to the Viking settlements. In Ireland there are large areas of land that are just peat bogs, which today they burn for fuel and heat. But in ancient Ireland these were basically just dumps so when they are collecting the peat they often find jewerly, pottery, weapons and even bodies. In the museum they have a few of these bodies, which we have deemed bog bodies or the peat people. Their remains, due to the acids in bogs, are really well preserved. Most of them have few bones but their skin is so in tact you can see their hair, tattoos, even their nail and eyes. Yes it is a little gross, but at the same time incredibly interesting. I wish I had pictures to share, but no photography was allowed.

On Wednesday I have my science class again and later today we are going to a grave yard to look at the weathering of different types of rocks, marble, limestone, granite etc. and since the dates are already on them we can track the effects of Ireland's weather on these stones.

Later I have my Writing the City class where I get to go out in the city and write about the pastry shops, stores, restaurants, museums and the zoo! This is the first time they have offered the class so we are still working out the budgeting issues associated with going to all these places week after week.

On Thursday (my last day of school for the week!) I have my non-profit marketing class with Lucy Masterson, who is a firecracker, and completely enthralled by our Americanisms-for lack of a better word. We will be working with her and other official offices in Dublin this semester to better some aspect of Dublin's society. Last semester the students worked on a campaign to increase the participation of young people in primary elections (similar to America's "Rock the Vote"). The other group set up an initiative to recycle more and help prevent so much littering, not a problem we see often in the states but is still very prevalent here. Both groups presented to "higher ups" and had their plans set into action. It's cool to know that something we will be working on will have a lasting effect even after we leave.

After Lucy's class I have Modern Irish Social History with Anthony O'Halloran, who is actually currently co-writing a book with Chenga Ragaven, a professor at the University of Hartford and father of a high school friend of mine, Samara. Such a small world. In this class we are learning about the effects of past laws and rulers on modern Ireland as well as the participation and authority of the Catholic church and how it has lost much of that in the past 20 years or so. We will be taking a field trip in this class soon to Tipperary County to see a working farm! Last week we discussed how many of the pubs in the countryside of Ireland are closing and thus isolating many of the people who live out there since pubs are a central part of the society in Ireland. Interesting stuff I think!

Now for some pictures!

Over the weekend I was able to take two very cool trips.

On Saturday I went to St. Michan's church just across the Liffey from our apartments. St. Michan's is one of the oldest churches in Dublin, built originally in 1095 and then large portions were rebuilt in 1686.

Inside the sanctuary there is a beautiful stained glass window. It's huge and lets in lots of light.

At the back of the church is a huge, old organ. The church members raised money for it and had it installed in 1724. Legend has it that Handel played the organ in the church many years ago. It's huge!

Underneath the organ is something called the 'Organ Thropy' which has violins, flutes and harps (oh my) carved on it. It's stunning as there are no less than 17 instruments carved on it.

After looking around the church briefly we heard a voice coming from the back of the room that said, in a very creepy monotone voice, "who wants to see the mummies?" Well of course I wanted to see the mummies, as did almost everyone there. Our "tourguide" reminded me a lot of Lurch but was much shorter. He took us around the side of the church and led us down this:

No I am not joking, and yes we did go in! The stairs were a bit slippery and the walls were crumbling but it was certainly worth it.

When we made it down the stairs and into the crypt Kate and Emma noted how this reminded them of Thriller and naturally a short dance followed:

You can see the crypt in the background. This is one of the only portions of the church that is original and thus over 900 years old.

Warning: there are pictures of mummies below. They aren't gross though, I swear.

(mom I promise you won't be grossed out.)

As far as the mummies go, the one of the left is anonymous because it had decayed to beyond recognition. The middle mummy was a reformed criminal and the one on the right was a nun who was over 100 years old when she died. In the back is a 4th mummy, and he was a crusader, they know this because his legs were crossed when they buried him.

Much to our surprise we were allowed to TOUCH THE MUMMY! Normally this is something I would not be too keen on but, when in Dublin right? Don't worry, hundreds or thousands of people have done this before me and it's supposed to bring you good luck.

And just to prove I did go down in the crypt and did make it back out, here is me rejoining the world. Thankful to see the light of day again.

Hooray! I survived the mummies!

My second trip is not nearly as gruesome.

Katherine, Casey, Kate, Emma and myself all took a day trip to Bray with the intention of hiking the 4km to Greystones. We hoped on the DART around 11:00 am, which is a really inexpensive way to travel around the Dublin area and towns just outside the county.

Just for fun, here's a picture of the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit)

It took us about 30 minutes to ride to Bray, not a bad trip and the scenery was beautiful.

When we got to Bray we hoped off the train, took a right and headed straight to the beach. It was BEAUTIFUL to say the least and the first thing out of Emma's mouth was, "This place makes me less homesick!"

On our way down to the water we walked by this charming driveway, I couldn't resist showing you all a picture because it was so serene and right out of a movie--but in real life!

I don't know if it was the sunshine or the salty sweet air but Bray relaxed all the city stress right out of us all. Here is the rock beach we walked onto.

We found a jetty and decided to walk out on it and take a few pictures. Below are Katherine and Casey!

As you can see we had exceptionally beautiful weather for Ireland and temperatures were mildly warm, I even wore shorts!

We lounged around on the beach for a good long while and as it became apparent we weren't going to make the 4km trek to Greystones we decided to walk down the boardwalk at least and get some lunch.

Here is a picture of some of the beach front homes in Bray. I think I'd like one someday!

After lunch we wandered into the aquarium, but tickets were a bit pricey so we just looked at the little fishy exhibit in the lobby and played with some of the toys in the gift shop. They had this little lego scuba guy set up and I thought he was pretty cool. So did the 5-year old boys next to me.

They also decided that it was the starfish's birthday and sang to him. Happy Birthday to Starfish!

After our short trip to the aquarium we wandered back down the board walk and watched the sun set and I saw a few sailboats, like this one:

Out in the water enjoying the sunset.

I hope to make it back to Bray soon and actually make the walk to Greystones as I heard that it is also beautiful. But just getting out of the city was a nice change of pace for all of us.

That's about all from me this week. Tomorrow morning we go to the GNIB aka Immigration building and pay them lots of money to have them let us stay here. I hope you enjoy reading this and I will try to update it earlier next week.

Love you all lots and lots.

Smiling from Bray!