January 15, 2011 - Day 2

I woke up in the middle of the night (I don't know what time it was because there was no clock!!!) to pee because I was pretty sure that I would die if I didn't and when I got back in bed it took me a couple hours to sleep despite my exhaustion.

Breakfast at the hotel was great! Eight a.m. came pretty early after I finally fell asleep. We ate a continental breakfast, which is usually adequate and mediocre, but at the Buswells Hotel it was delicious. Especially the blueberry muffin, tea, and marmalade and toast.

We set off as a group for the national library to see the Yeats Exhibit. It was pretty neat to see his manuscripts and especially his occult stuff but I have to admit that I was slightly bored, despite my literary interests. I guess Yeats isn't my favorite...

On the way from the Yeats Exhibit to Dublinia, we walked through St. Stephen's Green. There were birds everywhere, and even if though it was winter the grass and plants were very green and beautiful. 

 

After the Yeats Exhibit, we zipped on over to Dublinia, a museum detailing Viking and medieval Ireland. It was a blast! Everything was interactive, so Erin, Kelly, and I got into everything. We put on tunics, helmets, chain mail, made rubbings of our names in the Viking alphabet, got pictures with the statues, etc. It was so fun. 

 So after all of that foolishness, we went into Christ Church Cathedral. It was very large and holy and there was a stained glass window depicting St. Finbar among many others but...it was Finbar!

We went into the crypt which had some cool stuff you couldn't take pictures of like silver guilt chalices and flagos. Next to the crypt was the "Foxy Friars Gift Shop" which was either a reference to something I don't know or really irreverent.

After Christ Church, we were on our own. Finally. Being with the group can be dead annoying. Kelly, Erin, and I set off for the Guinness Brewery. We stopped at a café along the way and I had fish and chips and a diet coke for dinner. I was really uncomfortably full after that. We walked  in the freezing wind and drizzle down the river Liffey to where we believed the brewery was located. What should have been a fifteen minute walk became an hour-and-a-half trudge because we were lost. I kept up a steady flow of comic relief nonetheless.

We finally found the brewery after asking some guards and it was awkward. We walked a bit more and I was so tired I felt like lying down in the street sludge and dying. We went in, payed €11, and entered the brewery.

It was more of a museum of beer than a brewery. We explored it (following the trail of ingredients of stout). It was really neat. It had seven floors and the top one was the sky bar where you got a complimentary Guinness and a 360〫view of Dublin. It was amazing. The Guinness, however, was sickening. It was so bitter and musky, and when it hit the back of my throat I felt really nauseous and it lingered. Bleck. But the view was magnificent. I was really taken with the Wellington Monument and St. Patrick's Tower ("I'm tired of these goddam snakes in this goddam tower!")

*I forgot to mention earlier that, while we were walking from the hotel to Yeats Exhibit to Dublinia, we saw several key sights/sites of the city. We saw a statue of Molly Malone with huge, nearly exposed boobs. Joyce tried to impress us with her knowledge of the song about Molly, but, unfortunately for her, I knew it too so she is stupid. We also traipsed through St. Stephen's Green, a Dublin city park. It was just lovely: ducks, swans, trees, and such. 

We hauled to get home to the hotel before six so Kelly could change and go to Catholic Church. Apparently, if she misses a Sunday mass it could mean badness for her. But we didn't make it...we were almost sprinting really. My legs were on fire and full of fiery pain but we were still too late. So I took a nap when we finally passed out in front of the hotel. My legs hurt so much (but not nearly as much as they would in the coming days.) At least it's only Saturday...if Kelly can get to church by tomorrow night, maybe her soul will be safe. 

After napping we went to the Duke Pub to begin the "Literary Pub Crawl." We all sat upstairs, most drinking, and waited for the actors to begin. They were pretty funny, Frank and Brendan, the actors. They did a scene from Waiting for Godot and talked about Samuel Beckett. From The Duke, we went to O'Neill's but we stopped by Trinity College along the way to talk about Oscar Wilde (O'Neill's is the "college bar"). After that we went to The Old Stand, formerly known as The Monico. The last pub of the crawl was The Davy Byrnes. A man there kept looking at me creepily. I felt very uncomfortable because we kept making awkward eye contact. It was awful. After the crawl, we were so tired we decided to go to sleep. None of us was intoxicated--I point that out now because it becomes important later in the story. We went to bed and every one else went out to party, even though they had had at least one drink at each pub. Also, I'd like to include that I tried a Harp beer and it wasn't awful.

At Guinness, drinking a diet coke because Guinness is gross. Hence, the sad face.

**UPDATED** Pretend Like It's January 13, 2011

We're finally on the plane. Our flight was originally scheduled for January 11, at a comfortable 12 p.m. A short stop in Atlanta before leaving for the Dublin airport was also on the itinerary. Now, our flight departs at 8 a.m., which necessitated a 4 a.m. alarm. I ordered my mom to have breakfast (bacon, eggs, and biscuits with yum blueberry jam) ready at 4:45 a.m. We left the house at around 5:20 a.m., with Dad driving and mom and I cuddling in the back, and arrived at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport at 5:45 a.m. On the way over, I questioned the name of the airport. First of all, Shuttlesworth sounds goofy, although I was informed that it refers to a Mr. Shuttlesworth of the Civil Rights Movement. Second, Birmingham is not an international airport...so I just thought it was weird. As I hugged Mom goodbye, I almost started to cry. Even though I'm excited to go to Ireland, I didn't want to go without her. After all, this is the first airplane ride I've ever been on without a family member present.

Taxiing on the runway, we see ice on the pavement. It's been pushed off to the sides, causing it to form weird boulder-like clumps of snow (or what passes for snow in Alabama).

I'm in seat 11A, a window seat. The aisle seat, 11C is occupied by a woman who has been trying to fly out of Birmingham for four days. On monday, her plane couldn't take off because one of the flighrt attendants hadn't shown up. On her arrival, the flight (which had been delayed two hours already) was cancelled altogether. Her flight Tuesday was cancelled as well. On Wednesday, her flight boarded, but as they prepared for takeoff, they discovered that one of the engines wasn't working properly. After some debate they decided that it was alright...they could fly with one engine. This lady wisely decided to disembark the aircraft and wait until the next day when she could ride a plane with two working engines. I hate to even think it but...I'm afraid she may be bad luck.

At this moment, we have yet to take off. After we taxied from the terminal to the runway, the pilot turned off the engines and told us we had to wait twenty minutes before take off for an unknown reason. Please see above reference to luck...

I'm excited about this trip. And that Kelly and Erin are coming. Good team.

Hopefully I can sleep on the flight from Atlanta to Dublin. I will really need the rest once we land in Ireland. I've got a neck pillow, eye mask, ear plugs, and Tylenol PM...I should be good to go.

Yay! We are about to take off: the engine is quite loud in my seat, and I'm feeling slightly nervous about this flight, although I generally love flying. As always, we shall persever.

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I LOVE FLYING!

I love flying in the way that I love rollercoasters: there is an everpresent, terrifyingly rational fear of death in both pursuits. It's wonderful. Below us lies a sea of clouds. Hills are strange from the sky; they look like ripples in water. This plane is so small you can feel everything: ascent, descent, clouds, eddies...it's horrifying in a wonderful way. Turning is fun.

"'Thank you for flying Delta?' If it were $3 cheaper, I woulda flown on a kite!" -Mike Birbiglia

Twenty minutes til land and a seven hour layover in Atlanta...

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The layover in Atlanta passed fairly quickly. Erin, Kelly, and I ate lunch at Atlanta Bread Company, sat around, played Uno and ERS (finally learned!), and got ice cream at Ben & Jerry's. The flight was pretty bumpy and long. I took two Tylenol PMs and tried to pass out, but it was much more difficult than I had anticipated. I got the trick of using my tray table as a place to put my pillow and then lay my head on my arms around the pillow...This technique allowed for the longest uninterrupted sleep. Unfortunately, it lasted about forty-five minutes. One half of the gay couple seated in front of me decided that he needed to lay his head in my lap so when he put his chair back, it catapulted the tray table back into my chest. I had to carefully disengage my head from my chestplate at a dreadfully odd angle...I tried to sleep with my pillow against the window, but it kept sliding around and the window was cold. My neck pillow was absolutely worthless. Unless you are accustomed to sleeping on your back (which I definitely am not) then neck pillows are of little use. So i ended up fighting the last dregs of the Tylenol PM and watching some of The Pursuit of Happyness. Talk about depressing...(They played three movies and one episode of "Two and a Half Men"--The Social Network, Eat. Pray. Love., and Pursuit.) Dinner was penne pasta, adequately mediocre, and breakfast was a banana and egg-english muffin. I guess I slept about two to three hours but my naps were in about five hour intervals--talk about exhausting. We got off the plane at 6:10 a.m., and it was still pitch black outside. So that makes two days now that I've gotten up before the sun...at least technically. Time zones are tricky buggers. We went through a very lax customs and exchanged money at the ATM. I then phoned father (and he answered promptly and sounded very alert at 1:30 a.m.) and was discouraged to see that my phone card doesn't really work. Ah well, my phone bill will just have to be astronomical. I think the text messages I received against my will were $20!! Egad!

We met our tour guide, Joyce, at the entrance to the terminal. She's a real talker, and wanted to tell us the origin of each of our names. When she asks you a question, don't fool yourself into thinking she wants to hear the answer.

We ate breakfast at the Dublin Hilton which is weird since it isn't our hotel. We're now on the bus again, waiting to set off for New Grange, a passage tomb.

Current physiological conditions: uncomfortable, upset stomach, and weary with tremendously puffy under-eye bags.

Current meteorological conditions: mostly sunny, about 10℃, 50℉ a.k.a. too warm for all my snow Sherpa gear.

Current attitude and location: moderately whiney but nonetheless optimistic outside the Dublin Hilton Hotel near the Dublin airport in Dublin, Ireland, Earth.

After breakfast, we got back on the bus to ride to New Grange, the passage tomb built 6000 years ago by Neolithic Irish farmers in the Boyne Valley. The Valley itself, dissected by the Boyne River, is spectacularly green.

As ever, I was fascinated by the stone fences, and wooden fences, and the tree fences.

Inside New Grange we were prohibited from taking pictures. Our guide at New Grange, Sinead, took us inside, down a narrow path lined with standing stones and quite low in some places.

New Grange.

All twenty-three of us got cozy in the inner chamber. The tomb is built in a cruciform shape with the passage, chamber, and three smaller antechambers with large stone basins in them for placing cremated remains and jewelry.

The entrance is divided so that there is a top portion that is approximately 8 cm tall and 30 cm wide. In the winter, at the solstice and shortest day o the year, the ancient people would anticipate the coming solar changes in accordance with the sun striking the inner chamber.

New Grange and the sun.

To the Neolithic Irish, this symbolized that hope was coming to free them from winter. The temple and standing stones are decorated with spirals and chevrons:

It really was a magical place. Sinead turned off the lights, leaving the chamber in total darkness. Then, as she spoke of how the ancient Irish viewed this ritual, a light bulb, symbolizing the solstice sun, shown down the crooked passageway and directly into the center of the inner chamber. It was very cool. I stole a small piece of gravel, and I hope that no angry gods seek vengeance. 

After we visited the tomb, we ate lunch at a café at New Grange that was really neat and served sandwiches, quiches, soups, and paninis. I ate soda bread (!!! yum) and cauliflower and cheddar soup which was kind of strange but good. 

After New Grange, we rode the bus to the Buswells Hotel on Molesworth Street for a nap. Dinner at Bleu, which was yum. 

Time to sleep now. I can't believe this has all been one day. How can this still be the same day?! (Technically, the reason this day has felt long is because it has really been two days but somehow with all the plane rides and time changes and the fact that the itinerary lists all of this as day one, it is still day one! Confusion.)

Ireland Updates

I'm in Ireland currently, Dublin specifically, although we are leaving for Sligo in the morning. I have been diligently updating my travel journal but as of right now getting computer access is quite difficult. Hopefully I'll have time to transpose my journal here tomorrow afternoon! I'm looking forward to it and I hope you are, too.

Also, pictures. There's one of a dancing bear.

That One Time That I Made Contact with Lava

Everything memorable that ever happened to me happened when I was seven. As unbelievable as that sounds, somehow it is true. The list of things that happened when I was seven could fill a composition notebook. Most likely, everything I remember happening when I was seven happened at other times of my hazy childhood, but I like to think that they did not; it was just one very eventful year.

One of the most memorable experiences that occurred in my seventh summer was our family trip to Hawaii. My parents usually planned a yearly trip to amazing places: Alaska, Italy, Scotland and Ireland, a three-week car trip around the Western and Midwestern United States...

This may not be our exact route, but it seemed like it. 

On this trip, we flew to Hawaii, boarded a cruise ship, and proceeded to journey purposefully around the many islands. On one island, we had the magnificent opportunity to walk on an old, solidified lava flow.

 

The starkly black, extremely hard rock stretched for, what seemed to my small mind, miles. Surrounded by the ocean on virtually all sides, the lava flow was, in a strange way, beautiful. My older sister and I decided to each take a souvenir from this excursion. We both picked up one black lava rock each. As is my general habit, I lost my rock on the bus ride from the flow back to the pier. As the bus driver directed us through the island, I could hear my rock sliding back and forth on the bus's floor, but, luckily for me, I couldn't see it. My sister, in her fashion, looked after her rock, and managed to hold onto it until we reached the ship. We decided not to tell anyone about our rock thievery. 

Once we were back on board, my sister started to feel very sick. She was nauseous, her head hurt, her stomach hurt. She looked terrible and felt worse. After a few hours, the story of our lava rocks got out. Soon, one of the stewards on board came to us, and told us that my sister was sick because she had stolen a lava rock and taken it from its home. The volcano goddess, Pele, was angry, and she was punishing my sister because she had stolen from her.

Pele...What a witch. 

To appease the angry goddess, the steward (a very versatile man) acted as a sort of shaman and conducted a ceremony. Words were chanted, something was burned, and the rock was thrown into the sea. Immediately, my sister felt better. Weird, huh?

After this frightful episode (which has rather less to do with lava than the title of this post would imply), I made contact (albeit distant) with lava for the first (and only) time. Later that night, when we were all asleep, the ship's fog horn started blaring. Everyone, except for me, rushed to look out of the window. My parents had to forcibly shake me awake, as I have, to this day, a penchant for sleeping through chaotic experiences. The cruise passengers hurried to the deck just in time to see, barely fifty feet from the boat, streams of lava flowing into the sea from the nearby volcano...that was ERUPTING (ok yeah, erupting is a strong word for this slow descent into the water but still...) Enormous clouds of steam wafted from the sea, and I could imagine it screaming in pain and abject horror as this disgusting substance violated it. 

Horrifying. 

And that's the story of the time I nearly made distant contact with lava. But it must be remembered that I could have died from Pele's rotten curse if I hadn't lost my rock. Also, that lava could have jumped into the boat...it's very sinister. 

Moral of the story? Always lose things you weren't supposed to have in the first place.

Second possible moral...always keep shamans on hand.