The Ring of Kerry

The Kerry Peninsula has many attractions and cute towns, but it is hard to get to any of them if you do not have your own car to drive. So, we joined a tour bus so we could get around. Whereas yesterday the weather was gorgeous, today the weather was rainy and wet the whole day. Before the tour started, we got up early to do some shopping. Only problem is that no store opened before 9, most 930 or 10 and the tour was at 1015. So we could only do a little bit of window-shopping because of time constraints. I guess the more relaxed hours here are in-line with the more laidback Irish attitude – no need to rush, it will be ok. It’s kind of refreshing to not be in atmosphere where time = money and every second not used doing something deemed ‘productive’ is considered wasted. I know I have that mentality too often, so hopefully I can adopt more of this relaxed use of time. Eventually, the tour started. We went through a couple towns, went through many fields and along the coast. One of the mountains we passed is a pilgrimage site, with the 13 Stations of the Cross along the crest. I couldn’t see them though because of the low clouds and rain.

beautiful cathedral 

what much of the landscape looks like

more coastline!

beach

ancient ruins

farmlands sectioned off by trees and such

Saw many sheep! Apparently, the higher the sheep go up the mountain, the less heavy the rain will be as they only go as high as the risk of slipping is when they want to go down. Well, they were all pretty low on the mountains and that was pretty accurate, it rained steadily for the whole day. Speaking of sheep, farmers paint spots on either their butts, heads or upper necks to distinguish their herds. So we saw some with red spots, or blue, green, pink or a combination thereof. One farmer is apparently quite patriotic (for America that is).

ruin of a famous senator O'Conner's house 

scenery near a little town

gap of Dunloe in top left

One of the cool things I wish I saw was the “Ship that never sailed”. We drove past it higher above, but I couldn’t spot it. It’s a house built for a captain that resembles the bow of a ship and so that’s how it got its name. The story goes that his wife was very dedicated: she woke up every morning and threw a bucket of water at the window to resemble the sea – she also made sure to leave the window open, too. One of the last, and certainly most beautiful stop, was “Ladies’ View’. When Queen Elizabeth I visited Killarney, she asked her lady in waiting to find a good spot to see the three lakes of Killarney and the maid said that the view from this point was fit for any lady. It was certainly gorgeous.

smaller of the 3 Killarney lakes

the other two Killarney lakes

Cavalier spirit

After the tour, we did a bit of shopping and had dinner. We then tried to find another pub with live singing and went to a few. The first one was cool, with a violinist, mandolin player and guitarist. It was standing room only, and not much of that, so we moved on. We went to another pub and stumbled upon this show of poetry and other solo acting. It was interesting, but the performer had a very specific sense of humor and we could only take it for so long, so we went downstairs. There, we found a bachelor party. They were really funny, singing their own out of tune jigs over the live music. Then, we heard about a celtic rock band and had to go check that out. What is a Celtic Rock band? I imagined a band playing traditional music in rock style. Wrong. They played traditional music normally, but they had a mandolin, guitarist and bass guitarist (I suppose the bass guitar pushed it into ‘rock’). They were good, but not what I was expecting, obviously. In the same pub, they also had a techno dance room. We had to see how the Irish youth dance, so we went there briefly. They played basically American music and danced like most UVA students do. Speaking of American music, I’ve heard Sweet Home Alabama and Born in the USA (or was it Proud to be an American?) and just about every American pop song that is was popular in the States a few months ago. I think that’s weird and makes me sad that they cater that much to American tourists – I’m sure native Irish aren’t going to find ‘Born in the USA or Proud to be an American’ very appealing or relatable. Anyways, it was a good day, though it rained so much.

Sunday was our last day in Killarney, but we had to leave at 2pm to get back early enough. We have to make sure we get back early so if there are problems, they can be resolved quickly and we won’t miss work Monday. We can’t miss any scheduled days unless you’re on your death bed, so getting home early on Sunday is a must. That meant that we had to leave early and there were only so many things we could do in the morning since whichever few shops would actually be open on Sunday would open later than usual. We decided to go back to the National park because it was walking distance and try to explore some other parts. The weather was beautiful again – I thought Virginia Beach had bipolar weather, but Ireland seems to have the most unpredictable weather yet. We went to a garden, then wandered around and found a lake path. Honestly, we barely tapped into the national park, you could probably explore it for days. We headed back early, ate lunch and then read some in a café while we waited for the train. I liked Killarney, lots of fields, rolling hills and some mountains. The coast is pretty, when you can see it over the rain that is.

more fields

cool house

walkways in the gardens 

more streams by the paths 

a lake in the National park

another view of the lake

Off to Killarney!

Fortunately, the program I’m in allows us Friday through Sunday off, so I can actually travel and see some of Ireland. So, I went with Kelsey and Victor to Killarney. We took the train, which was very nice and didn’t seem too long for a 4-hour ride. When we arrived, we made our way to our hostel. Killarney is a very cute, quaint town, with lots of little shops of all different colors and really only a few streets. Our hostel was very near the middle of town and was very nice (or at least it seemed so – this is my first hostel). 

Killarney

our hostel

We left our stuff and went to lunch. We found a cute little restaurant. I got a sandwich because I wasn’t too hungry and it was on the ‘small bite’ section. Yeah, the bread was 1.5x larger than our standard size. Dinners are usually the size (or density depending on how you want to measure the food) of Cracker Barrel food, so it’s very difficult to finish anything. Though that comes in handy if you’re trying to make it last for more than one meal. So, I think the best word to describe Irish food is ‘hearty”. Anyways, the food was good and then we went to go hike some in the Killarney’s National Park. It turns out that one of the heirs of a large estate, an Irish American in fact, bought the surrounding land and then donated it to the Irish state, creating the first National park for Ireland. Once we entered the park, we headed for Ross castle. We passed many fields with mountains in the background. Part of the path went along a brook, which was very pretty. There were many Irish people walking: old couples, owners throwing sticks for their dogs, moms running with their babies in their strollers, bikers and horse-drawn carriages. 

beginning of the National Park

fields and mountains!

more beautiful paths

stream running through the park

Kelsey, Victor and I in a field

It was a very beautiful walk to the castle. Once we reached the castle, we no longer had the trees to shelter us from the wind and basically got smacked in the face with the strong wind coming from the lake at the feet of the tower. It turns out Ross castle is actually a tower, but it was still very cool to see. We couldn’t take photos inside the building, but the brilliant engineering and architecture of old buildings never ceases to amaze me. Our guide told us about how the windows are narrow slits so it’s difficult for attackers to shoot in, but the inside is wide so guards can shoot out. The doors had little holes on the wall beside so they could shoot out. The steps of the one stairway are purposefully unequal to cause one running up to stumble and are in a clockwise fashion so the (most likely) dominant right hand will give the advantage to the guard running down while the attacker coming up will hit his sword on the center part. The spikes sticking out of the doors prevented anyone from using their shoulder to bash down the door. There was a grated opening over the entrance to the stairwell called the slaughter hole where guards could shoot attackers from above or pour boiling water on them. Things like that, with so much foresight and reliance on (assumed) human tendency, really amaze me. It was a very cool tower. 

Ross Castle

Lake next to Ross Castle

Kelsey and I at one of the doors in the outer wall

artsy photo - entrance of outer wall

After we walked back, we went early to the Danny Man pub, one of the oldest pubs in Killarney and one that also features live traditional music. We wanted to go early so we could get prime seats for the performance later on, which we got front row seats. The food was very good – I got shepherd’s pie because I wanted to see how they make it here. They put cheese on top, which made it quite good. Victor got potato cakes with chives and spinach in them – they actually turned out really good (I don’t think I would ever think to put that in them). Kelsey got a goat cheese salad, which turned out to be a wheel of goat cheese on some salad, which made it a little hard for her to eat. Definitely, some descriptions of restaurant food are very misleading, but you never really find that out until after you’ve ordered. After the soccer game between Germany and Greece (because every single soccer game in the EU cup is shown in every single pub – guaranteed), the band took the stage. There was a mandolin player, a guitarist and a guy who sang and played the bodhran. They were very good, I really enjoyed their music. I think I like that there are quite a few pubs that feature live music like that. It’s a good way to support these musicians, to hear new bands (or old ones) and to sing with other folks. There were many older people in this pub and they all joined in and swayed for their favorite tunes. It was really cool.

Welcome to the Real World

I have to say, I had really been looking forward to only wearing my suit once because I feel so uncomfortable in it, but I had to wear it again Monday to my real interview. I headed out, got there about 15 minutes early and finally met my advisor, Aoife (pronounced Efa, like Eva with a F). I had a good interview, even met the CEO, Killian of the company (he had to go through the conference room to get to his office; he even joked that I didn’t need to wear things that nice, which I knew but had to for the interview) and then met the rest of the staff. It’s a small organization and honestly, it feels a lot like my SAS job so I’m excited that this will be a good 7 weeks. I was a bit overwhelmed by all the material she gave me, as the centre deals with refugees and other asylum seekers, so there is a lot of specific terminology, laws, procedures, rights, etc that I obviously don’t know and need to familiarize myself with. Refugees are people who are granted asylum and have mostly the same rights as Irish citizens, Subsidiary Protection status are allowed to stay because of safety reasons but aren’t granted the same benefits of refugees and Leave to Remain aren’t either of the first, but aren’t forced to go back. It will be ok though, because Aiofe is very attentive and understanding/reasonable, so she hasn’t expected me to just know these things. I’ll be doing a hodgepodge of things, from helping her on her project, to possibly getting to go to a clinic one day to research, essentially whatever she or someone else needs help with. It’s perfectly fine with me. Only about two hours after my interview, I went with Aoife, Ian and Peter to a community information gathering session. This is part of her project and the fourth one in the community. We send out teams to facilitate discussion with asylum seekers to figure out their condition – what is going right, what is going wrong and how to fix it. This is phase 1; for phase 2 they compile and analyze all the data and write up realistic approaches to fixing the problems. The goal is that all of these people will be well integrated into Irish society and feel that they belong and can fully contribute. I helped set-up the session, but it turned out that the hours must not have worked well because only one lady showed up (the previous 5 sessions had 12 people show up, which is a good number for the group size they wanted). So that was a bummer, but those things happen when you organize an event and hope people show up, it always happens at least once.

            Tuesday, I got to work early, did more reading, addressed some envelopes and then started transcribing an interview for Aoife. I have 3 hour long interviews to transcribe, so after that, I should be an expert at interpreting (and hopefully imitating) the Irish accent. Wednesday, I went in early because we had another session, but this time it was with business representatives. Fortunately, they had to RSVP so we knew we would have a good group. As I was helping set-up, I went to stand on a chair to put something on the wall, and the seam in my skirt ripped (the purple thrift store one). Fortunately, it stopped at a still acceptable (though nearing unacceptable by my standards) length and I found a safety pin to keep it from going any higher. This was good because I was about to panic as I obviously didn’t bring a change of clothes and I was about to be surrounded by professional people. But it worked out, even Aiofe and Ian didn’t notice it. Anyways, the process is pretty cool. We first have the participants choose from a large group of photos, 3-4 that describe the positives (refugees – how they feel included; professionals – how they integrate their workers). Then they break into groups and discuss why they chose those photos and what they’re doing that they see as a positive. Then we move to negative – everyone writes a negative/problem area on a post-it and as a group, they try to group them and create headers for each group. Then they present them to the group. From this, they take the headers and group them into categories (or leave them free-standing if they are their own separate problem). They then rank them according to which is the most important for their company (or self if the refugees are doing this). Finally, they work in teams on the issues they found most important and try to create ways that it can be solved: by self, by self with help, or by others. This way, the company has lots of information to really understand what the problems are and which are the common ones (after comparing this with the data gathered from the other sessions) and can create realistic approaches that can be implemented in a timely manner. I don’t know if we do this in the US or have something similar (though I feel like we should), but it seems very efficient and informative. I think I will have some very interesting days ahead of me J

By the way, this is their website: http://www.integrationcentre.ie/

The Search for the Holy Grail

Today we decided to go to Howth, a quaint town on the peninsula immediately to the North East of Dublin, about a 30-minute train ride from the city center. Arriving, we were immediately greeted by two small markets. We found some scrumptious nuts – roasted in honey and cinnamon (cashews, macadamia, and hazelnut).  After figuring out what everyone wanted to do, some of the group decided to go on a boat ride and Kelsey and I went to do what we though was a three-mile hike. Turned out to be 7 miles. But it was glorious. We went along the border of the peninsula, seeing all the cliffs, saw a lighthouse, then going through some very nice golf courses, the “Bog of Frogs” (like from the song, ‘down in the valley oh”), then supposedly by a castle. We did get lost for a bit after the lighthouse, coming off the trail onto some streets, found this nice man who was the manager of a band that wrote “The boys are back in town”, and he directed us to a somewhat overgrown alternate route back to the path. The weather was variable: nice and sunny, then rainy, then repeat. After walking for what seemed forever, we rounded the last leg hoping to see the castle. Then we arrived back at the start – the train station. Somehow, we managed to miss the castle! How do you do that? LAME! So we headed to the historic Abby’s Tavern because everyone said it had really good food. I wanted the corned beef, but it came with cabbage which I don’t like. Instead, I tried a burger – I must say, the few burgers I’ve had here have been exquisite – much better than burgers in the States, though I don’t know why. Also, their milk, cheese and dairy products in general are much better here. Anyways I digress, the tavern was one of those seat yourself, hail your waiter, nothing is rushed kind of establishments. The only problem was that it took forever for us to get a waiter, then it took forever for our food to come, then it was nearly impossible to get the check and when we finally did (because we got pushy as we’d spent 2 hours in this place now and were nearing the time of the last train back to Dublin) it wasn’t our check. So we just paid and left because we’d literally waited 30 minutes for them to find the check (find the waitress to get our order (instead of asking us) to write it up). I have no idea how they gave us the wrong thing, but we had to leave or we’d miss the train so we just covered the difference. Not the best service so that was a bummer. Nevertheless, Howth is a nice village and is definitely worth visiting.

for Alex - the top of a restuarant

cool memorial

medieval ruins in the city

what much of the coast looks like 

more cool coast shots

follow the yellow brick road? No, follow the white stones through the golf course

A group of wild tiggers appeared!

Bloomsday!

Every year, June 14^th is celebrated globally as Bloomsday, a celebration of the works of James Joyce. Apparently, several of his works are considered some of the premier works of modern literature, especially his novel, Ulysses. People celebrate by dressing up as characters or by going to local events. Of course, since he wrote many of these novels in Dublin and/or set them in Dublin, there were many events around the city featuring/re-enacting scenes from the novels. Unfortunately, many were ones that you would have to pay for (like a traditional Irish breakfast, seeing the James Joyce museum, etc). Well, the only ones that I was interested in doing were trying to find some of the characters walking around and going to the reading of some of his works in the park. Since the readings were in the afternoon, Kelsey and I decided to go to the weekly Temple Bar market (the Temple Bar is a famous area where many pubs are and it’s right near the large river running through the center of Dublin). It was a really cool market: many types of fresh bread, cheeses, jams, etc). I decided to get a loaf of cranberry raisin sourdough bread because it sounded amazing (which it is) and blueberry and raspberry scones (which are also really good). We walked around the Temple bar area to see what kind of shops there were and to kill some time waiting for the reading. You can tell it’s ‘historic’ because the cobblestones are distinct and hard to walk on as the mortar between them has eroded a great deal. We also wandered over to Grafton Street, a large street of just shops, akin to downtown Charlottesville, but with a much better shopping selection (including a mall). Finally, we went to the reading. We only stayed for a part of it though, because my feet were hurting and it was about to rain. Apparently they had a small puppet show and other funny things after we left, but I didn’t see them. I went home and watched a movie because I was tired. 

people posing as statues!!!

me in front of the arch to St. Stephen's Green

a small part inside

they have carriages!

The Unexpected

Friday, EUSA had an internship orientation in the morning. After that, I immediately booked it back to my room to get changed and eat so I could leave early for my interview. Leaving an hour early for what should have been less than a half hour trip, I was almost late. I knew the name of the street that I was supposed to get off, but because Dublin is a Viking city, the streets are illogically connected (i.e. not on a grid) so I didn’t know which stop to get off. I asked the bus driver to let me know, but I guess he forgot. I was waiting, watching the time tick past as we turned to the stop by the river. Then I knew I’d passed it and had to find a different way to get there. I walked, found a nice old lady who knew where my street was and directed me to it. Once on the street, I somehow missed the sign I was looking for (because my work is above Russo’s Italian Restaurant), but eventually found it – arriving 5 minutes early. But, turns out that my boss had a medical issue and couldn’t be there to interview me. That was fine, at least I now know exactly where my work is. So I headed home, took a nap because I got really tired for some reason, and then did some errands.

            Later than night, everyone else had come back and we all decided to go see the Indian Tempest, a Shakespeare play put on in Trinity College by a traveling Indian acting group. We missed the bus because the timetable changed Friday night, so we walked to a different bus stop and caught another bus, which fortunately brought us to Trinity in time. We met some other friends waiting for us there and found seats under the tents. The stage was open air and the director jokingly said it wasn’t going to rain so don’t worry about it. Yeah, it poured the entire first half of the show – we were dry but those actors were such troopers! Some of them, like the wind guy, weren’t wearing too much and acted as if they didn’t feel the cold and wet. I was quite impressed. The show was FANTASTIC! (It was grand – Irish phrase).They had amazing costumes, incorporated several languages (English mostly, Hindi for enchantments, French love poems for the romance scenes) and best of all had superb musical accompaniment! An excellent violinist played many styles, from Indian to swashbuckling fight scenes, there was a singer, an oboist (not sure but some rich wind instrument?), and a multi-talented percussionist who not only played bass drums and timpani but also tabla (Indian drums). It was just astounding! I’m so glad I went.

the stage

plotting to kill the king

monster, cool guys playing violin, wind spirit in green

miranda and the prince

AMAZING violinist and multi-talented drummer

wedding ceremony

cast!