What A Weekend!

I went on two day trips this weekend: one to the town of Waterford near the southern coast of Ireland, and one to Bray which is just a few towns down from Dublin. I'll talk about Waterford at a later time, maybe.

I don't really have time to write a blog post, so for now I'm going to just cut and paste the aim conversation I had with Brandon telling him all about my trip from Bray to Greystone, which was also partially cut-and-pasted from the conversation I had with Lucas, because I talked to Lucas about it first. I have no idea if this will be really obnoxious or really funny or what, but let me know in the comments whether you loved/hated reading in this format. I'm not saying I'm going to do it again, I'm just interested to hear what people thought. I'll add pictures to make it better, and also this will give you all an interesting look into the type of rambling story that Brandon has to listen to on an almost daily basis in this format. :P

Brandon: how are you?
hannah: I'm fantastic!
hannah: mostly
hannah: I feel very sick at the moment
hannah: :(
hannah: and I'm very tired from my exciting, adventurous day
Brandon: tells me....
Brandon: (I will brush my teeth in the meantime)
Brandon: brb                           *author's note: this means 'be right back' in text speech*
hannah: okedoke
hannah: :)
Brandon: but go ahead so I  can read it when i get back
hannah: will do
hannah: I'm going to be lame about it
hannah: I already told Lucas all about it so I'm going to copy and paste what I told him and then embellish
hannah: :)
hannah: Well, it started out like any other day
hannah: I had a long day on the south coast yesterday, so I was going to spend today on hw *author's note: this means homework*
hannah: but when I woke up, everyone was like "we're taking the train to Bray and then walking the cliff path to Greystone!"
hannah: and I was all like "ok, I will rally somehow and do that too!"
hannah: It's supposed to be like a four mile walk
hannah: ...but we saw this little path heading straight up the steep cliffside and we were like "of course we're doing this"

The start of the path

hannah: hiked for a long time and it was awesome (pictures will be up soon)
hannah: ok, here I need to embellish
hannah: We hiked directly up this cliff side and I thought I was going to die at some parts *author's note: this is me being slightly dramatic. Brandon knows to take whatever I say and tone it back a bit to get the real story.*
hannah: it was clear people had gone before us, but we were stepping on rocks and slick grass, and I thought for sure someone was going to slip and take all of us down with them
hannah: Also, I thought my legs and lungs were going to explode

I mean, c'mon, that's pretty steep, right?

Liz, Ian and Sam standing on the steep hill

hannah: We made it (finally) to a flat space and we saw a horse!

A horse! :D

hannah: and then another horse and another and we realized it was a field with a bunch of horses!
hannah: so that was neat

Lots of horses!

hannah: we climbed a little ways past that and decided to stop for lunch because the view was incredible

 
hannah: after lunch there was this big cross a little ways on back towards Bray that we had seen from the bottom, and since it was so close we decided to check it out

hannah: and we were really glad that we did because there was a really cool view from there too!

Cool view, no?

hannah: then we went back and started walking towards Greystone again
hannah: and there came a point where the path went back down and a smaller path continued up
hannah: We, of course, continued up
hannah: Well, it turned out that was a mistake, because after a while we got to this huge boulder on the top of a mountain and the path started going in the wrong direction

Yay! We can see Greystone! :D

Unfortunately, the path goes towards that mountain. D:

 hannah: we were considering heading back to take the lower road, but Liz did some reconnaissance and said she thought the path went back the right way after a time
hannah: She was right!
hannah: and we were all feeling very clever
hannah: When all of a sudden there was a gate!

hannah: and the gate was shut, with barbed wire on the top and a sign on the other side that we couldn't read
hannah: and there was no other way to go unless we wanted to go back
hannah: which we were not going to do
hannah: so we carefully jumped the gate, and found out from the sign that we had been trespassing on some guy's farm for a long time

hannah: oops
hannah: then we were on a road and we had to make a choice, as neither way seemed to be heading towards Greystone
hannah: We went left
hannah: and we came upon all these private houses and a road that ended in another gate
hannah: We had no idea what to do, but there were two guys walking behind us, so we decided to ask them for help
hannah: I approached them and explained that we were a little lost, to which they replied "oh no, we were following you guys! We thought you knew the way back to the path"
hannah: and we were like shit
hannah: so then the older of the two guys was like "alright, I don't effing care if I'm cutting through some guy's garden, I'm going this way"
hannah: so he forced his way past the other gate, and we all shrugged and followed
hannah: the path led to a winding road, but then all of a sudden there was an exclamation
hannah: "aha!"
hannah: We could see people walking! We had found the real path again!
hannah: hooray!
hannah: there was a small stone wall and people beyond
hannah: the older guy decided to go over the wall first
hannah: in the dying light it looked like he just needed to step over the wall onto the path or maybe jump down a little, but as I watched the guy was hanging by his hands
hannah: I looked over the edge and saw that there was actually a six or seven foot drop to the path

hannah: lovely
hannah: one by one we all dropped our stuff and found a way down, each of us using a different method
hannah: then it was Patrick's turn
hannah: and it was hilarious
hannah: and we all maybe laughed a lot
hannah: :)
hannah: he tried once, and then decided to let other people go first
hannah: he tried again, explaining to all of us the route he was planning to take before starting
hannah: "ok, I'm going to swing my leg over and put it right there, I think I can get a foothold. Then I'm going to swing my other leg over, lower myself down and fall."
hannah: ok, Patrick
hannah: what actually happened was this
hannah: he did swing the first leg over, clinging to the wall as though there was hot lava below
hannah: found his foothold
hannah: Lindsey went over and held his leg and ankle to support him
hannah: he swung the other leg over and stretched it down, searching for the ground, still clinging to the wall and now kind of frozen
hannah: "am I close?"
hannah: We are all already laughing at how silly he looks, and then we say "Patrick, you're like three inches off the ground, just drop"
hannah: which he does, ungracefully, and we all have a good laugh about it before continuing on
hannah: after that we were just on the path again, so it was kind of lame
hannah: except we saw sheep!

And look! It's Champ in the background! :)

hannah: and a little puppy
hannah: :)
hannah: and a tree that looked like a hand

Cool tree-hand

hannah: and then we got on the train and came home and now I'm tired because a four mile walk turned into a six or seven mile walk
hannah: and I had to take two of my intense Ibuprofens
hannah: but soooo worth it
hannah: I can't wait to show you the pictures
hannah: :)
Brandon: :D
Brandon: sounds like a hell of a day
Brandon: best so far?
hannah: definitely one of the best
hannah: maybe the best
hannah: yeah
hannah: :D

So clearly I'm not the best storyteller via AIM, and that was a very abridged version of the adventure we had. But I hope it at least gave you an idea of how awesome the day was. Let me know in comments if this format drove you nuts!

Here are a few more pictures of the excursion. :)

Ian giving Liz a heart-shaped rock :)

The cutest old couple ever. :D

Bray from up above

Beware the falling cliff!

A cool gate.

beautiful view :)

Lindsey on top of a huge rock.

We found a smashed coconut, so of course Ian was Patsy and Liz was King Arthur. :)

That's how steep the cliff we climbed was.

Liz with the view.

Well then.

And me

Classes!

Well, I have now completed my first week of classes for the semester, and I have to say I am pretty freakin' pumped. It looks like I am going to work my butt off and enjoy every second of it. I have not had a single class that I have not enjoyed immensely, and I am almost anxious for the weekend to be over so I can go back for round two (almost). Here's a rundown of my classes:

Ceol na hEireann (Music of Ireland) - My first class of the week, Monday morning from 9-11:45am. This class involves such taxing projects as building our own bodhran (pronounced like bow-ron), which is an Irish drum, learning to play the penny whistle, and attending drumming circle lessons, an Irish dancing session, and live music performances at local pubs. I know, it's a tough job, but someone has to do it. What we would call Irish or Celtic music back home is just called trad here (short for traditional music), and I plan on hearing as much of it as I possibly can this semester, and maybe learning to play a little!

This is a bodhran

 Earth Science lecture -  This is Mondays 12:15-1:30 and Tuesdays 2:15-3:30, and is taught by the director of the study abroad program, who is an incredibly cool dude. He lived in Canada for much of his life and used to teach geology at St. Lawrence. His Phd is in, get this, peat bogs. Nothing gets him more excited than peat bogs, and we have been forewarned that on our long weekend trip to Northern Ireland in a few weeks, he is going to pull over our bus randomly to show us a peat bog. Honestly, I don't know if I've ever felt this excited for a science class. We are going to be learning about things like the physical capacity for how many people the earth can hold, rivers and how they work, climates of the past, present and future, and what Stephen (the professor) calls "sexy science" (anything that has had a Discovery channel special made about it). This class includes some great field trips as well. :)

This is a peat bog

Early Irish History - Mondays from 2-3:30 and Tuesdays from 11:15-12:15, this class also has an amazing professor, though the class is not quite what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be mostly a history lesson from the standpoint of anthropology or sociology, but the approach we're taking is much more scientific. Our professor, Kelli, is an archaeologist, and she brings a TON of knowledge about prehistoric Ireland to the classroom; I'm really excited to tap into her expertise on the subject! She's great fun, in part because her speech is colored with Irish vernacular ("It's great craic!"). Some of the field trips for her class include going to Tara, one of the most ancient and holy sites in Ireland, a cave with prehistoric paintings, and a castle ruin. For class on Tuesday we are going to the National Museum of Ireland - hooray!

This is the Hill of Tara

 Earth Science lab - Tuesday morning, 9-11am, This is when all of our science labs will take place. Our first one had us roll out a roll of paper 460 cm long, and then plot all of these scientific events of the earth's history along the line, with each cm equaling 10,000 year. It was a pretty crazy exercise to see that most of the changes that we think of when we think of Earth's history - the coming of humans, dinosaurs becoming extinct, etc. - all happened within the first centimeter or two. The rest stretched out for billions of years before that (4.6 billion years total), which is a really hard thing to comprehend, but was really easy with the visual aid of this exercise.

The Celtic Tiger - A 'Tiger' economy is one that grows very big, very fast, which is what happened in Ireland in the 90s.  We are learning about that in this class, though we have only touched on it briefly. The professor for this class is very abrupt, though friendly, and I think that living with Patrick and Matt last semester greatly prepared me for his class. Those of you who know Patrick and Matt will understand why I say this. The professor will roll his eyes at an answer he doesn't like, or exclaim "Jesus Christ!" if he's particularly peeved, or dismiss the answer entirely with an impatient "yes, yes, we already know that - what else?" In yesterday's class he was explaining a homework assignment when someone asked if we should enter our own opinion into the writing, to which he replied "no, why would I care about your opinion? I don't care about you, you're not in my pay grade." This all may sound horrible and harsh, but there is no bite behind his words and his friendly eyes give him away. He's a very energetic man who needs to keep the class going at a fast clip in order to stay interested, and it takes a lot of mental energy to keep up with him. I was sick for the first class (still am sick, actually), and I had barely sat down in my seat before he started in with questions: "Why does China have all your money?" We were asked questions in a rapid-fire style for the full hour and fifteen minutes, eventually answering this bigger initial question. The class was very interesting and super informative, but with how sick I felt, at the end I had to put my head down on the desk in exhaustion. This one will definitely keep me on my toes. Wednesdays from 2:45-4 and Thursdays from 12:45-2

Social and Non-Profit Marketing - This is a class that Andy and I actually switched into last minute, and man am I glad that we did. Nothing against Digital Marketing, but this class seems as though it is going to be AWESOME! It's Thursdays from 9-11:45, and taught by a professor who is one-of-a-kind. All of the professors here have professional lives elsewhere, and her job is to run her own marketing consultation business. She serves on the board for Champlain College Dublin, was actually the one to find the building in which it's located, and has had a number of very high-profile clients. For this class we are going to be learning about marketing as a tool to promote change for the better - social, behavioral, or what have you. Whether this is an anti-drunk driving campaign or a way for charities to market themselves, this is a branch of marketing that I can get behind. We have a big semester-long project in this class where we pick a cause we care about and develop a marketing strategy for that cause. At the end of the semester, we give a presentation to the organization in question. Past classes have presented to Senators and the Dublin City Council among others, so I am really excited to have the chance to do some good while I'm here!

I'm really happy with the classes I chose, and, while I'm going to be working really hard, I think I'm going to get so much out of this semester. :)

Exploring Dublin

On Friday we had orientation in the morning, and then were split into groups and given a scavenger hunt of things around the city to find by the next day. My group decided we weren't very excited by the scavenger hunt option and parted ways to do our own exploring. Andy, Matt, Brian and I set off up the street from the academic center to St. Stephen's Green, where we walked around for a few minutes while we decided our next move.

Leash kid! D:

 We then decided to walk home by a route we had never been before, and explore things as we went. We walked past the National Museum of Ireland, and explored a little park that turned out to be Merrion Square Park, where a statue of Oscar Wilde lays tucked away in a secluded corner. We saw a memorial for all the Irish service men who have lost their lives in defense of their country, and smelled the sweetness of growing greenery all around. It smelled like spring at my house, and I found the park very comforting - I expect I will return there often to do homework or just sit and think.

More cool architecture for Emma

I am fairly certain this man is a butler, which seemed picture-worthy.

I don't know what this means even in English....

Whatever that sign said, this is the building it was talking about.

Outside the Natural History Museum

Also outside the Natural History Museum. Andy, having just read about mister T.H. Parke in one of his Ireland books, was very excited to tell us all about him.

Monument honoring the sacrifice of Irish servicemen

Oscar Wilde, lounging in Merrion Square Park

 After all this excitement, we made our way to Trinity College, where we fulfilled another longstanding dream of mine by going to see the Book of Kells! This is a book containing the four gospels of the New Testament, handwritten and all with incredibly detailed drawings and designs. It dates back to some time in the 800's, and is a truly breathtaking artifact. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any pictures of the book or any of the informative panels provided, but I learned a lot about this incredible historical treasure and got to see a few pages of the book up close.

One of the elaborate drawings from the Book of Kells. This was done with quills, reeds, and ink from plants and stones - so cool!

By the way, I understand that some of the people who read this are not as familiar with blogs, blogging, or indeed computers in general, as others may be. Just so everyone is aware, if you would like to get a closer look at the pictures, just click on them and you can see a bigger version. Here are a few pictures of Trinity College (founded by Queen Elizabeth I in 1592) and the rest of our walk home, as well as some buildings on the way to the academic center that I thought Emma would find interesting.

Trinity College

Trinity College

Trinity College - and Andy!

Trinity College

Now, I should know what this building is, but I don't. It's still cool-looking though. :)

I'm not sure what this is, but I have since seen more signs for it. Will be looking into it more later....

Dublin Castle. I have yet to take the tour, but don't worry, I will.

This is the prow of a ship in the ground, but at first I thought it was an abstract of an old man. Anyone else see it?

From here on is pictures of buildings on the way to the academic center for Emma :)

One side is brick, the other stone.

Interesting rooftops

Again, stone on one side, brick on the other.

A little building on the edge of St. Stephen's Green

 It is getting late and my first day of classes is tomorrow (!) so I must go rest now on my brand new pillow that I bought today which will hopefully be better than the dinky little neck rest provided by the hotel. I can't wait to get started on classes - first of the day is one I'm most excited for: 9:00am Cultural Immersion Through Irish Music, or Ceol na hEireann. :)

P.S. From here on out I will have school work to be working on, so I expect the blog posts will be fewer and farther between. I will do my best however! :)