Galway and the Aran Islands

This past weekend about half of our group went to Galway and the Aran Islands. That is on the west coast of Ireland. We took a bus and it took us about 4 hours to get there, but it was totally worth it. The scenery on the ride was totally fanstastic. I don't think I really understood the color green until I got to Ireland. Everything here is so vibrant that it is almost violently green. Galway is the second biggest city in the Republic of Ireland. But to me it seemed like a small cute town. Here is Amanda and Brianna in downtown Galway. We spent Friday and Saturday night around town. We walked around and then spent the evening at the pubs.
On Saturday we took a ferry over to the Aran Islands. And when I say ferry, it was a pretty small one, think the boats on the Chicago River size, but we were braving the Atlantic Ocean. I was fine, but lots of people on the boat got pretty seasick during the hour ride to the islands. It was really sad. We braved going out on deck for a bit, of course as soon as we did a huge wave washed over the front left side of the boat and completely soaked my friends Janet and Alexis. Head to toe, they were dripping. Really quite amusing when you are relatively dry. They were really good sports about it though. We eventually made it to the islands more or less in one piece.
We took a tour "bus" which was actually like a large van of Inish Mor which is the biggest of the Aran Islands and where we spent our day. It was really cool and nice because it was kind of a rainy day. It is an adorable little island. You have to have been born there to own land on it which is interesting. A couple of the houses had these itty bitty houses in the yards. Our tour guide told us that those are the little people (or leprechaun's) houses. So I had to take a picture, they are just so darn adorable. And yes, the Aran Islands are where the famous wool sweaters come from. The handknit ones are warmer and more authentic, but they are really expensive. I wanted authentic so I compromised and got handknit mittens and earwarmer set. It was cool because I bought them from this older lady who knit them all herself in a little shop at the bottom of Dun Aengus, not at the main drag more commercial shops. I wish I had thought to take a picture of that.
This is us lying on the edge of the cliff at Dun Aengus. Dun means fort. It is this pre-Roman fort up at the top of these intense cliffs. It was really cool to see and the scenery was absolutely beautiful. I took so many pictures, with my digital and with my good camera too. It is totally one of those nature dwarfs you kind of experiences. It was so much fun. Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took.

Brendan decided that it would be fun to stand on the edge of the cliff, boys always think they are immortal. Luckily he did not fall over, though with the crazy strong wind up there, we were half sure he would.

The scenery was just breathtaking, the pictures just can't really do it justice.

My friend Hayden and I ventured off from the group to look at this really cool view from one of the cliffs. Absolutely beautiful, we were enthralled and stayed there maybe ten minutes.

Happy mom? I am actually in this picture! And no I did not fall to my death either. So then we look around and we can't see anyone, so we figure they must be inside the fort. But they weren't. They totally ditched us up on the mountain all by ourselves. We were very sad, see:

Actually we found the whole thing rather amusing. What can you do? A group of 11 people isn't exactly a reliable entity. That night we went out to the pub for a session, that means live traditional Irish music.

It was really cool, the banjo player especially was fantastic. I am not sure if they call it a banjo here or something else. There were five of us, Deirdre and Matt from my program, myself, and two guys from Israel who stayed in our room at the hostel. They were really cool.

Left to right it is Yosef, Deirdre, Matt and Liav. It was a totally cool night, we had a ball and made new friends. All in all, a totally fabulous trip. My first times to the west coast of Ireland, staying in a hostel, and taking the bus in Ireland. We are off to do some more sightseeing so I will put more stuff up later. Love you all.

The Outdoor Market

Last Sunday we went to an Outdoor Farmer's Market type thing. It was all organic foods and vegetables and it was in this lovely park. There were so many families out for this gorgeous Sunday. They were playing in the park with their dogs and kids and it was totally idyllic looking. It was one of those really perfect late summer/early autumn days with blue skies and crisp air but you don't need a coat yet.



There are flowers everywhere here, I always think about my mom because I know she would love it and have to stop every five feet to examine a planter and tell me all the different kinds of flowers and how well they would work in her garden. Too bad they will probably all be gone by the time she gets here in November.

So we had a lovely leisurely morning in the park. Our host-mom had told us about a demonstration that was going to be going on in down there and there was going to be concerts
and stuff.
So we got ahead of the march at the concert site and watched them come up. It was protest to stop the government from selling public seafront property to a high-rise developper. Granted by high-rise here that means 6-10 stories. But when everything else is 2-3 stories it does mess up the view. It was a lot like an American demonstration in a lot of ways, marching, slogans, banners. Though the slogans were much more complicated than I am used to. It was cool because the people participating were all ages and walks of life. They still very fervently believe in people power, and grassroots movements here as they call them. And from what they were saying it did seem as if they had gotten the politicians attention.
Someone smart once said "All politics is local". No where is that more true than in Ireland, the whole island is smaller than the state of Pennsylvania. It is politics on a more personal scale and I think that is really interesting.
We got our tour of Leinster House today and our security badges. We are still waiting on Fianna Fail to finalize their list of TDs so that we can get assigned our people. I really want to meet my TD, so I can get down to work already. We only have 2 days of classes which is fabulous and in about 6 weeks we will only have 1 day of class. All the rest of our time is spent at the Dail. We always have Fridays off so we have long weekends to travel on. Tomorrow we leave for Galway and the Aran Islands on the west coast of Ireland. It is supposed to be some of the most ruggedly beautiful scenery in the world and a great place to stargaze. I am so excited to see the Ireland "beyond the Pale", outside of Dublin, because it is an international city. There is an oyster festival there this weekend so it should be a blast. I am sure I will have lots of pictures to put up when I get back.

First Weekend Part Deux

Okay sorry I ran out of time before, I was just about to tell you about our pubbing adventure. Sorry mom and dad, I do go to the pubs here. Some of the people in our program live in apartments not homestays and they made friends with their neighbors, so Brett invited the neighbors out with us. Who knew you could actually hang out with Irish people in Ireland and not just the Americans! So Jimmy, Russell and Paul came out to the pub with us. They kept trying to make me do a Southern accent, not sure what that was about.

Okay, back row is Brett, Alexis and Hayden, with Jimmy down in front. Jimmy is actually a chef. I love goofy pub pictures, you can blackmail people with them later!

In this picture we have Alexis, Hayden, Missy, Jessica, Paul, and Jackie. All the girls are drinking cider, which is fabulous here. The Guiness really is better too. It will be hard to give up that when I come home to the American bars. So when we eventually ventured home, we had to take a cab because it was too late for public transport. Suffice to say we had a bit of difficulty expressing where we lived because we still weren't that sure and everything looks different at night, especially after some pub time. But our taxi driver was really nice and eventually we figured it out. The next day we decided to take it a little easier and stay out in Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun Leary) near where we live.

Here is my touching the Irish Sea, not as cold as I expected. Once again though I have run out of time. I have a meeting to get to about my placement with the Dail, so I will continue my story later.

Weekend of Firsts

This weekend was a weekend of firsts. The first time I used the post (mail service). That is the big green thing above.

It was also our first catcall here in Dublin, above were our reactions. That was on Saturday and we got our books as well and found out where exactly in the city we will be working starting on Thursday. It is called Leinster house and it is the seat of the Dail (or Irish Parliament). So I took a picture of it.

After that we headed off for dinner and found a fabulous little place that looked totally swankified but was actually really reasonable for dinner. Since it was still early we decided we better head off to the pub and meet up with some of our friends, but I have run out of time, so I will put up the rest of the weekend tomorrow. We head off to the Aran Islands this weekend which should be more fabulous pictures and adventures. I will keep you posted.

Here Safe and Sound

It has been a week since I got here and I am still settling in, getting all the little plastic cards that prove I am a student and get me discounts on everything.

To the left is the Institute of Public Administration (IPA for short). I will reference it a lot I am sure since that is where I go to classes two days a week and it is also my home base for computer and library access. The head of our program is named Michael Mulreany, he is a really nice guy and pretty helpful.

Yesterday I found out that through some mistakes in booking they had 5 extra tickets to go with the Northeastern kids to Paris at out mid-break. So he offered them to the rest of us. We will pay like €20 and for that get to go to Paris for 4-5 days, transportation and accomadation included! Talk about a lucky break, I am so excited. I never dreamed I would even get to Paris on this trip and certainly not for that cheap a price.

So far everyone in the program seems pretty cool. The girl in the left of the picture is Janet, she is my housemate and we get along great which is a big relief considering how much time we spend together. The girl to the right is Jessica, the only masters student in our program. She is the only one who started with her TD already, she is very nice with an extremely outgoing personality. If any of us are gonna scare the Irish people by our loudness, my bets on her.

We live in the southeast suburbs just outside Dublin, but it is only a 15 minute DART ride in to the city in the morning so it is not bad at all.

This is the main drag in out little suburb, we walk through it every morning on the way to the DART. There is actually a height restriction on buildings here so even in Dublin the buildings are never more than a couple of stories, it is nice not to have the sun blocked out downtown though I have a hard time convincing myself it is actually downtown sometimes. Too much time in Chicago I guess.

Just wanted to post some info an pictures now that I am starting to get my bearings. I will try to post as much as I can, but no guarantees. I love you all.