Monday, August 25, 2008

Back Home Again in Indiana

Just wanted to give everyone an update on my life.

I got home from Ireland on the 1st of August and spent two weeks at home, helping my parents, unpacking, doing laundry, and getting over jet lag. I am now back at IU, where I am an RA. I have touches of Ireland everywhere, such as decorating in green and orange, and I really miss being there.

Thanks, everyone who read my blog and prayed for me this past few months. I enjoyed my time in Ireland a lot and am trying to figure out a way to move there.

I leave you with this Irish Blessing

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Cheers,
~Dannielle
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Monday, July 28, 2008

The fastest post yet


Neeps( mashed turnips...delicious), haggis, and taters.

I'm currently at an internet cafe in Edinbugh, Scotland... I have less than 20 minutes for this update...
I got into Glasgow, Scotland yesterday morning after spending the night in the airport. FYI for anyone traveling in Dublin. The Dublin International Airport is the worst airport to sleep in. I was fine, though. I met a Spanish couple and had coffee (water for me) and talked with them til late. Then together we found a spot to lie down. They were great.

So far Scotland has gone down without any real hitches. I have been taking it easy and not worrying about following a schedule of sorts. I have been exploring in Edinburgh for the last two days and then leave early in the morning (6:40am) on the train headed for Inverness. It will be a long trip, but it is through the Highlands, so everyone says it will be beautiful.

After Inverness, it is a night in Glasgow, a night in Dublin, then home... I am pretty excited to be headed home not gonna lie.

Love you all,
Dannielle

Here are some pictures from Edinburgh:Edinburgh Castle

I happened to discover they were having a jazz festival, so I decided to check it out.

People lounging and watching the jazz festival. Reminded me of this painting somehow...
Two amazing Scots at the festival... I wish they had been my host parents. Oh well. They obviously don't get much sun and were ill-prepared. However, the best engineers in the world have been Scottish (Scottie, anyone?) so they fashioned hats for themselves.
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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Somewhat of an update

I have 30 minutes before my next class. So here is a very quick update. I am very close to finishing my time here in Ireland. I fly to Glasgow, Scotland on Sunday morning and will be spending 5 days and 4 nights in Scotland before flying back to Dublin. From Dublin it is back home to the US. I am due back at about 9pm on August 1st.

What have I been up to? Well let's see... A few weeks ago I took the day and actually took a tour... It was a blast. We rode on a bus throughout the Wicklow Mountains and stopped at Glendalough (pronounced Glen da lock) which is an ancient monastery (I know... ANOTHER MONASTERY!?)
(in front of a glacial lake in the Wicklow mountains)

Glendalough was very pretty as it is set on two lakes. We hiked around the lakes and I got some nice pictures. (they reminded me a bit of home, woods, very green)

(see the rain about to descend upon us...)

Later that weekend I went to Kilmainhem Gaol. This was a nice place, despite being a jail. One wing was designed during the Victorian era and they saw light as important for the reformation of the prisoners. Many people who go to it feel a sense of deja vu, however, this is just because the jail has been the used in several movies. (The Italian Job, Michael Collins, etc.) Last Thursday, my friend Jordan and I decided to go to Drogheda and to Newgrange. Drogheda is the site of the famous Battle of the Boyne, in which William of Orange and James II fought in the 1690. It is seen as a victory for Protestantism within Ireland, but to be honest, there is not a whole lot to see in the town now. (It didn't help that it was quite cold that morning and we were not feeling up to exploring.)

(Jordan and I at Newgrange)

Newgrange, which is a 15 minute bus ride from Drogheda, on the other hand was amazing. It was constructed 500 years before the pyramids of Giza. The amazing part of the construction is the alignment. Sunlight only reaches the inner chamber of Newgrange on 5 days of the year. (2 days before, the day of, and two days after the winter solstice.)

It is a neat story how it was rediscovered. It was allowed to decay to just about nothing... overgrown with tree, etc. and a in the mid 19th century a man was going to build something over the area, but when he started digging he noticed all the rock he was getting. At first he thought it was a natural quarry, however, they found the large decorative stone at the entrance before they got very far and realized this was special.

The exterior of Newgrange... the white rock arrangement is the rendering of an anthropologist from the 1960s... the interior is exactly as it was when it was built (except for the addition of some artificial light)


On Friday and Saturday I went to Cork... cute little town... One guy who lives there called it the "Center of the Universe." I was not so sure, but I did have a good time. I went to the Church of St. Anne Shandon. It has a clock tower that was known as the "four faced liar" until 1987 because every side of the clock said a different time. In 1987 it was fixed so that this is no longer the case. The Shandon is known for its bells and for a fee you can climb up and ring the bells... then you can climb up to the level above the clock and there is a terrific view of the city.
(view from the top of the tower)
Next to the town of Cork is Blarney Castle. The myth is that if you kiss the Blarney Stone here, you receive the gift of gab. So... of course I had to kiss the Blarney Stone. To do so you climb up through the castle and to the top floor. Once there you lean out this place on the top of the turret and kiss the stone.
(Blarney Castle)
It was a fun little jaunt... a bit touristy and I evidently missed the bus by about 2 minutes so had to wait at the bus stop for over an hour to get back to Cork... however, I met some nice people (one of them from Australia) and had a good time.

Cheers
~Dannielle
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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Just Pictures

No time for a formal update... have 2 papers due this week. But here are links to pictures. Let me know what you think... (someone IS reading this, right?)

Cheers
~Dannielle
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Sunday, July 13, 2008

I don't know... why not just call it Ireland?



I guess I should update since I have a lot to share.
Last weekend I decided to go down to Waterford. I left Dublin at 7:30 on Thursday morning (or "half-seven"), the first train to Waterford for the day. We were due to arrive at 10:10... somehow in the course of our journey we lost 45 minutes and did not get to Waterford til five minutes to 11... I am STILL not sure how that happened.

Regardless, I got to Waterford in one piece and had a good time exploring the town. I visited Reginald's Tower which was a stronghold at the corner of the ancient city walls. Since I went on a Thursday morning, I got a very nice tour with only 3 people on the tour with me. The tour guide was a nice woman from Waterford who really knew a lot about the building which has been a military stronghold, a mint, a prison, a family residence (The Chief Constable live there with his family with no electricity or running water from the late 19th century up until the 1950s!)
Reginald's Tower

I also visited The Museum of Treasures, a former granary that was converted to a museum only fairly recently. A fairly large portion of the museum is devoted to the Viking era in Waterford. Waterford, like Dublin, was a Viking settlement because they were both port towns. Waterways were very important in Ireland because the road system was nonexistent. It is the Romans who set up many of the roads in Britain and mainland Europe. Because Ireland was never conquered by the Romans, no such roads were built. The Museum of Treasures has a substantial amount of Viking artifacts because a few years ago a shopping center was built and in the excavations to built the parking garage they stumbled upon a Viking church.(an ancient anchor that is on display)


That evening I stayed in a little town just south of Waterford, called Tramore. (Tra Mhor in Irish)The hostel I stayed in there was very nice. It is run by a couple who also own a B&B next door. So it has a lot of the charm of a B&B, but in a hostel.


The room I stayed in had 4 other girls in it. 3 Candians, 1 Frenchwoman, and myself. We met a couple of the guys next door, a German man, and another Canadian. We decided that we must be the "min-UN," though "mini-NATO" would have been more accurate. Together we went out to a pub and to hear some Irish music. It was great. The pub we went to was small and very "untouristy." It was filled with local people... a lot of them older but that didn't matter. And they played real Irish music, not American music for the tourists like in Dublin.
Rebecca from France and Markus from Germany.
Jeff from Ontario, Sophie from Ottawa, Lindsay from Vancouver (working in Dublin this summer) and Heather form Ottawa (she and Sophie were traveling together.)

The next morning I took a tour of the Waterford Crystal factory with Sophie and Heather. We went through all of the stages of production from blowing the glass, to cutting and engraving the glass. It was very interesting and now I understand why Waterford glass is so expensive. Everything is done by hand.

A master glass cutter (requires at least 8 years of training)

One of my favorite parts of the tour was when WE got to break glass. If a piece has the tiniest of air bubbles or cracks when it come from the blowing room, it is broken and remelted before it is cut.


We also got to pick up some of their trophy pieces. They always make three copies when they get an order of a trophy. One for the event, one to keep as a reference for other glass cutters and one "just in case."

After returning to Dublin, the rest of my weekend was a lot of fun, too. I went to a pair of hurling matches on Sunday. For those who are unaware, hurling is a Gaelic sport. It looks like a mixture of soccer, field hockey, and lacrosse. There are 15 players on each team and they each have sticks, called hurls, which they can use to move the ball (which looks like a baseball). They can carry the ball in their hands for only 4 steps. They can carry it on the hurl indefinitely. They can kick the ball, bat the ball with there hurl... the goal is to get the ball into the goal on the ends of the field.
The games we went to were the Leinster Minor Finals and the Leinster Senior Finals. According to people I have talked to, we didn't go to a great game because Kilkenny is such a good team, there is no contest. But it being my first match, I didn't know any better.

Not much else to add right now... I will give an update on my trip to Wicklow and to Kilmainhem Gaol soon.
Hope every one is doing well... leave me some comments.
~Dannielle
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Saturday, July 5, 2008

Northern Ireland

I guess I should update the events from two weekends ago... I have been lazy. First here are the links to pictures... WARNING: There are over 350 pictures so it may take a while to go through them all.

Are We Still In Ireland?
The Northern Ireland Adventure Continues
Why can't we have stuff like this in the US?

Now on to the fun... We left the IES center in Dublin at 9am on Friday morning (the first time a big group like this has EVER left on time.) We rode in a chartered bus up to Belfast and ate at the Crown Bar... good food, nice atmosphere. Then, as a group, we took a Black Cab tour of Belfast. (There were 6 different cabs, but we traveled to each stop in a caravan.) The tour goes through a lot of the areas that are historically significant in the Troubles for Northern Ireland. (Those who don't know about the Troubles, you can read about them here.)
We visited Shankill Road, the predominately Protestant Road in Belfast where they have murals on the gables of the houses.This was one of the more striking murals. It doesn't matter where you stand; it looks like the gun is pointing at you.




Then we visited the Peace Wall. This wall was erected early on in the Troubles. It separates the Protestant and Catholic portions of the city. There are gates at each of the roads through the wall and every evening, even now, the gates are closed between the two sides of the city. We also visited Falls Road (the predominately Catholic Road) where they had murals commemorating the hunger strikers and Bombay St where there was a memorial garden for all of the civilians and others who were killed in the Troubles.
After that we headed to Portrush, NI for the evening. We ate at the Coast restaurant... the best food of the entire trip thus far. Then we decided to explore the cliffs along the coast. A lot of fun and amazingly it was sunny the WHOLE time.
The next morning we got up and headed to Giant's Causeway. If you ever get to Ireland, (Northern Ireland) be sure to go. It is really amazing. We hiked around the causeway and took LOTS of pictures. Probably more than necessary but when you are that amazed you take lots of pics.
(They actually took one of the stones and made it into a rotating information display.)

Next, we rode to Dunluce Castle. This castle was built in the 13th century and has a long and illustrious history. It was built on the top of a cliff and is very majestic. In 1639, part of the castle including the kitchens fell into the sea, taking seven cooks with it. You can still see where the kitchens used to be.
( They also had "guides" dressed in period dress.)


After the castle, on to a rope bridge... I don't have any pictures because my camera battery decided to die just about that point. Unfortunately our non-rainy (can't ever say sunny) day ended then and the skies opened up. On the plus side, I thought ahead and tucked dry socks into my purse, so I got was not too miserable.

Onward to Enniskillen. To be completely honest, I am not sure why we stayed here. It is a small town with little going for it by way of tourist attractions. We did go out to some of the pubs, but it was nothing spectacular.

Sunday morning, we took a boat tour of Enniskillen and it stopped at Devenish Island (from Daimh Inish, meaning Ox Island). This little island houses the ruins of an ancient monastery.( The round tower on Devenish Island... used in case Vikings attacked. The monks would take themselves and all of their valuables up in the tower then draw the ladder inside.)
(Short doorway)

After Devenish Island, we road the boat to a hotel were we had lunch and then headed back to Dublin. It was fun, but by the end, I was ready to rest.

Love you all

~Dannielle

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Howth, Ireland

Before I start, here are links to more pictures for those who are curious:
More Dublin, my explorations from my last post, and the beginning of Howth
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2449944&l=86af3&id=6838190
More of Howth pictures
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2451852&l=e53e3&id=6838190
and the inside of the Transport Museum
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2451898&l=0b17e&id=6838190

So I guess I should make an update, especially before I go to Northern Ireland this weekend. (We leave for Belfast on Friday morning and get back on Sunday afternoon. An update will come with all of those fun details next week.)

Last Friday, I took a day trip to Howth (rhymes with both), Ireland. This is a little fishing village just north of Dublin. To get there, I just got on the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) in Dublin City Centre and rode it to the end of the line.

I had a lot of fun in Howth. It is very picturesque and the weather was great. I managed to go on a day it was sunny, warm, and no rain.
Although Howth is very small, they have are very optimistic with a tourism campaign "Howth is Magic."


I wouldn't describe Howth as magic, but it was very charming. The harbor was very pretty and had a great view from almost any location.



Howth also has the attraction of 5 seals which live in the harbor. I got to see four of the five of them after some kids tossed strips of salmon in the water for them. As soon as one strip hit the water, a seal was there to pick it up.



After hiking around Howth (hiking being an accurate statement, because it is VERY hilly) and getting lunch, I decided to see some of the other sights that Howth had to offer. So I walked around the edge of Howth to St. Mary's Church, Howth Castle and the National Transport Museum.

St. Mary's Church which was built by Sitric, King of Dublin, in 1042. It was replaced around 1235 by a parish church, and then, in the second, half of the 14th century, the present church was built. It is a good distance from the center of Howth, but not far from Howth Castle and the Transport Museum.

Howth Castle is a traditional castle, however it is unique because the original family still lives in the castle. According to locals, this is the sixth generation that has lived in the castle.



Last but not least in my journey to Howth was the visit to the NATIONAL TRANSPORT MUSEUM...


I am glad that the guy who gave me directions told me that it is in a big barn that was once a working farm, because I never would have found it otherwise. To call it the NATIONAL anything was a very large overstatement. It did have some vintage transportation vehicles contained in it. Kinda cool... I am not sure how it came into existence, but I expect it went something like this... Wow we have this barn full of old vehicles. What are we gonna do with them? I don't know... put a piece of paper detailing what they are on their windshields, open the doors to the public and call it a museum... and that is my ideas on the transport museum.




Overall, Howth was yet another adventure.
Look forward for an update next week about Northern Ireland. I expect to have a lot of pictures.
~ Dannielle
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