Long time, no see.

It's hard to believe I've been here over a month already. Times been moving pretty fast the past couple weeks, and we just had our first week of classes. I'm planning on taking Archaeology of the Viking age, Introduction to Traditional Irish Music, Modern Irish, Celtic Religion and Mythology and finally Celtic Saints. Celtic Saints seems unbearably boring, but incredibly easy for international students, so I'll probably stick it out. I was sick last weekend, and took it pretty easy this weekend so I don't really have much to update on, check back next week... sorry gang.

Inis Oírr (Inisheer - "East Island")

This weekend was the second field trip with my early start and after a 6 hour bus ride and 2 hour ferry ride we arrived on the small island, where our class made up about 10% of the population(approx. 300). We stayed in a small hostel which had no locks, but our window faced out to the ocean, which was only about 100 feet away. Due to a water shortage the whole island basically turns off the water from 8 pm to 8 am. It was fascinating really. I don't know if they have a small reservoir, or bring in water, or if they just purify the ocean water or what, but it all tasted like minerals and chlorine. It's got the feel of a tiny town in Wyoming where everyone knows everyone, because I legitimately think that everyone does know everyone so we stuck out like 34 sore thumbs. My friends and I stuck out less than everyone else because apparently we were the only ones who had ever heard the term "ugly Americans." 90% of the rest of the group were exactly that. Loud, obnoxious, comparing everything to the U.S., telling Irish people they couldn't understand what they were trying to say through their accents. It infuriated me. I actually found myself reminding some of them that we're the one with accents here, which they didn't seem to comprehend, because they all just sat there and stared back with confused looks.

The whole of the Island is covered in these rock walls that really aren't used for anything. Occasionally you'll come across a cow or a horse inside one of the walls with no gate and wonder A. how they got in there and B. how the owners get them out. and when I say covered, I mean covered. with the exception of along the coast there's a stone wall about every 25 feet, if not less. The walls are pretty cool too, they're awkwardly stacked rocks, that some how manage to stay up, and along with the stone castles, I have no idea where they got all these rocks. Seriously, there's an unfathomably HUGE number of rocks put into these walls. No... seriously I can confidently say without even exaggerating, many hundreds of thousands if not millions. Below that is a picture of the walls a bit closer up so you can see how I'm not pulling your leg or any other appendage by using numbers that big. Another thing is that people here become maniacs when they board any vehicle. In cars they drive fast and terrifying and on bikes they weave in and out of these crazy drivers. I don't ever want to hear anyone complaining that people who bike on the roads in the U.S. are annoying, cause over here they become a hazard. In Cork there are plenty of roads that go from two lane two way roads to one lane two way roads without any notice other than the fact that the lines are gone. Either that or people just choose to drive the wrong way on one way roads. I'm really not sure.

 One of the big things to see in Inis Oírr is the shipwreck. I can't tell you a whole lot about it because this place isn't really touristy at all. There are no signs at the sights, and the road signs and maps are all in Irish. In fact, most people on the island speak Irish instead of English, which is really cool aside from the fact that the 2 pubs on the island were full (10 or so) of Irish people quite blatantly talking about us in Irish. Anyways, back to the ship. It's big, it's old and it's tetanus just waiting to happen. I don't think you're supposed to go inside... but we did anyways. There wasn't a whole lot to it other than the fact that it was rusty and dripping everywhere. Also, the back wall of the interior has become a canvas for spray painters. On the right is a picture of what we got to wake up to. That's the view from our hostel room, and it was amazing. Unfortunately it only happened on Saturday, because Friday morning was cloudy and it rained the rest of the day.

Quick quiz. Ireland is associated with what?
a. Beer
b. Potatoes
c. The Irish
d. Shamrocks
e. All of the above but it should also be known for the hilarious warning signs everywhere.

Answer: e
Seriously. This is the only funny sign I have a picture of so far, but I'm really tempted to make a completely separate page just for all the comical warning signs I see.

That's right by the dock, in front of parking spaces.

The greenest green I've ever seen.

This was an interesting weekend for sure. On Thursday my class took a field trip out to a small city by the name of Bunratty, which is known for it's one castle, which was pretty cool despite that its surrounded by a "Folk Park" which is one of those historic parks where everyone dresses in era clothing and works jobs that would have been done in a historically accurate manner. It also had the first pub I've found that puts the shamrock shape in the head of a pint of Guinness. The castle was interesting and as we went with the class we actually took a guided tour that gave us some very interesting insight on how clever the architects where back then. I thought this was a really cool shot of a castle with the Irish flag blowing in the wind.

This is a full shot of the castle. Every corner of the castle is a staircase, and each staircase is narrow and rotates clockwise upwards. The reason for this is because if soldiers were attacking the castle then they would have to charge up these stairs, and as most used their right hands to carry their swords they wouldn't be able to get very much strength in their swings because the center pillar of the staircase would confine their movements. Pretty smart on the builder's part if you ask me. They also had all sorts of traps and hidden areas, along with eye holes in the tapestries that the guards could watch from and spy on what was going on in the castles. This place was straight out of Scooby Doo. It also used a draw bridge as the only access point to the castle.

Besides the castle the only real interesting things are the long walkways covered with tree's over hanging the whole area. It was like Lord of the Rings scenery going on in this place and it was absolutely breath taking. I got a little trigger happy with the camera when we were walking about the folk park.



Who said there's no mountains in Ireland? This is from the weekend trip we took up to Killarney. We hopped a bus up there Friday afternoon, and came back Sunday morning, so we really only had one day there, so we rented bikes and rode around in the national park which was absolutely gorgeous. We spent the majority of the time looking for places in the park that were in a different segment of the park. Apparently the national park is actually several parks all about 3 or 4 km from the last. This is in the second park we got to, and took about at 4 km ride through which was very scenic. This was on the way to beautiful waterfall that is nestled deep in the forest on the side of a mountain. Everything here is super green and super awesome. I completely understand why it's called the Emerald Isle.

Torc Waterfall. Pretty big, pretty beautiful ----->

<------- Climbed up the waterfall past the rocks... probably weren't supposed to but it was worth it. I drank a little bit of the water (partly because I was out of water and really thirsty, partly because I wanted it to give me eternal life) I hope it doesn't kill me. It probably won't because people down below were doing it. I don't know if there are any superstitions as to what will happen if you bathe in/drink the water from this waterfall, I'm just hoping its magical really.

After the waterfall we rode back out of the forest and went and chilled down on a rocky beach by an enormous lake. We hung out there for a while and skipped stones but really nothing interesting happened (so I'm not really sure why I brought it up... I think it's just because I really like this picture).

Ross Castle. On the edge of a lake, it's truly a sight to behold but I couldn't get a good picture because you have to pay for a tour to get in and we all decided it wasn't worth the 2 euros to go in when we could bike to the waterfall for free. We were allowed to go into the grounds, just not the castle. This was the boringest (so far, aside from the fact that it's on a lake) castle I've been inside next to.

 Nothing really special about this picture, I just really like the landscape shot again, so I thought I'd share it.

That's all for now, check back next week for a new post (probably)