Back in Nebraska

After a long day of flights, we got back just a shade before midnight on Saturday, promptly headed to Taco Bell, and then crashed at our respective houses. It's been a fun trip. Check back later today or tomorrow, though, for more pictures.

Some final observations

Since, as you may know, the program ends tomorrow (and I fly out of Shannon early Saturday morning), I figured I would take the time to reflect a little bit more on the study abroad experience.

Of any of the negatives of traveling to Ireland—of which there are few—they all seem to relate with general travel among any European countries; they are the inevitabilities of the European Union. Examples? Being nickel-and-dimed at grocery stores for things such as bags, carts and using the bathroom; the lack of value of the dollar versus the Euro; and myriad annoying Spanish and Italian tourists. The Irish themselves, as has been my limited experience, are fantastically polite, friendly, courteous and pleasant to talk to; I can't count how many random conversations we've had with people on the street, in pubs, in shops or restaurants, where they welcomed us to Ireland or wished us well on the trip. All, if they've been to the US, have been to NYC. They seem to recognize the Irish connection the city has.

Perhaps my least favorite part of the trip has been the dreary weather—and how quickly a dark raincloud can appear out of sunny and clear sky and drench you. I understand, however, that the country is in a particular bad spell; and Limerick is notorious for its poor weather. We're at the center of the storm, apparently, and there is no eye.

But those negatives are insignificant to the positives of the study abroad experience. The classes have been interesting, though perhaps not as much as getting to know the professors very well. Conversations with the Irish we've been connected to, through Stephen or at the dean's house or met randomly, have been enormously educative. And simply being out of the United States for a month has proved to teach its lessons—it allows to step back even further from your country and assess it as objectively as possible.

All in all, I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity. I've gotten to see exhibits and sites connected with Joyce and Yeats; see some beautiful geographic features, such as the Burrens and the Cliffs of Moher; see the institutions of the Irish government; meet many Irish people; experience traditional Irish music, restaurants, and pubs; learn about Ireland's history and independence from England, and medieval conquests; and I've seen many towns about the country (Limerick, Gort, Cork, Dublin, Delvin, Mollingar, Doolin, Athlonne, Birr, Negagh).

English Nerds, Be Jealous...

...because yesterday I saw the wild swans of Coole. Alone—apparently the only Yeats junkie of the group—I took the bus out to Gort, Co. Galway, about an hour from Limerick, and then walked 2 1/2 miles through the countryside to Coole Park, a site Yeats spent a lot time. The park essentially used to be the estate of the famous patron/playwright Lady Gregory. While her house is merely ruins—it was demolished in the 1940s—the rest of the park and nature reserve surrounding it are in tact. The walled gardens, too, are still around, as is the gigantic "Autograph Tree," which features the carved-in signatures of Yeats, Sean O'Casey and George Bernad Shaw, among others.

I then walked down to Coole Lake, the site of the famous poem "The Wild Swans at Coole." There were swans on the lake, though not quite nine and fifty, as you may see in the picture, but I don't know if they were wild or not. Given their already foul tempers, I thought I'd stay back.

Yesterday was, finally, a gorgeous day: sunny and clear skies and only a few drops of rain. The weather was even better in Gort.

Cork: My Favorite City in Ireland

As it was the priority spot for both Richard and I—given we both have ancestors who at one time lived in Cork—Saturday morning we awoke quite early and caught the 8:35 bus to the city.

Overall, I’d say Cork was my favorite town—it had many of the advantages of Dublin and Limerick, without either city’s disadvantages. Situated in a valley, the view from the inside of the town lets you see many houses perched up and around the sides, and the main city center is laid out cleanly and compactly. To our pleasure, it was a good walking city.

Soon after arriving, we stopped at St. Finnbar’s Cathedral, which, of all the churches I’d been to in Ireland, takes the preverbal cake. An Anglican cathedral, it featured the most ornate carvings and paintings and most beautiful stained glass. Despite not being very old, it more than made up for it in beauty. Also interesting was the mostly below-ground organ.

After that we grabbed lunch and caught a bus to Blarney, which was just about 20 minutes outside Cork, as part of an effort to endow ourselves with the gift of gab. Blarney Castle, home of the famous Blarney Stone, sits in a large park area with windings streams and flowers and gardens surrounding it. The castle itself was one of the more interesting I’ve come upon: a large tower, mostly, with a few surrounding turrets. The line to kiss the stone and thus endow upon yourself, traditionally, with the gift of gab, extended out the base of the castle. As you progressed, you would your way up narrow stairs and past small windowed rooms. It made for a more interesting wait.

Both Richard and I kissed the stone. It didn’t taste particularly bad, and I didn’t feel like I knew it well enough to give it some tongue. The taste lingered in my mouth as we walked around the village of Blarney and took the bus back to Cork.

We then walked to the University College Cork campus, a series of Trinity-like Gothic buildings mixed in with the Limerick-like newer ones. There were also flowers and a gardens and plenty of Italians and Spaniards walking about. Coincidentally enough, a friend of ours studied at UCC and gave us some recommendations about places to visit. On his recommendation, we next attempted to find the Hi-B Bar, a local watering hole. It took us some time—we even stopped for ice cream at another place recommended to us by a neighbor on the Blarney bus—but eventually we found it. It was a small, out of the way awning; you had to go up a back flight of stairs that ended in a old wood door that concealed a small, bad smelling room with one bar.

Imagine our surprise upon, when ordering drinks, we heard someone say "Nebraska"—at least we thought. That inclination was ratified by "Mississippi" and "Omaha." We sat down with drinks in hand next to the table and asked if what we heard was true. Sure enough, one of the two couples—all in their early 30s, probably—said his sister was moving to Omaha. Amazing. We ended up talking to them for 2 hours, and didn't pay for drinks again. They were extremely nice and pleasant to talk to. Our friend's recommendation was spot on.

We got a quick bite to eat before catching the late train back to Limerick.

As a side note, my parents noticed an old bridge in Cork that they had realized would have been around when our ancestors lived in the city. I, too, found the bridge and walked across it. Hence the picture.

The Cliffs of Moher

Great day. Not necessarily weatherwise—when is it?—though rain seemed to hold off long enough for us to get a great view of the Cliffs of Moher.

The trip was a lot more than that, though: we had a hired bus for all 10 students, and Professors McCallister and Lyons joined us. Professor McCallister's wife and five kids, who are now in Ireland visiting their father, also tagged along. Our bus driver doubled as a tour guide, and mentioned historical tidbits about such-and-such castle as we drove by it.

We stopped first at a smaller castle, and then to the remains of one of the best-preserved stone circular forts built by inhabitants of Ireland during the early Bronze age. Not long after we stopped at the "Burrens," a craggy area stipped naked to the rock at the end of the last ice age, which also featured an iconic tomb.




Next, we drove around the scenic Galway bay (north of Limerick) and stopped to take photos. Lunching in Doolin, the town nearest the Cliffs, I ate a fantastic seafood chowder—big chunks of Salmon and other, all native fish, made the dish quite filling. I also had a couple King Prawns, which were equally fantastic.



We then hiked up to the Cliffs of Moher, which is quite the tourist attraction—Europeans of all stripes crowded around viewing points, and walking around we heard Spanish, German, Italian, some miscellaneous Slavic languages, and saw both Irish and British tourists as well. Not many Americans, though, except for a couple girls whose picture we took.

The cliffs, as the pictures suggest, were breathtaking—just an enormous cut off in the land, to a huge drop at the sea—like God had grown tired of making the island at once, and immediately moved on to another project. The official part of the area has a large wall separating you from much danger. On the other side, though—where, I'll admit, my pictures come from—there is a winding dirt path, ground down by so many feet, on "private property," allowing you to get a better look at everything. We took both paths. The unofficial part has no protecting wall or anything—it was quite scary in some parts, and would have been more so if the wind had kicked up like it apparently usually does. Not too many other tourists had much compunction in "trespassing." I suspect that the signs are essentially legal shelters, allowing the landowner to treat any drunk or careless person who nosedives off the side as a "trespasser" and therefore—assuming that, given Ireland's common law status, the law is relatively similar—a lower legal standard of care in tort.

Killaloe

After the usual routine of class, we took cars out to Killaloe (KILL-A-LOO), a small town on Lough (Lake) Derg about 25 minutes outside of Limerick (the Shannon River runs into the lough). It was, for sure, an absolutely gorgeous lake town—as my pictures suggest. Thankfully the weather cooperated, though it sprinkled a bit on the way back. The cathedral—where the picture to the right is from—dated back to the 12th century, though the origins of it date back from a few centuries earlier. King Brian Boru made the area on top of the hill, where another church now stands (here, the picture of the cometary, below) the de facto capital of Ireland some 200 years earlier. With a steep hill on either side, both running down to the river, it must have been a formidable fortification in its day.

We sat over looking the river and had a lecture on the EU's transition into a single currency. The town was truly the idyllic example of the Irish towns I imagined; little shops and pubs lined the winding streets, and many beautiful houses were perched on the hillsides, all probably with spectacular views. The bridge spanning the river was only one lane: it required stoppage at lights on either side to avoid gridlock.

Tomorrow, again, we head to the beautiful Cliffs of Moher. I can't wait—should provide for some spectacular photos as well.

A Break for Contemplation

Without anything significant happening since I returned from the Midlands, and with a big few days coming ahead, I figured it would be a good time to do some reflection and synthesis of the experience thus far. And without a coherent structure in mind, this post takes the form of bullet points.

• The weather has been worse than I expected, though it shows signs of improving. Rain comes down in small sessions, sometimes to the extent that we'd call "pouring," but mostly in a calm showers. As I understand it, at least from the cabdrivers, Limerick is undergoing a particularly nasty spell of showers.

• Ireland's youth seem to be in striking contrast with their elders on views of religion. Stephen said that many kids his age and younger don't frequently attend church; the service Richard and I went to, consisting almost entirely of people 50 and over, only reinforced this. I noticed large pictures—the traditional "Sacred Heart of Jesus" portraits—hanging up both in Dean Freel's house and in Mrs. King's house.

• The people have been extraordinarily nice. Everyone whom we've asked directions from, or who we've met—Stephen's relatives, the dean of the Limerick law school, random people in pubs—have been pretty universally courteous.

• Ireland follows UK spellings (i.e., "colour" and "dramatise"). In case you're a nerd like me. Guess I never really thought that they wouldn't—I hadn't thought much about it at all.

• Everything has been more expensive than I would have thought. Not extremely expensive—it's still probably cheaper than England—but not as cheap as one would have thought for a country that has just recently gained first-world status. Professor Eaton chalks up some of the increased cost to rising property values, but the simple fact that the EU supposedly possesses a large "free market" of goods doesn't seem to be having the desired result of driving down goods costs.

• The food has been fantastic. The best meal I probably have had, outside of Stephen's grandmother's fantastic Sunday feast, was at a restaurant in downtown Limerick last week—I had salmon (cooked, not smoked) over a plate of uniquely flavored noodles. The salmon was incredibly flavorful and different. Pepper sauce, ubiquitous on the island, is also fantastic—especially on a steak sandwich. We've tried both Burger King (they still have the Big King!) and McDonald's, with the former in much better shape than the latter. Subways, also, seem to be everywhere.

• Irish politics, is, not surprisingly, rabidly anti-Bush. Ahern seems reasonably popular, but not divine.

Well, that's all for now. Tomorrow we're taking cabs up to Killaloe, a beautiful lake not far from Limerick, for an EU law lecture. Friday we journey to the Cliffs of Moher for a day trip; when we return, I plan on seeing "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at King John's Castle. Saturday morning, I think, Richard and I are planning on taking the bus/train to Cork, probably staying all day Saturday, overnight, and then returning Sunday.