Getting Ready to Leave

The last few months have been a time for tough work in school and a time for making tough decisions.  My thesis is due in a month and has been an incredibly draining although enjoyable experience, and now that I'm soon to be out in the real world again I have to start looking for work. For a while I tried to find work in Ireland so that I could stay for a while, but it's hard enough to find work as an Irishman here.  After a lot of deliberating I've decided that the best thing to do is to come home. However, I still have a month left and will hopefully cram in a ton of sightseeing in between furiously editing my thesis, and hopefully catch all of you up on the cool things I've done since my last post! It's so important to live in the moment, and I'll have to work at remembering that as I get closer to all of the goodbyes.

Hope you're all well and see you soon :)

Becoming Irish

Last week I had the privilege of attending a Naturalization Ceremony in Dublin.  My friend had been living in Ireland for almost ten years, and had finally been granted Irish Citizenship.

Despite arriving an hour early, we still queued for about forty five minutes or so, in a lovely Irish downpour, before being allowed into the convention center.

The Convention Centre Dublin, where the ceremony took place.
You can tell I greatly admired the tilted cylinder thing...

The ceremony was short and sweet, with just the right amount of pomp and circumstance, but the coolest part was when all 1,000 future citizens stood to make their oath of loyalty to the Republic of Ireland.  For people like my friend, they had waited years for this moment. After they had all sat down, this time as Irish men and women, there was an air of relief, joy, and most of all, patriotism.  It’s been a while since I’ve felt or seen genuine patriotism and it was very heartening. 

View from the top balcony where the +1s were seated

After asking everyone to both remember to vote and to support Ireland in a soccer match taking place later that evening, our hosts dismissed the 2,000 occupants of the auditorium. We weren’t able to fully appreciate my friend’s accomplishment after the ceremony since we literally had to run to catch our bus back to my friend’s house, but he’s still on cloud nine and is applying for his Irish passport later this week. 

It was a great experience for everyone I'm sure, especially for the 3,000 individuals who became Irish citizens throughout the day on June 14. A hearty congratulations to them all!

              

Blarney Castle

After living in Ireland for seven months (and less than an hour's bus ride away!), I have finally been to Blarney Castle!


According to tradition, now that I've kissed the Blarney Stone I have received the gift of gab (tell me if you know what that means). It was a little scary, because of the narrow stairs on the walk up and the fact that you can kind of see the ground when you bend backwards to kiss the stone (not so great with heights, this one...), but luckily there are bars to hold on to and there's a man who holds on to you so that you don't fall and hurt yourself.


I came mostly for the Blarney Stone tradition, but was very pleased to find that the castle and the grounds are absolutely breathtaking--and it's only just spring! I was also surprised to learn how much more there is to the surrounding area than just the castle: there's the fern garden (because it's so much WARMER here), the poison garden (literally a garden full of poisonous plants), the witch's kitchen (where the Witch of Blarney lights a fire to keep warm at night), and the wishing steps (if you walk up and down the stairs backwards with your eyes closed and focus on a wish, it will be granted).

The Fern Garden

The Poison Garden from the top of Blarney Castle

The Witch's Kitchen

The Wishing Steps

If any of you come to Ireland I would highly recommend taking a look at this place, but make sure you block out most of the day to walk around--I think my friends and I were there for about five hours!

St. Patrick's Day in Cork

My St. Patrick's Day experiences have never been all that exciting, I don't think I've ever gone out for one or had a green beer or anything...but this year I decided that since I live in Ireland, it might be a good time to make an effort.

In the early afternoon on St. Patrick's Day we went downtown and waited patiently for the parade to start. This float was my favorite (The Mighty Zeus!)
The whole of downtown was covered with stalls selling food, elaborate hats, and various keepsakes. It's the busiest I've ever seen downtown Cork.

(Quick nerd moment: much of Cork city used to be underwater, and this street was where the old harbor was. The diagonal street lamps you see are meant to represent the ships waiting in the harbor.)

After the parade we went to a pub, and watched Wales win the Six Nations rugby tournament, and later watched Ireland's team get throttled (sounds depressing, but was still really fun). My friends and I went out to dinner at a great Tapas Bar (not a very Irish tradition) and rounded out the day with a few homemade Irish coffees. All in all, a great day :)

*All photos courtesy of my friend Tacy Kennedy, who said I could steal her pictures when I discovered I'd forgotten my camera...

Uhhhhhhhh.....

So it's been since January, huh? Ouch. I can honestly say that not much has happened--although I went on a trip that I'll write about after my last assignments are in. (Classes are done at the end of March! Yikes!)

In the meantime though, here's an awesome rainbow :)

The Rain it Raineth Every Day

Or at least it can feel like it.

I remember having a conversation with one of my new Irish friends during my first few weeks here, and complaining about the rain during a sudden cloudburst.

"You've not seen rain," they responded.

I hadn't.

Luckily, it's Romantic Irish Rain, and as soon as I get new wellies (rain boots!) I won’t mind it as much. After all, the reason for those "40 shades of green" I love so much is Ireland's surplus of moisture. Even when it isn’t officially raining, it still MISTS. Not like a Seattle mist where you can still see the droplets, but a genuine mist that hangs in the air and can really only be seen from a distance.

Today was a misty day, and as you can see it makes my view look awesome, and I get to feel like I’m in Wuthering Heights or something every time I look out my window.

view from my balcony

However, all of this ‘misting’ creates an admittedly odd anxiety for me. It’s the type of weather where I’m not sure if I should have my hood up or not, and if I do have my hood up, I worry that I look like a bit of a pansy. Usually I leave my hood on until I run into a stylish group of pea-coat-wearing Irish girls who are so hardcore they aren’t even carrying umbrellas--and then I bravely take down my hood (to blend in, of course) and prepare myself for all of the frizzy hair that will follow.

It’s good to be back in Ireland :)

Advice for New Travelers

Some of my favorite people are about to embark on their off-campus adventures, and I just wanted to relay some advice to them via the wisdom of my big sister and my own experiences : )

I can never remember whether or not this conversation was in person or over-the-phone, but before I traveled for the first time I got some really good advice from my older sister: We were talking about her first big trip to study abroad in Italy, and I remember her saying that when she arrived there she had this “what the heck am I doing?” feeling about leaving home to stay in another country. She told me that this was normal and would pass—but of course I didn’t think it would happen to me. I was super excited to be going to Greece (and to finally be traveling outside of the Inland Northwest) and I was positive that I would be on cloud nine the moment I got there.

This was mostly the case until I couldn’t figure out the crazy lock on my apartment door, was late for check in at my school and had to get there via incredibly scary motorcycle ride, and got lost walking back in the dark in a city I’d never been in before.

Even after I finally got back to my apartment and met my awesome new roommates, I still ended up making a very expensive phone call home to ask if it had all been a very bad idea. I was, indeed, having a “what the h@%! am I doing?!” moment.

But sure enough, the next day over pastries and a walk down to school with my roomies, I started to feel better. It ended up being a great semester.

I have since ‘moved’ to two other countries (the lovely Emerald Isle included) and despite all of the excitement leading up to these trips, I always have that feeling after arriving that what I’m doing is absolutely crazy. Who picks up and leaves everyone they know and love? Why did I choose to come to a place I know nothing about and where I must now stay for a prolonged period of time??? It can all feel very overwhelming and isolating when you sit down and think about it for the first time.

But this is normal. And it will pass. And then you will have the time of your life.

Just remember why you chose to go wherever you’re going in the first place, and that traveling will give you a new perspective and that you will probably be a better person for it.

Best of luck to all of you on your travels! I hope you have a blast : )

Liz