How well can I do without pictures

To be honest I had wanted to do a photo essay by now, but the lack of a USB port and my camera's current technical difficulties, brought on by a nap on the beach and the ensuing entrance of sand into my CANON SD 1000 (powerful sounding names do nothing to protect from the elements), have left me without the ability to do so. I'll do my best to describe events since the last entry.

From the Aran Islands we headed straight eastward across the island to Dublin, the capital city of the Republic. We were greeted at St. Stephen's Green Park by Marta and Josephine, Marta being one of the courchsurfers who would host us. We met up with Joao, my original contact, and set out to wander around the Temple Bar area, which is loaded with tourists and locals alike. Melody and Jenny went off to look for souvenirs and check things out while I headed to the pub with Marta, Joao, and Ricardo (visiting Joao from Portugal). The Temple Bar Pub was huge and included a lively band playing tradiontial music with a large group surrounding it who would spontaneously erupt into song and clapping. We settled into a corner and scrounged for schools which were hard to come by. I started talking to Ray and Sarah, Dubliners sitting next to us, who asked where I was from. When I responded, they were surprised and Ray paid me one of the best compliments I've had all trip. "Really? I had you pegged for a Dub when I saw you." Fantastic. We talked a bit about politics, which is quite rough as Ireland is also facing a recession and is going through the court process of quite a scandal with their recently resigned Prime Minister Berty O'Hearn, and about gaelic sports. Unfortunately seasons are just ending, except for Gaelic Football, which we miss by about a week.

From Temple Bar we headed back to the apartment. Joao and I talked about music, Marta displayed an incredible amount of knowledge and insight into the history of Dublin, especially considering that she's an Italian who's been living here for only 7 months. We took a drive around the city that included sights of St. Patrick's Cathedral and Christ's Church. Driving in bigger cities is far more hectic for me than Paris as drivers don't seem as fluid, traffic lights are more ill-timed, streets and their corresponding signs (if you can find corresponding signs) more confusing and random, and all of this with me on the 'wrong' side of the road. Safely arriving at the apartment, Marta made some amazing pasta and we headed out to check out Temple Bar by night.

Talk about a party. They have hen and stag parties here on weekends, so you see large groups of guys or girls dressed up and out looking for fun. The Dubliners seem to treat it as a form of spectator sport and were out in full force, especially those preparing for the big opening Gaelic Football match coming the next weekend. I talked with Kieran, Mickey, and Max, Mickey being the boisterous spokesperson, and all of them huge jokers and quite entertaining. We ended up at an awesome split level pub that had a band on an outcropping between floors. Sadly, this was a cover band, not live Irish music. We went to another, smaller and cozier venue that had another cover band. I get tired kind of early, but did my best to muster conversation in the loud environment.

The next morning, we set out to drop off Melody at the airport, luckily made it to the right one, and then set out in search of the church building. Through a combination of asking for directions, though directions varied, random wanderings, and a general sense of direction, we made it to church, right across from the cementery. I didn't know the significance of this particular cementery at the time, but later found out that it is where Michael Collins is buried, and kicked myself for not having wandered it more (we did have about 20 minutes where we did so before church). Church was testimony meeting and it was fun to listen to all the testimonies given in the delightful Dublin brogue where th's become t's, u's become o's, i's become oy's, and so on. I've been trying to pay great attention to the accent. I think I'll have to live here a while before I can really try to pick it up, though it's fun playing around with it.

Following church, Jenny and I made our way to Trinity college and the Book of the Kells for a wonderful tour of the University that may be part of the inspiration for Hogwart's. No, really. Check out the library and all the awesome traditions they have. Pretty amazing, especially that library. From there we took the tour of Kilmanum Gaol (Jail) which helped get a lot more insight into the original independence movement and the history during the late 1800s and early 1900s. I'm reading about all of this in more detail in two books I bought. Ireland's history seems really important to me beyond the simple curiosity, but as something upon which to look back and learn from.

The next segment of the tour should be driving across the all of the South Coast. I'd like to give more of a summary as this is quite long and then add details later.

Basically, we drove down to the Dingle Peninsula which provided some of the most breathtaking scenery yet. We hung out in local pubs, listened to Irish music in pubs which were a little less lively than I was expecting, talked to locals, and roamed the town. We camped on the beach where we awoke to an amazing sunrise and morning. From there we set out to the abandoned Minard castle which is pretty cool and situated on a pristine beach near an old port and celtic well. I bathed in the freezing ocean water. Yum. The drive around the ring of Kerry was gorgeous, but I was more preoccupied with hairpin turns and roads that wouldn't fit two Hummers side by side (which made watching semis passing tour buses quite the experience). Jenny got car-stir-crazy and we eventually ended up in Cork in a hostel. Plans to roam Cork, which appears to be quite the city, were foiled by rather ugly weather conditions which had previously not been manifested. Everyone everywhere had thanked us for the lovely weather we'd brought. No more. We drove to Kinsale and toured Charles Fort. If I ever build a fort, I may model it after this one as it was so intimidating that it was only once attacked. Rock of Cashel was the next stop. This was another fulfillment of my Irish-countrside, intimidating-fort-on-a-hill, think-about-medeival-clans-and-such, boyhood dreams. By the way, the Gaelic word for Family is Clann. Makes more sense now, eh?

So now we are in Glendalough, tucked away in the Wicklow mountains. The ideal setting for mists and green hills that are so often the typical portrayal of Ireland. Everything is still beautiful and amazing and I hope it doesn't become monotony in green tones. I'll give more of my thoughts on Irish culture and society some other time. For now, it's off on a hike, off to New Grange, and off to leave this stupid car in Belfast. =). It's served us well, but it's time to stop driving and get out and enjoy more.

'Til next time.