a long-winded carte postale

Ireland:

Let's start this one off with a map, too. Remember, it's interactive, so have yourself some fun.

Cue my arrival in Dublin. First off, the airport is immense. I walked forever in a circle to arrive at customs, only to wait in line with the other Non-EU members. When I finally made it to the important guy who decides whether or not I should be allowed into his country, I was greeted warmly. The man asked me if I was going visit family. I explained to him that all of my family was, in fact, French. So not quite. He gave me a long look of disbelief over a pair of glasses and through that probably bullet proof glass. He kindly told me that I must have family here and that if I claimed I didn't it was only because I hadn't discovered them yet. He then stamped my passport, handed it back to me and wished me a good trip and much luck in finding my family.

My first stop in Dublin was… the bus station. I was on my way to Cork where my first host was located. Four hours on a bus showed me scenery that looked much like Louisiana: green, flat, and full of fields. well, flat except for a bit in the distance.

Cork wasn't terribly special. It was a city and I didn't take off on this trip to be in cities constantly. So I wandered around a bit, mainly looking for a grocery store which seemed to be nearly impossible to find (as a lady I later met said, "The Irish are always very eager to be helpful, to give you directions, however, the directions are rarely correct.") My host picked me up, we went home where two other girls he was hosting from Sweden had made supper. I offered my bottle of wine and we had a nice leisurely time of it. I was exhausted and needed an early start the next morning, so I decided to stay in that night. We watched movies projected onto their wall… once it got dark, that is. I laid my head down, went to bed and then went on my way in the morning.

Bantry!

An itty bitty town that I only knew existed because David, that Irish friend of mine, had done a cycling tour along the Southwest and remembered that town. So I went. It was a quaint, adorable little town. Nothing incredibly special, but look at that sky!

In fact, I just ate lunch there and then left again, this time up to Killarney. Now Killarney was lovely. I didn't find anyone to host me, but did manage to find the last bed in a hostel that was quite nice. I went out walking for a bit that evening, sat along a river, hung out in the National Park.

I misjudged when the sun was setting and came back inside way earlier than necessary to rummage around in the "free food" section of the kitchen. I found some noodles and began to cook them, with the intent of adding some raisins and nuts, sort of a trail mix pasta. This kitchen is bustling with movement right about now in all kinds of languages. I heard someone say that they were French Canadian, so, being as obsessed with culture as I am, I turned around and introduced myself, saying that I was in fact going to Québec and had been in Nova Scotia and all that. And that I LOVE the québecois accent. During this discussion, a Londoner hears that I am from Louisiana and starts singing a Cajun song, much to my surprise. He then offers both me and Vanessa a bowl of chili, which I accepted immediately, putting my free noodles aside. Our group grows larger as the conversation spreads to include more and more people. At the end I find myself surrounded by Patrick, a busker from London who has actually lived in Lille; Vanessa, the French Canadian who moved to Dublin to speak English and get a job; Dan, a South African who is taking some time off from school to run around a bit; and Ted, from Wisconsin, but has been travelling for the past 11 months. We chat about everything, say where we've been and where we're headed. We share plans for the next day and then decide to meet up for breakfast. This decision was crucial, because over breakfast that next morning we all managed to convince ourselves to stay another night.

That being done, we grabbed our stuff and began to make our way to the castle that hangs out in the national park there. We had been joking the night before about swimming from near the castle to one of the outer islands. Mind you, we were saying this after what was apparently an unseasonably warm day. That day we were not so lucky. Not only was it kind of chilly, but windy as well. We bundled up, still checking that we had all brought some sort of swimming gear, and left. During our walk there, we realize just how cold it is. Windy, slightly rainy, but definitely chilly. We make it to the castle, no problem… and this is a special castle.

Once again, I did not pay to go in, but I'm okay with that because if you look at the outside, you will see what is the castle from MONTY PYTHON! That's right, this is the 'your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries' castle. Pretty darn cool, neh? After hanging around the castle, we continued our walk down to Library Point.

There, we saw a part that led down to the water, so we followed it.

And stripped down to our swimming clothes and, well, got in. It was a terrible place, all rocky. Plus, the water was incredibly cold; we all just barely let our feet touch. Then the guys went in, and Vanessa and I couldn't be outdone, so we followed.

One quick countdown later and I had dunked my head into said freezing water and came back up even more quickly. (my crazy mess of hair was hardly even wet after being thoroughly dunked. Harumph.)

TRIUMPHANT!

As we were extracting ourselves from the water, attempting to navigate rocks with numbed feet, a boat FULL of tourists passed by a bit in the distance. The captain let out a nice little toot on the horn to let us know that they saw us. And that everyone and their mother had their cameras out in our direction. We found this to be very, very funny and waved back, taking pictures of our own.

Soggily, we headed back to the hostel, having an intense discussion about fate. I helped with dinner preparation and Indian food combined with an actual dessert was quite the pleasant change from the normal grocery store runs that had been dictating my menu for one. More stories came out that night, some card tricks and card games, a run into town to see Patrick play for a bit, then bed.

This next day is my bus day extraordinaire. I caught the first bus out to Galway, trying to get in touch with Jane to tell her that my plans had changed if she would prefer to meet up in Limerick. But as I am a numerically incapable person, I managed to send texts to a phantom person that wasn't Jane. I went ahead and followed through with the original plan and we luckily found each other in Galway without a hitch. We wandered around for a bit and then proceeded to get on a bus an hour later to Dublin. Then we changed there to get to Kilkenny where we were staying for the next two nights. This transit time was about 4 hours to Galway, then 4 hours to Dublin, then 2 hours to Kilkenny. However, it was well worth it as we were picked up by a David and his family. They gave us tea and breakfasts and dinners and beds and puppies and a fireplace. This all added a bit more confusion to my accent, which by now had completely deteriorated into lord knows what. So much so that David looked at me and asked me what happened. Jane, fortunately, providing a stable, american accent for me to latch onto.

my new little brother. Dane, you had better be this cute the next time I see you.

This is the reason no one had gotten any sleep when we arrived.

Kilkenny itself was a cute town, complete with its own castle.

We saw a hurling match.

And ate fish and chips. And got laughed at by the family as a whole because we didn't understand David's dad's accent. For me, it was a really nice break in between all of my travellingness, to be able to sit down at a table with a fancy schmancy meal. By fancy schmancy I just mean a meal prepared by someone else. Yum. David's family is an incredibly musical family. Between the guitars and the voices, it is kind of ridiculous. (In fact his sister just got accepted into the top music school in the country. Congrats Anna!) One evening they got out two guitars and sort of passed them around a bit and sang when they felt like it. Beautiful. Jane and I made fudge during the mini concert. Well, mainly Jane, anyway. It was a token of our gratitude and a testament to the hard work that we had to do to find chocolate chips in that country. It was well received.

Next morning and it was off to Dublin! Note this would be the third time at the Dublin bus station for me. We were actually on the same bus as Anna who goes to piano lessons in Dublin every Saturday. She had some time before her lesson and brought us to our first stop of the day: Trinity College.

Here we have the book of Kells. To sum it up, it is a really, really old book with beautiful illuminations. It is also housed where one of the most fantastic libraries I have ever seen is found. Just look.

from this angle, it looked like Hendrix a bit

Dublin involved a LOT of walking and a quick freak out trying to find beds for that evening because we arrived a day earlier than expected. This meant writing down addresses of hostels and running around Dublin asking for empty beds. Once that was secured, we walked around some more.

Ms Malone

They had a boat bench!

Fish and chips again. Oh yeah, and Paul DeCuir.

That's right, one of those long lost cousins I didn't really know I had met up with me in Dublin. We just happened to be there at the same time, which is utterly ridiculous. So we had ourselves a pint of Guinness and then parted. Only to run into each in the airport later after not having slept at ALL. He was headed to Prague and I, back home. CRAZY.

Anyway, I took a late bus (Dublin station count number 4) that evening to Galway, leaving Jane on her own to catch her flight back to Espana. I had booked a hostel beforehand and just went in ready to crash. I was completely surrounded by tons of what seemed to be French high schoolers on a field trip. That combined with the FREE internet gave me a bit of motivation to wait until 10 to go to bed. I got to stash my baggage at the hostel early the next morning and found myself on yet another bus, this time out to Doolin. Now, the story here is a bit odd. You see, senior year, John and I were in a Creative Writing class at Lafayette High. One of the story topics that we were assigned was based off of a photograph and John's photograph was of Doolin. We ended up combining our stories at some point in time and then made a collection of Doolin stories. So when I found out that Doolin was an actual town in Ireland, I felt that a pilgrimage was necessary. Therefore, I went to Doolin.

Because of the way that the bus times worked out, I stayed there for about an hour, just enough time to buy a sandwich from the Deli and write two postcards that may or may not have reached their destinations as of now. It was a lot of time on a bus,

sustained by homemade trail mix

but not too bad, because I did get to spend some more time in Galway, as is seen by these photos. My hostel let me store my stuff until really late that evening so I was able to go and listen to music around the city.

I decided to see the church where Christopher Columbus supposedly prayed before setting forth unto the New World. Turns out that there was something very official looking going on, so I asked someone what it was. They handed me the evening's program… a performance by a Galway choir and the men's choir of Brittany. Now, quick geography lesson. Brittany is a region in Western France, closest to England. They are blessed with a very unique culture as well, including Breton, their own language. The majority of their songs where sung in Breton. Similarly, the choir from Galway sang a lot in Irish. These two facts put together mean that while I should have understood everything around me, being able to understand French and English and all, but as they were singing in completely other languages, I was lost most of the time. But it was beautiful—so beautiful. Especially when the two groups exchanged national anthems. Leaving one form of music, I went out to find another. My ears were very, very happy at a nearby pub where traditional music was just overflowing. I stayed there all foot tapping until I had to go on over to the bus station for my midnight bus to Dublin.

Midnight buses wouldn't be so bothersome if they would actually turn out the lights so that you could sleep. Having slept or not, I ended up at the Dublin airport at nearly 3:40 in the morning, early enough for my 7:30 flight, but too early to actually checking. That meant quality time with me and the airport floor in an attempt at sleeping. I ended up just eating some nutella and bread to bring the weight of my suitcase down (increasing my weight in the process, most assuredly). After check in, I walked the giant circle that is Dublin Airport and down into the Ryan Air portion of it. I looked around for an empty seat to crash again and in the process met up with Paul again. He left for Prague and I kept an eye out for David, who was to be on the same flight back. A trip home, no big hiccups besides a late train and therefore two unexpected transfers. We actually felt pretty accomplished, knowing that we understood the problems with the trains via the intercoms…something that would have been incomprehensible and overwhelming a few months ago.

With an English accent that felt more normal, I came back home EXHAUSTED and smack dab into finals. So I apologize for the lack of communication in general. This whole exams, packing up your life, and people leaving thing is taking up some time.