Salaam Ireland!

Now that I've finished my awful policy "motivation statement," I decided to actually write about my trip. I hope I always consider this a trip and that when I go back to the states I don't say, "I used to live in Ireland," because I'm not "living" here. I think if you call a place your home, you probably have to have more than one set of utensils and not use an old water bottle as your only cup. Speaking of kitchenware, two Japanese women borrowed plates of mine the other night. I walked in on them in my kitchen as they perused other people's plates. I thought they shared the kitchen with me, so I asked them where they lived. Apparently they didn't live in my area and they needed plates for unexpected guests. Instead of abetting their theft of other people's plates, I stupidly gave them 2 of mine. Well, one of them returned the plate later in the kitchen (still dirty I might add!), but I never got the other one back. The easy solution would be to ask for the plate back, except for one problem: there are about four Asian women living in the building, and I can't remember which one took my plate. It kind of reminds me of that Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry suspects all the men in blue shirts stole his plane ticket: I can only imagine going up to a complete stranger and saying, "I know what you did. Just give me back the plate and I'll be happy." It is just a plate that I didn't pay for, nor do I use that often, but I'm sure this was all some elaborate plot to screw me.

Ok, I promise I will now talk of things besides oddball occurances. Well, one more. I was walking downtown the other day, and to get to the other side of the street, I decided to walk through the alley instead of going all the way around. Unfortunately my attempt at a shortcut was ill advised. A car came zooming towards me and in order to get out of the way I walked into what looked like a parking lot right behind the building I was trying to go reach. How fortuitous, I thought. Soon I realized that I was not behind the house I wanted and when I turned around I saw that I wasn't even in a public parking lot, but rather a private car park and the remote controlled gate had closed behind me. My attempts to push open the steel bars proved unsuccessful and I quickly worried if I had been tricked into an evil scientist's lair. I was waiting for Bela Lugosi to appear and break into a nonsensical monologue on my impending doom. Thankfully a woman stepped out of nowhere to have a cigarette and after I convinced her that I was not there to rob her, she let me out of my makeshift prison. Apparently I haven't learned my lesson from watching snippets of The Empire Strikes Back on HBO Family every sixth day of the summer: No matter how inocuous any enclave looks, it could be the stomach of a giant space slug!!!!(or whatever its urban alternative is)

With that out of the way, I'll save the one last interesting anecdote of getting stranded in the sea and I'll talk about my trip to the west of Ireland last weekend. We (the group of 40 or so Notre Dame students and faculty) left early Saturday morning from Dublin to the Burren. It's a great John Houseman name. Thank you Mr. Burrrrreennnn. Rather than bore you with the unique fascinating geological and ecological history of the area, I'll just show you some pictures:


We also went to the Cliffs of Moher. This was probably my favorite place; mostly because there were few safety regulations. Life is always more exciting on the wrong side of the fence.




The next day we went to an ancient Celtic burial ground. Fred Flinstone, eat your heart out.


Before heading back to Dublin, the group made a stop in Coole park, the inspiration for many a Yeats' poem and subsequently a Clint Eastwood movie.


The bus ride was by far the most, shall we say, colorful?, part of the trip. Forced into a three hour detour by a cross country race, someone got the bright idea of doing Disney sing a longs. I'm pretty sure if prisoners at Guantonomo had to sit through these renditions, even Scalia would find it to be cruel and unusual. Added to this, people started dancing through the aisle of the bus. Sad to say, no one knew the words to "Three Coins in a Fountain." Neil Page and Del Griffith would not be proud.

Culture Shock

I've been in Ireland for 24/25 days and since I finally have work to do, it's time for me to procrastinate by creating a blog of my many misadventures. Before I came over here, I can't say I was incredibly thrilled at the prospects of 3+ months in a foreign country while my beloved St. Louis Cardinals inched towards the most miraculous playoff berth ever and Notre Dame looked to suffer it's worst season in history (How could I give up the opportunity to get under so many people's skin at school?). Well, the cinderella Cardinals fell apart as soon as Ankiel got busted for HGH and LaGenius refused to play So Taguchi on a regular basis. And it turns out that Notre Dame wasn't just funny Washington Generals bad, but pathetic Prairie View A&M bad. So I guess I'm not missing that much from back home entertainment-wise, save the breakout hit "Kid Nation." (supposedly a group of children have to be rushed to the hospital for drinking bleach http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2007/08/kid-nation-blea.html) I guess that proves that parents are good for something. Enough about tv and sports (read: my day to day life), I should probably write about my time here.

Dublin's an interesting enough place. Since the dollar is at an all time low and my classes are on a completely different campus, I find myself walking inordinate amounts to get from point A to point B, wherever the two may be. My room is in an old convent/primary school teacher training college. It reminds me of the halfway house Brooks stays in after he gets parole in the Shawshank Redemption. Only I hope I don't leave this place the same way he left that room.

Extracurricular campus life at UCD, University College Dublin, seems to be run by the Socialist, Labour, or Green Parties. Maybe it's just because they post the most signs around campus, but they do have a lot of functions and they sure like to cite Noam Chomsky. Speaking of which, I've never been to a place where Noam Chomsky was so frequently read/talked about. I guess people are so anti-American policy here that they will buy into Chomsky's theories, no matter how monotone his voice is or shallow his actual academic training in international relations is.



Compared to the Irish students here, Notre Dame students aren't just Conservative Catholics, they wouldn't even be Mormons, I'd say they would fall somewhere in between Jehovah's Witnesses and Jerry Fallwell. Black seems to be the most popular color among the students (I would have guessed green). Long hair in a pony tail also seems to be popular; this morning I could have sworn I saw Penn Gillette walking around campus. Outside of a trip my family once took to the Missouri state fair in Sedalia, I have seen more piercings per person on campus than anywhere before. I sat behind a guy in class the other day who had the back of his neck pierced into two different places. It looked like he was trying to build a human coat rack.

The decoration of the campus leaves something to be desired, namely decoration. Most of the buildings were designed in the 1960s during the student revolutions. Apparently the powers that be here jumped the gun and decided to build a campus that was, and I quote, "riot proof." I don't know what that exactly means, but it makes for a place with few open spaces and buildings that belong on the other side of the Berlin Wall. In fact, the entire place reminds me of the set for Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.



Well, I'm tired now and I still haven't written my policy paper. Come to think of it, I haven't even talked about Ireland in this whole post, really. I guess I should say something about it, so, "Up the Republic!"