As Promised....

...but a day late. I'm finally getting around to writing up the blog post for my day in Dublin for St. Paddy's. While it was highly entertaining and just a little bit fuzzy in my mind, I don't think I will ever truly forget how interesting it was watching how much pride the Irish have on this holiday, the only real holiday set aside just to honor them. It was a beautiful thing to see.

The day started out with a bunch of us international students either waking up still drunk, slightly hung over, or (for losers like me) too early for comfort. We left the school at 7, which meant that I woke up at 5 in order to get everything packed and ready. We then all boarded the bus for Dublin, decked out in all of our greenest finery and ready to have a blast. Most of us hadn't had breakfast, so we stopped at a gas station to get some food and for a bathroom break. All in all, the trip took about 3 hours with breaks and traffic.

And this was before most people got here

They dropped us off in front of the oldest pub in Ireland, The Brazen Head. We were then instructed on how to get to O'Connell Street, where the parade was due to run, and let loose in our groups to find a spot to watch. Keep in mind that we arrived in Dublin at around 10 o'clock and the parade didn't start until 12:30, so a lot of us just headed to a pub to relax until the parade. However, the group that I hung out with headed straight to O'Connell Street in order to secure a good spot for the parade. I have never seen so much green dotting a street in my life.

Group of girls doing traditional dance

We then proceeded to wait for nearly three hours for the parade to begin, with the heavens opening up once for about five minutes to thoroughly soak all of us spectators. Stupidly, I left my coat on the bus, so I was completely freezing at this point. But the cold and the rain was quickly forgotten as the parade started. We saw all of the traditional parade elements like bands and dancers, even some from the United States. Some acts included an Irish flair, like women doing Irish dance down the street and a flock of bagpiping gentlemen decked out in kilts. There were even a couple of dogs wearing traditional togs.

However, once we got all of the more traditional stuff out of the way, it was time for the strange to begin. Apparently, they gave a lot of creative freedom to some of the art schools around Ireland to make interesting acts of their own. Each school then picked a question around which they would center their theme, such as "If the world is spinning, why don't we fall off?". The props and parade dancers ranged from beautiful, to colorful, to downright strange, but all of them were incredibly well made and very entertaining. Although, a couple of times, the members of my group all looked at each other and speculated about the parade would look if we were high.

One of my favorite acts included a girl riding a beautiful white horse. This was the gravity act, so of course she wasn't just riding the horse with a saddle. No. Instead, she chose to ride either standing on the saddle, in a handstand, or dangling off the side of the horse with one foot in the stirrup and a hand touching the ground. And this was while the horse was moving. As someone who has no sense of balance and can manage to trip walking across a flat surface, this truly astounded me. The sheer amount of courage and training that went into doing these stunts had to have required quite a few painful falls.

Another interesting float, though I completely forget the question they used as their theme, included a giant rhinocerous in a wheel chair. Thinking now, I can't even conceive of what idea would make someone go "Let's build a giant rhino! And I know! Let's make him a parapeligic!" Really strange, but very creative and entertaining. It must have required a lot of work to make a float of that size, let alone one that allowed for the head to turn to look at the crowd. All in all, it was the most interesting parade that I have ever seen, and it was due almost entirely to those art schools who astounded us all with their talent and creativity.

One bar's Irish decor

Once the parade was over, it was time for the drinking to begin. I followed the five or six people that I had been standing with at the parade to several different bars. I really had only ever met two of these people once or twice at orientation, but we seemed to get along all right if a little awkwardly. All of the bars were decorated with an Irish theme of course, and packed to capacity with people just celebrating the day that everyone in the world is Irish. Say anything you want about the Irish, but they sure know how to throw a fantastic party on such an enormous scale.


We hopped from one bar to another for hours, trying to catch a glimpse of the Ireland/England game, which ended in a highly disappointing loss of 9-30. Once the game was over, we headed to one more bar before packing it in for the night. The bar had great live music, but was so crowded that you couldn't stand in one place for more than a minute or two without someone inadvertantly molesting you. At least, I hope it was inadvertant. At least two guys got a little too touchy feely for my comfort....but anyway.

When everyone else headed to the next bar, I attempted to find where the bus would pick us up to take us back to U.L. and my warm, dry bed. However, the bus driver told us the entirely wrong place to pick up the stop, and at least 10 of us were left standing outside City Hall waiting for over an hour for the bus. When someone finally called the head of the International Society, it turns out that we were on the wrong side of the city and would have to wait for the next bus. At this point, I can't feel my legs because I'm so cold. Yet, I somehow still found myself the leader of our little herd back to O'Connell Street to catch the next bus home (probably because I had a map of the city). We finally made it to the warm bus and I was reunited with my coat. The bus filled up quickly, and we were back at the University of Limerick at around 2 AM. Overall, a long, strange, but very satisfying day in Dublin. It is perhaps one of the most memorable experiences that I will have here and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

As always, the rest of the pictures will be added to my Flickr account soon, because today is the first of the month and I have free space again!!!

Best,
Brooke

Hatters and Hares

As the title implies, the last two weeks have been MAD!!! Crazy, that is. The International Society and classes have had us poor exhange students running ourselves what feels like all over Ireland. And there may be some truth to that. We've had signups for trips around the country, signups for clubs, signups for classes and tutorials, and signups for other signups. Well, that last part may be exaggerated, but not by much. The preparation has paid off, however, as we have begun to take trips with our respective clubs and societies.

Yeah, the cliff behind the guy in red. 

For example, yesterday was the Outdoor Pursuits Club's journey to The Burren for rock climbing.  Being on this trip, I was expecting to make a fool of myself by not being able to make it the whole way up the cliffside. Just to give you an idea, here's a look at the cliff they wanted us to scale.

However, because the rocks were too wet to climb (because this is Ireland and it's always freaking raining), they decided that it was not safe for us poor beginners to attempt to climb this cliff. My thighs and my dignity thanked them.

Instead, we took a hike of the area, a set of cliffs that overlook the Atlantic Ocean called the Burren. While some climbing was involved, it was more like this >>
than the whole fall-to-your-death thing they had planned. Which was also a relief. Overall, we all had a great time slipping on rocks and risking our lives just to get a peep at where the ocean hits the bottom of the cliff. Really, it was a beautiful experience and one I will likely never forget. Because of strong headwinds, the guides had to keep telling us to back up. Actually, the way they phrased it was "We're not fishing Americans out of the ocean today, guys! The water is too cold." -_-

Having more balls than brains, I risked my life to get the perfect picture to summarize how beautiful this experience really was. The Atlantic really is prettier on this side of the pond. The sound of the water hitting the rocks was especially soothing. Particularily since it was like 10 o'clock on a Sunday morning after a Saturday spent out with friends at the bar. One of my new German friends, Thomas, took a picture of me on the edge, but hasn't sent it to me yet. I'll include it on the next post so that you can all applaud me for my bravery. XD

Since we were so unfortunate as to not be able to rock climb at the Burren, the guides decided that we could spend the rest of our day relaxing at the beach. Lahinch Beach in County Clare was the next stop on our fantastic Sunday voyage. However, it didn't really feel like a beach (probably because it was so freaking cold). But we took a walk on the sand and enjoyed each other's company. We picked up shells and skipped rocks as we walked along the shore until we reached a bridge at the end of the beach. As we waited for stragglers, one of the senior members found a balloon in her pack and balloon rugby was founded.
I didn't get any good pictures of some of the fantastic tackles that went on. Suffice to say, more than one person went home with sand in their shorts. Sadly, the balloon did not make it home, as it was tragically killed in the first play of the game. Its remains, however, were passed from one member of the OPC to another for several minutes after its demise. Once all of the stragglers were accounted for and we did a buddy check like good little fifth graders, we all stood by patiently for a group shot before heading back to the other end of the beach, where the town starts and the pub beckoned.

However, because some of the members are completely crazy (like the Thomas I mentioned before) they thought it would be a fantastic idea to strip to their underwear and go for a nice swim in the ice cold ocean. Did I mention that it was 9 degrees Celsius outside? That's about 48 degrees Farenheit. Not nearly warm enough for sane people to go swimming, but as I said before, the first few weeks drove us crazy. Or at least that's my excuse. Once they were done being crazy and were dressed again, we headed back to the bus for our dry clothing and went out to the pub to watch the Ireland v. Wales rugby game, which was lost in the last minute due to a penalty on Ireland's part. It was not a fun bus ride home. XD

Even though it was cold and exhausting, I still had a fantastic time on my first look of Ireland outside of Limerick and UL. And I still had enough energy to finish out the night at the bar with a couple of friends, so all was great. Hope you all had as nice of a weekend as I did, and hope your week promises to be a fantastic as mine. I'm leaving for Scotland on Thursday, so there will most definitely be a new post by Saturday at the latest.

As always,
Brooke