Daily Life in Ireland

During my time here in Ireland, I don't know that I have really gotten into much of a routine. It generally takes me a while to get into a comfortable routine, and that is with things that are much more scheduled than here. 

I generally have classes Monday through Thursday or Wednesday, and you can see my last post about how those are going. Classes generally go until about 2pm, and then I have the rest of the day as a free day, if we aren't traveling. Most days I have taken the walk to Spiddal, and eaten there hung out and came back to the cabins, which usually takes about two hours of my time depending on what all I do in Spiddal. 

The major difference in my daily life in Ireland compared to the states, though, is that it is much more worry-free. I have a lot less on my plate here than I normally do, and being in a European country makes me feel a lot less rushed. This leads to a much more relaxing daily life for me, which I have grown quite fond of.

Not having a so much of a schedule here is really relaxing, but at the same time it throws me off. I will like going back to the States and having more of a schedule laid out before me, even if it is from work or school. One other thing I miss is being able to go out on my own and do my own thing. Everyone needs their alone time every once in awhile, and I have found it difficult to find here while I am in Ireland. Being centered around our cabins is nice, but finding time and a place to have your thoughts to yourself is more difficult because of the fact. It is hard to go anywhere without someone else joining you, which makes it difficult.

As I look back at my time here, and my last four weeks in Ireland, I think there will be some changes to my daily life back home that I learned from this trip. If I have learned anything in Ireland and abroad, it is about the benefits of not feeling a rushed life.

Classes in Ireland

Yes, I am actually taking classes while I'm in Ireland, believe it or not. I am not taking any classes that relate to my major, so unfortunately there are no tech classes here, but I am still enjoying what I am taking nonetheless. Four classes making up 12 credits for this semester, and it is keeping me busy reading and thinking about why I am here.

On Mondays I have an Irish Cultures class that includes a lot of different things. The major thing that we do in this class is learn a little bit of Irish, or Gaelic. So far we have learned basic phrases, greetings, numbers, hobbies, and the weather. The language is difficult because even though they use the same characters as us none of the sounds are the same. For instance Dia duit, which is their greeting meaning "God be with you" is actually pronounced something like "gee-ya which." The fact that the sounds from the language are completely different makes the language a lot harder for me. Because I have only taken a little bit of Spanish and even less French, I try putting my knowledge of those languages to work here, which helps even less. Needless to say, speaking Irish is not easy for me.

Along with Irish, our culture class also involves learning about the Irish culture and some things that are staples to them. We talked about how the Catholic faith affected Ireland and how it continues to. It struck me as weird how closely tied the Irish government and the Catholic faith are, and have been for many centuries. Along with that, we learned here this last week how to play a little on their tin Whistle, which looks like the photo below. It was a lot of fun to learn to play a couple of polka's on a tin whistle, and we didn't sound half bad!

Tuesday's we have our literature class. We are currently reading a lot of short stories from the late 1800's and early 1900's, but have gone over some plays and poems as well. It is interesting to get the insight that this professor has. He may drag on a little bit at times, but he has some interesting points that he has made more off-handed than anything. For instance, when he was talking about the Gaelic Literary Revival, he talked briefly about how in Gaelic there is no thoughts of ownership. You only say how something is with you, not that you own it. He has a lot of small insights like this that makes the class worth it to me.

Wednesday's are probably my favorite days because of the history class. We have mainly focused on Irish history since around the 1400's and have been working our way forward in time. Ireland and Britain have been so closely linked for hundreds of years, and I never realized how much it affects everything that happened. Getting this insight into their own history that I never even knew about before coming here is really helping me understand some of the things I see and hear.It is really refreshing to learn about historical moments in time from a perspective other than that of an American, as well. While we have mainly focused on Ireland and their history, we have also deviated a little to talk about certain aspects of American history and how it is very comparable. For instance, we had a fairly rousing discussion about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and getting insight into how someone not from America views it is actually really eye opening.

Not only do I like it because of what I am learning and gaining from the class, but also because the professor is a pretty awesome guy. Not this week but a week ago we had class in the King's Head, which is a pub in Galway. What is interesting about the pub itself is that the person who supposedly beheaded King Charles I later owned and even lived in the building that has been preserved since. We got a chance to talk to one of our professors colleagues and hear the work she did to figure everything about the King's Head's history. That in and of itself would have been a cool enough experience for me, but there is more to it than that. To finish off the class we ended up having a debate about Oliver Cromwell in the Ruby Room in King's Head to finish off the day, which not only was fun but also very insightful.

Lastly we have a class that is about our study abroad experience. We don't actually meet at a regular time, it moves around depending on the trips we have planned and how our professor feels. The main focus of this class is about the blog I am keeping, as well as doing a small presentation on the places we will be going.

All in all, classes are fairly fun here in Ireland, and they keep me busy.

Four Days In Dublin

This past Tuesday through Friday I spent in Dublin. While I was there, I pretty much walked around a lot, walking into different shops and buildings and talking to different people. I even managed to get myself lost, which was an experience in and of itself.

To put things in perspective for those of you keeping tabs at home, Dublin is a little bigger than Omaha, with just over 90,000 more people in its population. While Dublin is a larger city population-wise, it is more compact than Omaha. This is partially because it is a city in Europe, but also partially because it is an island city.

I really enjoyed my time in Dublin. I liked the city and felt it was fairly easy to get around in. Maybe it was the fact that I had to take my time and think about where all I was walking around, but I was really comfortable in Dublin, much more than I have been in Lincoln and Omaha even.

While in Dublin, there was a lot of attention paid to the Easter Rising in 1916. This revolution that happened a century ago this April seemed to be on everyone's mind, even those outside of the museums and tour curators. Just a hundred years ago, there were battles fought within this city over freedom and independence. This was shockingly different from everything else that I have seen and learned about here in Ireland simply because it was so recent. The more I keep learning about Ireland, the richer it's history seems to become to me.

One of the more stunning things that I wanted to touch on as well was the little bit of time I had spent at Trinity College. Just being on the campus was stunning, and thinking about actually attending lectures there kind of stunned me. Along with that, though, I toured the building where the Book of Kells is now held. The first bit of the building was interesting enough. It talked about the book's history, and how it would have been made and who it was made by. I even got in to see the Book of Kells itself, unfortunately it was turned to a page that was mostly text without a whole lot of illumination.

What was really stunning to me, though, was the Library they had on the top floor. You can see above just how jaw dropping the library was. The shelves were completely full of old texts, from all over the world, and from any number of authors and sources. The entire room even had the delightful smell of an old book, which was really the cherry on top of everything for me.

You could see in between the aisles of books that some had been pulled off the shelf for someone to read and work with. The busts alongside that you see were all rather important figures in scholarly work. The first three on the right as you walked in were none other than Plato, Aristotle and Socrates. Shakespeare made an appearance, as well as Newton. I had heard the phrase "Ireland is the land of Saints and Scholars" here a few times since I got in Ireland, but walking into this room solidified just how dedicated the Irish have been over the centuries to scholarly work. I was astounded.

While I didn't talk about all of the places I visited in Dublin, Dublin was still a lot of fun for me. I do want to go back again at some point in my life and see some of the other things that I didn't while I was there. It was a town unlike any other that I have ever been to, but in the best of ways. I feel like I saw another side of the Irish country and its people, one full of history much more recent than what is in America, and one that I did not expect to see.