So looking back on some of my posts, it seems like they have a bit of a whiny/complaining tone. I have had my fair share of frustrations these past three weeks, and I think sometimes it’s more fun to talk about annoying things instead of fun things. But anyway, I’m going to try to remedy that because I really am having a great time.
Wednesday I got settled into my “permanent” residence (ah, the semi-nomadic life of a college kid) which is a flat on campus (or technically, just across the street from campus). It’s a smaller flat, and I have two new roommates, Megan and Caroline. My bedroom window looks onto the street, so I can spy on the comings and goings of the Dublin populace, including the man in the reflective orange suit who walks in the middle of the street, selling newspapers to cars stopped at the stoplight.
Being on campus is wonderful. Not to be too disparaging of good old Rathmines, but being within walking distance of city centre is sooo nice. Particularly for going out, which I did a bit of this weekend.
Thursday night Bridget and I had a fabulous evening in, watching Pride and Prejudice (with Keira Knightly) and drinking wine. Friday night, we cobbled together the most surprisingly tasty meal ever. Walking to the nearest Chinese place in the rain, we decided instead to stop into Spar’s (sort of like 7-Eleven) to see if they sold any real food. What we found was Uncle Ben’s egg fried rice, frozen chicken nuggets, and a jar of tikka masala sauce. So we went home and cooked that. Chicken nuggets in store brand tikka masala sauce tasted way better than we expected! The bottle of Bulmer’s cider we bought to wash it down didn’t hurt either.
After dinner we went out with Maura to a bar called the Sweeney’s Mongrel. It was such a funky place. The décor was vintage 70s/hipster, and there were three floors with three distinctly different vibes. The main floor was defined by the rockabilly DJ spinning her favorite tunes. The top and bottom floors had live music, with the bottom-floor band singing something semi-political about America’s tendency to blow things up. We had a great time chatting with Maura, and I tried a gin and tonic and felt super grown-up.
Saturday night, we decided, was a night to party. Admittedly I partied a little too hard, but I’m not going to go into that. Bridget and I tipsily wandered through Temple Bar, holding hands and talking too loudly. She wore a sailor’s cap, which garnered lots of salutes and pirate-speak from the locals. The first pub we went to, the Oliver St. John Gogarty, was great craic. Craic (pronounced ‘crack’) means fun, particularly the type of fun provided by pubs. It was absolutely packed with people singing along to the American tunes being piped in. A man asked me if I was from London, and when I told him I was from California, he followed me around a bit hissing “California!” in my ear and benignly harassing me about how we could no longer be friends. We also hit the Sweeney’s Mongrel at some point, where in a hilarious (but ultimately unfortunate) misunderstanding I went to the bar to order a coca-cola and came back with a Corona.
Sunday was the day of the All-Ireland Gaelic football final. Bridget, Kate Leonard, Kate Stevenson, and I went to a pub in order to watch it. We drank Guinness and Bulmer’s, ate chips, and enjoyed the match. It was a good game, although I wish we had watched it with a rowdier crowd. Cork and Down both played well, and Cork only won by one point. We stayed to watch each of the Cork players hold the Sam Maguire Cup aloft in triumph, and went home to resume our quiet Sunday afternoon. Also, that night we cooked a proper chicken tikka masala dinner (or as proper as we could, anyway).
On yet another SSP field trip we went to St. Patrick’s and Christchurch Cathedrals. Sadly, my camera died as I was entering St. Patrick’s. I LOVE Gothic architecture and taking pictures of cathedrals. But it’s probably for the best. You’ve seen one Gothic arch, you’ve seen them all. But these cathedrals were very different from others I’ve toured.
St. Patrick’s-
Is tucked into the corner of a street. You could easily miss it if you were walking past. There is no large square or gardens to indicate its presence. It is now Anglican/First Church of Ireland, although it obviously used to be Catholic. And because it’s Protestant, there are no stations of the cross anywhere, and there’s relatively little iconography. I have to admit that my experience with Gothic cathedrals is limited to a few churches in France, but I knew what to expect when I went in one of them. Not so in Dublin. It seemed dingier and less decorated than it ought to have been, and the altar was thoroughly unimpressive. (Then again I was comparing it to the cathedral in France where the altar features a giant Baroque statue of Jesus as Neptune rising from the waves.) There were also many memorials and dedications along the walls to people who had paid lots of money to be remembered by the church. That was unusual to me, but I guess they were taking the place of the Catholic icons. Jonathan Swift was the dean of St. Patrick’s during his lifetime, and stuff about/dedicated to him is everywhere. He’s buried there, for one. Also, a tacky little gift shop that sold leprechaun shot glasses was tastelessly crammed into one of the naves. There is one thing I did really like about St. Patrick’s. On one wall there are two large monuments to African wars in the 1840s-50s. They are marble, sort of neo-classical, gigantic, and mostly composed of lions. They are grandiose shrines to the glory that is war. In between these two memorials is a small cross made of poppies, and a plaque in honor of the two World Wars. It’s simple and beautiful; a small way of honoring the sacrifices made during two horrific wars. Since they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) destroy the older memorials, it’s as though they apologized for them with the reverent poppy cross.
I think archways are absolutely amazing. Imagine how hard they are to construct, particularly without modern tools.
Good 'Ole Saint Patrick
That is seriously where Jonathan Swift is buried. Right there. It's crazy!
Christ Church-
Is larger and grander and prettier than St. Patrick’s, but it still seems to be missing something. A touch of that je ne sais quoi (get it? Cuz all the cathedrals I like are French). But in decoration and such, it is very similar to St. Patrick’s. However, Christ Church does have a full crypt, meaning the crypt is the same size as the church, which is unusual. Contained therein are various treasures once used in ceremonies, the chair William of Orange totally sat in one time, and the like. Also included is a display about the show The Tudors, because they filmed in Christ Church at some point. One very interesting thing down there is a mummified cat and mouse which were found in an organ pipe. How on earth were they in there long enough to get mummified?!? Didn’t somebody think “Hmm, when I press this key the sound is awfully muffled,” or “I wonder what that yowling coming from the organ is,” or “Why does it smell like something crawled up in here and died?” But I digress. Besides all those wonders of the Christ Church crypt, there is the café and “Foxy Friars bookshop.” I kid you not. At least in Christ Church the leprechaun shot glasses are safely tucked away rather than in full view of the altar.
Dublin is a big, cosmopolitan city. There are a lot of tourists, American and otherwise, all over the place. That combined with the lack of language barrier and the fact that as a long as I keep my mouth shut and don’t let my American accent fly no one will ever know I’m an outsider, makes for a surprising lack of culture shock. I’m sure once I visit smaller cities or go more to the west of Ireland I will discover places that are more distinctly Irish. Sort of like what I experienced in France: the further you get from Paris, the more stereotypically French the people seem to become.
However, the place I have been most culturally shocked is the grocery store. You walk through the aisles and very rarely find the brands you recognize. Or sometimes you find them, like Kellogg’s cereal, but the logos are all different. Or you see a bag of what is clearly Lay’s potato chips, but they’re called Walkers. This is actually a common occurrence. Pringles are Hurley’s, Johnny Rockets is Eddie Rockets… there are several more examples that escape me at the moment. You look in a vending machine and don’t recognize a single candy bar. Buying snacks and treats is sometimes a real gamble. Except you can rely on Kit-Kats. They love wafers dipped in chocolate here. Cadbury is the big treat seller, while in the States the brand only makes an appearance around Easter.
The grocery stores are arranged in such an unrecognizable way that I have to walk down every single aisle to find what I want. There is only one brand of milk available, and the eggs (which aren’t refrigerated) come in packs of 6, 10, and 18. And the vegetables are ENORMOUS! I found a cucumber twice the size of what it should have been, a turnip the size of a melon, and plastic packs of large, full-sized carrots as opposed to baby carrots.
The 1-3 litre soda bottles are shaped like normal, small soda bottles. Normal, small Fantas are everywhere, but in a completely different shaped bottle. You can buy printers, TVs, paper-shredders, bras, and select school supplies in the grocery store, but you can’t find any cookware. Buying cough medicine and lozenges the other day was such an ordeal- there was no brand of medicine on the shelf that I had ever seen before.
All this may not seem like such a big deal, but when you’re wet and cold and stagger into the store looking for an Oreo fix, and then spend forever finding the sweets aisle, then can’t even find Oreos because of the plethora of unfamiliar cookies and candy, it becomes a big deal.
I love the Middle Ages. And the Dark Ages. If it happened between 476 and 1600 AD, I’m probably interested. I also love the Vikings and the Normans. I’m not sure why I love a bunch of pillaging marauders, and a bunch of slightly more “civilized” pillaging marauders, but I do. When I went to France we toured Paris, Normandy, and a little bit of the Loire valley. I fell deeply in love with Normandy. It was wet and cold and sparsely populated and beautiful. Seeing the Bayeux Tapestry was one of the highlights of my life.
So I come to Dublin (with less knowledge about the history of Dublin and Ireland than I really ought to have had) and discover that Dublin was settled by Vikings in the 9th century. Joy of joys! There’s Viking stuff here! I’m still working on getting someone to go on a Viking Splash Tour with me, a phenomenon which is like the Duck Tours you see in Boston. I love when one of those boat/buses named Freya turns a corner and into view, and all the tourists wearing horned helmets roar at the passerby.
Besides Viking stuff, there’s a bunch of Norman stuff here. The Normans invaded in 1169, about one hundred years after they invaded England. (As a side note, the Vikings landed in Normandy, and became French in the span of about 100 years. The Normans then invade England. Once again, in the span of about 100 years, they became English. The Anglo-Normans then invade Ireland and shortly become “more Irish than the Irish themselves.” Also, if I have to hear that phrase one more time, I’ll puke.)
The main point I’m getting to is the field trip the SSP took this weekend. Locale number one was Trim Castle, a Norman stronghold dating back to about 1172 AD.
(Another note- I love castles. And not frou-frou baroque castles like Chenonceau or Chambord, although they are breathtakingly beautiful. I love medieval strongholds. When in French class we had to pick a chateau and give a presentation, I chose Haut-Andlau; an ugly, crumbling fortress in Alsace.)
Trim Castle is spectacular. It was built upon multiple times until it became taller than it is large (or so it seems.) The grounds are the greenest green. The view from the top of the castle is astounding. I got to stomp on the same earth and touch the same stones that people over 800 years ago stomped on and touched. The castle is 600 years older than the United States of America.
The ruins aren’t pretty but they are beautiful. I love history that I can touch and see and smell. I was in the same place that Henry II was once. That’s far better than reading about anyone in any book.
The interior of the castle. The floors of the second and third level have long since dissolved, so instead there are vertigo-inducing walkways. Oh, and windy spiral staircases! Super fun on the way up, but not so much on the way down. View from the roof
There’s a chain in Dublin called Eddie Rockets, which is a carbon copy of Johnny Rockets. Or so we thought. It’s also naïve to think that American food is so straightforward that it’s impossible to mess up.
Bridget and I went to Eddie Rockets around 10:30pm, on our way home from going to the opening show of the Fringe festival (a week long indie theatre festival type thing). We decided some American comfort food would be just the thing, and ordered chicken tenders and milkshakes. Right off the bat, the waitress refuses to replace the soda in the chicken tender meal deal with a milkshake and just charge us a little bit extra, we had to order the milkshakes separately. Neither of us wanted a soda, but eventually I let her bring us a sparkling (not flat, she didn't offer that) water because it seemed like that would make her happy. Bridget and appreciate the sassy décor (If you’re not served in 5 minutes… you’ll be served in 6 or 8 or maybe 12 minutes… RELAX!) but realized something was wrong as we listened to the music they were playing. First off you must know that the people of Ireland seem to love the movie Grease. The soundtrack can be heard anywhere, from pizza parlours to shopping centres to public buses. But not, it turns out, in imitation ‘50s diners. Instead we got recognizable ‘50s music, which all seemed to be sung by the wrong performer.
Bridget and I get our milkshakes: chocolate and Oreo. The Oreo doesn’t taste right, and the milkshakes are sub-par at best. How difficult can it be to make a chocolate milkshake? They came in small glasses with a metal cup containing the rest of the shake. But no spoons. And there aren’t spoons with the rest of our silverware. So we ask the waitress for spoons, and she obliges, but not before giving us a bewildered look. “What on earth could they want spoons for? Certainly not to eat their partially solid beverage?” Then we get our chicken tenders. Three tiny little tenders that have been fried and breaded differently than they would be in the States. And they’re not made out of bits of chicken parts, as fried fast-food chicken ought to be. It’s real chicken. Like I might make at home. Not that it tasted bad, it was just unexpected.
The fries, however, were the worst part. And they weren’t chips, they were meant to be American-style fries. They were covered in some kind of garlic-y seasoning, and we were given as a dipping sauce not ranch, but “garlic mayo.” The weirdest part, though, was the fries’ flavor. They didn’t taste remotely like fish, but somehow they tasted like some kind of seasoning or sauce that one would associate with fish.
The entire ordeal was like being in an episode of The Twilight Zone! Everything seemed to be normal, and then when you looked closer it was just different enough to really freak you out. I’m in a place where I speak the language, and everything looks like home, but everything is just, somehow subtly different. Especially when it comes to food. First “American style pancakes,” now this. I have another post coming soon about going to the grocery store. Most of my culture shock has involved food in one way or another.
I had breakfast at a great internet café. They have delicious coffee and tea, great pastries, and lots of different breakfast foods. I was too hungry for something like a scone but at the same time I wanted something sweet, so I decided to try the American style pancakes. Here’s the overview:
-They come in a stack of three, but they’re about a third of the size of any pancake you would get in America
-They aren’t served with butter, instead you get maple syrup and whipped cream (and I’m not talking about sweetened cool whip)
-They have the taste and texture of soft pretzels I’m dying to know what the recipe is. How on earth can you make a pancake taste like a soft pretzel?
(Also, I couldn’t find pancake mix at the grocery store, but you could buy packages of pre-made pancakes. I bet they taste like pretzels too.)
Oh lordy. A lot has happened in the past week or so! August 22 I flew to Portland to stay with my friend Bridget (who is also studying at Trinity) for five days. I got explore Portland a little more in-depth, see South East, walk along the Willamette, shop at Powell’s, and go to the zoo. And I got to meet Bridget’s awesome friends and spend time with her super cool family.
Episode I- The Transatlantic Menace/ Episode IV- A New City
August 27, it began. Bridget and I left bright and early from Portland and spent all day flying to Philadelphia.After a long layover we boarded the plane to Dublin! Ugh. What a flight. It was about six hours, and I slept for less than an hour of it. At least I got to watch a couple of movies. So we landed, tired, cranky, and smelly, in Dublin around 8am Dublin time. Bridget and I caught the bus to City Centre, and then decided to haul our bags through Grafton Street (a pedestrian street and one of the main shopping centres), past St. Stephen’s Green (more on that later) and to the Luas Station. The Luas is the tram, or above-ground rail system. We took Luas to a stop which a nice expat American Trinity student had told us to get off at, and realized we were in the burbs. We had to ask for directions several times, were thoroughly lost, very tired, and we were lugging all our worldly possessions with us, but we finally found Trinity Hall, our residence.
We were greeted by a very nice receptionist and shown to our apartment, in which we were the first to arrive. And what an odd apartment it is. You walk through the locked door using your hotel-type key card, and into a hallway with three bedrooms on either side. You then use your key card again to get into the room. They are small singles, but the furniture is great. It provides lots of different types of storage. And there’s an ensuite bathroom. It’s a tiny little room with a sink, toilet, and shower. The shower is this funny little thing in the corner of the room. I ended up flooding half the bathroom when I showered because the curtain is too close to me when it’s closed, so I prefer to keep it half open. And you can’t open the door for ventilation or else the bedroom will be flooded! Moving on, if you go to the end of the hall there’s another door (this one doesn’t lock) which opens into the kitchen and living space. It is pretty nice. A good sized table, a couch and chairs, a fully functioning kitchen with plenty of cabinet space for everyone. Actually, fully functioning is a bit of a lie. The fridge wasn’t properly defrosted when we arrived, so most of the time when you walk into the room you step directly into a giant, unpleasant puddle soaking into the carpet. Currently the maintenance staff has placed a second refrigerator in the middle of our kitchen. Hmm.
On Saturday I met another girl, Rachel, who lives in a different apartment. She had a day’s worth of experience on me, so she, Bridget, and I walked to the closest shopping area together. Down Rathmines road, you can find all sorts of shops and restaurants, internet cafes, grocery stores, off licence stores, and a small shopping center. I have been down there SO MANY times since I’ve been here. Later that evening a group of eleven of us, all doing the SSP, congregated and went out to dinner at a nearby restaurant. It turned out to be a hangout for the blue-haired set, but what can you do. So we all had a great dinner and got to know each other and celebrated (most of ours) first nights in Dublin by having a pint of Guinness. It took two waitresses to bring all of our drinks to the table! Afterwards, I finally went to bed to have my first proper sleep in about 30 hours!
Episode II- Attack of the Pubs/ Episode V- The Jetlag Strikes Back
Sunday, we had a hall meeting and were all introduced in a round robin way. Later Bridget, me, and two of our flatmates, Annie and Elisabeth, decided to go to City Centre before our SSP introductory meeting. We took the Luas to St. Stephen’s Green and promenaded about. It was BEAUTIFUL! It’s what I imagine Central Park to look like only smaller, cleaner, and less sketchy. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, and everyone was hanging out in the park. We also saw a bit of a military brass band performing. After that we walked down Grafton Street, which is spectacularly crowded. And full of street performers. I got a free hug from one. Then we walked around Trinity campus for a while, and even had a campus police officer kick us off of a grassy field area.
Then it was time for the meeting. They served us pizza and wine (what a combination) and we all meeted and greeted. It was great getting to talk to so many people (who are almost all entirely from the Atlantic Seaboard, by the by). After that most of us invaded a pub across the street called Doyle’s. You know how in America, the Irish pubs all have very Irish names, and it seems very gimmicky? Well in Ireland I’ve yet to see a Red Lion pub, or an Eastside Tavern or anything of the sort. They’re all O’Connell’s, Mother Reilly’s, Doyle’s, etc. Very Irish is just how they name their pubs. So we went and caught up with Maura, the third GU student studying at Trinity. On her advice we ordered Bulmer’s Cider. It was amazing! It wasn’t too sweet (not as apple-y as I would have liked, though) and not too carbonated. Bridget, Maura, (another) Kate, and I then all got free tickets to the comedy show upstairs, and went. We were instantly spotted by the emcee as Americans, and we got made fun of a bit. I happened to be sitting near a man from Atlanta, who had been travelling through Dublin and Scandinavia, teaching improv. Very cool. After half the show we realized we needed to get up in the morning and left. I took the bus for the first time, which involves much less walking than the Luas. There are stops all around city centre, and the end of the line is about a block from Trinity Hall. (which, by the way, is 2 miles from main campus!)
Episode III- Revenge of the Cold/ Episode VI- Return of the Campus Tours
Monday, at the crack of 9:30, we met to have our SSP orientation meeting. There is still so much official work to be done! But we got information and schedules, and took tours of the campus and the libraries. We got registered and received student IDs, which means we can avoid some of the madness of fresher’s week. I also discovered that bus passes are quite overpriced. Anyway, by the time I got home around 6pm, I was absolutely exhausted. I must have caught a cold from the plane, and it got progressively worse as the day wore on. By 6pm I was tired, sleepy, sick, stuffy, hungry, and angry. During the library tour, my last event for the day, I was mentally checking out and wanting to go home, when I realized I had been giving the tour guide and awful stink eye! Clearly I’m doing well when I can’t keep my facial expressions in check. (Side note, I have done SO MUCH walking here. Not necessarily a bad thing.)
So I got back to Trinity Hall and found Bridget again. We were placed into separate groups for orientation stuff, and that day was literally the longest amount of time we had been away from each other in a week.Anyway, Bridget, me, Kate and Rachel went down Rathmines, I finally got a clock (though I still need a cell phone) and visited the off licence store. Being able to order alcohol or march into a store and buy a bottle is such a new experience for me. Anyway, we got some refreshment for later and went home. Bridget and I cooked our first dinner in our new home. Delicious. Afterwards I stayed up way too late trying to connect to the internet and such, and now I’ve stayed up far too late righting this post. The Sudafed I took seems to have dried me up, but it’s beginning to actually make me less tired. Shoot. (Side note- I’m posting this on Saturday, but I wrote it last Monday night)
Well, gentle reader, if you made it to the end of this post I hope I haven’t bored you too badly, so here’s a fun link:
