Goodbye

It's 5 a.m. Monday morning, and it's dawn in Belfast. The window panes across the street at Methody are all pale gold, and birds are singing. I leave in an hour and a half for the city airport, to start the long flight home.

I don’t want to write this. I don’t want to leave: I’m eager to be home, but all that means is that someday I’ll have to come back and live here.

I love Northern Ireland, even more so than I thought I would... and the people here have been kind beyond all my expectations. Especially the other College Gardens students, the wonderful people at both St. Bart’s and Fisherwick, and all the others I’ve met along the way.

Here are a couple pictures of St. Bart’s folks:

This is Jenny Forbes, her mother (whose name I can't remember off the top of my head), and a lady named Pauline, at Jenny's house, with the dessert we had after a light dinner to follow up the C.S. Lewis tour. Here is her brother, Robert, with Lola, the neighbour’s cat:

At St. Bart’s on Saturday I helped out at the summer fair, setting up and clearing tables. I also ate my own weight in cakes. On Sunday, during the service, I was called up and presented with a matted photograph of the church, which I hope to frame and hang up at home.

I’ll keep posting after I come home – you’ll all see pictures from the fair, and more...!

Here are Janice, Ron, and Herbie:

I know Janice has said she’s been disappointed by student interest in the past, because they – being in such a busy area, with so many students and others coming and going – are really seeking to be welcoming to the outside community. I’d say that yes, maybe hundreds of students might pass by, but in at least one case the church welcomed in one - one shy kid who's been going through a lot of difficulties. And that made all the difference to that one kid... I mean it.

That goes for the lovely people at Fisherwick as well. Going to church – and to the few CU activities I managed to get to, and to the free lectures waaay back when at the beginning of the year – might be my clearest and best memories from the past six months. Thank you.

I will continue this blog once I get home, with more pictures, updating entries which my computer wouldn't let me edit, and more. Maybe even putting up some pictures from home - of MY cats, for instance, or of some of the odd things in Virginia that I've been talking about all this time.  

Till then... goodbye. Goodbye, NI - somehow, I'm coming back. Someday.

Dublin: Books, Harps, And Other Irish Things

          This past week - or, the week before I became ill - I took a bus down south for two days in Dublin. It was an experience. I’m still in shock from the sheer quantity of historical and cultural treasures I’ve been exposed to.

I went with Maureen, who, as I’ve said before, is the other student from Warren Wilson in the same programme as me. We went to the big station near the city centre and bought round-trip tickets, for the long journey to the capital of Éire, all of two hours’ driving away. I made sure to bring my passport, and some other documents I didn’t know if I’d need (but better safe than sorry) in my backpack. We took the Bus Éirann. I could tell we were on the Irish bus because of the “Emergency Exit” signs:

And that’s how I knew we were in the Republic, as well: nobody stopped the bus. There was no check for passports, nor did I see a sign saying “You are now entering the Republic of  Éire” or anything to that effect. The change is in the language on the signs, from English to English/Gaeilge.

In Irish, apparently, a distinction is made between “exit” as a “way out” or an “escape,” and “exit” as a “point of departure.” This is why bus windows say ÉALÚ – EXIT but highway signs say IMEACHT.

But enough about language quirks. You’ll get more of that later on, no worries.

The landscape of Ireland is different from that of Virginia, but not too different. It wasn’t like going from the Southeast to the Southwest, which is like going to Mars. Here, there are the same big areas of farmland, clumps of woods, and the same rolling blue hills in the distance, but all on a smaller scale. There are more sheep than cows (in the States, there would be more cows), and fields are separated by hedges instead of - or in addition to - fences. The grass is alarmingly green. There are drifts of litter at the sides of the road, and every now and then a black shape boomerangs out from nowhere - this is a crow. It it's black and white, it's a magpie - and you hope you see a second one soon after.*

When we got off the bus, we were in the middle of the city. Like good tourists, we promptly went and ate lunch. But then we went to Trinity College for a tour. Maureen is out shopping for a grad school - she's graduating early, and going for a PhD or something in osteoarchaeology - so she's using that as an excuse to visit some pretty wonderful places.


Trinity was the big university in Ireland, and it may still be, I don't know. I didn't take in much of the factual content of our guide's spiel, though I remember the story of the professor who got shot, and obviously more important imformation of that nature.

Our tour guide with college buildings in the background. As you can see, Trinity is in a much older style than Queen's.  

I don't have a lot of photos from Trinity, because I spent most of the time in the library. This is where the Book of Kells is kept. Yes, that's right - the actual Book of Kells. For those of you who may not know, the Book of Kells is a beautiful, illuminated manuscript of the Gospels from the 8th or 9th century. It's said to have been created - or at least begun - in Iona, brought to Kells (in Ireland) because of Viking raids, and finally to Dublin for safekeeping in the 17th century. According to the Wikipedia page on the Book, it's "a masterwork of Western calligraphy... widely regarded as Ireland's finest national treasure."

And I saw it. There's a wonderful exhibit, where pictures and descriptions are up about the history, about medieval illumination, and symbolism, and more. In the final room, they keep parts of the book in a case, open to show the pages.

Upstairs, I walked through the Long Room. This is a long room filled with shelf upon shelf of old books, which are roped off to the general public. There are ladders to the top shelves, and white busts of famous dead people set at the end of each section. Halfway down is a case holding the Brian Boru harp. Though there is no actual historical connection to Brian Boru, the harp is still a precious thing - made in the 15th century, it's one of the oldest Irish harps in existance, and has become a well-known symbol of Ireland.**


Here are some links with pictures:


The first is a fun, photo-filled blog entry on the Book of Kells.*** Please, read it and look at the pictures - it's got more information than I've written, and the Chi Ro page alone is something everyone should see: http://bodyandsawol.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/a-most-mysterious-book/


And this is a picture of the harp: http://www.haverford.edu/engl/faculty/Sherman/Irish/harp.htm The site also has pictures from the Book of Kells, and other interesting things.


But, because I've gone too long without a picture, here's a photo of the ever-lovely Irish countryside. From a lot of people, that might sound sarcastic. I can assure you that from me, it's not. Damp? Grey? Green? Boggy? Love it.


Will write more later...

* "One for sorrow, two for joy..." and so on. I usually only see one.

** It's on the money. It's on the beer.  Everywhere.  

*** YES, A BOG.

Me, Tourist: The Giant's Causeway

The Giant's Causeway, on the north coast of Ulster, was formed about 60 million years ago by intense volcanic activity. The cooling stone fractured in a distinctive pattern of hexagonal columns. Today, this means massive piles of what look like paving stones stacked, piled, and leading out into the sea.

It's one of the weirdest geological things I've ever seen, and last week I was taking pictures of glowing rocks. It's also beautiful. If you're not the kind of person who would take being cold, tired, and wet in order to see beautiful rocks, don't go. But if you are, it's worth it. The basalt in the water is so black, and the water is this translucent pale green, and the foam gets caught in big fluffy piles in between the columns. And it's all so... big. The stones themselves aren't; they're like what you'd make a walkway through your garden with. But there are so many of them, and so much water... and you can really feel the weight of the water when you watch it crash and drag on the columns like it does...

This is one of those times when I can't understand how, with things like this around us, we, people, can think the world is boring. I took about sixty million pictures...

And because you're probably all in shock right now from the excess of glorious natural beauty (and if you're not, you should be, shame on you):

Red phone box!!!

Me, Tourist: The Ulster Museum

Wonderful, eclectic, and free (donations welcome, however). Maureen and I spent several hours there, saw the whole museum, and bought postcards in the gift shop like good little tourists. I didn't write down everything about every exhibit, so there's no dates for anything, but bear with me. I'll probably go again, and I can give you excruciatingly detailed answers to any questions you may have then.

Morpho butterflies, in a case of insects

Neolithic pottery, made in the classic stick-coils-to-a-pinch-pot-and-decorate-with-cordage method...

Or you could get really fancy and go for incised lines. I love these.

And some more...

Bronze Age shield

Swords

An often-mended cauldron, found in a bog

Amber beads

The Downpatrick Hoard

The Ulster museum's exhibits are mainly concerned with, well, Ulster. But they do have some others, for instance, a token Ancient Egyptain mummy. This is the beaded netting around her wrappings. They did a facial reconstruction project on her, and her model head is sitting in a case across the room.

Who can tell me her name?

A stone quern

Late Iron Age artefacts...

... including the Bann Disc

A stone that covered a grave.

Pins from the 6th (?) through to the 11th centuries

A cross

Shrine of St. Patrick's Hand

A medieval reliquary "made to house a human forearm believed to be that of St Patrick" (museum description)

Add caption

Another gravestone... they can tell it belonged to a woman, because of the shears depicted in the lower left.

In an exhibit on endangered species, and wild animals, and on how many items incorporate bits of endangered animal (or are endangered animals) and are available for people - that is, unintelligent tourists - to buy that they really shouldn't.

Don't you feel happier now?

Hippopotamous jaw. This is how they bite crocodiles and things in half.

The skull of a two-headed calf, because they obviously felt entitled to display it SOMEwhere.

This is why I love museums.

Fluorescent minerals glow under black light!

Giant Clam is giant.

A preserved coelacanth

And to return to human history, this is the Malone Hoard: a pile of new porcellanite axe heads, from the Neolithic... found down Malone Road, that is, the road College Gardens (where I live) turns off onto. Very cool.

And bog oak! Bog oak is oak wood preserved in peat bogs (you never would've guessed that, I'm sure). Here is a chair made from it, and below is an actual piece of it.

That's it for the Ulster Museum... until next time!