Author Archives: jeb5502

Aran Islands

Here is my overdue post on my trip to the Aran Islands that I went on last weekend! To get there, we took a bus to the coastal town Rossaveel from which we took a forty-five minute ferry ride over the choppy Galway Bay to the islands. We stayed on Inishmore, the largest of the three islands that make up the Aran Islands.
This is a picture, fresh off the ferry. It was misting a bit when we got there, but as we were walking to our hostel it started raining harder and we got completely soaked. We finally convinced ourselves to go back out into the rain, but once back in town we ducked into the Aran Sweater Market. They are known for making beautiful, hand-knitted wool sweaters.
Thankfully it had stopped raining when we left the shop and we ventured on foot around the island. We wandered towards a point marked on our maps as “Black Fort.” We think we found it (that raised stone wall in the far left of the picture). Whether or not that was it, the views were well worth the rocky hike to the ocean.
The water, the cliffs, the thundering waves… I feel like I’m doing it a disservice by saying it was pretty awesome. It certainly wasn’t along the tourist route on the island, but I’m so glad we found it (despite my sneaking suspicion that it was these rocks that I sprained my ankle on)!

The sky Sunday morning was ominously overcast, so we opted to take a van tour of the island. Vans line up by the dock around 11am (the ferry comes in between 11-11:30 each day) to scoop up visitors for a three hour tour. Our guide very kindly answered all our questions that we had been thinking up since the day before while we waited to see if more people would come. Only one other couple was on our tour, so we had a lot of chances to ask more questions and talk about life on the island.
The big attraction on Inishmore is Dun Aonghasa–a prehistoric fort thought to have been built in the Iron Age. And see, I wasn’t kidding about the fog and dreariness of the day. We’ve had bad luck with visibility on days we travel, sadly. It was impressive in person though!

While waiting for our van, we talked to an old woman who was knitting in a shop at the bottom of the hill where the fort is. She told us they get thousands of visitors A DAY in the summer! She explained that bikes and vans swarmed the streets and the gravel constantly crunched outside her shop door. It must be so strange for the islanders during the off season, and especially during the week. Our guide told us that fishing used to be the main industry and occupation of people living here, but now it’s tourism.

I forgot to explain–there’s only 800 people who live on Inishmore year round! The island is nine miles long and two miles wide. They have three primary schools and one secondary/technical school. There’s a doctor on the main island and a nurse on each of the three. They also have a priest who takes a boat to his church (apparently the last one would fly a small airplane himself to and fro). From what the guide was saying, everyone knows everyone. He mentioned a good spot for surfing and we asked if many people surf on the island. “A few,” he said, “only two. And they aren’t very good.” He also knew about what different families grew on their farms on the island and about who bought the few homes that went up for sale instead of being passed down within a family.

One thing that particularly struck me was a relatively new old folks home that our guide pointed out. Until that point, he explained, when an old person got too sick for the family to take care of themselves, the person had to be sent to the mainland to live in a home. They might not have left the island for years and years, and just at the point where they probably want to be at their home with their family the most, they would have had to uproot and leave. That’s something that I wouldn’t have thought of, and I’m glad that someone built a place to take care of their elderly and were able to staff it.

So that was my trip to the Aran Islands! This weekend I am going to a Gaeltacht, which is the word for a region where Irish is the first/primary langauge (the Aran Islands are also a gaeltacht for that matter). But this is a trip with my Irish language class, so I’m actually going to have to speak Irish! I’ll let you know how it goes next week!

Location: Aran Islands, Ireland

Cliffs of Moher

It’s one of those things you just have to do, like seeing the Eiffel Tower in Paris or the Grand Canyon in the US. Though the Cliffs of Moher are not the tallest cliffs in Ireland, they are the most accessible. And they are certainly worthy of the attention they get! On arriving, the natural beauty was barely poking through the fog–but as we all stood at the edge taking pictures, the fog rolled back and gave us a clear view. Ta-da!
Another site I can check off my to-do-see-and-try list 🙂

Location: Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland

Clifden

Last Tuesday, I took an impromptu day trip to Clifden with my boyfriend, Dan. After an hour and a half bumping over small country roads in a big bus, trying to look at the amazing landscape without getting too motion sick, we pulled into the main square of the town. In about ten minutes, we had walked around the whole town center and picked a pub, Griffin’s, to get lunch at. My love for soup increased with each spoonful of my tomato & pepper soup and the spoonful of Dan’s mushroom soup. Delicious!

So with warm food in our stomach, we headed up to Sky Road. The road went up and passed by houses, farms, the D’Arcy Monument (for the founder of the town, which we could never actually find), Clifden Castle, and eventually the Atlantic Ocean.

On our way out, we were initially fooled into thinking this arch was all that was left of the castle, and continued on our way after taking a few pictures. We made some horse and donkey friends along the way, though I should really start carrying some horse treats for trips like this. Eventually we made it to the inlet of sorts, which we think was about four miles down Sky Road.

On our way back, we happened to glimpse Clifden Castle! So when we got back to the deceptive arch, we continued down its side road. Here’s another difference between the USA and Ireland: Ireland has lots of castles, and only a some (for example the Blarney Stone castle, Kilkenny Castle, Birr Castle) are maintained and marketed. This one and many others are not. Pros: No admission price, no over-done touristy business. Cons: Hard to get to, not marked with historical information or any sort of information for that matter.

We shimmied along a fence, trying not to get our jeans wet in the muddy puddle that covered a good portion of the path leading up to the castle. Our efforts were rewarded though! The castle was cool–the floors and ceilings had crumbled and plants were overtaking it. It was a bit spooky and I was thankful the sun hadn’t gone down yet.

When we made it back to town, we had a little bit of time before our return bus, so we visited a bakery where I enjoyed a delicious �clair. Ah, then another bumpy bus ride back to Galway. But, overall it was great to be able to just jump on a bus and visit a new town and see new sites on a weekday I don’t have any classes!

Location: Clifden, Ireland

Experiment in Irish Cooking

Last night Dan and I tried a new restaurant, Riordan, which was recommended for traditional Irish food. I had a club sandwich, which had warm carved turkey smothered in cheese, and Dan got Shepherd’s Pie, which wasn’t what we expected (not being very pie like) but was very delicious and came with tasty veggies.

And today I feasted! I had been looking forward to the Farmers’ Market all week, since I didn’t get to go last weekend because of my homestay. So I hit it hard today, starting with another cocoa donut which was just as good as the first. Then Dan and I split a pizza bagel (see below): a delicious bagel, topped with sauce and cheese! Yum. Then Dan got a burrito and I got pea and potato curry. Both things were delicious! I might have to go back again tomorrow. It’s interesting and awesome that such a wide variety of international food is available at the market! Also sold is falafel, sausage, and crepes.

But for dinner, I cooked my first Irish meal–stew! I combined tips from my homestay hosts with a recipe I got from a library book, and it came out pretty good (and it was easy!).

I combined a little less than 1 kg of small potatoes, chopped up carrot, half of an onion chopped up, about .75 kg of beef, and beef stock flavoring packets from the grocery store (or you could season it with parsley and things like that). Put it all in a pot and let it simmer for 2+ hours.

Serve and enjoy! A note of caution: don’t eat bread with mold on it. And try not to think about the bread you ate earlier today that probably had mold that you didn’t notice on it too. Just drink the stewy goodness left at the bottom of the bowl without bread!

Some might use words like “bland” to describe typical Irish fare, but I like to describe it as “easy on the stomach” and “delicious.” This is obviously the country I was meant to eat in because, in my opinion, nothing is better than potatoes (cooked in any of the million possible ways) or a solid meal of fish & chips. Anyway, mildly seasoned stew was a welcomed dinner after the curry, burrito, and pizza spices finally settled down from lunch.

Location: Galway, Ireland

Irish School System

College is not quite the same here as it is in the US, but I think I’m starting to figure it out.

To begin, Irish students pretty much only take classes from their major, so international students like myself seem to throw a wrench into the works by taking classes in many different areas. Thankfully, NUIG has an International Office that takes care of our registration. But, we don’t register until Jan. 23^rd (this Monday), even though classes have already been running for about two weeks. So while the Irish students are already enrolled, we the Americans have just been showing up and testing out which classes we might like until we are officially enrolled in them next week.

University is also only three years here–I found this out when I tried to tell an Irish student that I was a sophomore. They say first-year, second-year, or third-year student. There are also little differences in terminology, like courses or classes are called “modules” and professors are “lecturers.”

The way an individual course is run is also different. At Penn State, a class has one teacher, many (or at least several) graded assignments, and varies in size based on level of the material and subject. Here, most classes seem to be lectures, which in truth are not as large as I’m used to but lack student-teacher discussion. Some classes have optional “tutorials” where you can meet in a smaller group to go over the material again for an extra hour each week, but they aren’t built into the course like something like that would be at Penn State. It’s kind of nice that they leave it for you to choose.

But an even bigger difference is that all of my classes have about two professors teaching it. One teaches the first hour-long session, then the second professor teaches during the second hour (meeting on different days). I’m still not quite sure how this works out. Lastly, the final grade for the course seems to depend on maybe two assignments. Irish students are assessed with an essay half way through and an exam at the end, but visiting students are mostly just required to write a long essay for the end of the semester. So, many of my classes will come down to a final essay or exam. For example, I’m taking Irish (Language) for Beginners–the final exam in March is worth 90% of the final grade, with five smaller assignments throughout the semester adding up to the other 10%.

The professors expect students to be self-motivated and do a lot of the learning outside of lecture, which explains the way the grades are weighted. It’s an interesting way to approach education, and I kind of like it. I am very much used to being tested after every unit though and the teacher making sure we understand every area before the final. Here, you focus on what interests you and on the final you choose one or two essay questions from several possible options covered in the course. There are certainly pros and cons to each system and I’m sure different people would do better in different ones. But I’m looking forward to trying out this way of doing it!

On a related note, everyone goes home on the weekends here! When Friday comes around, I see many many Irish students heading to the bus stations with backpacks packed for the weekend. I guess since Ireland’s relatively small it is easy to get home on the weekends. And with laundry costing 5 Euro at the apartments, I don’t blame them. Consequently, most things happen during the week: parties, club meetings, etc., take place Monday through Thursday. I can already tell it’s going to be a big adjustment moving back into the dorms at Penn State in the fall!

Location: Galway, Ireland

The Homestay!

I spent this past weekend with the Reillys, an Irish family who lives in the village Corofin. We (myself and another girl from my program, Trissanna) had been told we would be staying in Tuam (pronounced toom–doesn’t rhyme with Guam), but this was not the case! My first shock was sitting behind the driver on the right-hand side of the car! It was dark when we arrived, but the headlights illuminated a very narrow, unpaved road ahead of us as we headed back to their home. So my second surprise was that we were far from town; rather, we were out in the country (which is quite impressive for only being an hour from Galway).

The next surprise–their home is large and very nice! They told us during orientation to expect a small home with small rooms, since those are easier to heat. I was also beginning to expect a farm house that would be sparse and maybe a little dusty. Not the case at all. They built their home in Corofin twenty years ago and since then had added on an addition, which was a high ceiling-ed kitchen and living room. It was nicely decorated with wood accents, model sailboats, family photos, and other odds and ends. They also had two wood stoves that heated the addition and the water for the upstairs shower.

On Saturday, we ate beans, fried eggs, toast, brown bread, and cereal for breakfast. Then we tagged along with the mom and the youngest son, David who is eleven years old, into Tuam. While David was getting his hair cut, Trissanna and I explored the town and found two beautiful cathedrals and Teample Jarlath (The place of Jarlath), which was the first Christian settlement in Tuam and established the town as a population center.

For dinner that night, the father made us our first authentic Irish stew. It was delicious! It had beef, potatoes, carrots, and parsnips. He also taught us how to make it (basically throw whatever ingredients you want into a pot of water, add stock cubes for flavor, and simmer for as long as you want), so I’m going to try it sometime. Oh, it was so good.

Sunday morning, we had the same breakfast, minus the cereal and plus sausage and bacon (side note: bacon in Ireland is more like Canadian bacon, even when on burgers). Also delicious. Trissanna and I walked around the village, petted a horse, baa’ed at sheep, and skirted around many houses with barking dogs. When we returned, we ate steak, broccoli, carrots and parsnips mashed together, and potatoes–garlic potatoes, fried potatoes, and mashed potatoes. It was so much food and it was all so so good. It was devastating to get back on the bus and think of the boring pasta waiting for me at home. But now I am inspired to try to cook some new meals!

Mostly, we watched television with the family (they had two other children, a seventeen year old and a twenty-one year old but we didn’t see them much at all). After watching television there, I wonder how people in other countries view Americans–we watched E! shows like Keeping up with the Kardashians and I know they know about Jersey Shore. But we also talked about what their life is like and we told them about ours, which provides a much deeper cultural understanding than TV can offer. One of the things I found most interesting was how the Irish economic recession has affected them–heating and oil is incredibly expensive, so they’ve switched mostly to wood for fuel in their home; crime went up in the year or two following the recession, but laws regarding self-protection and weapons are only now starting to change.

As a college student, who lives in a college town (both at home and here in Galway), I rarely interact with people who aren’t either my age or associated with the university. But this experience put me in an entirely different setting and allowed me to live with people I never would have even met otherwise. It was really great and I would recommend anyone who has the chance to do a homestay!

Location: Tuam, Ireland

Greetings from Galway

I have officially been in Ireland for one week! It feels like it’s been so much longer.

Sunday through Wednesday morning, I stayed in Dublin for orientation through Arcadia University. We had the afternoons off to sleep or to explore, so I explored until I couldn’t stay awake any longer. I didn’t take a lot of pictures because I was afraid of getting my camera wet in the rain, so you’ll have to take my word for it, but I saw: the Millennium Spire, Grafton Street (a nice shopping center), the Guinness Brewery, St. Stephen’s Green, Trinity College, Temple Bar area, the Bank of Ireland, the Parnell Statue, and the Famine Statues. I probably saw some more things but didn’t know what they were.

Then Wednesday, the Arcadia staff drove us three hours across the country to Galway. In the brief waking moments on the bus, I saw lots of sheep, cows, horses, and rolling green hills. From then until today, I’ve been busy with orientation at the National University of Ireland, Galway, henceforth known as NUIG, and exploring the town. In a lot of ways, I thought coming to Ireland would be fairly easy–I mean, they speak English. But it turns out they don’t. There’s the small things, like calling a stovetop a hob or pants trousers, but then there’s the building names in Irish (like Aras Ui Chathail) that are embarrassingly difficult to pronounce. The school system is different (more on that when I figure it out!) and cities are laid out different, since they are older than the grid system. So this first week in Ireland, I’ve been learning how to navigate it all, physically and otherwise.

While it’s challenging, it’s a good challenge. I’m loving all that I’m learning! I walked around campus, the Galway Cathedral, down to the Atlantic Ocean, and all around town. The swans in the canal, the little children all buddle up in strollers, Christmas trees and lights still up on Shop Street… Beautiful! My two roommates and I only have a half sized refrigerator and you have to carry everything you buy and things spoil more quickly here = I’ve gone to the grocery store at least once a day so far.

Here’s what I’ve been eating so far: 1) Fish & chips from Burdock’s in Dublin, 2) Ham toastie (toasted sandwich) with carrot soup at Kelly’s in Galway, 3) Breakfast toastie (fried egg) with tea at Mocha in Galway, 4) Donut with cocoa powder from a vendor at the Farmer’s Market in Galway. Delicious!

While it might take some time, I could certainly get used to this.

“Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.” – Still Life with Woodpecker, Tom Robbins

Location: Headford Rd, Galway, Ireland

Ready, Set…

I’ll be in Ireland this weekend.

Isn’t that crazy?! I’m so unbelievably excited, so please excuse any overuse of exclamation points in this entry!

I spent today packing, packing, packing. Sorting, shifting, bagging, washing. It almost got the best of me, but I managed to corral my clothes into my suitcase. I feel like I’m taking way too much and not enough at the same time. It’s kind of driving me crazy. I’m sure I’ll forget something; I’m just hoping it’s something I can easily replace or live without!

I’ve also been trying to plan what I want to do in Dublin in my free time during orientation. I’m especially looking forward to a Hop-on, Hop-off bus tour of the city that will bring me to a lot of the main attractions.

I’m also looking forward to eating! Mm fish and chips. I’ll report back on all that’s tasty and good in Ireland, though I will warn you that I had all my wisdom teeth out a week ago so I will be eating slowly and cautiously. But still voraciously.

What an adventure! I have lots to read on the plane. Unfortunately I’ve spread myself a little thin book-wise and have been reading both Dracula and Still Life with Woodpecker (both of which I highly recommend)! I also bought the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series that True Blood is based on. And I have probably half a dozen other books I was hoping to get around to before I left, but now might get left behind. But soon enough I will have new novels and poetry to read for my English classes in Ireland!

I’m so excited! Yeah! Good luck to everyone who’s packing or about to pack!

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

Location: New Providence, NJ

The Emerald Isle

My name is Jessica Brenn and I’m going to Ireland! I can hardly believe that in 30 days from now I will be boarding a plane to Dublin for Arcadia’s orientation. Then it will be on to Galway, where I’ll be attending the National University of Ireland.

Like many people, my family has traced its heritage back to Ireland. I loved Irish dancing when I was a kid–I joined a dance school, practiced, competed, attended ceilis, and danced in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Washington, DC.

And then I moved to Guangzhou, China, and took a break from Irish dancing to cultivate a serious love for traveling.

So this, combined with my love for literature (English major!), means that it was only a matter of time before I’d be itching to do a semester abroad in Ireland.

Isn’t it beautiful?! That’s the National University of Ireland, Galway, where I’m looking forward to taking classes in Irish history, literature, and mythology. Some cool classes I am planning to sign up for are “Development of the Castle in Europe,” “Celtic Mythology, Religion, and Folklore,” “Imagining Modern Ireland: An Introduction to Irish Culture Studies,” “Transformations of the Novel” and another English class I haven’t decided on yet!

But not all of the learning happens in the classroom. I’m excited to join clubs, get to know other Irish and international students, try new foods, and go new places! I’m also going to have to learn to cook, which will be an adventure in and of itself.

And so I leave for now with you this lovely picture of the streets of Galway and a quote I full-heartedly believe in:

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

Location: State College, Pennsylvania

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