Saturday morning (nearly three weeks ago!) Dan and I took a bus to Cork! We had been wanting to go for a while, but our plans got pushed back when I sprained my ankle. So we finally made it! The bus ride was long, but thankfully for Ireland that only means about four hours. We saw a lot of pretty scenery on the way and also passed through Limerick.

When we arrived, we checked into our hostel and talked a bit with the woman who runs it.  She was extremely nice and helpful.  We dropped our bags off in the room and headed off to make the most of our short stay.

The main part of Cork is on an island in a river.  So we crossed a bridge towards the downtown area.  Our first stop was the Cork Butter Museum.  Yes, a museum about butter.  Unfortunately, there were no samples, but we did learn how butter is made, some of the folklore around butter, and how butter is important to Ireland’s economy.  There was also a bit on the marketing of Kerry Gold Butter.  Check out this song from the 1930’s!

Next up, we saw the St. Anne Church.

Then, we headed to the English Market.  Thankfully, the woman at the hostel today us to go Saturday since it was closed Sunday.  Anyway, the English Market is like a farmers’ market, but it’s inside a beautiful building and there nearly every day.  We were hoping for some grab and go kind of cooked food, but it was mostly meat, eggs, fruits, veggies, etc., though there was quite a range.  I would definitely love to shop there if I lived in Cork!

After that, we went to the Crawford Art Gallery, which was really nice (and free!).  It had sculptures, old paintings of Cork, and just generally lots of art. 

After doing the main things we had wanted to see in Cork, we mostly just wandered around the downtown area.  We got lunch–satisfying my bagel craving.  They put sweet corn in and shredded cheese on top of tuna fish in Ireland. I also got what is the equivalent to Naked Juice (Innocent here) and Dan got Ginger Beer.  Adventurous! 

Cork was really pretty.  It had a great vibe.  There were lots of street performers, like in Galway, and good shopping.  Oh! We also stopped at this neat looking chocolate place.  There was a sign that said: “Special: Hot chocolate and a warm brownie with ice cream” for like four euro, so Dan and I split it. Delicious. While we were sitting there, we saw a flyer for the French Film Festival going on in Cork that weekend, and decided to go see a film that evening that was part of it! The film we saw was Bel Ami, a new one with Robert Pattinson. 

Location: Cork, Ireland

While procrastinating writing my own geoblog entries, I’ve been reading everyone else’s . Since there’s been a whole string of posts on London, I won’t bore you with all the details of my weekend trip. In two full days, Julianne, Dan, and I managed to see/tour/do:

• The British Library (which was unbelievably amazing! It had a great exhibition on books, “The Kings Library” which was a beautiful display of King George III’s collection of books, and an art exhibit on graphic novels and comics!)

• A three hour walking tour, including but not restricted to: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and Trafalgar Square. (You believe me right? Ok good–I won’t post any photographic proof of these then.)

• Ride the London Eye

• Piccadilly Circus

• Shop in Camden Market (where I got a cool British-looking scarf!)

• Tower of London (which was also very amazing. So much history! Maybe 20 years isn’t so old in the grand scheme of things. & we saw the Crown Jewels! Didn’t steal them, or even try.)

• Tower Bridge

• National Gallery (where I saw me some fine Vincent van Gogh paintings.)

• Ogle designer goods & people who can afford designer goods at Harrod’s

It was a very cultured weekend (minus the trip to the M&M store)! It was also an intense experience of transportation (a bus, a plane, a train, the underground/metro, a bus to train to a plane, another bus!). The weekend was incredibly fun and I wish I could have stayed longer!

Location: London, United Kingdom

                It’s spring in England. Honestly, the stereotypes about terrible British weather are lies–it’s been gorgeous, warm, and sunny almost every day here for the past month. It’s almost too good to be true, and I’m waiting for the spring rains to batter this town. For now though, my window is open and my coat is off. Since I’m only about 10-15 miles from the coast, the air is breezy and warm but not too warm to scorch. Maybe it’s just a mild winter and spring, but either way, I’m happy to be missing the usual long winters in PA.

It might be so beautiful because I’m studying in Canterbury– the hub of the county Kent, which is often dubbed “The Garden of England” for, well, obvious reasons. The lush grass, countryside, and rolling farm hills surround multiple small towns on and near the coast of the Channel. It’s also a rather rich (or “posh) part of the country, near to the continent, the water, and to inland England as well. Because of this, seagulls are everywhere, the fish and chips are especially good, and I can travel to the ocean in 40 minutes by bus.  

Yesterday, on my day off, a few friends and I ventured to the seaside resort town of Broadstairs to spend a lazy day at the beach. While other beaches such as Dover are covered in pebbles, this one had real sand–although it was more brown than the sand I’m used to, from the Outer Banks–and the wonderful weather made me wonder if I was really still in England, but in another way, it was essentially English: the architecture near the seaside seemed lazy and Brighton-esque almost, colorful, and summery. (The climate here is mild, so the temperature usually stays between 40 and 75 degrees year round.)  People lounged or played football (American soccer) on the beach. We took our shoes off and sat by the sea for a while before heading off to walk along the white cliffs.

Broadstairs is known for being Charles Dickens’ haunt from 1837, and the once-home of Mary Pearson Strong now stands as the Dickens House Museum. Although he never actually lived in this house, it served as the inspiration for the character of Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield. His actual house, which has now been renamed from Fort House to Bleak House, stands at the top of the cliffs, and here, he finished David Copperfield and began Bleak House. The house is privately owned, but tours will let you see his bedroom (where Queen Victoria once slept!), some manuscripts, and even his sitting room as he described it. Although I didn’t get to see Bleak House this time around–we were walking along the cliffs looking for a famous archway that we could never find–I definitely want to return and see it. One of the main reasons I came to England was to see the places my favorite authors lived and wrote, and it’s crazy that I’m currently living a mere bus ride away from where Dickens himself once lived. Here’s a picture of the house. It looks stunning. I’m kicking myself for not insisting on finding it yesterday:

In lieu of visiting the house, however, we walked along the white cliffs–as I said, looking for an archway/tunnel where you could walk through the cliffs. We didn’t find it, but we did see some mini-caves, which occurred naturally through erosion and the brittle quality of the stone (which I assumed to be chalk? It rubbed off on my hand). What never ceases to amaze me is how these magnificent, historical places (such as the cliffs or historical houses) aren’t venerated or roped off: they’re just there, for everyone to walk by. In America, we have to grab and store all the history we can, but here, they have to get rid of it, keep it from piling up, just to make room for the new and the now. Canterbury is a prime example of this, and I’ll post pictures later of the crumbling Roman wall in the center of the city. What I’m getting at, however, is that there weren’t any plaques or tours to tell us about the Broadstairs or the cliffs–at least not where we were walking. There was just the gorgeous sea and the white cliffs.

We walked so far along the coast, in fact, that we ended up in the next coastal town over, Ramsgate! It was even ritzier than Broadstairs, with the same Victorian, colorful architecture and stunning views of the sea. Dozens of boats nested in the harbor like little birds, gleaming and bobbing slowly. A beautiful garden took up an entire square near the harbor, and pictures just don’t do it justice. By this time, the sun was setting, and we had to catch our bus back. I loved seeing the English coast on a sunny day, and honestly, I want to go back.

Location: Broadstairs, UK

                I said I’ll be talking a lot about London, and I wasn’t lying. I’ve visited the city a few more times (and am now ready to branch out into other parts of England, don’t worry) and thought I’d share my experiences! You know you’re excited.

                I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that taking the high-speed train from Canterbury to London is so convenient, and I highly recommend it.  I bought a railcard, which gives me a 33% discount each time I ride, and this makes the round-trip ticket price to and from London St. Pancras International about 22 pounds (right now, that’s about 36 dollars, which doesn’t sound as good as 20 pounds…so I prefer not to do the conversion).  It’s only a 45-minute ride, which for many people in the U.S. is their morning commute. Interestingly, here, living “very far away” is living an hour away by train, and, although it varies, most locals seem to avoid London except for the occasional field trip. I guess I do the same with New York City, but then again, I consider myself close to that, and I’m actually 5 hours away. Anyway, after the train, I use my OysterCard (basically a gift card for the tube that you scan each time you enter and exit; it charges you based on how far you go) to get around the city: I can’t emphasize enough how much I love the tube. Others may disagree, but it’s very convenient, unique, and the maps are easy to read. If you’re thinking of coming here, you can pick up this handy-dandy map anywhere here:

                Moving on: this past weekend, I met up with some friends studying abroad in Ireland to show them around London (which I jokingly pretend to know well). Of course, it was actually my friend who found out about this amazing, free tour of London’s sites. (I can’t quite remember the name, but I think it was something like Royal Heritage Tours.) You have to register beforehand, but the tour meets at Wellington’s Arch, by Hyde Park Corner, and our Londoner tour guide walked us around  the city, entertainingly telling us the history, legends, and scandals associated with each place. The tour included the gates of Buckingham Palace, Victoria’s Arch, St. James’ Park, St. James Palace, Trafalgar Square, Nell Gwynn’s house, and of course, Westminster.

                At Buckingham, the guide mentioned a few facts about Prince Philip–the husband of Elizabeth, Queen of England–most of them being about how he is often viewed as a bit racist and impolite. When a few tourists asked more questions about this, the guide replied, “I can’t talk about that here, but when we get to the next stop on the tour, I’ll answer that.” Our guide had a bubbly, open personality, and the whole thing was so strange–why couldn’t he say whatever he wanted, right here? So, as the tour moved on, my friend and I asked him what he meant:

                “Well, since the flag is flying”–the white one, not the British one–“the queen is in, so we can’t say anything unflattering that she might hear. The guards have given me dirty looks, and we’ve had problems like that before.” He said this off-handedly, like it wasn’t a big deal. My friends and I couldn’t believe this: England–for all the “police state” jokes we may make about it, stemming from 1984 and also the cameras constantly monitoring everything– is a relatively very free country. I guess I just assumed they have very similar rights and freedoms as I do back home. While this is generally true, this instance showed me that it is not completely true–and this (arguably little) suppression of freedom bothered me immensely. It was just such a different view of government and freedom of speech–I’m still surprised about it, honestly. I’ve been having a lot of epiphanies here lately about the different governmental philosophies, in fact, and I’m interested to see how these experiences influence my own opinion on the American political system.

              The tour, however, was amazing, and ended at a pub in Westminster–after seeing the Houses of Parliament and hearing a sobering story of the Guy Fawkes Gunpowder Plot (sometimes I forget London has a very present dark, brutal side)–where we ordered fish and chips…and warmed up! After that, my friends and I rode the Eye on a foggy night, saw Piccadilly Circus lit up at night, and went back to our hostel in King’s Cross (but not after checking out platform 9 �, of course). The next morning, we headed to the British Library–where I’d never been and which I would definitely recommend! It was better than the British Museum and had original copies of, for example, Woolf’s rough drafts of Mrs. Dalloway and a very old Canterbury Tales. A giant glass section of rare books stands in the center of the building, looking colorful and literary. There’s even a moving picture downstairs (you just have to go to see what I mean). Admission is free!

We also got to see the Tower of London–home to the Crown Jewels and complete with a conveyor belt to keep tourists moving–although I didn’t actually go in this time. Something happened to my foot, so I waited in a Starbucks right by Tower Bridge, and although I was lame, it wasn’t bad. The absolutely gorgeous day, the River Thames, and a mocha Frappuccino made up for it. The Tower Bridge, pictured to the left, is iconic (and really beautiful), and I still think it’s funny that London Bridge is no big deal. Also intersetingly, Starbucks isn’t very expensive compared to other local businesses in London, so if you want the best price for coffee, Starbucks is your place to go!

       I headed home after that. Even though I feel more familiar with parts of London, there are still so many things left to see: Kensington, Windsor, Harrod’s, and The Globe! I’d also like to see a play on the West End. I’m looking forward for spring to bloom in the parks as well!        

Location: London, UK

Part One: Explorations with Arcadia Friends

After a five hour bus ride and a quick orientation through the city, the Arcadia staff set us loose in Belfast for a few hours of free time before our schedule dinner. My friends & I set our sights on the glass dome in Victoria Square Mall, as seen from a distance below.

We climbed the narrow spiral staircase several floors up to the platform at the top. It was a lovely place to admire the city and setting sun from. Check out this person’s video for the full panorama.

Then we walked down to the Titanic Quarter of town.  Over the weekend, I learned about Belfast was pretty much the only place that the Industrial Revolution hit in Ireland, and as an effect flourished into an industrial city.  It’s known for its rope-making, linen factories, and shipbuilding.  The Titanic, as you might have guessed, was built in Belfast.  The city is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking this April–a fancy new museum is opening, along with many other events.

Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland

                In my first trip outside of the U.K., I ventured to Ireland, that land of green and lepercons, to visit my friend Jess and her boyfriend, both of whom are studying in the same city. (If I could have chosen, I would obviously have gone there on Leap Day, but sadly, that didn’t fall on a weekend.) Anyway, both of my friends are studying in at the National University of Ireland in Galway–the third largest city in Ireland (located on the West coast). Canterbury is about as far away as I could be, being on the next island over, but after catching various planes, trains, and automobiles (all by myself! I’m officially an adult.), I arrived. Here’s a few pictures, of Galway Bay and downtown:

I had originally planned to stay at Jess’ apartment, but due to my excellent timing, something called “Rag Week”–which seems to be an Irish version of State Patty’s day–made the authorities tighten security and not allow any non-tenants into the building at any time. So, we all camped over at another apartment, which luckily for me, only had security stationed between 10pm and 7am. This gave us a few time constraints to work around, but it wasn’t really a problem…I was just happy not to need an emergency hostel. (Interestingly, though, I never heard noise the whole week…either security was effective or “Rag Week” went underground.)

Jess and I spent Monday in Galway, as she needed to go to class. She showed me around downtown Galway first–pointing out Shop Street, along with a mall with the city wall intact inside it, countless pubs, and the river Corrib. While wandering the streets downtown, I noticed a few things: 1) the weather is actually really nice in England (Galway, being by the ocean, was very rainy, windy, and cold…although I didn’t really mind), 2) not having to use pounds (euros!) made me feel rich, 3) you can never take enough pictures of the sea, and 4) I really like the “quiet city” vibe Galway gave. Since I’m on a university campus about a mile from a town at Kent, I don’t live in a city, and I liked stepping outside the door and being in a semi-busy place. In fact, if you walked out the door where I was staying, you’d be a five-minute walk (along a scenic canal) from the city-center.

The National University of Ireland is located in the city as well, only a ten-minute walk from where I was staying. I even went to one of Jess’ classes, Modern Irish Literature, where the lecture was luckily on Ulysses. Besides the fact that reading Ulysses in Ireland is pretty much the best thing ever, I was supposed to be reading the novel for one of my own classes at Kent, and had brought my own copy to Ireland! (Of course.) Although the lecturer was American, I enjoyed sitting in the giant lecture hall and learning more about Joyce in his homeland.

On Tuesday, we embarked on our day trip to the Aran Islands–specifically, the largest island of Inishmore. Dan and Jess had already been there, but the island was interesting enough for a second visit. The island–which sits on the west coast–is small, with only 800 full-time residents, and a ferry brings tourists over a few times a day. The landscape, as I’d hoped, did feel extremely remote–very Irish and almost, even, backward in its nostalgic ways. The island seemed the epitome of what I’d always pictured as Ireland: full of endless green, rain, and stone walls. Lots of stone walls. The island is literally partitioned into tiny squares from them, as each generation would pass down the land to each of the sons, dividing the land more and more as time passed. These plots are now used as gardens, grazing pastures for livestock, or simply for a house.

Inishmore is narrow enough that, at a few points, you can see both the ocean and the Irish Sea: the cliffs by the ocean are massive, rocky walls with jagged edges. On part of the tour, the bus stopped and we walked up to an old fort, right by the cliffs. With no fencing (Jess says the Irish motto is “Just enough” as in, “We tell them not to go too far just enough for them not to die”), seeing the cliff drop off into ocean–with the wind swirling and the ground slippery–I stayed well away from the edge. Ireland is full of wildness, and the sheer power of the ocean against the rocky cliffs was an amazing sight. Eventually though, the wind and cold make you run to the nearest pub/caf� for lunch, which is what we did next. Some of us had apple pie and tea and scones for lunch. I had a very warming Irish stew.

We spent the rest of the day finishing the tour, shopping at the authentic, local wool outfitter, and then grabbing fish and chips back in Galway for dinner. (Note: In England, mushy peas are included. In Ireland, I had to order them extra. This is a tragedy. However, what isn’t a tragedy is that portions of Leap Year–an amazing rom-com–was filmed at the Aran Islands! I’m not sure what scenes or what landscape they used, but I guess that just means I’ll have to watch the movie again to see.)

The next day, I spent more time in town and, in the evening, got to experience live Irish music at a local pub. With old pictures and newspapers lining the walls and rain pouring outside the windows, the comforting atmosphere felt warm and jovial. An old man sang a folksong (his voice blended with the music too much to tell if he was singing in Irish/Gaelic or English), and a few others fiddled or played guitar. I see why people love pubs so much in England and Ireland; on a cold, windy, and rainy day, there’s no better place to warm up, and my friends and I enjoyed our Irish Bulmer’s watching the windows cloud as the rain continued to pour outside.

That concluded my first trip to Galway; however, I’m planning a second! In April, I hope to spend another four or so days in Ireland, seeing Dublin, Galway again, and Cork. I can’t wait. For now, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Irish toasts:

“May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light.

 May good luck pursue you each morning and night!”

Location: Galway, Ireland

Yes, this is a travel blog, and study abroad is a time of change, excitement, new faces, new places, and probably a ridiculous exchange rate (depending on where you’re headed). At the same time though, you are still yourself and there are still 24 hours in the day to fill. I’m hesitant to post blog after blog of cool places where I merely describe the places with the crystallized nostalgia that inevitably comes with looking at amazing pictures–because yeah, sight-seeing is cool, these cities and places awesome, but sometimes, when I’m there, the most important thing is finding the hostel and crashing…or finding the nearest fish and chips. The Rosetta Stone, after all, is merely a rock in a class case, surrounded by a crowd. That’s not to belittle it–just to acknowledge the real nature of things. Life doesn’t always speed up, and sometimes, that’s when the best things happen and I feel most like myself. Ordinariness in the midst of upheaval is no light thing. So this is a blog post dedicated to mundane-ity, the normal, and the not-exciting.

One of the least glamourous (note the spelling) aspects of going to school here is going to school here: I do have class, though less often than I’m used to. Tonight, in fact, is my first real homework binge night, complete with Grooveshark (Pandora doesn’t work over here), Facebook, and actually this blog as welcome distractions. I’m wearing my PSU tee-shirt, shorts, and fuzzy socks–my normal regime for school-mode me. My housemates are probably surprised at the transformation and eyeing me strangely when I come down into the kitchen to get yet another slice of cheese, but this is how I would haunt my dorm room halls. It’s incredibly calming actually; I’m familiar with homework-packed nights and procrastination. It reminds me of home, although I’m missing my roommate to commiserate with me, and reminders of home, schedules, and normality are comforting–as is the sound of Bon Iver in the background.

A few days ago, I took a walk past the outskirts of campus–by myself, headed in no real direction, just me and my camera. This wasn’t an epic journey, but I discovered a gem of a cute British neighborhood right near my house, and the walk gave me time to think, be alone, and muse on life as I currently know it. Here are some of the cute places lining the streets around my university!

Is this postcard news? No. Is it blog-worthy? Yes. It was a chance to reflect and, even less than that, a chance to exist outside of the constant barrage of sensations and new things: to be separate, to be in the moment, to be doing nothing much.  I’m dwelling on this and it’s starting to sound cheesy, but it’s so important. I’d say it’s like taking time to stop and smell the roses, but in a way, it was taking time not to stop and smell anything: I’m sure I could have been seeing some historic site, meeting new people, or hey, doing homework. But in all the madness of study abroad, some things remain the same. I liked just letting everything be, taking a metaphorical deep breath, and realizing that life is still just life–made up of mainly the same emotions, excitements, and failures that life at home consists of too. I guess I just wanted to give that aspect of the study-abroad experience (although of course, there is no one definitive experience) a shout: in the end, sometimes it’s you sitting in your room thinking whatever thoughts you would be thinking anywhere. And that is not a bad thing because–according to Frost–the thing about life is that it goes on…wherever you happen to be.  

Location: Canterbury, UK

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

Location: London, UK