Mine is not a new story...

November 29, 2010

Mine is not a new story…

                Well, here we are again…another week has gone by and I still find myself falling in love with this country. And yet again this week brought me another incredible adventure. So here it goes…

                I will start with Thanksgiving, or maybe I should say “Thanksgiving”. All of last week I kept forgetting that it was the week of Thanksgiving. So Thursday came and I woke up and….it felt just like any other Thursday. Stacie and I headed into the city centre for our internship and went on with our work. It was so bizarre. When the ladies that we work with found out/remembered it was Thanksgiving they bought Stacie and I Christmas cupcakes and a card that everyone in the office signed. If you know me, then you know that I LOVE LOVE LOVE cupcakes. I was happy to say the least. For dinner that night one of the American girls in my program offered her apartment for us all to have dinner at. We all brought a Thanksgiving dish to share. There was about twenty people total so we definitely had a feast. It was a pretty big success. Thanksgiving dinner and day were not nearly the same as at home but for being in a country that does not celebrate the holiday it was a good day.

                Saturday, Jackie and I rose early to catch our plane to London. Yes, I did go to London for just a small weekend trip. J Our plane was due to leave at eight in the morning. When we woke up there was about a half of an inch of snow on the ground. Which does not sound like anything to me (or anyone else from Colorado) but for Ireland it was a big deal. Our plane ended up being delayed about three and a half hours. Awesome start to the trip right? When we finally made it to London and checked into the hostel it was about 4:30p.m. From there we decided to go try to find platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross. This is a Harry Potter reference; it is the platform that gets you to the Hogwarts Express. It took a while but we found it! There is actually a luggage cart going through the wall. Naturally, we took several pictures there. By now it was dinner time and we ended up going to the Hard Rock Café London. Jackie did some work in school with one of the founders of the Hard Rock Café, so she has a slight connection to go to as many as she can; especially the original. It was so cool to be the original Hard Rock Café. While we were waiting for our table we looked at the gift shop and took a free tour of the vault that holds several pieces of memorabilia. It was so cool.

                Sunday ended up being our only full day in London, we had a lot to do in one day. I am just going to list what we did so you get the effect of how much we did. Here goes….Buckingham Palace, Princess Diana Memorial Park, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Parliament buildings, London Eye, City Hall,  Abbey Road Studios and Crossing, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, a Christmas fair, Piccadilly Circus (London’s equivalent to Time Square) and of course a few cups of tea mixed in there. Whew.  We were literally all over London. I loved every minute of it, I really liked the city. I would love to go back and see some things in more depth.  It was all wonderful but one of my favorite parts was Abbey Road. It was so cool to see it and all of the people who signed the wall outside the studio. Also it was so fun and entertaining to try and get pictures crossing the road like The Beatles. Hilarious. It was so great to see so many famous buildings and places. Jackie and I continued our tradition of finding “Mexican” food in every country we go to. The restaurant we found in Piccadilly Circus and was so good. I was pleasantly surprised.   We are now four for four on finding Mexican food. It was one long fantastic day.

                This morning our plane left at six a.m., this means we had to catch the airport bus at three a.m. thus we woke up this morning at one thirty a.m. That means that I am running on about three and a half hours of restless sleep. Today has been a long day. It was all very well worth it.

                Like I said before I really enjoyed London, it is a fun, busy lively city. I would love to go back there one day. But still the best country I have been to is Ireland. I am not sure anything can beat this. When we returned today it was snowy still. I love it; it reminds me somewhat of home. It is also hilarious to watch people try and deal with it.

                It is starting to become a reality that this dream I am living will soon come to an end. It is such a bitter sweet idea. I absolutely love Ireland and am so grateful for this semester. On the other hand, I miss my family so much and cannot wait to see them again. This experience is changing my life and I will never forget any of it. But also at this point I am not trying to look too far ahead. Something I really believe in is living in the present. Sounds obvious but I think a lot of people (including myself) get lost in what they have done or what they think they will do. I have three weeks left and I fully intend on soaking in and enjoying every minute of them. Today I will leave you with a quote:

                                “Hence, nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks for the past and love to the present; fear avarice, lust and ambition look ahead” C.S. Lewis Screwtape Letters

Have an incredible week!

Cheers,

Keely

Buckingham Palace Gates

Westminster Abbey

Buckingham Palace

Parliament Building

Big Ben

London Eye

Me signing the wall at Abbey Road Studios

I am just like The Beatles...ha

Tower Bridge

St. Paul's Cathedral

Piccadilly Circus

All of this is more than I have ever known or seen....

November 21, 2010

All of this is more than I have ever known or seen….

                Sunday has come again and I have had yet another incredible week in Ireland. I would gladly like to report that I finished my papers and the person I turned them into told me that I did well. This, for me, a person who has not written a paper in five months and someone who is not really a good writer, was great! This week also brought our program field trip to Northern Ireland.

                Going into this field trip I knew that it would be a lot different from our trip to the West of Ireland, but I am not sure I grasped how different. I feel like I should mention that “Northern Ireland” refers to the six counties in the northeast of Ireland that are still a part of the United Kingdom. On Wednesday we departed Dublin and arrived to a very wet and rainy Belfast. We were supposed to do a walking tour of the city with our program leader but due to the rain we did it on the coach. Not really the same and it was a lot easier not to pay attention. We saw many murals and memorial gardens. I am getting ahead of myself.  Northern Ireland is much divided, more than I understood. It is divided between Protestants and Catholics, but these are not necessarily religious stand points but rather they are political standpoints. There is a long history of controversy between the two that I will not get into because I still cannot fully grasp all that has happened. To this day there is a peace wall in Belfast that divides one side from the other; and people do not cross the line. There are sport centers that are the exact same thing and only blocks away from each other except they are on different sides of the wall, serving different communities. You can tell where people stand by the technicality of their words or the newspaper they read, or so they told us, I personally could not tell. It was strange to know that I was still in Ireland but the way Belfast felt, you would think you were in another country.

                Okay, so on the walking (bus) tour that we took we saw a ton of murals. On a lot of the sides of buildings there are huge murals that make political statements and they are all over the city. They make statements not only about Ireland but also about current happenings around the world. We also went to a couple of memorials for those who have died during the troubles of Northern Ireland. In one, one the Catholic (more Irish nationalists) side of the wall, I found two names that were interesting; Peter Blake (y uncles name) and also the surname McKenna. I was really happy to find family names from both sides of my family.

                The second part of the day we toured the ship yard where the Titanic was built and docked. I did not realize that the Titanic was built in Ireland. It was really interesting to see the actual places where she was built. We also had the opportunity, which most people do not, to go into the building where she was designed and where Thomas Andrews (the man who designed Titanic and played by Victor Garber in the movie) worked every day. It was so cool to stand in the exact room where the ship was designed and see exactly where she stood. I felt like I learned a lot and gained a better understanding of how big the ship was and what a tragedy it was when the Titanic sank.

                Thursday we went to Derry for most of the day. There we mainly learned about the Bloody Sunday of Derry. Bloody Sunday or the Bogside Massacre occurred Sunday January 30 1972 when a riot, which were common in that time period, took a turn for the worse and 13 died on that day. We went to a museum where the man who gave us he tour lost his 17 year old brother on that day. Walking through the museum almost made you sick. It was horrific, but I am also really glad that I was able to learn more about the troubles that have faced Ireland. Through the troubles neither side was blameless. I find it far more enjoyable to learn history as you are walking the streets of the place it occurred.

                Friday was low key, we were able to go see a twelfth century castle in Belfast and to see one of the government buildings in Belfast. It was bizarre because on Friday we woke up and say blue sky and the sun, I almost did not know what to do with myself. I have found that I love going to castles and our visit to this castle only made my love grow. It was beautiful and very interesting to learn about it and stand castle that still stands as it did when it was built, which is incredible. The government building was beautiful and I enjoyed walking around the grounds on such a nice day.

                Friday night was the premiere of part one of the seventh Harry Potter movie. There were about ten of us who went to the movie. I love Harry Potter and was so excited. Luckily I was not the only one, Jackie even dressed up, fantastic. I really thought that the movie was great and I love that I can saw I was in the UK for the premiere of Harry Potter.

All in all it was a good, relaxing trip. I love getting to see another side of Ireland. It was interesting to be in a place like I have never been before. I still feel so lucky to have the opportunity to do all of this. It is surreal that I only have four weeks left in Ireland. Four weeks to soak in all that I can.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful that you all are a part of my life and that I get to share this adventure I am on with you.

Cheers,

Keely

The peace wall in Belfast

The actual room where Titanic was designed

Murals in Belfast

The building where Titanic was designed

Oh, the Irish countryside

Titanic's dock

Overlooking the city of Derry

International Wall in Belfast

Jackie and I in the castle, ,note Jackie's Harry Potter outfit

At Harry Potter

Bobby Sans, famous for his large role in the hunger strikes

She said she didn’t believe it could happen to me…..

November 14, 2010

She said she didn’t believe it could happen to me…..

After my adventures to Norway and Italy I was ready to be back in Dublin for a relaxing week. What was I thinking? I am not sure I can remember the last time I had a truly relaxing week. My life has become on large adventure. And I love every minute of it.

                The binging of the week proved to be a reality check that I was back at school and back to my internship. My traveling is temporarily on hold. It was a rude awakening to realize that I actually had two papers due soon and a lot of work to do at my internship. If I can be honest with you for a minute, I have not really done very much school work since I have been here. School is structured so different here. It is not better; it is not worse just very different. So when I feel like I am not doing anything, it is just that students here do not have as many assignments or as frequent tests. This adds up to my grade depending mostly on one assignment rather than averaged from several grades. All this to say, it is time to buckle down and do work.

                My most exciting day of the week and probably one of the best days so far in Ireland was Thursday. Like I mentioned before Thursday I had the opportunity to meet the president of Ireland. Why in the world would I get to meet the president of Ireland? Well, YSI (the organization I work with here) has a group of students whose social justice project “wins” and those students get to meet the president and tell her about their project. Stacie and I, as interns, were invited to join this year. The president of Ireland is different than the president of the U.S. The president here, Mary McAleese, has more of ceremonial roles than our president. She is still very important but quite like our president. I am by no means an expert on what she does but this is what I am told.

                Thursday was a very rainy and blustery day, regardless nothing was going to ruin meeting the president for me. We went into the house and all stood in somewhat of a semi-circle, and were told what to do when the president walked in and how to address her. When she walked in she literally almost glowed. She was very graceful. We all applauded and she greeted us and started to make her way around the room to allow everyone to introduce themselves and shake her hand. She met all the students and when she came to Stacie and I a fellow YSI worker told her we were the American interns. Which to my surprise led here to shake our hands and stop and talk to us for a few minutes about why we were in Ireland, what we were studying and so on. As soon as she walked away, I thought, “Oh my gosh! Did the president of Ireland really just stop and talk to me personally?” The answer was yes, yes she did. We then had tea and took some pictures. I will post the ones I have but the photographer there took some of us actually talking to her and I am going to try and get my hands on those. I know that the president has met so many people and that she probably will not remember me but I felt very honored and very excited about the whole day.

                Jackie’s parents were also in town this weekend. I have loved getting to spend time with them. It is so great to meet them after all that Jackie has told me of them. Saturday we took them back to Howth. Howth was one of the first places I traveled outside of Dublin. We walked around a little then had lunch at the place with the best pancakes in the world, again. It was a fairly short trip but still a great one. Then today Jackie wanted to take her parents to Cork, which is in southern Ireland and I tagged along. It was about a two and a half hour train trip there. It was a beautiful day (i.e. no rain) and it was really fun to see a new city and to explore. I really enjoyed pub hopping and seeing the sites of Cork. It was a lot of fun. This weekend was a very good one; I love Mr. and Mrs. Carlin and thank them for a great weekend.

                Generally speaking this was a good week. However, a friend of mine past away from cancer. It was heartbreaking to get the news. I felt so far removed from home and from being able to be there with my family and his. It has been a hard couple of days but has also been a time for me to grow and be challenged. I have had to rely on God a lot and know that He was the only way to make the terrible situation any sort of better. I have also been reminded of how few our days are on Earth. I am so grateful for my life and the opportunities I have had, especially in the last two months. I have really been reminded to cherish every day and not to take anything for granted. He was a wonderful person and friend and he will be very much missed. 

 This week brings a trip to Belfast in the North of Ireland…..Very exciting.

Oh yes, and this week my wonderful mom got my plane ticket to South Africa, so it is official I am going!

I hope you all have a great week!

Until next time,

Keely                                

 

Mary McAleese

Stacie and I with a statue of the first female president of Ireland

the seals in Howth

Cork at Night