Dublin, a Racer, and Desmond the Historian

This is late, I apologize!

So after returning from Inis Mor Island, I met with Derek to hear about his bike tour to the Dingle peninsula. A slideshow along with a commentary describing his incredible trip was all it took for me to decide that I needed (ok, not needed, wanted) a bike. I love combining outdoor exercise with traveling and sightseeing and eating...I just appreciate everything so much more when I'm physically exhausted...plus, Ireland is a perfect country for bike touring. Most towns are relatively close to one another, and the roads connecting them conveniently pass through sheep farms and a variety of stunning landscapes.

So that was that, and with Derek's help I found a used Raleigh racer on Ireland's version of Craig's list. The seller was based just outside of Dublin...which made it easy to make our weekend plans. My roommate, Laure, decided to come, and kindly offered to drive us. We took off Friday afternoon and made reservations for a hostel in Dublin on the way. We stopped in Leixlip to check out the bike, which was pretty interesting. The guy selling it, John, ended up being quite the sexist pig! He treated me like a 6 year old that had just learned how to bike a week earlier, and it became very clear that he did so simply because I was a girl. Oh how hard I was biting my tongue...I wanted to pop him one! I left the bike there, giving myself the weekend to think about it/let Derek convince me to buy it.

We drove the rest of the way into Dublin, grabbed dinner at The Oval Pub (I ate my first bowl of traditional Irish stew), and then moved on to O'Shea's Pub for some live music. We walked back to the hostel, looking forward to getting a good night of sleep. I should have known that my lucky-hostel-streak needed to come to an end! We walked through our dorm door and were hit by the rank stench of foot...and sweat...and beer...but mostly foot. We found the culprit-tennies in the flowerbox outside of the window. It was foul...the air almost seemed humid, it was so strong. We crawled into bed...dreading the return of the shoes' owner. At about 3 am...in walked a very large, drunk man...mumbling to himself in Italian? Spanish? I couldn't tell. And with him, came another wave of footy air. We slept on...




Next day, we toured Dublin...Trinity College, St. Stephen's Green, Temple Bar area, had lunch and took the Guinness Brewery tour. We got back to the car, made another last-second hostel reservation in a town just south of Dublin, and drove off with hopes of a room that smelled of roses and cookies.








The hostel was great...we shared it with the mountaineering club from Cork University (they gave us their leftover dinner!), and spent our night listening to one of their members play guitar and sing damien rice songs (she was phenomenal...her voice was bone-chilling). Sunday, we woke up and took off for Glenmalure...an area with hiking trails through a valley in Wicklow County. We ended up hiking with a "hill-walking" group from Dublin...and made good friends with Desmond, Niamh and Bridget. After a good hike and a thorough lecture on various aspects of Ireland's history(courtesy of Desmond), we had a pint/coffee with them at the B&B in Glenmalure. We left for home from there, making a quick detour to purchase my bike from Mr. Piggy ("You might want to try putting more of the baggage weight on his bike...to even out the pace"). grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Monday...Derek came over and we put the bike together! Derek put his teaching skills to the test and gave me a lesson on changing tires and putting on pedals etc etc. I took it out for a quick ride...everything worked perfectly! So it shouldn't be too long before I'm telling you about bike tours around Ireland :)

Inis Mor Island

Typically, Wednesday afternoons, I'm faced with the decision of whether to stay in Galway for the weekend, or to make last-second travel plans. It's a tough call! A weekend in Galway usually means late nights in pubs, drinking Guinness, listening to locals playing fiddles and flutes, grocery shopping at the market saturday morning, running along the bay, reading... But it's hard for me to justify staying when I can pretty much do all of those things no matter where I go. Time is running out fast(it's scary how fast), and I want to explore Ireland as thoroughly as possible while I'm here.

So, more often than not, I'll be traveling. Last week, my friend Miranda and I decided to collaborate our plans and head off to the Aran Islands. Anna and I met Miranda at a hostel in Glendalough during our first few days in Ireland. She's a 19-year-old Australian who decided to follow in her mother's footsteps and backpack abroad for one year in hopes of "finding herself" before starting college. She's great...very spunky and possibly one of the most talkative people I have ever known. She can tell you anything about Australian history, politics, pop culture and wildlife...she's also an expert on Japanese horror films. If there's a silence to fill, she'll fill it! Anyway, she took a bus to Galway on Thursday and came out with us to a pub called Bierhaus. Friday morning, Abby(fellow badger), Abby(UW-Green Bay), Miranda and I hopped on the bus that took us to the ferry bound for Inis Mor Island!

We spent the rest of Friday exploring the cratery, cliffy, moonlike shoreline; playing fetch with the local sheepdogs; getting lost(literally) in a maze of 2,000 year old stone walls; conversing with other travelers at the hostel; and cooking stir-fry using every spice on the shelf of free food. We topped off the night by watching a horribly depressing movie about the Holocaust(The Pianist). Not sure how that made its way into our fun-filled, care-free day. :) It was really a good movie though.

Saturday we woke up and made a beeline for the bike rentals. 10 euros for a full day of biking seemed unbeatable! We discovered pretty quickly that we got what we paid for: four beaten-up pink mountain bikes, with rock-hard seats and gears that only functioned 50% of the time. By the end of our day, 2 of the bikes had flat tires. haha...but OF COURSE we didn't complain once. ;) Really though, it was hard to be anything but completely euphoric all day. We had perfect weather (perfect=anything that's not pouring rain and 30mph winds), and vistas of the ocean, seals, fishing villages, the stone walls, goats, sheep and cheery Irish farmers hard at work. Every half hour or so we were passed by a tour bus full of glassy-eyed tourists taking pictures through the windows. Renting the bikes was a good decision! We made it to the other end of the island, ate our lunch by the water, and then headed back. Exhaustion set in so we bummed around for a couple of hours, made dinner and then went out for a pint at the pub next door.

Our last day was spent hiking out to Dunaengus, a massive fort built into the side of a cliff. The fort was cool, but the cliffs were what really impressed us. We spent a half hour just lying on our stomachs, peering over the edge down to the waves crashing against the cliff-side.

It was an amazing weekend. I'm so glad to have made it there during the off-season--being able to wander off and discover stone ruins without seeing anyone else for hours was unbelievable. We could take pictures without waiting for people to walk by, and turn a piece of pasture behind a 2 foot wall into a lady's restroom worry-free! I'm tempted to say this was my favorite weekend so far...but I won't! Because every place, person, experience has been memorable in its own way....I can't pick favorites.

Pictures from the weekend are on flickr....http://www.flickr.com/photos/cberg2

Just Kidding- A Quick Recap

Here's the mass email I sent out a couple of weeks ago....

Hello hello wonderful friends and family! I think I will take the lead of my fellow study-abroad friends and send out updates to a mass email list rather than attempt to personally contact everyone on a regular basis.

So...my semester abroad thus far: it's been pretty fun i guess. ha! only joking...where do i begin! I suppose Amsterdam is the most logical place.

Back in September, my adventurous pal from home, Anna, and I started making plans to travel together for a few weeks before classes started for me in Ireland. Amsterdam became our destination of choice...so plane tickets were purchased and that was that. We spent 8 days in/near Amsterdam experiencing its nightlife, walking along canals, making friends with locals and other travelers, hiking in a national park, confusing trains for trams, buying food at grocery stores and eating on public benches. I think we would both agree that the highlight of our stay there was New Year's Eve--which consisted of putting our luggage in storage at the train station and pulling an all-nighter. We did this merely to save money, but by 6 am it was apparent that the rest of Amsterdam was doing the same thing just for fun

Then, it was off to Ireland on Jan. 4th. We left Dublin by bus and headed south for a quieter atmosphere in Wicklow County where we stayed in a hostel and spent our time hiking in the national park and reading our books. it was a nice change from the hustle bustle of amsterdam and dublin. Next stop...Galway. My home away from home for the next 5 months.

So that brings me to my apartment on the west side of Galway, where I share a room with Katie from New Jersey and my apartment with Laure from France. They're both really great, and we've gotten to know each other well already. My second weekend here was spent in a little town called Letterfrack in Connemara National Park. I stayed in a hostel that used to be a monastery (the place has quite a history...involving monks abusing young boys to the point of death) with a few friends. This weekend...we'll be traveling to Kilkenny...another smaller town in Southeast Ireland.

Classes started last week, most of which are history, political science and literature. They are all very interesting...and should give me the cultural overview of Ireland I came here for. My celtic civilizations professor is pretty dry though...my friend, Derek, described the class best by comparing it to a filibuster. Otherwise, my instructors have that stereotypical charming and witty Irish personality!

Alright, I promised myself I wouldn't let this turn into a novel, so I think I'm going to cut myself off here. In summary...my travels with Anna and time in Ireland have been incredible. This country is beautiful, and the people are so chummy.

If you didn't get my first email, my pictures are all posted at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cberg2.

Please check them out...because I can't even begin to accurately describe what I'm seeing here.

I hope you're all doing well, keep me updated on what's going on with you too! I'll try to write again in a few weeks. My photo webpage will probably be the best bet for seeing what I'm up to though.

Take care everyone!

Colleen (ps-I've found out that only "American tourists" are named Colleen. haha--it means little girl in gaelic...so they see it as a pretty silly name. oh well! i am an american tourist...so I don't see a problem with it! I usually get little smiles when I introduce myself though)

Better Late Than Never

I should have started this as soon as I got here. Only a month has gone by, and my memories of all those little anecdotes and those quirky people I knew for less than 6 hours is fading fast! But...better late than never I suppose! Instead of writing a bunch of inadequate, undetailed blogs recapping what I've done so far, I'll just start from the present. Maybe I'll find time later to do it. So, I'll start from last weekend on Inismor Island: one of the enchanting Aran Islands that lie west of Galway in the Atlantic Ocean...Once Upon A Time... :)