Cobh

Here's a bit of old writing I did in Ireland, in Cork when I couldn't get my camera working. Hope you like it, but if you don't (or if you do!) totally comment with any advice or criticism you have!

***

I took the train station down the hill from my hostel, and right away things started changing. Right away there were signs of the sea, and a different sort of sea than I was used to. Instead of white sand stranded in the middle of the road or long, pale beach grass swaying by the curb, it looked like the land itself might have once been part of the ocean floor. There were brown sandbars stretched out on either side of the train, all of it reminiscent of a wave. They were made up of eternal ripples, glistening under a sheen of millimeter deep saltwater, etched with thin, deep tide pool streams, curving and rippling this way and that like a brown snake. Or a wave. Even the sea-foam green railings of the bridge we passed over rolled up and down. And then I got to Cobh and it was obvious that the little town, too, was a wave.

The roads, the couple there were, winded gently, and the buildings followed. The houses and pubs and shops traveled in connected, multicolored rows: sky blue, goldenrod, white, salmon, peach, cream, black, brick red, turquoise. They formed the streets, and went up and down, back and forth in little fluttering hills, sometimes even nearly going through each other, like they themselves were made of water.

I went up and down the hill-waves, breathing in the salt and wind and sun and rocks until I got to these dunes that were made out of earth and short grass instead of sand. On one side of the dunes was a make shift door made from tin or some sort of rusty metal, and I thought, here you can live inside the beach.

Clothes Ramblings

Even though I've lived on Cape most of my life, it's only since I got back from Ireland that I've been noticing really specific things about it. Like, the way Cape Codders dress. It seems like everyone has this uniform which almost no one breaks. They have it in Dublin, too, but their uniform is completely, completely different. Basically, on Cape, until it gets warm (which it doesn't really until June) pretty much everyone under forty or so (the old people all dress like normal old people, but, especially the ones who come to the Christmas Tree Shop, really colorfully) dresses in the same outfit: jeans and a hoodie. And the hoodie is always either navy blue, grey, dark green, army green, brown, or, if you're a girl, pink. Then for shoes, it's fake uggs or converse. Maybe flats. Normal sneakers if you're a boy. Once it gets nicer out, people start to break it up a bit, but for most Cape Codders, that's it.

It's totally different in Dublin. There the girls all dress the same, too (and they dress especially the same if they're walking in groups), but in a completely different way. They never wear jeans, ever. They wear either a skirt with leggings, tights, or no pants at all, or they wear a track suit. And the girl wearing the leggings or tights would never wear a track suit; they're completely different people. (The boy version of that is jeans vs. a tracksuit). When it's cold, everyone wears a pea coat, either black or grey. (On Cape, when it's cold, sometimes people wear coats but mostly they keep wearing their hoodies). Oh, and every girl wears heels. Sometimes they wear boots, but even they often have heels. Unless the girl's wearing a tracksuit; then she wears uggs.

That's mostly just Dublin, though. The other parts of Ireland, girls will wear jeans. Cork especially, I think. They mostly dressed casually there, but it was a mix, which was nice. Of course, I was only there for a week.

Anyway, though, I'm not sure which place is more different from the Dublin dress code- if the wicked hoodie-casual Cape Cod way of dressing or B-Town style. Because in Burlington, people wear lots of different sorts of outfits. For most of the year, because of the snow but also because they're cute, girls wear boots. When it rains, they wear bright, bright rainboots (which I've never seen a Dubliner wear) with cute patterns with whales or owls. As for everything else, people will wear whatever- a flannel shirt, a hoodie, a sundress, a T-shirt with a witty saying, a patterned sweater, a big shirt with leggings. The only thing is that whatever it is is almost always colorful. Even in winter, because then half of everyone wears a bright snowboarding coat, and the other half wears a pea coat, and even a lot of the pea coats are bright, too. The only time it's different is the first warm day of the year, when the girls all go out in lacy white sun dresses. Oh, and if the shoes aren't boots, they're pretty much always flats. Ireland's the only place I've been to where heels are the shoes of choice.

airports suck

It was worth it last night when I didn't go to bed, but now I'm suffering. I have three hours before my plane boards, and then seven hours in the air, and then two hours driving from Boston to the Cape. I think I might die. Especially since the only food I have on me is the chocolate I bought my family (and I already ate way too much of that for breakfast because, um, I've been completely broke for a while) and I just feel like crying, but I think that might be a bad thing, considering where I am. But, really, I just want to start bawling because I don't feel well and I don't wanna go yet and airports suck.

I'm sure everything will be good once I'm actually home, but I hate change sometimes (like now). And I'm really tired. Not that I've been anything but a ball of emotions this week. Really, it's been crazy.

Ahhhhhhhh I wanna cry!

Dublin

time flies away here.
it darts from your hands
pulled by high-heeled cobblestone roads
murderous taxis
trampled newspaper mush cigarette butts
years of bikes rusting algae in the Liffey
and mute nights where it only rained.

it takes away spinning
midnight pub worlds with their stomping and dancing and hidden corners
in seconds, takes
picnics of wine and tree climbing castle climbing life swirling,
accents that turn talking
into a song,
and the wind that makes you fly into busy anything streets
into leafy iron gated parks sprawling
with all of Ireland on its lunch break except you have all day.

then turns it all into a dream.

it's so weird right now

I don't think I've ever been so conflicted in my life.

I REALLY want to stay in Dublin.

I REALLY want to go home.

I want to do so many things in Ireland, still, but at the same time, I just wanna go home. I want to see all of my friends I've left behind, and I want to see my family. I want to go to the beach and swim and hang out and eat cheese that isn't Irish because it tastes weird and salads and not to have to worry about money. And to write more run-on sentences because clearly I like them.

But I DON'T WANT TO GO. Because I don't know when I come back. Ideally, after I graduate, I'll do this thing where if you were in school a year ago or less, you get to get a work visa for a year. I would totally do that (except I would live in Galway because it's totes the shit and I'm still in love with that city), but I have no idea if I'll be able, because I'll be about a hundred million dollars in debt when I graduate, and that's a lot of money. What if I can't ever come back?

I don't want to think about that.

But I do want to go home, too, and to see home, again. I've missed the Cape, and everyone in it. And in Burlington. It's really hard to have so many homes. I can't even express it. I've just been a bundle of emotions for days.

Anyway, random things I'm gonna miss:

The people selling strawberries and grapes out of baby carriages on Henry Street in their best Irish-Cockney accents.

All the performers on Grafton Street.

The flowers!!

Dancing in pubs...

Being able to get into pubs. I still have three whole months before I'm 21!! (NOT FAIR)

Cobblestone streets (except when I'm in heels. I won't miss them then).

The words, "cheers," "gaff," "grand," and "love," and probably a bunch of others. But I'm totally bringing them back.

Not always being carded.

The walk behind christchurch to get to pubs.

Stealing pint glasses. Oh, how I'll miss that.

Multicolored doors.

The walk to campus.

Random hen parties in the lobby.

The accents.

The PEOPLE.

But, one thing I won't miss is being the shortest person wherever I go. And I am excited to go home. Sort of. I'm probably gonna cry on the plane.

Three Poems

LOOK I'M POSTING AGAIN. Weird, right?

Anyway, I wrote these for my creative project for one of my classes. They're all inspired by the Irish Famine, so that means they're really cheerful, obviously.

PS, comments are spectacular and make me really happy. So comment.

***

in the night

she didn’t know it
when his heart stopped
beating. their sleep disappeared that night
and when she woke
he was cold, more stone than infant
than baby, her child. they say,
so early, it’s a blessing. poor thing
didn’t suffer long. look
at them, us, look at you, nothing
but bones, but skin. but
she didn’t know it when
his heart stopped beating and that meant
his heart stopped beating.
his heart stopped beating.

famine house

the house is broken with the rhythm
of the thousand bodies it couldn’t shelter.
it stands there a shattered
bombsite
ticking with every heartbeat
pushed aside
and put out too early.

they were once people
and back then they fought,
protested with fists and guns and tears
until their everyday laughter, everyday hopes switched
and burst
into the stillness of a billion muted bones.

now the house lies starving in Ireland
In Darfur, huddled bloody
and wasting for water in Haiti
sick and dying.
it’s on every street
in every country
beating loudly and helpless
filled with too many ghosts
and a ticking that can never end.

potatoes

she stands in front of the bathroom mirror
clutching windex
kool-aid blue.
no matter how much she scrubs
she can’t change what she sees.

once, in a century forgotten decades ago
half a culture starved
until they were nothing but rib cages.

but she could never eat a potato.
they’re too big and they remind
her too much
of what she sees in the mirror.

Yeah No.

Look! I'm posting! And it hasn't been a whole week!

Yay responsibility!

Except not. Being responsible kind of completely sucks. And me writing isn't being responsible. Because I have about a million essays to write and, well, yeah.

But, I'm kind of completely devastated. Because I only have two weeks here. Less. This time in two weeks, I'll be on a plane, only hours away from the Cape. And even though I'm really excited (Vermont cheese! Good salad dressings! Friends! No more crazy ridiculous drama!) I'm really sad about it, too.

And it's not just because I'll still have more than two months before I'll be able to drink (in public) again.

I'm going to miss it here, so, so unbelievably much. I'm going to miss the accents, the people, the buildings, the nightlife, the freedom, the EVERYTHINGEVEROHMYGOD.

I know I'm going to come back. There's this thing, apparently, where if you were a student for up to a year ago, you can get a working visa to live in Ireland for a year. I might to that. It'd be pretty cool. But that wouldn't be for ages and that's so sad.

I can't even believe it, really Sometimes I still forget that I'm in Ireland, really. I can't even begin to imagine how weird it will once I'm back home. Ahhhhhh. I know I've said this about eighty times, but it's going to be wicked, wicked, unbelievably sad. Beyond words.

I guess all I can say, really, is that I'm going to do my best to make these next two weeks the best ones of my life.

Why I need go back to Galway. (And the rest of the West!)

Okay, so I know that I haven't even finished writing about Cork yet, but I just got back from Western Ireland and I really wanna talk about it. Need to talk about it.

Because it was amazing.

It was beautiful in so many different ways, and I had one of the best nights there that I've had in Ireland so far. (Um, my roommate Ashley and I ran around downtown and talked to random people. Except we weren't ourselves. She was Megan Kelly from New York, and I was Sarah Nilap from Alaska. Shush. It was fun. We made up this huge back story, too. You probably had to be there.) I think Galway's my favorite city ever, pretty much. (Basically, if I had to describe all of the Irish cities I've been to really, really quickly, it'd be like this: Dublin: busy-indefinable, Belfast: quiet-friendly, Cork: crunchy-mellow, Galway: jovial.) But Galway's the last place we went to, so more on it later!

Our first stop was a fairy ring in County Clare.

You aren't technically supposed to go in the middle of fairy rings-- it's supposed to be wicked bad luck-- but we all did, anyway. Apparently, actual Irish people won't even go inside them, though that might just have been something they told us to make the ring more exciting.

Take that, fairies.

We didn't stay long, but it was fun. The only thing missing was a bit of fairy sighting.

We went to the Burren, next. It's a region in Count Clare that's, well, barren. It's nearly all scraggly, grey rock. You can walk on it for ages.

I sort of fell in love with it. It's just so different from anything you would expect to see in Ireland. I mean, everyone (hopefully) knows that Ireland isn't just one huge green field, but I wasn't expecting this desolate expanse of stony hills and flatlands. But it was gorgeous. I don't even know how to describe how atmospheric and beautiful and just different it was, but it really was all of those things. We were only there about a half hour, but for most of the time, I just sat and watched the world. It was incredible how quiet everything was. I mean, technically, it wasn't. There were lots of people around, and they talked and laughed and did all sorts of other normal people stuff, but in this place, all of that seemed muted, and the slight wind took precedent over their noises.

I thought it was fantastic how there could be these long stretches of stone, and then, suddenly, there'd be all green grass again, like nothing had ever happened.

Oh, and there was an ancient tomb, too!

It was pretty chill.

So were the Cliffs of Moher. As an Irish person would say, they were grand.

Western Ireland is supposed to get twice as much rain as the east, but half of the time we were there, it was hard to block out the sunlight. It was like that at the Cliffs, and they really looked magical.

See those orange specks of people? Coast Guard. Not completely sure what they were doing, but none of us fell off (because of the fairy ring, you know), so it wasn't that!

The next day, Saturday, we went to Inisheer, the smallest of the Aran Islands, and I really fell in love.

Inisheer is way in the distance. You can't completely see it, but it's there!

We took the ferry, which was fantastic. I love being on boats, really love it. I love the waves and the smell and just everything about it. But once we saw Inisheer, even I was stoked to get off it and start exploring.

I only have a few pictures from Inisheer, which totally guts me. They hardly even begin to capture the astounding beauty of the island, and they're all from the first ten minutes after docking. Inisheer's small, but not that small. But my camera was acting up and there was nothing I could do about it.

Things I have pictures of:

A house with a thatched roof.

A lonely red cart and the ocean.

A Road.

The start of the masses of stone walls, and frolicking.

Things I don't have a picture of:

The friendly cow that came to us when we called it. The rest of the stone walls that cover the island unrelentingly, rolling up and down over hills, and everywhere else. The castle I climbed on, and then got stuck on. (It was terrifying.) The grave yard with the 10th century old church underneath. The shipwreck. The pub we had lunch at. The yellow fields of dandelions. The two island dogs that followed us everywhere, alternately begging for attention and happily chasing one another, again and again. The craic.

At least, once we got to Galway, my camera was working again. Well, for a while.

I adored Galway. It was the most cheerful place I've ever been to, I'm pretty sure. We got there at around 5 in the afternoon, and straight away, half of everyone on the street was drunk. Cheerful drunk. We're-all-one-big-family drunk. It was fun.

It was happy. It got to the point that we (my two roommates and me, this time) would just walk down the streets, across the rivers, laughing at nothing but the fact that we were laughing. Being in Galway that first evening actually sort of felt like being drunk, but without having to put down money for alcohol.

It was sort of wonderful. (Especially since I'm pretty broke.)

And beautiful. Seriously, Galway is a gorgeous city-- maybe the most colorful one I've ever been to. The stores and cafes were all popping with color.

Check out the doors!

There was art everywhere.

The graffiti was awesome.

I found boats!

And there was a farmer's market. (I got a Cloddagh Ring!)

Even Galway's paintings are bright!

But in the end, this sign described Galway best:

My one disappointment? I didn't get to hear Galway Girl played in Galway!

Next time!

The Garda Won't Let Blarney Castle Keep Their Weed

Or, Cork part 2!

My second day at Cork started fantastically; my camera fell off my bunk bed. Yay! I was stoked, obviously.

Actually, though, I wasn't too worried, because my camera was at least still working. I mean, the little door thing covering the place you put the batteries in (I'm wicked technical, yo) wouldn't completely close, but as long as I held it shut, it would still take pictures. Then, it stopped and I was completely and utterly devastated. But I'll get to that later.

(I swear, though, I could write an entire blog about nothing but technology hating me. In the past month, I've had my laptop break, my camera break, my favorite coat ever got stolen-- which totally counts; coats were technology once! I bet if a cave man saw my coat, he'd be wicked impressed!-- and today, my iPod broke. But then it.. unbroke, so that wasn't too bad. Technically. Anyway, I basically have a black thumb, but with technology instead of gardening. Everything I touch falls apart. Except for phones, for some reason. Watch, though-- I probably just jinxed myself.)

Anyway, the day before, I was told that I absolutely had to go to Blarney Castle, no excuses. So I did. I mean, my schedule was completely open. Completely. Honestly, when I chose to go to Cork, I chose it on the basis that everyone said it was really pretty. No other reason. Nothing else. So, I was just basically going to go where everyone said was cool. So, I did.

And, oh my God, I don't regret it at all.

Blarney Castle was amazing. And the grounds were beautiful beyond words. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Okay, I lied. Still talking. BUT LOOK HOW PRETTY THE CASTLE IS.

And, oh, look, there are trees! Finally, finally trees! (It's impossible to say how much I've missed frolicking around in the woods!) And it's sunny! Crazy, ridiculously sunny! And the grass is GREEN! Ahhhh I love nature!!

And then, I got closer to the castle. And it was awesome. Just as awesome as Dunluce Castle in Northern Ireland. Different, though; it goes up instead of spreading across the land.

It was all so gorgeous, and I was so excited to take a million pictures. I was so excited to post them all on facebook, too. But, oh, the drama, it was not to be. I got to take two more pictures, and then my camera died. I could have cried.

The last picture I got to take before my camera died. FOREVER. Or three days. But, it felt like FOREVER. It was legit awful, guys.

I managed to still have fun, though. (So much fun.) I played around on the castle. And then I nearly died climbing up it. It's kind of pathetic, probably, but I absolutely hate climbing up spiral staircases. They terrify me. And to get to the top of the castle, you have to climb up approximately one million of them. And they're all completely made of stone. Ancient stone, partially weathered away by centuries and centuries of feet. And that made them slippery. Oh, and they were steep. And I'm short. (Especially in Ireland. Oh my God. Land of leprechauns? Yeah, um, no. Giants, more like.) Oh, and, also, to climb them, you have to cling on desperately to a rope.

It was sort of petrifying.

I had the most fun once I got out of the castle and got to see more of the grounds. These grounds were about eight million, give or take a couple, times as beautiful as the ones in the beginning. And I have no pictures of them.

Sad face.

Anyway, the first thing I did when I got out of the castle (besides buy batteries, in the desperate hope that that was all my camera needed. It didn't work, and I was sad) was go to the poison garden. It was awesome. It was something I would have adored back when I was a little kid and liked to make magic potions with leaves and dirt and stuff. Though-- who am I kidding-- part of me (most of me) would still totally love doing that. And the poison garden was still wicked fantastic.

The best part, though, was the fact that they used to have a marijuana plant growing there. But, the Garda-- the Irish police-- confiscated it. No lie. There was even a notification-- it made me laugh, so I made sure to write it down-- saying, "We apologize for the absence of this plant. It has been seized by the Garda."

I KNOW RIGHT.

Cork! Part 1!

I know this post is crazy, crazy late, but at least it's here, right? Maybe?

Anyway.

Even though it looks like it must have been raining the whole time in Cork City based on my pictures, it was really only raining the first few hours. The rest of the time, it was more beautiful than I know how to say. Really. Just wait until I post the sunny-day pictures tomorrow!

Of course, even in the rain, Cork was extremely pretty.

And everyone was really cheerful. That's not something you get so much in Dublin-- at least not during the daytime. People always seem to be in a wicked hurry there, so the change was kind of awesome and refreshing. More than that, really. I adored it. It was more homey. And, actually, parts of Cork reminded me of Vermont, one of my homes. People wore more colorful coats, and half of everyone wore jeans, instead of just leggings or sweatpants. There were a lot of organic and outdoors-themed shops, and tons of mini farmers markets. It was really cute.

Look at the size of the nutella! That would last me, like, a week! (I swear, you guys, that really would last me lots longer than a week. Um.)

Cork seemed to have more of a sense of humor than Dublin.

I mean, how fantastically, well, awesome and stupid, is this?

Ok. Story time. That store reminds me of this cabbage patch doll I used to have when I was a little kid. You know how they always come with their own name pre-written on their birth certificates? Well, mine came named, Tempest Rina. No lie. So, of course, I ended up calling her, "Tempted Rino," just because. I was like eight. Ok. That was a pretty lame story, wasn't it?

Anyway!

I think this is my favorite Cork City picture. It makes me laugh whenever I see it. The old lady just makes it.

Another thing about Cork? There are hills! Really high ones. Actually, ones much higher than the Burlington hills, even . Ones so high that instead of walking up the streets, you have the choice of taking stairs. Really steep ones that climb up concrete cliffs in two flights.

That, up the cliffs, up the stairs, was where most of the houses seemed to be. So, if you lived in Cork City, chances are that you would actually live high above the city. It's pretty neat.

At night, it's even more than that, more than just cool. The view crossing the River Lee to city center at night, is one of the most beautiful city sights I've ever seen. The hills are all around you-- to the side of you and behind you-- in the distance, and they're all full with tiny golden lights like fairies, and reflecting on the river below. Just gorgeous.

This was the best picture of any sort of hill I could find in my albums, and it's not a very steep one. My excuse is that my camera was being wicked lame. Technology really doesn't like me. Too bad I like it. Well, sort of. Sometimes. Sort of sometimes.

*

I was mostly on my own the first two days. I made a kind of stupid mistake planning for my trip; I shouldn't have left on a Saturday, and especially not so late on one. Because when I got to my hostel, no one was hanging out either in my bedroom or the common room. No one was around to meet. So, I ended up going to the pubs on my own. I'd never done that before, and I'd rather not do it again. It's not that it was unsafe-- I felt very safe-- but it was awkward, walking into a pub and not knowing anyone. In that sort of situation, without your friends, or at least someone, it can be hard to know how to act, and that's something I'd just never thought of before. It's just so much easier and nicer knowing people. Though, I did end up having a fun night.

Actually, the first couple days were kind of lonely. I hadn't anticipated that it all, but I really was kind of alone. I didn't know anyone, and I couldn't text anyone because I was pretty much the only Champlain kid still in Ireland. After a day of that, it felt like I hadn't talked to anyone in ages, which was kind of hard.

At the same time-- I know, this is so conflicting-- I wouldn't change it. Because I did meet more people, awesome people, later, and even while I didn't know anyone, it was fun. Freeing. I didn't have to be anywhere or do anything. I could just run around the city, explore whatever I wanted, and get lost. I like getting lost.

Kilmainham Gaol

I've been wicked fail at blogging lately, and it's awful. I mean, I still have to write about Cork! And that was ages ago! And just so many other things have happened, even though I can't blog about all of them. So, pretty much, expect a post about most of that soon. Tomorrow, hopefully!

Anyway, I have a story for now. It's sort of about the famine, so if you're in a really wicked awesome mood and want it to stay that way, you might not want to read it just right now.

***

She would shiver, but she forgot how to do that a lifetime ago. Or maybe it was several lifetimes ago. She didn’t know what time was, anymore. She didn’t think, anymore. Couldn’t think. If you asked her what her name was, she wouldn’t be able to tell you, because the person with that name was gone. The person who laughingly sang and danced and whispered and passionately screamed was missing, or else dead. She was a skeleton now, and her smile fled from her face so long ago, to find food elsewhere.

She would say she missed that one happy lifetime, but she’d forgotten how to do that, too.

So, she leaned, hunched against the freezing stone wall of the gaol. Even the hundreds or dozens of bodies didn’t warm the cell. They were far too close to death to emit any sort of heat. And they were all just angles, anyway, all shells of former people. Their limbs were like paper, and they had no fat or strength to block out the frigid air. The winter wind would rush in and have no problem blowing through their brittle, fast disappearing, bodies.

Once upon a time, she came to the gaol to survive. She’d thought that the gaol, with its regular meals, would save her. But then the meals weren’t regular. But then she forgot what living was. And then she forgot what death was, so she had no reason to fear it.

She saw the ghosts of the dead sometimes. The ashen, unblinking faces she’d once known and once watched grow stiff. Their ghosts were the same as their bodies, saying nothing except in their eyes. Because their eyes told their stories, told of potatoes blackening and laughter falling thousands of feet off a sea cliff, finally shattering. Told of babies growing cold under mounds of soft blankets, songs they tried to sing but ended up not even being able to whisper, the roads they built that went nowhere, just like their weakening, faltering bodies.

Her thoughts had stopped forming words ages ago, but she knew—their eyes told her— life wouldn’t last much longer. She wasn’t sure whether or not to be grateful, so she just wasn’t anything.

But she took her last bit of strength and let herself listen to the creakings around her. A child cried, a thin, devastated wail. The emancipated leftovers of a person collapsed to the ground nearly soundlessly, and tried to suck in the dirt floor for food. Another body, one of the few strong enough, rocked back and forth on skin stretched thin and bones, and hummed the same four notes of the same familiar song, over and over again.

She heard all of this, and then she shut her ears, and shut her eyes.

And then my camera went into a coma.

Cork? Was awesome. Except for the fact that my camera kind of broke. Except I think it's actually working again, now, which is weird. I'll take it, though, after four days of seeing beautiful, beautiful places and not being able to keep any of them. Because as awful as it is to say, my memory isn't nearly enough.

Really, what did people do before cameras? I mean, I know that people traveled loads less back in the day, but there were still those who sailed to different continents and stuff. And yeah, some of them painted what they saw, but not everyone has, um, artistic talent. I could try to draw Cork for you guys, but I can't promise that it would a actually look like Cork. Or anywhere in Ireland. Or anywhere in anywhere. You know.

So, I'm picturing explorers coming back from the sea to their homes, their family, and their friends, and trying to describe it all.

"Aw, man, dude, it was wicked, like, just legit, you know? There was, like, grass and stuff, and it was really long, right? Like really long, and there were trees and they were really tall! And then, there were these weird fucking animals, dude, with these crazy beard things. Oh, and one of them ate Paul. Yeah, sorry about that. He tried to pet it. His bad. But, like, other than that, it was like one big party, you know?"

See? It doesn't work. Especially if you're on opium, like that dude apparently was.

Anyhoo, I'll have more on Cork later. Including pictures from when my camera was actually cooperating!

(Technology really, really doesn't like me, does it?)

What it's like right now

Remember that last day of school when you were little? How everyone was so excited for the never ending sleepovers and tag and ice cream for breakfast and beaches that the teachers didn't even try to settle you down?

(Aw, nostalgia again.)

Well, today was almost like that. I mean, not totally, and not really even until my last class, but the energy was the same. The window was open, with wind pouring in at a million miles an hour. And the rain was staying out. And it was golden sunny. And we were (are) about to be free-er than we'll probably be ever again.

Spring Break. In Europe. No responsibilities. No homework, even. In Europe. Yes.

Our professor let us out early, because she's awesome like that.

Oh, and PS, I officially know what I'm doing for break! Sort of! I'm going to Cork on Saturday, and staying for five nights, or maybe more (but probably not), and it's gonna be amazing. I booked my hostel and everything, just a few hours ago. (And I'm pretty sure I didn't mess it up at all, either! But, I have my fingers crossed, just in case.) I'm not bringing my laptop, so I'll probably not have access to internet or anything, but I'm prettttyyyy sure I won't care.

I'll have more details tomorrow. And then? I'm gone! :)

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvivteevvvvvtvpeevvtig5vvv

It seems like every so often, everyone's laptop will blow up and die. Well, minus the blowing up part. Hopefully.

The keyboard of my beloved Macbook has decided that working's for losers. Really, it was only a matter of time before my laptop called it quits, considering that it has, um, holes in it, around the thing you plug your charger in. Okay, so time hasn't been too kind to my laptop. (Sort of like how that flight of stairs it tripped down freshman year, or that day last year it tumbled off my bed twice in a row, or that time my little brother spilled a glass of water on it haven't been particularly kind to it, either.) But, still, I was kind of surprised when I got up for a second to grab some food, and when I came back, the 'z' key wouldn't work. And then five minutes later, when all I could type was, "vvvvvvvvvvvvvvivteevvvvvtvpeevvtig5vvv," because by then almost none of the keys were working, except for the 'v' which wouldn't stop working. And then when none of them worked.

Maybe I'd have been more surprised if my laptop was the only one with suicidal tendencies. But in the past two weeks alone, half of everyone has had something tragic happen to their computer. And even though that's an exaggeration, it's not as big of one as you'd think.

I'm lucky, though, because my mom actually made me bring her old laptop over with me, because she knew mine was bound to die here, what with its holes and all. Of course, I'm totally brilliant and completely forgot about it until yesterday, but it's nice to be able to post on facebook again.

Oh, and complete change of subject, but spring break is next week! I'm still not sure what I'm going to do-- pretty much everyone else is leaving Ireland, but I don't have the money, so I'm staying. I'm definitely going to travel around Ireland, though. I just need to figure out how to get away from Dublin and book hostels and stuff. I'm wicked stoked. I've never traveled alone before in my life, but it's going to be absolutely amazing, I know.

Ruins

I love that Ireland has ruins.

The first time I saw any sort of ruins, I was about eight. I fell in love right away. All it was was this chimney on top a little mountain in Vermont. It was surrounded by four big rocks, each with its own ancient, fraying chain attached to it. My dad joked that back in the day, they were used to tie up bad kids, but I didn't pay him any attention. He was always trying to be funny, and, anyway, the fireplace was what really held my attention. I knew that a fireplace meant that a house must have been there once, and I had to wonder what it must have been like. I wondered what had turned the house into ruins.

Was it some sort of disaster- a fire? Or could it have been the people? Maybe they’d been such an integral part, that once they were gone, the house just couldn’t continue. Whatever the story really was, I decided that it must have been tragic. I pictured plague and running footsteps. Babies crying and wolves howling at nothing. The house falling apart. So, I guess I was kind of morbid. But, I was sure that there was magic in this place.

I remember wondering if maybe the people who had lived there once upon a time where still there, in their house, by their fireplace. I thought of them sitting at a big worn wooden table, made from the trees, probably, that stood just feet away, eating their bread and Vermont cheddar cheese, and looking out at the window that must have once been. They would watch the fog slowly drift off the valley below, revealing white houses, church steeples, and multi-colored trees. Maybe they had seen us, as we walked up the mountain into their world. I pictured them quickly demolishing their window, taking away the wooden table, the bread and cheese, and putting out the fire, making all of it disappear except for the four corner stones and the one fire place.


I wonder what I would have thought if, at that age, I saw Dunluce castle, or any ruined Irish castle. If I'd been able to run through the destroyed rooms. If I was able to peer through the windows at what is still there.

Ruins still feel magical to me. I think they always will, no matter how old I get.

Northern Ireland!!

I'm pretty sure that Northern Ireland is the most beautiful place I've even been to, and that's saying a lot. It was so incredibly amazingly lovely that, on the bus ride home, I was actually disappointed that we were going back to Dublin. Really.

We went to Belfast first. In some ways, Belfast seemed more city like than Dublin-- its buildings were higher, at least-- but there were less people around, and the people who were there, seemed friendlier. They smiled more, and seemed happier to see the people around them. Even with their murals and memorials and Peace Wall, it didn't really feel like like a city that had been paralyzed by what was basically civil war just decades earlier. I think that might just have been me, though. I still have a hard time imagining that something like that could have happened to such a developed country not that long ago. I mean, I was alive during some of it! Not that I had any idea of it, I was only a kid. But, I'd never even heard of The Troubles until college! I signed the Peace Wall, anyway. Because peace is awesome.

Then, I took pictures of things that made me smile.

There were a lot.

But, when we got out to the country? That was my favorite. I'm not used to living in cities, and I've missed nature desperately. As we drove north, it was just so exciting, because there were trees! I adore trees, and Dublin just doesn't have enough. We drove for a while, and didn't stop until we got to Ballintoy, at the tip of Northern Ireland.

It was beautiful. So beautiful. It was already starting to get dark but, as soon as we got out things into the hostel, and few friends and I set out to explore.

We found a playground! Complete with a creepy bear trashcan. One of the things that I don't understand about Ireland is how you never see college kids on playgrounds. Actually, you don't really see many people on them at all. It's kind of sad. We played the hell out of that playground, though. It needed it.

The next day was a mix of sheep, running around rocks and ruins and climbing everything in sight. We almost died a couple of times.

Like when we went on the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge.

And stood on cliffs.

And ran around the Giant's Causeway like crazy people.

And climbed on things we weren't supposed to. Like castles.

It was magical.

Someday, I'm going back.