A brief rundown of courses: golf and food

26 July 2008

Baltray: 91- w

Lunch: Baltray C.C.- caesar salad
Dinner: Wheelhouse- Duck spring rolls, shrimp salad



27 July 2008

Stacktown C.C.: 97- L

Lunch: Stacktown C.C.- soup
Dinner: Cilo- fried squid rings, steak

28 July 2008

Island Course: 89- w

Lunch: Island Course C.C.- lasagne
Drive to Northern Ireland
First look at Royal County Down
Dinner: goat cheese bruschetta, chicken/salami/mozzarella dish, creme brulee

29 July 2008

Royal County Down- 97, Eagle- w

Lunch: RCD C.C.- soup and tuna sandwich
Drive back to Sutton
Dinner: squid rings, Aqua, swordfish in oriental sauce, brownie sundae, Bailey's coffee

30 July 2008

Siobhan's country club

Lunch: at hotel, ham & cheese sandwich
Dinner: Fitzy's with Brendon, Siobhan, Gary- goat cheese salad, steak, coffee

First Golf Day, Baltray: 26 July 2008

First Links Course

Baltray, Co. Duluth course. I shot a 91 but I gave myself and 89 because I took a mulligan and parred the hole, so I did not count the 2-stroke penalty.

Andre shot an 84, Tim 91. Andre and I won by 4 holes. It was a challenging but enjoyable. This is going to be one of the easier courses that we play.

“Chicken Caesar salad” meant a small amount of Caesar dressing on a random bunch of vegetables, some lettuce and a sweet teriyaki-type of chicken and bacon combination. The salad was very odd, I have never experienced a Caesar salad like that.

Nap, dinner in Howth. My first Ireland driving experience. Only ran over one curb and struggled though parallel parking. Not bad for doing all of this on the wrong side of the road (not American is wrong). Experienced duck for the first time at a cool little restaurant called the Wheelhouse. Lovely dish.

Had some Pimms at a bar to see if I would get any odd looks because it is a distinctly British drink. The only odd looks I got were of me looking in the mirror because it is really not a tasty drink.

Decided that tomorrow Marc will drive and I will navigate. This should be interesting.

Last day of the JMU Ireland Program… First day of the Grand Keane Gentleman Adventure in Ireland: 25 July 2008

A day of farewells and hellos. I really hate saying goodbye. Fortunately and unfortunately I will be seeing many of these faces only too soon. In exactly one month we will be back at JMU. A month that I hope stretches on for an eternity or two. Senior year, enough said.

Lunch at The Atlantic was good only because I knew it was going to be the last time I would be in Ireland with these people who had become such good friends. Stuart was the first to leave. Everyone joked that I was going to cry. I thought that was funny but I held in my tears so as not to give them the satisfaction. Just kidding, Sam and I walked him to the bus stop and exchanged our last volleys of insults while saying goodbye. He was the first leaf to fall from the tree. Colleen came next, then Jackie, then myself.

I had emailed Marc of where I planned to meet him after he had picked up Tim and Andre. He was there at 2.30, I was not. I, being the gifted navigator, had given Marc a different gate to meet me at than the one that I had intended. I was sitting there for 15 minutes or so before Marc came looking for me. He was as shocked as I was at my silly mistake. It could have been quite a costly mistake though. His cell phone, which I had attempted to call several times, was dead. Marc had no way of contacting me and I had none of contacting him, Tim or Andre. That would have been quite the predicament. Apparently Tim had made a similar mistake earlier in the day and told Marc the wrong flight that they were taking to Dublin. Marc arrived at Dublin international and saw that Tim and Andre were not where they were supposed to be, so he walked to the information center to figure out how to find them. And there they were, without a care in the world, hanging out waiting for Marc. These are signs that the trip was meant to happen and will be a complete success.

Meeting Siobhan Smythe (pronounced SH-uh-vahn) was the next challenge. She is a Keane that Marc had been corresponding with because he was friends with her aunt who recommended we all meet. They had never actually met in person.

First I dialed the number she had given us, then Marc did and to no avail. A random woman continued to pick up the phone and tell us we had the wrong number. Of course we were using the payphone while Tim was standing and watching, checking the time on his cell phone because we were taking so long. After so many attempts I looked over and realized Tim had a phone we could use. It was pretty funny. Siobhan was finally reached courtesy of the operator. Seven pm was the meeting time, we took the Dart to a station near her house and her husband Brendon would pick us up.

DINNER.

Dinner was a great time. Siobhan and Brendan were grand hosts, serving us steak, potatoes, several appetizers, wine, and of course, Guiness. Considering we had never met these people before we took to each other very well. The night was filled with lots of laughs and good food. Siobhan certainly put to bed the idea that the Irish can not cook. This was my first homemade meal since home and I could not have asked for a better family dinner.

Last Day of Ireland Text and Image

As I sit in this empty apartment waiting for the uncles and cousin I will have a brief reflection of the six week study of Irish film, creative writing and the Irish lifestyle.

I came here with no expectations. I knew I was going to have a good time but I did not know what that would entail. Understanding what I learned here is going to take time to sink in. I do know that the education outside of class far exceeded what I learned in class. The time spent here was documented and photographed so I will be better able to relay experiences through physical mediums rather than memory.

There are so many experiences that I have had in these six weeks that it is going to take some serious downtime to truly appreciate what I have just finished.

Playing golf for a week should be relaxing and frustrating. I am looking forward to it.

the positive london experience: 18-20 July 2008

London seemed like a close enough place to go. There are plenty of flights out of Dublin to London as well which meant less travel expenses and less time traveling compared to Germany. The group was also much smaller, 6 compared to 9. We planned this trip much better, as our hostel (my first hostel experience) was an easy 15 minute walk from the Parliament building, the clock tower that houses Big Ben and the London Eye. I was impressed with our good fortune. The hostel was pretty inexpensive as well because it opened exactly one week prior to us staying there, which was a good thing and a bad thing.

Sam, Laura and I flew from Dublin to London-Stansted Friday afternoon, found our hostel via the Tube, and went to dinner at a cheap Chinese place. We walked into London to get our bearings. Sam got his bearings faster than I did. Laura and Sam saw a play that interested them in Piccidilly Circus so they went and saw that. I refrained and proceeded to march confidently off into the city with no qualms whatsoever. Ten minutes later I was lost. An hour later I bought a map. On my ramblings I saw a ton of bars, cool buildings and people. London is similar to NYC in its congestion. Dublin has a bunch of people as well but they are generally in two areas. People are everywhere in London and NYC. I suppose that's the difference between the largest cities in the world and other large cities.

I finally got back to the hostel and enjoyed a few drinks and a few games of pool with some of the guys from Australia that worked there. Sam and Laura arrived some time later, the rest of the crew arrived around 1.30 after a painfully frustrating trip that once again made me thank my good fortune.

The next morning we everything that good tourists do. We saw Parliament, Buckingham Palace, as much as we could of the guards but the changing was canceled due to rain, walked down all of the posh shopping streets, saw tons of crazy statues of dead people, went to the British Museum where we saw the Rosetta stone, Egyptian stuff and mummies, ate some meatpies (a very British thing to do) and went back to the hostel for a free BBQ and naps. Being a tourist is exhausting.

Most of the crew woke and wanted to go do the London Eye. Stuart and I woke and wanted to eat. They did the Eye, we ate Chinese. We later randomly met up with them around the Eye while watching a street performer. If they did not find us there was no chance of meeting up. We later learned that the Eye is the most visited place in London. It was packed with foreign people. Unlike us, everyone else did not speak English as a first language, in my mind I would like to think we fit in more because of this but I know it is not true.

We wandered around Piccidilly Circus and Trafalgar Square for awhile and went to some random bars. The hostel seemed much more appealing so we walked back and began drinking again. I met two very cool people that night. A writer from Australia living in Germany and a pretty girl from Canada. Both had very interesting perspectives on traveling that reaffirmed my idea that you really have to stay at least a week in a city to get to know it. That is how I plan to travel in the future. Doing merely a weekend is rushed and often painful. So I was up until 5 am hanging out with Amy, the girl, and the nightshift guy, Craig, who is also the bartender for the 24-hour bar.

The next morning Stuart and I decided we were too tired to walk anywhere. While most of the group ran around the city via the Tube, we hopped on a double-decker tour bus and rode several buses for about six hours. It was fantastic. We heard all about the history of London and its most famous landmarks without moving. A lunch of fried chicken gave us more energy to continue sitting on the bus. We also took a boat tour by accident. We saw a line and kind of just hopped in front of everyone and walked onto the boat, no questions asked. The thoughts of being badass were quickly dispelled when the people next to us informed us that this was part of the bus tour.

Finally it was time to leave London. Traveling is tiring. We caught our bus and got to the airport to enjoy our 3-hour delay. I lay my head on my pillow in my room in Trinity around 3 am. It was glorious to have a solid 5-hour sleep for class on Monday at 9am.

London is a great city. I would definitely return and stay at the same hostel. "Bestplace in Waterloo." It is over the Steam engine bar.

A literary pub crawl: 17 July 2008

I really enjoyed myself on the literary pub crawl this evening. I had my doubts, but they were not substantiated. The actors did a great job of mixing fact with monologues with jokes with alcohol. I suppose it is the perfect combination for a night on the town. The facts about the literature were not dull or silly by any means. Most of the information really helped me understand who the person was behind all of the writing. For example I did not realize Oscar Wilde was a very large man who loved to box. I always took him for a flaky sort of character. I was wrong and now I appreciate where he is coming from in his writing a bit more.

Being able to sit down at have a pint where so many great minds sat was a very cool feeling. Unfortunately I did not gain anything via osmosis but I did think very much about how my writing could possibly improve if I indulged in alcohol half as much as these fantastic authors seem to have done. I occasionally do some homework a bit tipsy but I have never just let my creative energy flow into writing. It could be an interesting experiment. It would certainly be time better spent than playing the sort of silly games that we tend to play. Oh well, that is a job for another night. All in all, I am glad that the social funds went towards this enlightening evening.

the biggest and oldest antique i have ever seen: 16 July 2008

Today we visited one of the oldest monuments built by the human race, Newgrange. The film class hopped on a bus at around 10.15 and began our bus tour. The lady on the tour was very interesting and gave us a brief history of the human race in Ireland. It really put things in perspective for me. The chat was pertinent because she was preparing us for seeing something so old that it is hard for the mind to conceptualize. Newgrange was created 1000 years before pyramids. Now to me the pyramids are about as old as I can imagine. They are one of the seven wonders of the world. And to think that Newgrange is older than that… wow. So the bus tour lady really helped me wrap my mind around exactly how long humans have been in Ireland and how old Ireland really is.

The bus made a stop at the Hills of Tara. I am not exactly sure why we stopped there because I fell asleep right after the bus tour lady gave the history of the human race in Ireland. Apparently the hills were also very old. From what I learned once I had awoken and started walking was that the hills were once the place that royalty had lived a very long time ago. I understood why they would choose this spot. The eye could see for miles and miles. It would have been quite a sight. Unfortunately it was a typical afternoon in Ireland and it was about to rain so it was cloudy. So the eye could have seen for many more miles but was unable to. Regardless, the mounds that remained from the once mighty people were there so that was impressive enough. It began to rain so we jumped back into the bus, and for me, back to sleep.

The group arrived at the Newgrange site tourist center sometime later. We grabbed some lunch and began our tour. There was a fantastic display that we checked out prior to the big tour of Newgrange. The small museum gave us a depiction of what life was like back when Newgrange was built. These people did not have much technology but they managed to create something that truly stood the test of time.

Our designated time for the tour arrived and I was rarin’ to go see some old stuff. Unfortunately there was a bus ride, an introductory speech, some warnings about going in and I was the second of two groups to go inside Newgrange. I had some time to kill so I was able to admire the actual structure of the thing. It was much larger than I had imagined. As I was walking around the enormous stone and earth circular mound I found some very interesting grooves on the side opposite of the entrance. I ran my hands along them and tried to imagine the person who created these marks thousands of years before me. I pushed my insignificance to the back of my mind and walked to the entrance, my tour was about to begin.

Walking into the low-ceilinged, narrow passage was really something special. The temple was in the shape of a crucifix with each wing meaning something different. Carvings were made on the inside of each of the wings; archeologists are not sure what they mean but a popular theory is that they stand for birth, death and rebirth. To substantiate this theory there is the ritual that occurs for five days of the year during the winter solstice. The sun shines through a hole and comes 27 meters to the center of the temple. This is said to mean life is beginning again, as the summer is not far away. I am not sure what it means but I would love to see it happen, so I signed up in a lottery so be in Newgrange for one of the five days. If I win I will certainly give the theory more thought. (664)