April 20-21 Barcelona

Cristóbal Colón


Sagrada Família (Sacred Family?)

We had little time in Barcelona. We left Dublin at 5 in the morning, but the bus never came, so we had to call a cab to get to the airport. It all worked out though, and we ended up costing less the the bus!

So our first day in Barcelona, we walked down Las Ramblas to the Mediterranean (!), stopping to admire the column of Christopher Colombus. If I remember correctly, we ate some delicious cheese and bread under that column. It's funny, we walked through this awesome food market, and some one wanted to go the super market! I was like heck no. Molly helped me order bread and cheese, because she speaks Spanish really well.
Anyway, we walked along the Quay for a while, and then split up for a while. Again, traveling with four is pretty difficult. I don't recommend it.

On the 21st, we went to the Sangrada Familia. It's a cathedral designed by Gaudi, about 120 years ago, and it's still not finished. But boy is it beautiful and trippy. It's inspired by the natural world, and every new architect brings something new to the project. The stained glass is amazing, and I would love to go back once it's finished. The gargoyles were lizards and turtles and other animals. The columns were tree trunks, the windows looked like honey comb. The most interesting cathedral I saw my whole trip.

I also went to the Picasso museum, though it was so well hidden, you'd have no idea it was there unless you were looking for it. If there hadn't been a school group entering at the time, I think we would have walked right past it.
This museum was founded by Picasso's personal secretary, so it has a lot of art work. It has most of his early work, which is my favorite period. I like Cubist still life, but not portraits, so it worked out perfectly. Picasso is sometimes too artistic for me, because I just don't understand it? I appreciate him more after my art history class, but sometimes I just want to make sense of art, and Picasso is all about looking at things in a way that doesn't make literal sense.

Then we ate falafel. Past me tells present me that it was awesome. Present me has no recollection of the event.

April 19- Belfast

=
The Peace Wall

The Whole Group


(We left at five in the morning... but the bus never came)

Belfast was crazy, man.
We were only there for a day, because it was a stop over on the way to Barcelona. But boy did we all wish we had stayed for longer.
We took the train up from Dublin, and met our couch surfing host at the train station. Mike was super nice, sounded Australian, but don't tell him I said that.
Molly and I got to sleep in beds to make up for our two nights in the entry way of the cottage. Sweet deal!
We went to the Festival of India, where we met up with another couch surfer, Tobias. I've never met a Tobias that I didn't like. He was awesome. He was Cornish, and had only recently moved to Belfast. But we ate tasty Indian food, watched Indian dancing, and had a great time. Then we went on a three hour walking tour of the city, with Tobias as our guide. Belfast is still really religiously segregated. There's even a wall running down the middle of the city that's been up for longer than the Berlin Wall. Wikipedia tells me that there is a movement in the city to bring down the 'peace walls'. But if I were Catholic, I'm not so sure I'd happy about that. Both Catholic and Protestant sides have builds completely covered in murals. And I was just struck by how militant the Protestant ones were. There was one that was an Ulsterman decked out in black, pointing a gun that seemed to follow you. And there was another one that quoted Oliver Cromwell who declared that peace in Britain would not be achieved until all the Catholics were dead.
And yeah, the Catholics were memorializing the IRA and Bobby Sands, but it didn't seem to be glorifying violence in the same way.
That is one conflict that I will never tire of learning about.

So after that intense afternoon, we went and got a pint. And then made dinner as a whole big group and drank cider and danced the electric slide with a Minnesotan boy who was staying with Tobias.
Also, I had the best shower I had had (or would have) in four months.

Dublin Part Two

Ok! It's only five days in, and I've already fallen behind. You'll shortly see how quickly we made our way across Europe. Thankfully, we're not doing the trip this year, or else we'd still be stuck in England!

So Dublin:
On the 18th, we went to a park and enjoyed the sunshine. There were some amazing tulips, and at one point I was caught in a rather...compromising position with a statue of Oscar Wilde that happened to be on top of a large boulder.

Then we went to Saint Patrick's Cathedral. St. Patrick (who drove the snakes out of Ireland, though wikipedia just informed me that 'post-glacial Ireland never had snakes', way to go wikipedia) was actually from Roman Britain, in a strange kind of irony. Anyway, St Partick's Cathedral was built on the spot where St.Patrick apparently baptized his followers, way back in the 4th century AD. Or CE. Which ever you want. It's a really interesting building, because it looks like it was built in about 1900. The rock is really smooth and uniform gray. Cathedrals like St. Patrick's, that obviously get a lot of tourism are some times hard to deal with because a lot of the literature talks about how the Catholic church came to 'save' the heathens and drive out their wicked ways.
Whatever man, I'm just here for the architecture. (And now after a seminar on popular religion before the Reformation, I would be even more combative about it.)

Next, we went to the National Museum of Ireland, Art+Design, and History. This was one of the best museums of the whole trip. I think that Molly actually went to the Guinness factory, the other two went off...somewhere, and I just stayed in one room, reading every scrap of paper. There was an exhibit on the 1916 Easter Rising, and though it was tiny, I spent a lot of time in there. There were hand written letters from all the major players--Thomas Clarke, Eamon DeValera, Micheal Collins,etc. They even had DeValera's original, handwritten Declaration of Irish Independence.
And in the aftermath of the rebellion, they even had a "wee little note of good bye" to John Daly by one of the conspirators. It gave me chills to read a letter asking Daly to tell his wife good bye from a man who wanted freedom so badly that he was willing to risk his life.

The thing that made this exhibit so amazing was that Easter Rebellion was less than 100 years ago. I feel like who ever was in charge at the time was actually self-conscious--perhaps aware is a better word-- of what they saved and preserved in terms of documents. Maybe it's just the nature of bureaucracy, but *everything* was preserved, which really lets future generations construct a better picture of what exactly was going on. That's why this gave be chills, because you could almost feel the desperation weighing down the room as these people fought and died and argued right in front of you in a flurry of correspondence.

And then I went outside to collect myself and gather my thoughts, and got hit on by two museum guards. Go figure.

We left Dublin the 19th, with a brief stop in the morning to the General Post Office, one of the headquarters of Easter Rising. There are still bullet holes in the columns that you can stick your fingers in. It gave me chills. I remember that it had rained early in the morning, but that the sun was out, and shining across the pavement in front of the Post Office. We were the only ones around because it was about 7 in the morning, and the silence just pressed on you and the glare made it hard to see, until you were right in front of the Post Office. They still have a memorial there, and there were fresh flowers. It's startling to think that all this violence happened with in a generation and it still affects so much today.

On To Belfast. In another post.

April 16-17 2009

Trinity College, home to the Book of Kells.


We started our trip in Dublin, Ireland. In the beginning, there were four of us, which, I've decided is about as big as a group should get. On the plus side, it's easy to break off into groups if different people want to see different things, but is also really hard to decide on where to eat, what to eat, or change your travel plans in the slightest.

So Dublin! We were couch-surfing for Ireland, which I promise isn't the least been sketchy, if you do it right. Basically, there is a website where people post if they have a free couch or bed or floor space, and how many people can fit. Then you look for people that have a lot of reviews, email them to see if you can stay at their place. It can be a really good place to meet locals who know a lot about the city your staying in. At the same time, it can be really hard to get into contact with good people. We had a rule that we would only contact people with a certain number of ratings. I would never do it by myself, but even with two people, it's okay as long as you pay attention and use common sense.

Our host in Dublin was named Derek, and he was kinda crazy. There were four of us, and he owned half of a cottage. Molly and I ended up sleeping in the entry way. He was also about a mile from town, and walking in the cold was not fun.

But Dublin made up for it. On Day 2 (the 17th), we walked into town, and stumbled across Oscar Wilde's house. Then we went to the National Gallery, where we saw a lot of cool paintings by Irish painters who I've never heard of before. Thomas Roberts was my favorite, because he painted a lot like Constable. It seemed as though many of the paintings were tinged with an inherent tiredness from so many years of war and heartbreak. Everywhere in Ireland there were reminders of a history of violence and conflict. At points, the bleakness was so overwhelming it was almost suffocating.
We also went to the Ireland National Museum, which is split into two buildings. We planned to go to the Modern museum, but ended up at the pre-modern one instead. It was certainly interesting, especially the shriveled-up bog people (that's a direct quote from my journal...)

We also saw the Book of Kells at Trinity College. There was an exhibit about the church monopolized publishing industry in the Medieval Ages, and it showed how books were made at the time. Right up my alley. The Book of Kells is a Bible I think? Or at least some of the Gospels, from 800 AD. It's in a really dark room, and they show a different page every day to minimize the exposure to light. There were lots of mistakes, which made me laugh, because everything was so intricately done, there was no way to go back and fix it. You wonder if some congregation ever had a widely different understanding of Christianity because the priest had a Bible with a critical word left out or something. Not that there was too much interpretation going on back in the day, but all the way out in Ireland, with Rome so far away? Who knows what might have happened!

The most exciting part of the exhibit was the Long Room, which was full of old books.They were constantly rotating the books, laying them flat on the shelves one row at a time to preserve them, because having them vertical is bad for the bindings. Oh the things you learn while traveling! It also housed one of sixtenn remaining copies of the Declaration of the Irish Republic, which was awesome.

As you can see, we packed a lot into our days. This eventually led to sickness and melt downs among all. Molly and I learned our lesson, and slowed down considerably. But at the time, we were so! excited! to be traveling.
I really hope to go back and actually see Ireland, the country. I'm sure it's beautiful, and I know that one day I'll get back there.
Next Time: Dublin continues!

One Year Ago Today

... I was tying up loose ends, and catching a plane to Dublin, Ireland.
I know I didn't blog about it at the time, but since it's the one year anniversary, I figure it'd be a good idea to do so. Right now I have a familiar itch in my foot, and spent time on the internet trying to teach myself Welsh or plan trips throughout the UK. Perhaps this reenactment will calm the itch, or make it much, much worse. We'll see!