Ok, so I realize it has been a month since I have updated my blog. I've of course had a lot of things to do, especially writing. Lets start somewhere close to where I left off. Some professors came and visited us here, and that was cool. I met Geoff Proehl and had a drink with him, and he got his fish and chips as well. Um jump ahead a little bit and I can talk about my trip to Belfast with Matt Jackson and then write several short posts to catch up.
First things first, I of course forgot my camera. So I took some pictures with Matt's which i still need to get from him. I took a bus up from Dublin and it took about 3 hours which isn't too bad. The first thing I noticed, is that there is no official border. There are no checkpoints or even a sign that says welcome to Northern Ireland. There are just more little farms that blend into Northern Irish farms without much change. Got off the bus and the first think I needed to do was get some cash, because Northern Ireland is on the Pound sterling while Ireland is on the Euro.
If you don't already know, the politics of Northern Ireland are/have been pretty messed up. I haven't done much research, but the way I understand Northern Ireland today is that it is still a part of the UK just like Wales and Scotland which means it has its own local government but it also is under the power of the Queen/British Parliament in England, there are seats in the British Parliament for people from NI (Northern Ireland) as well as for Scotland and Wales. It took NI longer than these other places to receive local representation. Until the 80's and 90's NI was ruled completely by the powers in London. There is a very convoluted history of Northern Ireland and Britain if you don't know. So anyway NI is on the pound, but the banks there print their own money, the same as in Scotland and Wales.
To give a very brief history of NI I will spend one paragraph on it. The republic of Ireland gained there independence from the thrown shortly after the Easter Uprising of 1916, Britain however gave up all put 6 counties in the North. They called this Ulster, even though the Ulster Provence includes 9 counties. There was a little bit of fighting over it, but not much because in the 1800's and earlier there was a system of called plantation where people who were loyal to the throne could get land in the north for free. This land was often taken away from the native Irish. These people who were loyal to the throne were mostly protestants because that was the national religion of Britain. The Irish there however were mostly Catholics. So there is where the trouble is. In NI we have the Protestants who are loyal to Britain and the Catholics who are loyal to the Republic of Ireland and in the 60's violence really started to erupt and the three letter groups started killing each other, the IRA (Catholic) and the UVF (Protestant) and many other shoot offs of these groups. That was the beginning of the "troubles" which is the term used (especially by the Irish) to refer to the 30 years of violent conflict between the two sides. The first ceasefire was in 1994 I believe and from then on there have been continuous peace talks and more cease fires. Both sides are said to be inactive and to have destroyed their guns, but just a couple weeks ago the police made the biggest arms bust since the beginning of the conflict and the guns were the UVF's. Please ask me about the conflict sometime because entire books have been written about it and it is hard to fit it into here, and I would love to talk your ear off about it.
So as you may know/should know, Matt and I are writing a play about NI and the troubles. I met Matt and we checked into our hostel and then we went for a walk, we walked up the Shankill (Protestant street) and the crossed over to the catholic side through a gate in the peace wall and then walked down the Falls road (Catholic street). We walked around quite a lot and as it was getting dark we ran across a large group of kids around the age of 10 and we talked to them for a while. We talked a lot about pop culture and the Disney channel, and I can see that the conflict doesn't involve them. It was their parents who had to live through the violence, they just know the aftermath, there hasn't been a riot on their street. Some interesting things though are that they apparently can't have block parties because the protestant side could get scared they they will start rioting and violence could break out again. Matt asked one of the kids what was on the other side of the wall. A young guy who is a bit of a class clown said something along the lines of "Protestants, we don't like them!" and as soon as he said that, one of the older girls in the group pointed at him and said "That's sectarianism." and the young man kinda kicked the ground a mumbled. It seems that there isn't any real hatred or dislike, but it is like it is almost expected of them to not like the other side.
We said goodbye to them and we were gonna head back over to the other side of the peace wall, but we learned that they close the gates through the peace wall at night, so we had to make the 45 minute trek around the peace wall which mean going down into the city center. We had no problems, but it was a really long walk. That night we wanted to go to a pub on the Shankill aka a protestant pub. We were walking up the street scoping it out and looking for a good place when these guys standing outside a pub started talking to us. They recognized us as American and were interested, they brought us in and bought us drinks the whole night. We talked to all these men and it was really interesting. They really truly want to remain a part of the UK. One man told me that if the Catholics had power then they would push the rule of the pope onto them, he spoke of religious freedom and he thought that the Catholics didn't want that. We kept talking and we realized that many of these people were and/or are still members of protestant paramilitaries. One man hinted to Matt that the UVF was still stockpiling arms in case the IRA decides to end the cease fire. There was even some real hate toward catholics. One man was talking to me and asked if we have a lot of guns in America. I said that we do, and it was because a lot of people go hunting. The man said "Around here we hung Fenians." If you don't know "Fenian" is a bad word for a Catholic and/or Irishman. A man also said "You aren't a Catholic are you?" At the end of the night, they played the national anthem of Great Britain and then the bar closed so we went home for the night.
The next day we took it fairly easy, we took a black cab tour around Belfast and we asked the cabbie so many questions. A big part of the tour were the murals around Belfast. Both sides have a lot of murals, and for a lot of different reasons. On the protestant side there are a lot of historical mural celebrating great victories and memorials for dead protestants. On the Catholic side there are murals about civil rights mostly, and some that compare the catholic struggle in NI to the struggle for black civil rights in America. And some murals celebrate people, such as the hunger strikers 10 of which died in their attempt to receive POW status. The murals are incredible and really interesting to see.
We walked around some other parts of Belfast for the rest of the day and and found a delicious market. I really want to live somewhere with a good food market. I bought a can opener because i found a cheap one. That night we went to a pub on the catholic side, and we heard some traditional Irish songs played by a guy on a guitar as well as some songs about the hunger strikers and revolution songs. Drinks were more expensive on the catholic side and we didn't have anyone buying us drinks. Matt got some older woman's address. We talked to one man and he told us about how normal the violence and getting a gun pointed at your head can be.
We then walked into the city center but all the bars were closing, but we could see how completely different the city center is. It seems removed from the conflict, there aren't any flags or anything that would suggest one side or the other. That night some drunk British girls tried to get into bed with the lights off and they were being ridiculous and couldn't seem to do it so Matt lent them his key chain light so they could manage.
The next day Matt flew out early, and since he woke me up when he left I caught an early bus back to Dublin. That is basically my trip to Belfast, it was really fun and I am planning on going back.
Showing posts with label fun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fun. Show all posts
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Catch up and Differences
Hey, It is getting late on a Thursday night but that is okay, because I only have one class tomorrow, even though it is at 8:45am (my earliest class). After my voice class, I have the rest of the day, and the weekend to myself. Tomorrow is Culture night in Dublin, so tons of museums and different things around Dublin will be free to do. I still need to go through the brochure and pick out exactly what I want to do.
My flat mates and I just got a new room mate. His name is Aitor and he is studying at the European Business School here in Dublin and he is from Spain. One of my room mates and I took Spanish is school so it has been kindof fun helping eachother to speak and learn new words. I was The Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde the other night and it was incredibly funny and enjoyable to watch. One of the Actresses was sick though so there was someone reading her part which meant she had a script on stage, but it didn't take away from the show.
On Monday a bunch of American Professors are coming in to check out the Theatre Performance program through IES and the Gaiety. One of the people coming will be Geoff Proehl, one of my teachers at The University of Puget Sound. We have already arrange to get coffee with Claire (the other girl from UPS) and I after we do a presentation for the professors. In all of my classes, we have been working on this short new script to create short performances to show the professors when they come. I hope we impress them, and I am fairly sure we will, at least in some ways.
The other day I set out for an hour long jog, and then got lost. It took me 2 hours to find my way back.
Ok, and I wanted to take a minute to talk about some differences between America and Ireland. Here it goes: The pedestrian signals at streets suck here and no one pays attention to them, and if you did it would make a 3o minute walk into a 45 minute walk. All signs are written in both English and Gaelic. Unlike in American, streets are not set up on a grid pattern which means the curve all over the place, and street names can sometimes last for only a block before they change. For example, the street that the IES Study Abroad center is on, is Lower Rathmines, but the street starts out as South St. James and changes to Camden and several other names before it gets to Rathmines. Streets can be called Upper, Middle, and Lower as well. The more northern part of Rathmines is Upper Rathmines and then there is Lower Rathmines. They also don't care if they put Lower or Upper before or after the name of the street. Therefore Upper Rathmines and Rathmines Upper are the same road. Irish people, always underestimate how long it takes you to get from one place to another, five minutes is a common time. If you didn't know it already, different counties have different accents. My Acting teacher is from the County Kerry and sometimes replaces "T"s with "D"s. So in stead of "mother or other" he will say "mudder or udder." He also likes to say "ye" instead of "you" but I have yet to talk to someone else with an accent like him. Irish still call euros "quid" sometimes even though they are no longer on the Irish Pound. A female third wheel is called a "gooseberry" or "Margerie". A slut is called a "slapper." Soccer is still called soccer here because they have a sport called Gaelic Football, which is a cross between soccer and rugby.
I can't think of anymore, but I will write more as I think of them. :)
My flat mates and I just got a new room mate. His name is Aitor and he is studying at the European Business School here in Dublin and he is from Spain. One of my room mates and I took Spanish is school so it has been kindof fun helping eachother to speak and learn new words. I was The Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde the other night and it was incredibly funny and enjoyable to watch. One of the Actresses was sick though so there was someone reading her part which meant she had a script on stage, but it didn't take away from the show.
On Monday a bunch of American Professors are coming in to check out the Theatre Performance program through IES and the Gaiety. One of the people coming will be Geoff Proehl, one of my teachers at The University of Puget Sound. We have already arrange to get coffee with Claire (the other girl from UPS) and I after we do a presentation for the professors. In all of my classes, we have been working on this short new script to create short performances to show the professors when they come. I hope we impress them, and I am fairly sure we will, at least in some ways.
The other day I set out for an hour long jog, and then got lost. It took me 2 hours to find my way back.
Ok, and I wanted to take a minute to talk about some differences between America and Ireland. Here it goes: The pedestrian signals at streets suck here and no one pays attention to them, and if you did it would make a 3o minute walk into a 45 minute walk. All signs are written in both English and Gaelic. Unlike in American, streets are not set up on a grid pattern which means the curve all over the place, and street names can sometimes last for only a block before they change. For example, the street that the IES Study Abroad center is on, is Lower Rathmines, but the street starts out as South St. James and changes to Camden and several other names before it gets to Rathmines. Streets can be called Upper, Middle, and Lower as well. The more northern part of Rathmines is Upper Rathmines and then there is Lower Rathmines. They also don't care if they put Lower or Upper before or after the name of the street. Therefore Upper Rathmines and Rathmines Upper are the same road. Irish people, always underestimate how long it takes you to get from one place to another, five minutes is a common time. If you didn't know it already, different counties have different accents. My Acting teacher is from the County Kerry and sometimes replaces "T"s with "D"s. So in stead of "mother or other" he will say "mudder or udder." He also likes to say "ye" instead of "you" but I have yet to talk to someone else with an accent like him. Irish still call euros "quid" sometimes even though they are no longer on the Irish Pound. A female third wheel is called a "gooseberry" or "Margerie". A slut is called a "slapper." Soccer is still called soccer here because they have a sport called Gaelic Football, which is a cross between soccer and rugby.
I can't think of anymore, but I will write more as I think of them. :)
Monday, September 8, 2008
Dublin!
Ok, now I'm in Dublin. I think the chronologically crap should stop and I can keep shorter updates with just cool stuff. Dublin seems pretty awesome. I got in a day to early to move into my flat so I got a hostel for the night and found my way to the IES center the next day where I was then directed to my place. My housemates are pretty cool, one of them in the theatre program too and is from Portland so we already have that in common and he actually knows Holly Coombs so that rocks. Things work a little different in the flat than they do in the US. Doors seem harder to lock, and most appliances have little symbols on them and I didn't know what they meant until someone showed me.
The people on the program seems great, especially the Theatre Performance program. For the first couple weeks it will be just classes of us, but in October we will integrate with the Gaiety students on their first day. Classes seem awesome, some of them seem a little over the top artsy, but I won't pass an judgement until I get in there. For orientation we went to this place called Glendalough where there is a Monastic ruin that was cool and we say some elk and beautiful scenery. On our first night our RAs took all the students to a pub. There are pubs on every corner and we are still trying to find the cheaper ones. Dublin is apparently the 3rd most expensive city, which is a little ominous.
I got some sight seeing out of the way on an open top bus tour and got to seem some of the great history of Ireland and Dublin as well as going on a tour of the Guiness Brewery. And lucky for me, I like Guiness. So it was pretty good for me when some of the girls we went with couldn't finish their pints.
We get to see a lot of plays in the program and we will get a lot of time to travel on the weekend which will rock. We watched the Irish National Hurling championship yesterday in a pub and it was really fun to watch, though I'm not sure how the scoring works. If anyone knows please feel free to explain it to me. I guess that is all I have for now, so I will update again but i want to try and keep them shorter. I miss everyone, and please know that you are all always on my mind.
Love.
The people on the program seems great, especially the Theatre Performance program. For the first couple weeks it will be just classes of us, but in October we will integrate with the Gaiety students on their first day. Classes seem awesome, some of them seem a little over the top artsy, but I won't pass an judgement until I get in there. For orientation we went to this place called Glendalough where there is a Monastic ruin that was cool and we say some elk and beautiful scenery. On our first night our RAs took all the students to a pub. There are pubs on every corner and we are still trying to find the cheaper ones. Dublin is apparently the 3rd most expensive city, which is a little ominous.
I got some sight seeing out of the way on an open top bus tour and got to seem some of the great history of Ireland and Dublin as well as going on a tour of the Guiness Brewery. And lucky for me, I like Guiness. So it was pretty good for me when some of the girls we went with couldn't finish their pints.
We get to see a lot of plays in the program and we will get a lot of time to travel on the weekend which will rock. We watched the Irish National Hurling championship yesterday in a pub and it was really fun to watch, though I'm not sure how the scoring works. If anyone knows please feel free to explain it to me. I guess that is all I have for now, so I will update again but i want to try and keep them shorter. I miss everyone, and please know that you are all always on my mind.
Love.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Begining of the Travels
Alright, now I’m in Dublin. It took a while but I am finally set up in Dublin and I start orientation tomorrow. I guess the best way to go about explaining my trip up until this point is chronologically, but I promise it won’t be too dragged our or bogged down my details.
It was a clear chilly morning as I stepped outside my house the morning of the 22nd in Oregon. I caught an early flight to Phoenix Arizona and then after a torturous 10 hour layover I got on a plane for Heathrow Airport, London. The plane was awesome, I’ve never been on an International flight, but British Airways takes good care of you. I got a meal and they gave me some free wine with it, and there were video screens in the seat in front of you with movies and stuff in them. I watched the movie Redbelt, whish wasn’t too bad but not that great either. It has the guy in it who played the Villain in 4 Brothers.
I got into London after a total of 30ish hours of travelling and waiting around but I had taken naps so I was ready. I got a day pass on the tube and ran around London for half the day taking pictures and seeing all the sights. I had my backpack with all my stuff in it on the whole time. I was scheduled to meet Matt Jackson in front of Big Ben at midnight and after some wandering, I managed to find Big Ben and I bedded down for a nap in a small green in front of the clock tower. I woke up after my nap around 11:30 and while staring at the base of the clock tower, I saw a familiar swagger. I chased down said swaggerer and in a way much like a mugger, I managed to let him know that I found him with a surprise hug. (Matt had been walking around for an hour or so trying to find a place to pee.) We caught a train and a bus to where Matt was staying and I spend the night.
Pearl, the woman Matt was staying with was incredibly kind and fed me the next morning and ended up driving us to the airport because she is so nice. We hopped a plane to Marseille, France where the incredible and very kind Annie met us at the airport. Annie is a friend of Matt’s parents and she gave us room and board while we stayed there.
Marseille is an incredible city and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to go to France. It was warm the whole time and it is a beautiful city with a lot of wonderful sights. We went to a place called the Collonqucese (I know how to say it but not how to spell it) which is a group of coves into the Mediterranean where we got to swim and see some amazing water, and rock formations. French people drive crazy, and that being said, Annie, in her driving Matt and I around got into an accident which totalled her car. We were all fine, but the car was no more. In any case, after Matt and I took Annie out for a thank you dinner, we boarded a train for Paris.
Paris was great and I got to see the Eiffel tower and go to the Louvre but most of what we did was touristy and we didn’t have much money so no cafes were entered. The centre is closing so I have to run, but I will finish this story in a day or two.
It was a clear chilly morning as I stepped outside my house the morning of the 22nd in Oregon. I caught an early flight to Phoenix Arizona and then after a torturous 10 hour layover I got on a plane for Heathrow Airport, London. The plane was awesome, I’ve never been on an International flight, but British Airways takes good care of you. I got a meal and they gave me some free wine with it, and there were video screens in the seat in front of you with movies and stuff in them. I watched the movie Redbelt, whish wasn’t too bad but not that great either. It has the guy in it who played the Villain in 4 Brothers.
I got into London after a total of 30ish hours of travelling and waiting around but I had taken naps so I was ready. I got a day pass on the tube and ran around London for half the day taking pictures and seeing all the sights. I had my backpack with all my stuff in it on the whole time. I was scheduled to meet Matt Jackson in front of Big Ben at midnight and after some wandering, I managed to find Big Ben and I bedded down for a nap in a small green in front of the clock tower. I woke up after my nap around 11:30 and while staring at the base of the clock tower, I saw a familiar swagger. I chased down said swaggerer and in a way much like a mugger, I managed to let him know that I found him with a surprise hug. (Matt had been walking around for an hour or so trying to find a place to pee.) We caught a train and a bus to where Matt was staying and I spend the night.
Pearl, the woman Matt was staying with was incredibly kind and fed me the next morning and ended up driving us to the airport because she is so nice. We hopped a plane to Marseille, France where the incredible and very kind Annie met us at the airport. Annie is a friend of Matt’s parents and she gave us room and board while we stayed there.
Marseille is an incredible city and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to go to France. It was warm the whole time and it is a beautiful city with a lot of wonderful sights. We went to a place called the Collonqucese (I know how to say it but not how to spell it) which is a group of coves into the Mediterranean where we got to swim and see some amazing water, and rock formations. French people drive crazy, and that being said, Annie, in her driving Matt and I around got into an accident which totalled her car. We were all fine, but the car was no more. In any case, after Matt and I took Annie out for a thank you dinner, we boarded a train for Paris.
Paris was great and I got to see the Eiffel tower and go to the Louvre but most of what we did was touristy and we didn’t have much money so no cafes were entered. The centre is closing so I have to run, but I will finish this story in a day or two.
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