My Bike

Today, I bought a bicycle. While you might say to yourself, 'But wait, isn't it wintertime?', let me assure you that Ireland's climate (which is maritime, technically) is not all that cold. Except in August, of course, when it is freezing. While there is a great deal of rain in general, there is almost no snow, and no ice, so riding a bike simply requires a bit of fortitude and a good rain coat. In fact, the largest threat to cyclists is traffic. I have been on buses that 'accidentally' sideswiped a biker, or seen cars pull out in front of a speeding bike.

Darkness is worse (and Ireland is very dark right now), because the drivers get a bit more reckless, and the bikers are still forced to ride in the streets. To avoid serious harm, most cyclists wear neon yellow reflective vests. I find that these serve mainly as bright targets, at which cars aim with general abandon. Nonetheless, I am very excited to have a bike, and very hopeful that I won't get hit by anything worse than the rain.

Locked Up

Continuing my tour of Irish monuments, I went to Kilmainham Gaol this week to explore the Dickensian, Victorian, Revolutionary part of Irish history. Also, the Tudors is filmed there...

The gaol (DON'T call it a 'jail,' apparently...) is unsurprisingly cold and damp. I won't give too much of the history here, mostly because our tour guide didn't do a great job of explaining it. Most of the people on the tour were foreigners like myself, who don't know that much about Irish history, but this guide seemed to assume we all knew the details. Even so, it was interesting to see this building which played host to some of the most famous people in Irish history, including the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising.

In addition to seeing their cells, we also saw the change in the style of incarceration in the architecture. Kilmainham was a 'reform' prison, a marked improvement over the conditions and facilities so familiar to Dickens. In fact, part of the new wing was almost beautiful. So long as you had a coat and were free to leave... Some pictures:

The Céilí

Yesterday, just for kicks, I decided to go Irish dancing with a few friends. We had no prior experience with such things, but we did have a few pints, so off we trekked to the Céilí. Céilí is an Irish word (pronounced 'KAY-lee') meaning 'dance party.' This particular one was being held specifically for people like myself, who had never had the fortune to learn how to Irish dance as a child. Thus, when we arrived, we found the place filled with other wary, variably intoxicated, and shuffling Yanks, Canucks, and Aussies. Our mutual presence assuaged most of the lasting fears about looking like a fool in front of a huge window facing the street.

The two man traditional Irish band lulled us into further security with their familiar tunes (including the quintessential hit 'Irish Rover'), and then introduced our dancing mistress, a tall blonde in a tiny purple dress. Actually, the dress was a traditional Irish dancing dress, and I am pretty sure I'd like to have one. But back to our story: Sue, as she is called, danced solo for a few reels, and then beckoned us wary watchers onto the floor. She was an excellent teacher, and thankfully didn't try to teach us anything too complex. After arranging us into a circle, she informed us that she was going to teach us a 'circle dance.' So far, so good.

The circle dance involved a lot of holding hands and yelling, which was soon found to be 'great craic', and not at all embarrassing. The pints of cider or beer we had to drink because the dance was tiring also helped with this impression. After the circle dance, we learned a line dance, which was much harder than the circle dance, and this time the cider was not helping. It still involved holding hands, however, so we clutched each other for safety. After a herculean effort on Sue's part, we dancers finally managed to get through the dance without falling all over each other (harder than it sounds, trust me), and soon enough, were happily skipping away to the music.

We all took a bit of a break to listen to the band after this, and to let the dance steps (and another pint) soak in. After singing along (and whooping and clapping at all the right spots during 'Galway Girl') we got back on the floor to perform our impressive dances. We did the circle dance and then the line dance, and then the circle dance again. We were meant to do the line dance again, but no one could make it to their spots, and we all ended up trying to go under each other's arms. This resulted in some accidental clothes-lining of a few of the shorter dancers. Laughing and leaving for another pub, we decided that we'd definitely go to another céilí, if we'd only be invited...

The Restaurant of Surprise

So, while exploring the Irish countryside, I came upon a restaurant that shocked me to my very core. Not least because I found it here in Ireland, and NOT in Italy, where this kind of thing is not all that uncommon. In any case, a picture is worth 1,000 words, so I'm letting this one do the talking:

Yes, that's right, the place is called 'Big Cicero's'. Some more images of their well-painted facade:


I wonder if they make a killer hummus...

Here Comes the Rain (Again)

Well, after a week of weather that was almost too good to be true, Ireland seemed to remember that it has a maritime climate, and to make up for all the sun, has been dealing out torrential rain with gale force winds for the past few days. For the first 24 hours, the local Dubliners didn't even seem to notice the rain, accustomed as they are to sporadic monsoons, but after 36 hours, the only people still trekking through the rivers- I mean, streets, were the people up from the country, who are used to more regular monsoons. Still, as they say, the show must go on, and my flatmates and I still needed to venture out of the house for important items and rations such as Chinese food, hangers, and Guinness. Apparently, the Chinese takeaway near our house is totally flood proof, and the Guinness is to keep us warm if the waters should douse the fire in the living room. The hangers were just for my closet.

A few flatmates still had to go to work in the midst of this flooding, but luckily the Dublin taxi service is ready to continue working even in the middle of the lake that is my neighborhood. Here you can see a cabbie rowing a woman to work:


At least this morning it stopped raining, and people are resuming their normal daily activities. Taxis with wheels are sloshing through the puddles, and drenched pets are swimming back towards their homes. The chipper, more sucesptible to flooding than the Chinese takeaway, has reopened, but the local pub is still full of water. However, this has not discouraged a few intrepid neighbors from trying to visit anyway:

Keep those spirits up, boys...

Newgrange, or, Fun in a Field

Since sleep is an imperfect remedy for jet lag, today I decided to jolt myself into the Irish life by going to visit one of (if not THE) oldest cultural landmark in this country. That, of course, is Newgrange, or Brú na Bóinne in Irish. Actually, I think Brú na Bóinne just refers to the area in which it is located, because it is near the River Boyne in County Meath. This is about an hour's drive from Dublin. And what a gorgeous drive it was, especially since the sun was out all day.

Newgrange is a passage tomb and one of the Brú na Bóinne tumuli, a structure that my Roman compatriots will recognise from our trip to Cerveteri in Italy. A tumulus is a circular tomb with a semi-conical top, and was common in the ancient world. What is special about Newgrange, aside from its size and exciting neolithic decoration, is that it is aligned with the Winter Solstice. For this reason, some call it 'the Irish Stonehenge,' but I have seen pictures of Stonehenge, and the two structures don't look very similar. However, the astronomical alignment of the two monuments are the same, and point to the advanced mathematic and architectural skills of the culture(s) which built them.

It is huge from the outside, as you can see in this picture:

But the inside is rather small. I wasn't allowed to take pictures of the inside of the tomb, but the tour group passed through an absolutely tiny passageway into the central room of the tomb, which is circular with three small side chambers, and has a conical dome, made of stones laid on top of each other with such precision that the roof has remained waterproof for the entirety of the structure's nearly 5,000 year existance. While they found human remains (badly cremated, from what the tour guide said) inside the tomb, most scholars think that it was more ceremonial than funerary, given the sheer impressiveness of the Winter Solstice sun coming in through the hole above the door and illuminating the inner chamber. This is such a beautiful sight that there is a lottery for places in the tomb to see it over the 5 days of the Solstice. Last year, there were 34,000 submissions. They can only take 100.

It was a really cool trip, as much for the drive through the country as for the visit itself. Newgrange is old in a way that a Yank like myself can only imagine. Even in the period of the Celts, this structure was ancient. It predates any of the buildings in my beloved Rome, and even the pyramids in Egypt, which impressed me so much two years ago. It may not be as impressive as any of these later monuments, but it was worth seeing, and even though it didn't quite cure my jet lag, it was a perfect welcome back to Eire.

Welcome Back

I'm back in Ireland now, after a long and relaxing Christmas holiday. Since my flight over here was delayed for 2 hours, and was outrageously turbulent, I pretty much haven't slept in nearly 36 hours. I think I will try to stay up for a few more hours, just to get myself onto the Irish sleep schedule. It doesn't help that it is dark pretty much all the time, because my circadian rhythms can't figure out what is night and what is rainy day... Weather report says tomorrow will be sunny, though! I can't admit to trusting the Irish meteorologist when he says it isn't going to rain (also, I can't pronounce his name, which makes him a shady character in my book), but I hope he's right...