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Published: February 28th 2008
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Inside Kilmainham Gaol. Last weekend I stayed in Dublin for once. All three of my roommates were traveling, so for most of the weekend I actually had the flat to myself - absolutely no complaints there. Friday was somewhat of a lazy day, but in the evening we went to the cinema to see "Be Kind Rewind" and after that, a bunch of us got together here to cook a big fancy dinner & dessert. Then after a small food coma we went to a couple of different pubs trying to find some traditional music, and ran into some friends on the way. Our quest took us to the north side of the Liffey River which is 50% more shady than the rest of the city so ... I don't think I'll be venturing over there at night any time soon. In any case, the pub we were trying to track down was closed. Bummer. We ended up in Temple Bar in a pub complete with embarrassingly drunk American tourists, so thankfully no one argued when I suggested we cut the night short. For the most part I try to avoid Temple Bar and most of the touristy parts of town; instead we usually
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The cross marks the spot of several executions of the leaders of the Irish independence rebellions. try to hang out where the locals and other students do.
Saturday I did something really cool called "The Grafton Street Freeze", sponsored by an international improv group that I heard about on Facebook. Grafton Street is one of the most famous/popular shopping districts in the city; it's constantly packed with people, and there's always street performers and flower vendors everywhere. The plan was to gather as many people together as possible, and at 4:30pm exactly we were to freeze mid-movement for 5 minutes exactly. For example, my pose was applying lip balm; one of my friends bent down to tie her shoe; another friend played with his hair. We weren't trying to make a statement or anything, just having fun & making art. The effect was incredible: tourists and native passer-by had absolutely no idea what was going on. You can see a video of it here:
(I tried to find me, but no luck). For the first couple minutes everything went great, but then I was jabbed from behind and some guy goes, "Hey. Hey. HELLO. MOVE IT. Now!" I didn't move and kept ignoring the pokes, thinking it was just some rude tourist trying to
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Green - the free Republic
Orange - the Loyalists
White - for peace between the two get me to unfreeze. But then I heard the crackle of a walkie talkie and my stomach dropped - I knew it was the Garda (police officer). Sure enough, I turned around, and it was one very angry looking cop. He told me to move along "or else" and rather than argue that what I was doing was completely harmless, I did what he said......except I just slipped deeper into the crowd and resumed my pose. 😊 They were obviously concerned that we were staging some kind of political rally; after that I noticed police everywhere. At 4:35, we erupted into cheers, and then continued on our way as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened! It was a cool way to kill 5 minutes, but the police reaction was pretty disappointing. After the freeze, we went to the Stag's Head pub to watch the big Ireland vs. Scotland rugby match....and Ireland won! I'm not going to lie, I don't really understand rugby, but it was a good time nonetheless. The city was filled with men in kilts for the match, but it was really cool that the pubs put up Scottish flags alongside the Irish; the rivalry is
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A rainbow! In Ireland! pretty friendly. That night my friends and I just stayed in to watch movies and relax.
On Sunday we took a bus to Kilmainham Gaol on the other side of the city. The Gaol is a former prison, now a museum, where many of the leaders of the Irish rebellions were held and executed. It is one of the most famous sights to see in the entire country. A couple different movies have also been filmed there. We had tea and scones before our hour long tour, which took place both indoors and out, so we were freezing. Afterwards we walked around the grounds of the National Museum of Modern Art. We didn't go inside, but there were some outdoor displays as well as the gorgeous Formal Gardens. The next day, we took a class field trip to Newgrange, which is an ancient Celtic site about an hour away from Dublin in County Meath. Newgrange was built in such a way that at dawn on the winter solstice, a narrow beam of sunlight illuminates the floor of the chamber at the end of the long passageway, but only for a few minutes. It was probably a burial chamber and
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Newgrange - this predates the pyramids and even Stonehedge. a place of worship. It was, quite honestly, very hyped up and in reality, a little underwhelming, especially because the weather was terrible and we couldn't wait to get back on the bus. In any case, we saw some amazing examples of neolithic art, which was the entire purpose of the trip.
I haven't had any classes this week because it's midterms, so all this free time should have been spent writing papers. I'm proud to say I have one page written for one paper on art history. Whoo hoo!
Tomorrow I am leaving on a program-wide field trip to spend the weekend in Belfast, Northern Ireland (which is separate from the Republic of Ireland; it's part of the U.K. and loyal to the Queen). Apparently we are staying in a hotel that is across the street from one of the most heavily bombed establishments back in the 90s.....awesome? Don't worry, it's safe now. I plan on spending an extra night there so that Sunday I can visit Derry, the site of Bloody Sunday.......way more on all this later. I have to pack, so I'm off for now.
Miss you all. 😊
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