Clonmacnoise, Trim Castle.

Our third Saint Mary's trip began at the monastery of Clonmacnoise, (pronounced as it looks). When we arrived at the site we watched a short film about the history of the monastery, during which the narrator enthusiastically described how Clonmacnoise has been a site "frequently used for prayer, teaching, and even rape and murder!" They were consistently attacked by the Vikings and Normans, and every time they would rebuild what was destroyed they were attacked and robbed again.

Here is a part of the monastery. There was also a very large cemetery all around the area.

Megan R. and I once again accidentally found ourselves in a position to take another lovely portrait like the one at Tara that we loved so much. I have a feeling this will be a theme on our trips.

Sitting in one of the doorways.

The sun was bright on this trip, and we ended up taking many candid closeups of each other. Because getting nice pictures with the bright sun proved difficult, we embraced the opportunity for more unique, unflattering shots.

A second angle, as if the first wasn't enough.

Our shadows. Megan R., Me, then Meagan D.


In order to avoid spreading the plague, they created this archway for confessions. You could whisper very quietly on one end, and hear everything perfectly clear on the other. It was very cool.



Then we thought it would be fun to try whispering our confessions into other rocks and walls to see if it had the same effect. It didn't work.

Before we left Clonmacnoise, Roberta, the SMC advisor in Ireland, caught us taking what she called a "desperate picture." That is until we pointed out to her how masculine the women's bathroom sign was. Then she appreciated it as much as we did. Now whenever we have to use the restroom we say in our manliest, most aggressive voices that we have to go to the "powder room!"


On our way to the next site we traveled through many small towns and down empty country roads, as is usual on our trips. This time we had to slow down quite a bit to get around an accident that I thought captured the quaint, country feel of Ireland:



Once we got to Trim Castle we learned that it was the largest castle in Ireland. We were shown all of the defense techniques, and there were some cool models of the castle and it's renovations through the centuries that we could see before we were led through the tour.


A very nice picture, thank you once again Miss Meagan Drone.


Here are a few different views of the inside of the castle as we were led up to the balcony.

Apparently Braveheart was filmed in this castle as well. I don't blame them, the inside was very cinematic.


We were led through the castle up and down winding "trip steps." These stairs were designed to make it difficult for attackers to run up, not only because they were narrow stairs, but because they were all at different heights and widths to confuse enemies running in the darkness. Even in the light, however, they were very difficult to walk up and down.

You could see little bird feet walking around on the ceiling! For anyone who knows me, you would know this was obviously one of my favorite parts of the tour.

There was a love message written on the wall in Gaelic from one of the Lords at the time to his wife. How romantic!

Every view from the balcony, which surrounded the entire castle, was incredible!

Here is Megan R. and I on one side of the balcony, taken my Meagan D. on the other.

The amazing Irish countryside, more than a picture could capture.


Beautiful view of the scenery.


Megan R. and I descending the dangerous trip steps as carefully as possible!

I don't know what happened here. I was very excited about a picture with Castle Street, but everything was happening so fast I ended up posing with super awkward hands. I demanded a new chance at the picture, as you can see below:

And Meagan D. insisted upon wrecking my second chance at a perfectly good photograph of me and Castle Street.

This restaurant was across the street from Trim Castle. This was the second take. The first take, as you can see below, didn't turn out the way I expected. The girls were cracking up, and I couldn't figure out why, until I turned around and saw the man run back behind the counter of the restaurant!

This is my favorite picture of the day! I went inside, introduced myself and told him that my last name was Castle, which is why I was taking a picture in front of his restaurant. It was a very funny way to end our trip.

Sláinte!

Cahir Castle, Rock of Cashel, Dunmore Caves.

Our second St. Mary's trip began at Cahir Castle. The tour guide led us through the castle as if we were attackers, and talked about all of the defense techniques implemented throughout the castle. I liked taking the tour from that perspective, it made it a lot more fun than just learning the history alone.

Here is the adorable town of Cahir.

And Cahir Castle.

The entrance we all went through with the royal family crest above it. Although the doors were huge, they opened in a Willy-Wonka-ish fashion. A very small square of the huge door opened, forcing us to crouch low to climb in.

This was the next way to could get further into the castle. As the tour guide was explaining how enemies would attempt to penetrate these gates, two crows entangled in a battle with each other fell from the tower and swarmed around her. She screamed and took cover, and it was difficult for her to finish that part of the tour because she was constantly watching the birds. She said that she could see all of our startled faces as we gasped, watching the birds flying towards her from above as she obliviously continued the tour, but she thought we were just impressed with her descriptions of the defenses of the castle. She watched our faces closely from then on just in case she saw the same looks of horror because the crows were barreling toward her again.


They would dump boiling water or sand on top of attackers coming through this doorway through the shoot above it. Ouch.

Apparently this gate was used in the filming of Braveheart!

These stairs were scarier to climb down than to climb up. They were narrow, close to the wall, and there was a steep drop off of the side. This is Laura, a new friend from Notre Dame who is studying in Rome, Megan R., and I. Laura visited us for the weekend.

We found a small room at the top of the stairs.

Here I am bravely exploring the dungeons underground. I didn't make it very far because I was the only one who was willing to explore it, and there was no way I was going any further into the darkness by myself. Not a chance.

I'm sure Meagan will appreciate that I put this on here.

After our lunch I wanted to take a scone with me in case I got hungry, but we were afraid I wouldn't be allowed to. Therefore, I grabbed the scone on my way out and coughed all over it. I figured not only would they not want a scone I had been touching, but they also wouldn't want one from a sick girl. We called it the 'Victory Scone.' In reality, they probably could care less if I took a scone from the open bar of food that we had access to.

The next stop was the Rock of Cashel. Apparently St. Patrick himself converted the King here in the 5th century.


The inside of the monastery was missing some of the roof, and obviously was not in the same condition as it once was, but remained stunning nonetheless.


Sitting on a tomb.




In 1961 Johnny Cash visited this site and said that when he admired the landscape he saw "Forty Shades of Green." Then he wrote a song about it.

The view of the St. Mary's Abbey.


In the cemetery the raised mounds made us the most uncomfortable..

Meagan Drone was able to capture our faces at the perfect moment: We were avoiding walking on the mounds and the grave stones when the tour guide told us not to bother because there were so many unmarked graves in the cemetery that we were walking on bodies all of the time. Upwards of 500 corpses everywhere. These were our faces at that very moment. Priceless.

This was a replica of the statue of St. Patrick, the real one was indoors where the weather wouldn't damage it, and we got to see it later.

According to the tour guide, if you could wrap your hands around the rock and touch your fingers, you would never have to go to the dentist again.

My low porus made that very difficult. He also said that if you could hop on your right foot clockwise around the statue nine times without stopping you would be married within the year. I was too superstitious to attempt this, because I'm very good at hopping and am too ambitious for marriage at this time. In fact, no girls were foolish enough to tempt fate and try it.

Here is Megan and I at the site.

Outside of the Rock of Cashel in the parking lot was an interesting statue of some dancers. We tried to look as graceful as they were, but didn't quite make it. We did our best.

The last stop on our tour was to the Dunmore caves. I didn't realize that we would be spelunking on our trip, although one might argue that taking the man-made stairs into a cave isn't really "spelunking" at all. It made me remember when I first signed up for the St. Mary's Ireland program, and the woman recommended that I get a rabies shot. I asked her why, and she said "Just in case I get bitten by a bat in a cave." I thought it was funny at the time, because I never imagined that spelunking was popular in Ireland. Little did I know that within a month I would be in a cave myself!

This is the cave from above. The stairs were narrow, so it seemed a little daunting at first, but it was worth it.

Here is Laura and I making our descent into the depths of the Dunmore Caves.

This was the view of the entrance from the inside.

The first column he showed us was the "buffalo" column.

This was one of the largest and most impressive columns in the cave.

The guide said that if you look carefully at the bottom of the column you could see the three colors of the Irish flag, which are green, white and orange. Then if you look at the rest of it you can make out the shape of a hand wrapped around a pint of guinness. How very Irish.

The climb back up out of the caves was difficult and exhausting. There were over 700 steep stairs, no place to rest, and by the time we reached the top all of us were out of breath and had sore legs! It was worth it though!

Sláinte!

Study Break.

So the 'three M's,' as Brendan dubbed us, were working on presentations for a class of ours, and got bored. I was shuffling through my iTunes, found Love Shack, and we soon realized that we had all learned the same Love Shack dance. Well, once we got some Nutella in our system, it wasn't long before this was happening.

I recognize that in showing this video for your entertainment, I'm also showing my Dad that he is paying for me to be in Ireland for this kind of behavior. I can't upload the video, but Megan R. put it on youtube for the whole world to see, so here's the link. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG3vKZKVc_Y

Sick.

I haven’t updated my blog in a while, I know. Everyone here is getting sick, and it was only a matter of time before I got it. However, it feels like my symptoms were worse than everyone elses. I was stuck in my room dying of illness and boredom alike, my head felt too heavy to do much but lay in my bed like a sick slug, my voice dropped two octaves, and my coughs were thunderous and unladylike. Actually, they still are. I think the most accurate description of my position came from my brother Parick, when he was describing his own symptoms in St. Louis: “Last night I couldn’t sleep, because my nose was stuffed up. Not just sniffly, it was like trying to breathe with a cork in each nostril.” I know exactly what you mean. Also not very ladylike.

Ben, my friend from France, took it upon himself to entertain me and make me feel better. He visited me many times, and brought me movies to watch. We watched “Into the Wild” together, and I really enjoyed it, all things considered.

When I’m complaining about my problems to him, I think about how difficult it must be for him to understand what I’m saying. English is his second language, and I already have adopted talking slower than I naturally do to make it easier for him. He understands a lot, but now I feel like I’m throwing wrenches into the works: every other word is squeaked-out and practically unsaid because of my lost voice, and I can’t articulate very well when most of my consonants sound like n’s because of all the snot in my face. Maybe he understands it all, or maybe he just understands enough to know that I’m complaining about being sick, and catching every third word is enough for that I’m sure. Ben also made me some tea that I didn’t want, but this miracle drink has become a salvation for me. It’s definitely the closest to relief I can get, which he is smug about because he basically forced me to drink it in the first place.

Going to the pharmacy in Ireland is an interesting experience. Every medicine is behind the counter, and you have to describe your symptoms to whoever is working there. My first experience at the pharmacy was met with a teenager with blue streaks in her hair who was chomping on gum. You tell them what’s wrong with you, then they will pick which medicine is best for you and hand you about 8 unfamiliar pills. Needless to say, I’ve requested that my family ship me a bunch of medicine as soon as they can.

I went to the pharmacy and told the woman I had a stuffy nose, sore throat, congestion, coughing, and body aches. A cold.

“Do you want something non-drowsy?” she asked.

“Yes, I definitely want something non-drowsy.”

She shuffled behind the counter a bit, and came up with a box of medicine called Benylin.

“Here, there are pills for day and night.”

“Oh, but I don’t want anything that will make me drowsy,” I said.

“Ok, well then just don’t take the nighttime pills, only take the daytime pills,” she suggested.

I said “Wait. You want me to buy all this medicine and only take half the pills? Then it won’t help me the way it’s supposed to, will it?”

“This medicine will make you feel better.”

“But is that Sudafed over there? Can I just have some of that?”

“This is the medicine you want. And some of these.” She took out a box of throat lozenges called Strepsils.

Fine. Despite the fact that her qualifications to diagnose me and prescribe half the recommended dose of a medicine just to avoid being drowsy were questionable at best, I paid for them both and left.

I got back to my apartment and found that the throat drops could only be taken once every three hours. Great. That settled my cough for about as long as it took to dissolve the little drop. The Benylin, which mandates that I “follow the dosage instructions,” didn’t give clear dosage instructions at all. There were four pills for each day that were to be taken in the ‘Morning, Mid-Morning, Afternoon, and Night.’ It didn’t say anything about time in between pills, which made things difficult for me. My morning starts around noon, my afternoon is around 4, mid-afternoon would obviously fall in between, and I wouldn’t take my nighttime pill until I was ready for sleep. That means I would take three daytime pills in about four hours, and then one nighttime pill around midnight. That just didn’t seem right. I found a system that I implemented for a few days in which I took them about 4 hours apart, starting from the time I woke up, but after a few days with no results, I just depended on painkillers and tea.

All the walking to the store and back and taking care of myself made me realize how much I took for granted being a sick child who’s mother could care for her. I hate being a sick, independent adult. This experience definitely gave me a better idea of what it must have felt like for Patrick when he had kidney stones in London and mom wasn’t there to help him through the surgery. Only it was as if I had kidney stones AND couldn’t stop coughing. Imagine that.

Tom Foolery.

Megan R. and I found ourselves with some time on our hands, and were feeling particularly mischievous, so here's what happened:

We knew that Tadhg, (pronounced Taig, for the record. Irish, huh?), who is one of Brendan's housemates, always locked his door unless he was in the apartment. The other boys left their doors open all the time. We knew from Katt, another one of the housemates, that Tadhg was in the living area watching television, so we sent her in to distract him so we could go into his room without him knowing. We made post-its with labels and put them all over EVERYTHING: "Tadhg's door," "Tadhg's light," "Tadhg's wall," "Tadhg's dirty sock," etc.
We decided that any pieces of clothing on the floor would say "dirty" and any hanging up or in the closet would just say "Tadhg's shirt." We ran around as fast as we could, and in the about five minutes we were able to cover the whole room, and all his possessions, with post-its. His smoke alarm, his mirror, his shoes, his socks, his books, his passport, his toilet, everything.

Here you can see some of the floor labels on clothes, carpet, shoes, and dirty socks.

Katt helping out in the closet.

We rolled one up in his toilet paper so that he wouldn't find it for a little while. haha

After we finished, we went into the kitchen as if we'd never been there, and sat down with Tadhg and Katt and watched television. We couldn't stop laughing, so eventually he got up and left. We followed him from a distance to his room so that we could hear his reaction, and we definitely got our money's worth :)
Although he has peeled most of them off, he stuck them all to one of his walls as a display.

Then we broke into Mickey's room and did the exact same thing, which he found two days later and hasn't removed one post-it yet. We had a bet that it would take him over a day to realize it, because his room is such a boyish disaster, but apparently he noticed immediately and was too lazy to do anything about it. Success :)