Remembering

Flags, hats badges, and notes left
at the Flight 93 temporary memorial  

 Since the anniversary of 9-11 has been set aside as a National Day of Service our Habitat for Humanity office spent today on a team-build working at one of the houses. Service seems to me like a fitting way to recognize the day. Like nearly everyone else I have my vivid memories of the morning itself: the cloudless blues sky, being a just-turned-12-year-old-in-brand-new-school-clothes, finding out over aol instant message to turn on the news, seeing the second tower hit on live TV, and sitting in my friends' backyard that afternoon watching for the occasional military plane in that clear blue sky.
The crash site of United Flight 93 in Shanksville Pennsylvania became a National Park just 6 weeks after Sept 11. A sort of spontaneous memorial began as well as people began to leave candles, notes, and flowers - much like they did in New York. But since the site is in the middle of a field instead of a city, the temporary memorial in PA continued to grow for the past decade. The park opened the official memorial last year and it's peaceful, beautiful, and well done. And the archive of items brought in to be protected from the rain continues to grow. One of my history classes went up to see the temporary memorial and the amount of things left by visitors was captivating.

Blogging from my phone

Jamie and me in Philly - photo credit to my mom

I'm currently in the car on 95 heading back home from Philly, my mom's driving so don't worry this blogging is not currently endangering my life.  Although I suppose I am slacking off from my navigating duties. She'll manage though. A mini-road-trip was in order since I've been away and after all that travel, I wanted more travel when I got home. Plus Jamie's bright green bag needed to complete the one last leg of its adventure from home to Germany to Galway to Dublin with Jamie, then to Cork with random-ditzy-Irish-strangers, then back to Galway and home with me, and finally many moons later back to Jamie in Philly.  It was a beautiful day for a drive and we got delicious dinner in an old-bank-turned-church-turned-restaurant. Philly is a great city with all its liberty and freedom and I like Delaware's "It's good to be first" and it's nice to be back in Maryland cause it's home even if I miss Galway a bit.

Hiking and Hitchhiking

"Do Not Climb on Wet or Foggy Days" yeah...but this is Ireland

Before leaving Ireland I figured it would be fun to go on a hike.

Irish Family in Limerick

Me/Megan, May, Niamh, Jimmy, Aj, Tim/Dad, Dan, Ning

Cliffs with the Consumption Ward

Thursday we took a tour to the Cliff of Moher and the Burren area, despite all my visitors' terrible coughs which sounded like the consumption-ward-choir. We took the same company: Lally Tour (and still got the same driver Martin that we've now had five times on tours of two different regions-- I'm beginning to think their guides are an army of clones) Instead of stopping at the Allwee Caves first like we did when I went with Emily and Katie last month, we stopped at a farm; I think because we had a group on the tour from Dublin for a day-trip to the west coast of Ireland, it was pretty exciting. At the family-farm-turned-family-farm-with-tours-and-fresh-pie-to-boot.  We got a nice little tour of the farm, and a fun walk up the hill behind the farm-house so we could see more of the burren landscape. Burren comes from the Irish for "rocky-place" which is a ten-points-for-captain-obvious sort of name. Yet, despite how rocky it is the limestone covering the area holds in heat and water allowing a huge range of plants to thrive. Everything from Alpine-wild-flowers-like-blue-genetry to palm-trees can grow in the Burren since it nearly never frosts. Our guide explained the fairy-tree where you tie something to a branch and leave your problem behind, and ruins of seven churches and the famine walls-- stone walls you can see crossing over all the mountains dividing nothing from nothing and keeping nothing out of anything, they were built for woolly-brained-land-lords in exchange for soup during the Great Famine.

Good Day, Bad Weather

After the Aran Islands with Jamie and Jessie, it seems like a fun trip to go on with my family guests as well. The forecast for the entire week was heavy storms, but we decided to chance it. The weather got the best of us in that wager. It started out with extremely choppy water all the way over. On the ferry to Inis Mor we confirmed that McCormack-genes do not come with sailor-stomachs standard issued.  Having already taken my turn with puking on the ship, I braced myself by the railing with the sea spray while everyone else fought or gave into the puking. At least the little boy sitting behind us enjoyed the ups-and-downs-and-side-to-sides with glee-full-giggles and happy little squeals.

Friday the 13th

Last time I visited Dublin with Jamie and Jessie it went ...so...so...well. Therefore I returned to Dublin visit with my brothers and sis-in-law and all on Friday the 13th, a day known for it's luck-y-ness right? No? oh... dear me.

Regardless, after my day of rest on I got up early on Friday and took the GoBus back to Dublin were I met up with everyone at the hotel. We got some fish and chips for lunch and headed to Trinity College to see the space-alien-sphere and the Book of Kells. We stopped along the way at the General Post Office where the 1916 Easter uprising started.

The Book of Kells s quite impressive and it makes me wish I had handwriting that nice.  I've decided that if I could just move in a back corner of Old Library to live, I would be quite content for the rest of my life. So many rows of gorgeous books! And beautiful  arched ceilings! And slidy-beauty-and-the-beast-library-ladders! And spiral staircases!!!  On top of all that amazingness there was even a book on display from the 1600s with a picture of a Viceroy Tulip that pretty much made my day. (Yay for Fault in Our Stars!)

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

Star's face is cause she is in the middle of
Looking for Alaska, Monique's is cause
 we've been traveling a lot. a lot a lot. 

The five of us spent one last night in in mega-bed. Then we had a wonderful breakfast with our splendid hosts Wednesday morning. It was quite sad to leave them (and Italy as a whole as well.) We packed up all our stuff (plus a handful of new scarves) and hit the road around 12:20. We walked briskly, but not full-on-panicked-ly to the metro and then took that to the Turino train station, Porto Nouvo. Having mastered the ticket machine in Rome we quickly purchased our ticket and were able to board at the very closest platform (karma was trying to make up for Rome).

On our first train from Turin to Milan, the Italian girl across the aisle from us was being bugged by two gypsies and it turns out they stole her wallet and all out of her purse which really sucked. But I have to say that the half a dozen guys who jumped up to defend her pretty much made my day, the guys also helped her out when she realized she was robbed. It was really nice to see them help her out. I had a slight run-in with a meany-pants-train-ticket-guy who charged me for having my feet on the seat across from me, just because he could (sticky out tongue face)

Ostia Antica

 After some wonderful coffee to start off the day, we took the metro to the Roman Forum and got some pizza at the little pizza-place-across-the-ruin-by-the-stairs-where-Kathleen-and-I-used-to-go, I got potato-pizza cause I have missed it. Then we took the metro to Pyrimide station and switched  lines to head out to Ostia. First we visited the ruins of Ostia Antica which is roughly the size of "downtown" Galway. We had absolutely perfect weather (and didn't even get sunburned). So there were some great photos and lots of giggles as we explored and wandered.

Then we kept going for a few more stops and got off in modern Ostia so we could see the sea. It was super chilly, but with a little convincing we all jumped into the water and found that it really wasn't that bad once you were in. Even with the gorgeous weather we were only really sharing the beach with a couple of couple who were busy making out (like they do in Rome).  We crossed some things off our bucket list at the Mediterranean Sea then headed back to the city.

All of us went out to dinner at a B . I tried the pasta dish with Ox Tail, since it is a traditional Roman dish that I had yet to try and it was really tasty. Pretty much just tasted like beef with a slightly annoying bone in the middle. It was pretty entertaining to hear the waiters singing in the other room, they'd joke and apologize to us about it when they came to the table.

After dinner Monique, Star and I walked to the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain and past the Pantheon and Piazza Novena on our way home. Since Old Bridge is apparently open incredibly late for a gelateria, we had to grab a second gelato to compliment our late-night-theological-debate. It was a wonderful day and I hope my coin in the Trevi Fountain brings me back to Rome again and again.

Cliffs of Insanity

*This blog post is out of order, since we went to the cliffs the Thursday between Helen's birthday party and the weekend of St Paddy's Day. To make up to the out-of-order-ness it is full not only of epic cliffs, but also Princess Bride quotes.

"He didn't fall?!? INCONCEIVABLE!"

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."  

I went with Katie and Emily (Grove Cityers) to the Cliffs of Moher while they were visiting from Italy where they are studying abroad. Since we didn't have a giant to carry us up the rock face on a rope, we took a bus. Although buses are not as cool, we did at least have our favorite driver -Martin- who we've now had on 4 tours by pure chance.

The first stop was at Allwee Cave where we got coffee and tea to help us wake up after our rather late night and early raising, plus a doughnut which was yummy, but nothing compared to Saturday-morning-market-doughnuts-from-Dan.  

Rain on my lens, and wind winning the battle
of the hood with my great travel buddy Emily

 "I don't suppose you could speed things up?" 
 "If you're in such a hurry, you could lower a rope or a tree branch or find something useful to do." 
"I could do that. I have some rope up here, but I do not think you would accept my help, since I am only waiting around to kill you."
"That does put a damper on our relationship."

We drove through some great Irish countryside and Connamara, then we arrived at the cliffs and managed to snap some photos before the fog set in and blocked the view. The cliffs are impressive and well worth being soaked by the rain and wind since we got a clear view for at least a little bit.

Unlike the Aran Islands, there are walls and warning signs abounding at the Cliffs of Moher. I liked the nice touch of a memorial plaque "To those who have lost their lives at the Cliffs" at the end of the path were all the "Danger" and "Do not enter" signs were ignored. Although the people-die-when-they-ignore-our-nice-warning-signs-memorial was mostly ignored as well. Don't worry we stayed safe though. I think our poor cameras were in the most danger with all the mist, fog, and rain honestly. They had to leave the safety of our raincoats for photos though, cause there were cliffs! They gave us some blurry photos as pay back, but in the end came through unscathed. 

There was a tower built a couple hundred years ago for the tourist to have a better view. Clever idea. Sadly there was no Man-In-Black or dueling Spaniards.  Cliffs of Insanity/ Cliffs of Moher are still wonderful and made me realize that it's been far too long since I watched The Princess Bride, so that has to be remedied. 

See mom I'm staying a good safe distance form the cliffs this time ^_^

After checking out the cliffs and tower we stopped in their new state of the art visitors center. It is almost impressive how much mascara you can get on your face when you have cliff winds and rain combined against you. And that is to say nothing of the hair situation. 


We were (very slightly!) late to met back at the bus, but our fellow tour-mates forgave us and we headed to a little pub for some warm food. We got yummy (and not food-poisonous) seafood chowder and some of the amazing hearty brown bread for lunch.

We stopped along the way back to Galway for some more photo ops. At the coast and one of the castles built right by the water around the 15th century. By the coast we also got some photos sitting on one of the huge boulders dropped there by the glaciers a long time before the 15th century.  

I have it on good authority that the Cliffs of Insanity are also amazing when you see them from the water, so I'm scheming a bit to see if I can work out a way to go back and see them from a boat as well.  The Cliffs of Moher (Irish Gaelic name)/Cliffs of Insanity (other name of awesomeness) were really fun to see and we had good weather --by Irish at least since it only actively rain on us for part of the day. And we were even mostly dried out by the time we made it back to Galway that evening. 

"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia - but only slightly less well-known is this: Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha h..." 

Wonderful travel buddy, Kaite, in the Invincible-Tomato-Rain-Coat which was quite appreciated in the rain and mist 

Forgive the not good photo, we were too excited about eating to pose

When the three of us got back to Galway we met up with Monique and Star for an epic Girls Night. It started off with wolfing down six dozen wings at Scotty's and ended with eating two Tesco bins of ice cream while we watched Ocean's Eleven. Very very wonderful all around. I can't wait to visit Emily and Katie in Italy next!

"Once word leaks out that a pirate has gone soft, people begin to disobey you, and then it's nothing but work, work, work all the time."
"You mock my pain!"
"Life is pain, Highness! Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Dublin Part 2: Down hill

Jessica had a short lists of things to do while in Ireland which included milking a cow and rolling down a hill. Despite our best efforts we never found her a cow to milk and the only hill we found was more mud than grass so she didn't roll down it.  However, to make up for that our trip decided to go down hill incredibly quickly on her behalf. As illustrated by this gorgeous picture: 

On Sunday, after our great time at the Guinness Storehouse and Jameson Distillery we got back to our hostel and the surprises started. When we went to grab our bags from the luggage room, Jamie's was not there. Her huge bright green bag with two weeks worth of everything - just not there anymore. Which was a shame, because we left it there very much hoping it would wait where we left it. 

This was severely not ok. We spoke sternly to the poor guy behind the desk, who called his manager and apologized a ton, because nothing like that had ever happened while he was working and he wasn't sure what to do besides call his manager and apologize a ton.  He said there was a large group that left that afternoon who might have accidentally taken her bag with them to Cork.  Since Jamie's bright-green-bag was either stolen or inadvertently on its own adventure in County Cork, we figured there wasn't much we could do besides go find some dinner while the poor guy behind the desk tried to get a hold of the group and his manager.

This quote of Jamie's from dinner along with our jokes about
 e-coli apples became significantly less funny as the night wore on

We passed up a couple of very crowded touristy places and a restaurant with an hour and a half wait. Jessica made a passing (but also prophetic) comment that perhaps we shouldn't trust a place which was so empty when the other places were so busy. We should have paid lots and lots more attention to her brilliant insight.  Turns out she was entirely correct. 

Jamie and I both got yummy-seeming soup with our dinners
It looked better than this picture, but looks can be deceiving 

 We had a 6 girl room at the hostel, but luckily no one else was in our room and it was just the three of us. After dinner Jamie and I rapidly went from fine to really-really-not-fine. Not-fine of the throwing-up-and-worst-fever-and-chills-of-my-life variety.  It was not fun. I puked a few time until my fever broke around 3am, but Jamie was sick all night long. Jessie was lucky enough not to get sick, even though she tried our soup. She was super awesome and even brought us juice. And getting said juice for us involved holding hands with the other-guy-who-worked-behind-the-desk-over-night-and-didn't-speak-English-all-that-well.  We very much appreciated her effort.

You should very much appreciate the lack of vomit in this picture,
besides the bunk beds and sick girls it was the defining characteristic of the room  

In the morning Jamie was still in no state to fly, so we canceled her flight and went to get Jessica to the airport.  Which involved running from the hostel to the bus stop.  It was raining (this is Ireland after all) and that resulted in significantly-slick-cobblestone-sidewalks. Which in turn resulted in me going from running to flat on said cobblestone with great speed. Which in turn resulted in a good number of huge bruises on my knees and hip. It was not super fun.

Despite our best efforts and speedy running. And despite the fact that the bus driver most definitely saw us and our running.  Mr.Meany McMeanPants the bus driver motioned at us then drove away anyway.  It was a cut off type I'm-not-going-to-be-nice-and-let-you-board hand motion despite the fact that it was exactly 8:45 when we ran up. And the bus was suppose to leave at 8:45. 

 

So we took a taxi instead and got Jessie to the airport on time.  Then I headed back and we got Jamie a toothbrush and some helpful things like that which were still in her bright-green-and-not-in-Dublin-with-us-bag. It turns out her bag was indeed on its own little trip to Cork, having hitched a ride with Mr. McAbsentminded-group-leader. Her bag was sent back and she got another night for free at the hostel and was able to catch the flight home the next day. I got home and slept a ton more. So it ended happily . . . or at least better ...if not happily. Jamie's opinion of Dublin went back down for sure. While it was certainly an adventure, it wasn't not one I'm eager to repeat at any point soon. Or ever. I'm good with not repeating it ever.

Dublin Part 1: Guinness and Jameson

Jamie and Jessica and I spent Saturday hitting all the highlights of Galway from the fresh doughnuts and the Saturday morning market to the Galway Museum and adorable shops on Shop Street. Then the three of us headed to Dublin Sunday morning.

Traveling with sisters is a special sort of adventure

We visited the Guinness and Jameson Factories. First off was the Guinness Storehouse which was great. A lot of it was about the process making Guinness which was interesting. The exhibits were quite well laid out which impressed me more due to my public history classes (Did you know people tend to lay out/ walk through exhibits differently depending on which side they drive on?)  My favorite fact was that Aurthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease when he began his brewery. Impressively cocky. I also love that Guinness uses two-thirds of all the Barley grown in Ireland and how much of the world's Guinness is drunk by the tiny island of Ireland.

We all successfully poured our own pints of Guinness

And then we enjoyed said pints of Guinness

 It also entertained me that they were having people join in on their St Patty's Day Party in order to try and set a world record. Since it is a Guinness Book of World Records shouldn't they just be able to insert themselves whenever they want? Wouldn't that be one of the perks of being the people who create the book?

We then headed to the Jameson Distillery. Since their tours are guided we had time to kill so we browsed the gift shop a bit then got ourselves Irish coffee/hot whiskey. Super tasty.

A year old, three year, five, ten and eighteen years old whiskey
showing  with different levels of evaporation 

The evaporated amount of the barrels of whiskey is referred to as "the angels' portion".  The idea of tipsy-little-angels skimming whiskey out of the barrels entertained me.

Since it was a trade passed from father to son they had lots of nicknames to keep them all straight
I wonder how the last Kavanagh boy there got his nickname, seems like it would be quite well suited to Anthony Weiner   

Our tour was fun and Jamie was even chosen to be one of the taster at the end of the tour. The tasters were given Jameson, Jack Daniels (the world's most popular whiskey), and a scotch to compare.  Jamie Lyn fittingly liked the Jameson the most.

The tours were really fun and Jamie even revised her low opinion of Dublin. Dun-dun-dun... [ominous music cue]
To be continued.

Connemara and Kylemore Abbey

On Friday Star and her roommate Monique joined Jamie, Jessie, and I on a day trip to Connemara.  Taking a bus to a couple miles from Kylemore Abbey cost 14euro, but taking a bus tour to lots of places and right to the Abbey only cost 15euros, so we took the bus tour and it was well worth it. Along with great commentary and some crazy Irish music we got to stop off at some beautiful spots to enjoy the Connemara scenery.

The Connemara region is where a lot of Irish movies were filmed like The Quiet Man. (Which is now top of my list of movies I need to watch while I'm here, along with The Field and The Wind that Shakes the Barley because those have been recommended to me by Irish friends.)

Knocking on the Quiet Man's door 

In addition to sites from the film, such as the cottage and the bridge and other things I will appreciate much more once I've seen the films we saw breath taking Irish countryside.

The mountains are mostly barren and very rocky with lots of sheep wandering around.  Our bus driver said he has never hit one yet, even though he has had close calls since the sheep pretty much roam wherever they want.  The rocky landscape also means the super cute Connemara Ponies are quite sure-footed and great jumpers.

Kylemore Abbey was built by Mitchell Henry in the 1860s for his wife Margaret as a honeymoon gift. (Note to future husband: You are welcome to follow suit). It's right at the foot of the mountains with the lake and amazingly beautiful Irishness. There is a Victorian Walled Garden as well which has been restored in the past few years.  As cool as it was though, its well-trimmed-perfected-shaped-and-trimmed-ness was not really as charming as the basically-over-grown-and-very-enchanted-seeming-Rock-Close-garden-deal-at-Blarney-Castle.  In a lot of ways it captured more of the Henry's British roots than the local Irish charm. 

Still a really pretty garden, just not an overly Irish-looking one

When his wife Margaret died of Nile Fever while they were on a trip in Cairo, Mitchell Henry was heartbroken and built a Neo-Gothic chapel in her memory. It's a short (and beautiful) walk down the lake from the Castle-turned-Abbey. After a few generations in the 1920s the family sold Kylemore to Benedictine nuns who turned it into an Abbey and ran a school for girls for many years. Can I just point out how much I want to go to high school in a castle? In mountains! On a lake! In Ireland! In a castle!!! I might even consider becoming a nun if I got to live in a gorgeous abbey like this.

The nuns who took over at Kylemore were super hardcore. As in their abbey in Belgium was bombed and destroyed near the beginning of World War One the hard-core-Benedictine-nuns grabbed their few things and left on foot then walked for days until they bumped into some Red Cross workers who helped them get to England. Then they purchased Kylemore and began the school and tours.  It's a particularly wonderful place to tour when one has recently started watching Downton Abbey which is a particularly wonderful show.

My knee was doing its very best to communicate extreme dislike for me
so I'm slightly slanted in all of the photos from that day.

Kylemore Abbey and the Connemara were phenomenal and it was fun to see them while Jamie and Jessica were visiting, even if it lacked any cows to milk or hills to roll down (at least hills that were more grassy and less pure muddy). 

Aran Islands with Jamie and Jessie

After the semester in Rome with Thomas More sophomore year, I traveled around with Jamie. With her DK Eyewitness Travel Book for Europe and a little too much tuna we had great adventures.  Jamie (Lyn) and her sister Jessica went to Germany and then came to visit Ireland. I met them at the train station and we got fish and chips from McDonagh's (the bestest) and then we went for a pint and tried to find some Irish music.  Using my roommate's wonderful DK Eyewitness Travel Ireland book (I seriously love those things) we decided on visiting the Aran Islands the next day. 

     The ferry ride over was very bouncy though. Very very choppy. And the Dramamine was safely sitting at home still.  But hey, puking on Irish strangers/your friends/off the back of a boat is an experince everyone should have at least once right? I'm sure it is on some bucket list of things-to-do-when-traveling right? Right? No? Oh oops I must have been mistaken then...

     Anyway after our -ahem- adventurous ferry ride we made to the beautiful Aran Island of Inis Mor (Irish for the big island, oh so clever)  Renting bikes was almost entertainingly easy: we each paid the old Irishman 10euros and he handed us a bike. Then we left. That was it. No ID, no time it needed to be back, no helmets, no locks, no deposit, and there was nothing on the bikes to identify them as his. Although I suppose it is a small island so you couldn't go too far with them.

Took this impressively-not-crooked photo while riding a bike

Biking through the amazingly-Irish-and-very-beautiful scenery was great.  Although there were nearly as many hills as there were little stone walls. Which was a ton. It seems to me that Aran Islanders just enjoy building stone walls. The majority of them were too close together and too random shaped to be fields or yards, they seemed to have the same purpose as Frost's Mending Wall: just to be built. Peddling up the bizillionth hill with way-too-fast vans passing you on the wrong side was almost enough to make one reconsider the choice to bike instead of taking one of the van or bus tours.  It was actually really fun though.

Great soup and brown bread and tea and scones and a fireplace to boot!

We got a yummy lunch at an adorable cafe then found a tiny shop owned by an wonderful old Irish woman sitting behind the counter knitting away making a sweater. Jamie found a great hat-- in the same color as the Sarah Jessica Parker's hat from the lil ol' lady's shop, she was quite proud to tell us that Steven Spielberg had been one of her costumers as well.  She also had two very exciting pieces of information for us: that the ferry is always calmer going back the other direction and that there's another road closer the coast that is far less hilly. Excitement all around.

 Then we left the bikes at walked the rest of the way up to Dún Aonghasa, a stone fort that's thousands of years old.  Can't imagine that anyone would have ever dared to try taking that fort cause it's pretty well situated.  It's built right on the cliff so it's got stunning views of the cliffs and waves. The highest point of the cliffs is over 300 feet (But totally safe mom! Honest! No need to worry ^_^ Really...something like that) 

 We got some great photos (and were very very careful by the edge, don't worry).  It was a beautiful day (it barely rained on us as all and that's practically sunny in Irish terms). Because we stopped for lunch and at the knitting shop first we had the fort to ourselves once we got up there. Then we had plenty of time to bike back along the non-hilly-road and check out lots of Aran sweaters before the ferry left.

Jessie also played fetch with a RedBull can and this awesome sheepdog

The Aran Islands are definitely worth the trip, especially since the ferry, bus, and bikes didn't add up to cost very much.  Inis Mor is gorgeous and peaceful and very very Irish. I very much enjoyed it.