Spainless

Disclaimer: Amanda chided me for not posting. I told her I'm not doing anything interesting. She told me to make something up. I don't feel comfortable doing that, so while you can partially blame Amanda for this post, you can't blame her for its content, which, if she had her way, would be more interesting.

I am writing a paper about Seamus Heaney. He is a contemporary Irish Poet and very political. My teacher sees gender issues and sexual symbolism in everything he writes. As I have throughout my education, I won't disagree with an instructor's core beliefs about literature while writing a paper s/he will grade.

I watched a movie called P.S. I Love You, a romantic comedy set partially in Ireland. Great times!

I made spicy vegetarian stir fry and ate it over quinoa.

I bid farewell to my roommate, who's going to Paris for the weekend, and slept on the couch. Because I can do that when I have the apartment to myself.

So, in effect: read a Heaney poem, search for questionable phrasing that vaguely reminds you of a woman (even if the poem is about a potato patch), watch P.S. I Love You, sprinkle some cayenne pepper on your dinner and take a nap on the couch, and it'll be like you're right here with me.

Belgium!

Beautiful weather, lovely company, wonderful places!

The Grand Place in Brussels; we were lucky enough to see it just after its temporary installation was completed - the lights between the buildings are a project called "Convergence." Pretty, huh? Pictures don't do the effect justice.

The big tower in the main square in Bruges, as seen from the vicinity of the windmills, and part of the residential city's "skyline."

Flanders = Windmills! Here I am with beautiful new friend Megan.

Bruges again; one of its beautiful canal streets.

Brussels' military history museum and "Gates to the City," erected to celebrate 50 years of Belgian independence, early in the 20th century.

Belgian waffles! And photographic evidence of the versatility of French braids - two days, two hairstyles, one shower. :)

Our trip to Belgium was beautiful, relaxing, and passed without our seeing so much as a spot of rain - virtually unheard of in infamously overcast Brussels, especially. I achieved all of my goals for this trip: buy/eat chocolate, eat waffles, stroll through Bruges, order beer from a menu. I was also put at ease about the language barrier in European cities, which is really less like a barrier and more like a momentary and very small obstacle. Basically, someone greets you in French or Dutch; you express your lack of understanding in English; they patiently repeat themselves in English which is usually as good or better than yours. In Belgium most people speak not only English, but also their country's official languages of French and Dutch, with many speaking German as well. They make my struggle with a little bit of a second language seem laughable.

I love Belgians. There were dogs everywhere - especially in Bruges, where very contemporary department stores permitted dogs (on a leash) in any store. In Brussels we saw packs of off leash dogs following men who seemed homeless, carrying nothing but their heavy coats over their arms and a sack of dog food. Dogs swam in the public fountain at the park and trotted unattended up and down the sidewalks.

Bruges was particularly beautiful, quiet and sleepy, and our hostel experience there was excellent. Our rooms were very clean but also charming, the building was old but nicely maintained, with a bar on the first floor selling beer at a fraction of its cost in Ireland. There was a pretty good breakfast by the hostel standard, and we met some friendly Australians and even a Canadian. We tuckered ourselves out walking the city during the day and stayed in at night, none of us being the night life seekers of some of the girls in our larger group.

Brussels was a little more intense, and after a failed attempt to tour the city entirely on foot we opted for a hop-on / hop-off bus tour, which basically allowed us transportation from one sight toe the next with the flexibility to stay at one stop for as many half hour increments as we wished. It was sunny, but not especially warm, while we walked past thousand year old buildings and the perfect reflection of the sky in shallow park fountains. We lived entirely off of waffles, chocolate, and the occasional sandwich from a stand. The flight home was long, and we came in too late for any of the buses, so we had hired a taxi in advance. Split four ways the cost wasn't too enormous, but it was still outside of our budgets. With that in mind, I was glad that the entire trip was perfectly luxurious - taxi driver waiting with a sign by our terminal, car parked as close to the door as possible with two tires on the curb, a quick and direct journey back to Cork, deposited at our doorstep in Leeside.

It's always good to hear news from home, and everything I have been told has been pleasant. Amanda and I spent a few minutes on the phone trying to hear one another, she at a field trial in rural Kansas, me in my apartment in southern Ireland. Even though we only managed to exchange a few words, I still marveled at the capabilities of modern technology.

Yesterday was approximately my two month mark; only 60 days of European exploration remaining. In a week and a half I will see Kim, Rich, and Aunt Terry and Lee in Germany. I am so excited. I'm sure I'm going to get emotional when we see one another and embarass myself. In an effort to fit into the fashion world of Ireland, I've also purchased some brown suede boots that hit just below the knee and intend to wear them with opaque panty hose and dresses. I experimented with this in Belgium and liked the results.

Visit to Wildlife Park, and Pending Departure for Brussels

I prepare to set foot on International soil for only the second time in my life; layover at Heathrow notwithstanding

The internet in my apartment has set a new record for low connectivity. Oh dial-up, even you are a fond and distant memory relative to the internet access now at my disposal. It hasn't bothered me too much, really. I have been reading and writing diligently, taking solitary walks, and over the weekend spent almost four hours trying to perfect coconut macaroon pancakes with Hailey. (We failed, but it's the effort, I believe, that counts.)

I will spend only seven of the next 21 days in Ireland, and then it will be November, and I will have just a month left to spend in this amazing place. Figure in just a few of the trips I'm still determined to plan - Italy, Scotland, Austria - and time, I expect, will insist on flying.

I've been feeding a pregnant cat in the parking garage. She won't let me pet her but she looks out for me in the early evenings and runs to me, staying just out of reach, as soon as I acknowledge her. I feel terrible and awkward when I run into her empty handed at other times during the day, but she is leaving a little bit of the food I give her every time, so I think she's getting enough to eat. Stray animals are almost indistinguishable from pets here. Somehow they all manage to stay at a healthy weight. I think the only reason she's looking a little ragged is because she's eating for several. My friends are threatening to capture the kittens and smuggle them into their apartments when they arrive. I am hoping we can at least handle them enough to make them tame and find them homes before we go.

The weather persists in producing a sunny day for every few cloudy ones. And really, considering where we are, any break in the rain should please us. I find myself responding strangely to consecutive overcast days; my mood plummets, my feet drag. I think it is the contrast to the consistent sun of home, a place where a rain cloud is welcomed like a hero. Of course, that doesn't necessarily hold true these days, changing weather patterns being what they are. Has Kansas drained out and dried up again yet? I keep forgetting to ask when I call.

I have strange dreams: in some I'm back in Kansas, in many I have unexpected visitors here in Cork but have lost my keys and cannot manage to let them into my apartment, and in one I was volunteering at an organic farm in Spain and living in a commune. (This exists! Hailey told me about it.) It seems that the International student advisor's prediction will come true; I will be homesick for most of my stay, only to go back to the United States and experience the entire process of loss and adjustment again. To make it easier, though, I will be celebrating Christmas with all my favorite people and - if I have anything to say about it - won't let my dog out of my sight for at least 72 hours. Unless he wants to be out of my sight. I understand if he and Amanda have forged an unbreakable bond during this period of separation.

Horseback riding lessons might be impossible. I'd hoped to take the bus to the ferry and the ferry to Hop Island to take dressage lessons at the facility there, but after speaking to the management learned they don't have availability for Monday or Tuesday lessons, and, at least for the next three weeks, those are the only days I won't be on a bus to or from the airport or in another country. Hopefully I can make this work in November, but with the aforementioned trip plans in the forge, I can't be certain. I am feeling horse withdrawal pangs, but I must also admit that freedom from the responsibility and worry is welcome. Anyone want a very good deal on 1.5 tobiano mares?

I learn my sister is beginning her own adventure, and I hope hers has all the fun and none of the anxiety of mine.

Currently welcoming suggestions for sights to be seen in/around: Brussels and/or Bruges, Belgium; Madrid, Spain; Frankfurt and/or Bonn, Germany.

Wine & Cheese Event in Leeside 7

Pretty food, pretty clothes.

Our guests!


Our wine and chocolate! (I forgot the flash...)


Our food!

Anna and I hosted our ten closest visiting student friends for a culinary celebration, dressy attire highly recommended. (My own adherence to this recommendation, sadly, is undocumented - it was a very cute dress, though.)

Pictured: unfamiliar but delicious European candy bars in bite-size pieces; apples and pears paired with gorgonzola and blue cheeses; baked brie with raspberry preserves served with crackers; bruschetta (guess who?). Late arrivals included spinach quiche and samples of two unidentified cheese wedges (buyers lost their receipt) and one wedge of gouda.

It was the first time we had all been together since celebrating Katie's birthday more than a week before, so it was a good time. We all enjoyed putting together our respective dishes, ingredients mostly purchased at the English market, where the cheese vendors are generous with free samples to help buyers settle on something they like. Megan and I collaborated on the bruschetta, made this time with Chevre, the French variant of the Italian goat cheese I typically buy, and it was a very good and less expensive substitute.

The gathering marked one of the last times we will all be in Ireland simultaneously. Next Wednesday Megan, Hailey, Emily Kate and I leave for Belgium. We are spending one day in Brussells, two in the beautiful Bruges, and then returning for another night in Brussells before flying back to Ireland Sunday. I'll attend my two days of class, and then leave again Wednesday for my solo adventure in southern Spain. Again, I'll get back Sunday, there's no class Monday (National holiday!), I'll go to class Tuesday, then Wednesday leave for Germany! I am very excited to see Aunt Terry and potentially cousin Kim, and I'll have good company in Megan and Anna on the trip there and back.

Time has passed slowly over the past two weeks. I'm unaccustomed to this amount of spare time, after spending the last two years working multiple jobs, taking more classes than necessary, and participating in horse judging. While the lull is nice, it also gives me a little too much time and space for melancholia, a state in which I try very hard not to indulge myself. What I'm learning on this adventure is that I am essentially at home at, well, home. Though I feel I've adjusted well to the new routines, appreciate all the city life has to offer, and am passionately in love with the ambience and beauty of this country, I will be happy to be back in Kansas come December.

Week 1

Rachel [finally] attends "regular" classes.

After the end of the early start class, there was a one week break for English majors; literally, no regular classes were held. We had a session on Wednesday for visiting students in literature to learn more about finalizing our enrollment, and that was it. Which meant, naturally, that Monday classes were the stuff of typical first days: Here is a syllabus. I'll read it out loud to you. Now you can go.

I have never had a literature class taught in a lecture format before. I have had profs who lectured the entire class period even though they told us we would be discussing, but none of us liked them and we tried not to have class with them in any future semester. Now, I'm expected to be silent and absorb every word of a fifty-minute lecture when I'm accustomed to a little classroom chemistry interrupting the monotone of notes read aloud from an outline.

This basic difference aside, I found the material interesting. My classes are as follows: 18th Century Literature (Robinson Crusoe; The Female Quixote), Contemporary Irish Writing (Not sure yet, but so far just poetry), Traditional Irish Music, and Irish History for Visiting Students. Not a heavy load, by any means, but my month-long early start class will transfer back as two separate classes, leaving me with the equivalent of a 15 hour semester. I have my two literature classes Mondays and Tuesdays, and the music class and history class on Monday evening and Tuesday evening, respectively.

What have I done with my free time while patiently waiting classes to begin making demands upon me? Baked (soda bread and banana muffins), wandered (found a local coffeemaker, cozy coffee shops, more hole-in-the-wall pubs), read (found a great used book store AND got a library card), read (checked out the maximum six books from the library and am already on my second set of six), read (what can I say? I have all this time and when it's windy AND rainy I have to stay inside), read more (okay, so there are probably things unique to Ireland I could be doing. I can read books the rest of my life. I'm only here once. I'll work on it).

Those critical of my activities in the past two weeks will be pleased to know the Cork Folk Music Festival is this weekend, so I plan to get out and experience that, in part because I'm required to by my music class. My music class is incredibly low key. We show up and learn about how there is no sheet music in traditional music, and no distinct "songwriters," only set tunes that are "dressed up" by the individual performers. Randomly she will brandish an instrument to demonstrate (the Irish Flute and Irish Pipes so far; who knows what else she has in her arsenal). On my agenda for today: errand running to the four-corners of Cork, figuring out the Irish post office once and for all. Tomorrow: locate and figure out the stable the equestrian club uses for lessons and figure out whether I need my own equipment to ride there, and read Robinson Crusoe, also, at some point.

My next post will be a comparison of the attributes of European and American candy bars. We'd heard there was a distinct difference in quality, but is it true...?