The Fota House, Arboretum, and Gardens; Barry Castle; the Ruins of Bowen's Court
Friday was our first out-of-city field trip for my early-start class in Literature. A few of us met for breakfast beforehand, as I had been craving waffles and just recently figured out where I could actually buy some. Afterward we met the enormous bus on a street big enough for it to fit, and a long day got underway.
I'd known it would be a few collective hours' bus ride by the time we traveled to and from every stop, so I had put some entertainment on my iPod: the latest episode of This American Life ("I've Got You Pegged") from the Chicago Public Radio website, and Barack Obama's acceptance of the democratic nomination. This last made me feel very political and popular when I began mentioning it to others, even though I'd intended to keep it a secret, afraid that in a surprisingly political group, it might make me look bad to have not gotten up to watch it late the night before.
Luckily for me, no one had, but they were all eager to hear it. No one had a splicer, so we just listened to it in pairs, one ear bud each, beginning with Meg and I. Barack's address commanded my attention, even as my first real vision of Irish countryside appeared beyond the bus window, bursts of visible pastures and hills choked with green, intermittent between the deep trees and other foliage that for the most part tightly bordered the narrow roads. Each time I got emotional, I looked over to find Meg also brushing a couple tears from beneath reddened eyes. I passed the iPod along to the next eager listeners feeling oddly patriotic, experiencing for the first time a general homesickness for my entire country, rather than only the tiny part I knew well.
Our first stop was a sixteenth century Irish castle, looming mostly windowless beyond a colorful garden. We were sorted into the second group of fifteen to tour the actual building, free to wander around the orchard and gardens until the time came. Apple trees bowing over beneath the burden of their own fruit reminded me of the apple trees of my family; the bitter unripe taste of a yellow apple even more so. I took some photographs of flowers against the half-blurred background of the castle stone that I was happy with, and then we assembled to file into the castle itself.
I like to forget the barbarism of medieval living, but examples of it were rampant in the rooms of the castle. Designed for defense - after all, as our tour guide reminded us, at this point in history the Irish were fighting the Irish, the Irish were fighting the English, and the English were fighting the English - it had many eerie architectual features. The one visible from the outside were narrow windows just large enough for an archer to aim from, and then just beyond the door she indicated the murder hallway, which basically meant openings in the ceiling permitted defensors to pour boiling water and rocks on the heads of those who actually made it past the door.
The dungeon was nothing but a lightless space accessible only through an opening near its ceiling, the method of entry to be thrown down, the method of exit to be towed up on a rope. "Stumble steps," each of a different depth and height, made charging upstairs with a drawn sword complicated. Only the Lord and Lady's chamber upstairs had the sense of grandeur I'd imagined in even small Irish castles, with large windows, a deep windowseat, tapestries on the walls.
Outside the neighbors' horses were grazing close to the fence. I tried to get them to come up to be petted, but they were preoccupied by the wealth of vivid grass available, and completely ignored me. I took their picture anyway, got back on the bus, and tried not to get carsick as our reckless bus driver plummeted around blind corners in the center of the road, only slowing down and shifting into an individual lane when faced with oncoming traffic. On the roads most heavily wooded on each side, it seemed we were rocketing down an emerald tunnel, the air interrupted ahead of us by the bus's coming so that limbs and long blades of grass bent back from the road in a ripple, within centimeters of brushing the bus, before settling back into place behind us. There was everywhere a mood of restfulness, of avoiding hurry, even when the driver applied a leaden foot to the accelerator.
The Fota House, beautifully restored, was actually the family's summer hunting lodge. Their much grander permanennt home was destroyed, like most homes of the Anglo-Irish ascendency class, by repressed Irish landsmen in the nineteenth century. Since then, patriots like our busdriver have been reluctant to buy up and preserve the "big houses" of this era - as he put it, they are symbols of English occupation. However, he seemed interested in wandering through Fota and watching the videos of the restoration. I got separated from my little group somehow, but didn't mind browsing through the Arboretum alone. The Fotas were similar to many of their class, it seems, in that they traveled widely and brought back tree and flower specimens for their gardens. The Arboretum was a maze of exotic trees, each wearing a tag that identified its species and place of origin. An hour wasn't long enough for me to even walk past every tree, let alone stop and take a few pictures. I had an inedible vegetarian option lunch that made the next and longest leg of the bus ride especially unpleasant, and then we were at our stop to see the grave of Elizabeth Bowen and the remains of her home.
I wanted to be receptive to the power of place, but the empty farmland had been recently harvested, leaving some kind of gold stalks rather than the green that might still have impressed me, and the current owner of the land had erected some metal hay sheds within the remaining walled area that was once the house's garden. The house itself was completely gone, though if you pawed carefully through the weeds and tall grass around what was its exterior wall, you could see some of the foundation and the undeground space of the basement and cellar. It looked like any plain Kansas farmland, except it had taken us forty-five minutes to drive there to see it.
The bus driver, Liam, and I talked about the changing agricultural lifestyle in Ireland. Thirty years ago, he said, a dairy farmer only needed fifty cows. Now he needs one hundred. The average size of a farm thirty years ago was sixty acres. Now some people own thousands. I told him it was like that where I was from, too, and then he rattled off more statistics that sounded legitimate and proved to me politics weren't the only aspect of my country about which the average Irish person knew more than me. Liam asked me if I had any Irish background - he told me my freckles were precisely similar to Irish freckles. I told him I had great grandparents from Scotland, some German on my father's side, but wasn't sure about anything else. He recommended a family tree web site. Every one, he told me, in an only slightly lecturing tone, should know where they come from.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Participant Observation
Or, Anthropological field notes
As many know, I was (very) briefly an Anthropology major, and during that time learned some of the lingo - one phrase being "participant observation," the - more or less undisputed - most effective form of truly understanding another culture. I better understand why this is so; the "armchair anthropologist" sitting at home with her books and travel channel would never pick up on the odd, easily forgotten indiscrepancies between the new culture and her own.
Here's one: The Irish and Spanish are the two groups that use cell phones most. This revealed during the library tour yesterday, when our guide indicated the numerous designated call areas around stairwells and entrances, his theory being that the average Irish person becomes anxious if s/he hasn't talked to someone in twenty consecutive minutes.
The Irish University's library also has a giant Finnish super computer to check books in automatically; a student scans her card, puts the book through a chute, and it is whisked away on a conveyor belt for sorting and reshelfing. The computer sorts, I believe, but does not reshelve.
Irish students don't reliably come to class, even though it is only a few days a week, according to my English professor. The consistent attendance of visiting students is one of their most endearing traits, as far as the faculty is concerned.
In Ireland dogs are not expected to be kept on leashes or necessarily in yards. They are very savvy about traffic and uninterested in strangers.
Irish young people are very political and very informed, and will inadvertently shame any American student who thinks herself moderately aware of the dynamics of the presidential campaign.
Today was beautiful, so I took some pictures! You can find them posted, I hope, in a few minutes. The sun was out and it was about 70 fahrenheit. I splurged on a slice of apple pie for breakfast, then read half the novel for my class on the grass with two of my classmates. Walks during breaks presented more photo ops, and a few varied locations to stop and read some more. We met an older gentleman fishing in the river that forms parts of the campus's boundary. We talked about the weather, the poor fishing in this spot, and he seemed pleased that I wanted to take his picture. As did another gentleman a few minutes later, walking his two Jack Russell Terriers off leash, pausing occasionally to pitch a small, heavy ball with some kind of bat. This, he explained, was hurling equiptment. There was one young, spry dog and one elderly dog, and the young dog rocketed after the ball with impressive speed each time, while the elderly dog loped stiffly after him. One began to pity the older dog, but while the young dog raced frantically about in the vicinity of the ball's landing place, nose to ground, twisting in eager circles, the old dog made his steady way to the exact spot, retrieving it wihtout fail.
My new and athletic friend Meg would like to try hurling, which sounds terrible to me. I do plan to sign up for the Mountaineering club, with vague aspirations still of giving the equestrian group a try. I was discouraged after finding on their website the news that their specialty is some kind of combined training for competitions that are one third show jumping, one third swimming, and one third running. The only athletic feat I can think of that I fail more miserably at than running would have to be swimming, so my enthusiasm is, to say the least, dampened.
In Ireland beer costs five euro, so partaking too heavily in the drinking culture could soon effect my overall budget. Luckily I'm eating cheaply by familiarizing myself with the available produce bargains and talking myself out of buying anything but coffee at restaurants.
In all, nothing too creative to report, only these practical details, and that this weekend I intend to kiss the Blarney stone.
As many know, I was (very) briefly an Anthropology major, and during that time learned some of the lingo - one phrase being "participant observation," the - more or less undisputed - most effective form of truly understanding another culture. I better understand why this is so; the "armchair anthropologist" sitting at home with her books and travel channel would never pick up on the odd, easily forgotten indiscrepancies between the new culture and her own.
Here's one: The Irish and Spanish are the two groups that use cell phones most. This revealed during the library tour yesterday, when our guide indicated the numerous designated call areas around stairwells and entrances, his theory being that the average Irish person becomes anxious if s/he hasn't talked to someone in twenty consecutive minutes.
The Irish University's library also has a giant Finnish super computer to check books in automatically; a student scans her card, puts the book through a chute, and it is whisked away on a conveyor belt for sorting and reshelfing. The computer sorts, I believe, but does not reshelve.
Irish students don't reliably come to class, even though it is only a few days a week, according to my English professor. The consistent attendance of visiting students is one of their most endearing traits, as far as the faculty is concerned.
In Ireland dogs are not expected to be kept on leashes or necessarily in yards. They are very savvy about traffic and uninterested in strangers.
Irish young people are very political and very informed, and will inadvertently shame any American student who thinks herself moderately aware of the dynamics of the presidential campaign.
Today was beautiful, so I took some pictures! You can find them posted, I hope, in a few minutes. The sun was out and it was about 70 fahrenheit. I splurged on a slice of apple pie for breakfast, then read half the novel for my class on the grass with two of my classmates. Walks during breaks presented more photo ops, and a few varied locations to stop and read some more. We met an older gentleman fishing in the river that forms parts of the campus's boundary. We talked about the weather, the poor fishing in this spot, and he seemed pleased that I wanted to take his picture. As did another gentleman a few minutes later, walking his two Jack Russell Terriers off leash, pausing occasionally to pitch a small, heavy ball with some kind of bat. This, he explained, was hurling equiptment. There was one young, spry dog and one elderly dog, and the young dog rocketed after the ball with impressive speed each time, while the elderly dog loped stiffly after him. One began to pity the older dog, but while the young dog raced frantically about in the vicinity of the ball's landing place, nose to ground, twisting in eager circles, the old dog made his steady way to the exact spot, retrieving it wihtout fail.
My new and athletic friend Meg would like to try hurling, which sounds terrible to me. I do plan to sign up for the Mountaineering club, with vague aspirations still of giving the equestrian group a try. I was discouraged after finding on their website the news that their specialty is some kind of combined training for competitions that are one third show jumping, one third swimming, and one third running. The only athletic feat I can think of that I fail more miserably at than running would have to be swimming, so my enthusiasm is, to say the least, dampened.
In Ireland beer costs five euro, so partaking too heavily in the drinking culture could soon effect my overall budget. Luckily I'm eating cheaply by familiarizing myself with the available produce bargains and talking myself out of buying anything but coffee at restaurants.
In all, nothing too creative to report, only these practical details, and that this weekend I intend to kiss the Blarney stone.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
A Day in the Life of a UCC Early-Start Student
You listen, yu look, you are served free food.
Class begins at 9:30 am. You are on time, despite lingering jet lag and a late night of "pub hopping." Your classroom has floor to ceiling windows with a view of half the city, the upward slope of this side of the bowl of the valley, including the thin street along the wharf that leads to your salmon-pink apartment building. Your professor arrives. She introduced herself at orientation and you already like her; no one here has to try very hard to charm you, the Irish accent alone goes a long way. She pronounces your last name correctly as she takes roll. She spends forty-five minutes reviewing the course description. You learn:
- You will have four "field trips" around Ireland and other activities. They include a trip to Inis Meain, a fishing village where the populace still speaks Gaelic primarily, where Irish writer Synge spent time more than one hundred years ago reflecting and writing. Your sole assignment during the three day trip will be to do the same - and eat what are apparently generous amounts of food. Travel expenses, accomodation and food are all provided during class excursions.
- You will see "Riverdance" and have dinner in Killarney.
- You will attend a dinner theater production of Waiting for Godot at a famous theater in Cork.
There is a break one hour after class commences - a coffee break, which is part of the class schedule. During this half hour you buy affordable coffee downstairs and chat with classmates. You agree that to take advantage of one-way free trips to Galway and Killarney, you should stay after the class trips end and spend the weekends exploring these areas on your own.
Back in "class," your professor gives you tourism advice. Ryanair, she discloses, often has one euro or one cent flights (plus about 20 euro tax) to fill seats on flights into Europe - Spain, Amsterdam, London - when you book them early. Travel begins to seem exciting and entirely possible. After fielding some questions she dismisses your class. You have your picture taken for your university ID, set up your UCC email, and wander around downtown with classmates before reconvening to see the city's art museum exhibits. Part of class today is dinner, so you are free to make selections from the 30 euro set menu at the restaurant across the street. You have delicious garlic baguette, some sort of bean-based entree (you are a vegetarian now) and tiramisu. "Early birds" on Mondays have the option of splitting a bottle of the house wine for five euro, so you partake. You are, after all, only going to live in Ireland once.
During the regular semester classes will be primarily Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with rare exceptions, which will make four day weekends a regular event. You realize as you do course research that you might be able to fit in a life science credit - all your Kansas University still requires of you before you are able to graduate.
You have had a very good day. Class until 11:30 am tomorrow and Thursday, and another field trip and meal Friday, and you will have completed your first week as an Irish student. Life is difficult.
Class begins at 9:30 am. You are on time, despite lingering jet lag and a late night of "pub hopping." Your classroom has floor to ceiling windows with a view of half the city, the upward slope of this side of the bowl of the valley, including the thin street along the wharf that leads to your salmon-pink apartment building. Your professor arrives. She introduced herself at orientation and you already like her; no one here has to try very hard to charm you, the Irish accent alone goes a long way. She pronounces your last name correctly as she takes roll. She spends forty-five minutes reviewing the course description. You learn:
- You will have four "field trips" around Ireland and other activities. They include a trip to Inis Meain, a fishing village where the populace still speaks Gaelic primarily, where Irish writer Synge spent time more than one hundred years ago reflecting and writing. Your sole assignment during the three day trip will be to do the same - and eat what are apparently generous amounts of food. Travel expenses, accomodation and food are all provided during class excursions.
- You will see "Riverdance" and have dinner in Killarney.
- You will attend a dinner theater production of Waiting for Godot at a famous theater in Cork.
There is a break one hour after class commences - a coffee break, which is part of the class schedule. During this half hour you buy affordable coffee downstairs and chat with classmates. You agree that to take advantage of one-way free trips to Galway and Killarney, you should stay after the class trips end and spend the weekends exploring these areas on your own.
Back in "class," your professor gives you tourism advice. Ryanair, she discloses, often has one euro or one cent flights (plus about 20 euro tax) to fill seats on flights into Europe - Spain, Amsterdam, London - when you book them early. Travel begins to seem exciting and entirely possible. After fielding some questions she dismisses your class. You have your picture taken for your university ID, set up your UCC email, and wander around downtown with classmates before reconvening to see the city's art museum exhibits. Part of class today is dinner, so you are free to make selections from the 30 euro set menu at the restaurant across the street. You have delicious garlic baguette, some sort of bean-based entree (you are a vegetarian now) and tiramisu. "Early birds" on Mondays have the option of splitting a bottle of the house wine for five euro, so you partake. You are, after all, only going to live in Ireland once.
During the regular semester classes will be primarily Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday with rare exceptions, which will make four day weekends a regular event. You realize as you do course research that you might be able to fit in a life science credit - all your Kansas University still requires of you before you are able to graduate.
You have had a very good day. Class until 11:30 am tomorrow and Thursday, and another field trip and meal Friday, and you will have completed your first week as an Irish student. Life is difficult.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
An Educational Weekend
Spent Cooking, Organizing, and Generally Familiarizing
When one arrives in Ireland, one is charmed by its winding, narrow streets, the lack of postal codes and building numbers, the way the tinny horns of compact cars sound at one another in momentary traffic jams at complicated intersections. Then one attempts to navigate oneself to destinations one has never visited before, and all of these previously endearing traits of the city begin to frustrate one.
I have never had much of a sense of direction, and that is, at times, all you've got to work with in Cork City. I'm sure this is true throughout the country. Street names and building names are the sole components of street addresses, but the buildings themselves do assign numbers to individual apartments. (My address, for example, is Rachel Sherck, apartment 7, Leeside Apartments, Bachelor's Quay, Cork, Ireland. Hint, hint.) Streets seem to have intended to form a grid of north/south and east/west inclination, but then got distracted and drifted about, sagging at the center, one end curling up like a tail. Luckily there are some "main" streets, and whenever I get lost, I just try to find the water and follow it back to my section of the Quays. The fact that the Leeside building is large and pink doesn't hurt, either.
Yesterday I woke up late, but ready to tackle grocery shopping. Megan from Massachusetts and I headed out at about two o'clock, and went to the fairly famous English Market, a covered market established about four hundred years ago by James I. Aside from being lovely and impressive, it offered pretty good bargains on fresh produce (mainly potatoes and onions, which are luckily what I needed). Vendors' stalls ranged from butchers, organic farmers, and herbalists to those with a more random assortment of wares: boxes of canned goods in one pile with apples, potatoes, jars of pickles, bottles of mustard, the odd individually wrapped hostess cake. I bought my potatoes and evaporated milk from an older gentleman who priced potatoes in four kilo increments and became frustrated when I tried to buy only four. He filled my bag up to meet the apparent weight minimum and collected my euros, then informed me he would throw in "two free cakes." My momentary excitement - this is a farmer! His wife probably baked cakes this morning! - dissipated instantly when he tossed two boxes of weight watchers cake slices into the paper bag and thrust it at me. Megan and I observed that the expiration date on their packaging was for the following day.
We also visited a book store, where I bought a notebook and some post-its, chiding myself for packing no school supplies. In the store's upper story where these supplies were shelved, back-to-school shopping seemed to be underway. I watched children with armloads of folders, fistfuls of watercolors and colorful pencils, and felt through all the other strangeness the warmth of familiarity.
It was raining, which should not have surprised us, when we came back out. I ducked my head and tried to shield my paper bag with my body. The potatoes were trying its weight capacity, and the bottom was already damp, so I held it with both hands and we rushed uncomfortably back to the building. There we both made soup, improvising considerably within our respective lists of ingredients. I made do without seasoned salt, or bacon, less because of its availability than because I had spontaneously become a vegetarian that morning.
I felt up to making phone calls home, which began with difficulty but concluded happily. With food in the refrigerator, I felt I'd really staked a serious claim.
Today we ventured out again, this time for "real" hot chocolate at a chocolate shop selling 99% cocoa dark chocolate bars the size of a human limb. Then we walked to a pub - the Raven - to watch the Cork versus Kerry gaelic football game. Gaelic football might actually be a sport I could enjoy watching, with the occasional interlude during which opponents shove and shout at one another or pitch the ball at an official. The teams were close in the first half, but in the second Kerry ran away with the game, and with a few minutes left the announcers were all but calling the result of the game. Then Cork thrilled the pub's entire populace with two late goals to win in overtime. Even we amateurs in the audience were caught up in the excitement.
Back at the apartments, I realized I'd gone through an entire day without experiencing anything but contentment and excitement for the weeks, the few short months, to come. I'm sure the homesickness will come again, probably sooner rather than later, but now that I've come through the other side of its cycle, at least I know it will pass, too.
When one arrives in Ireland, one is charmed by its winding, narrow streets, the lack of postal codes and building numbers, the way the tinny horns of compact cars sound at one another in momentary traffic jams at complicated intersections. Then one attempts to navigate oneself to destinations one has never visited before, and all of these previously endearing traits of the city begin to frustrate one.
I have never had much of a sense of direction, and that is, at times, all you've got to work with in Cork City. I'm sure this is true throughout the country. Street names and building names are the sole components of street addresses, but the buildings themselves do assign numbers to individual apartments. (My address, for example, is Rachel Sherck, apartment 7, Leeside Apartments, Bachelor's Quay, Cork, Ireland. Hint, hint.) Streets seem to have intended to form a grid of north/south and east/west inclination, but then got distracted and drifted about, sagging at the center, one end curling up like a tail. Luckily there are some "main" streets, and whenever I get lost, I just try to find the water and follow it back to my section of the Quays. The fact that the Leeside building is large and pink doesn't hurt, either.
Yesterday I woke up late, but ready to tackle grocery shopping. Megan from Massachusetts and I headed out at about two o'clock, and went to the fairly famous English Market, a covered market established about four hundred years ago by James I. Aside from being lovely and impressive, it offered pretty good bargains on fresh produce (mainly potatoes and onions, which are luckily what I needed). Vendors' stalls ranged from butchers, organic farmers, and herbalists to those with a more random assortment of wares: boxes of canned goods in one pile with apples, potatoes, jars of pickles, bottles of mustard, the odd individually wrapped hostess cake. I bought my potatoes and evaporated milk from an older gentleman who priced potatoes in four kilo increments and became frustrated when I tried to buy only four. He filled my bag up to meet the apparent weight minimum and collected my euros, then informed me he would throw in "two free cakes." My momentary excitement - this is a farmer! His wife probably baked cakes this morning! - dissipated instantly when he tossed two boxes of weight watchers cake slices into the paper bag and thrust it at me. Megan and I observed that the expiration date on their packaging was for the following day.
We also visited a book store, where I bought a notebook and some post-its, chiding myself for packing no school supplies. In the store's upper story where these supplies were shelved, back-to-school shopping seemed to be underway. I watched children with armloads of folders, fistfuls of watercolors and colorful pencils, and felt through all the other strangeness the warmth of familiarity.
It was raining, which should not have surprised us, when we came back out. I ducked my head and tried to shield my paper bag with my body. The potatoes were trying its weight capacity, and the bottom was already damp, so I held it with both hands and we rushed uncomfortably back to the building. There we both made soup, improvising considerably within our respective lists of ingredients. I made do without seasoned salt, or bacon, less because of its availability than because I had spontaneously become a vegetarian that morning.
I felt up to making phone calls home, which began with difficulty but concluded happily. With food in the refrigerator, I felt I'd really staked a serious claim.
Today we ventured out again, this time for "real" hot chocolate at a chocolate shop selling 99% cocoa dark chocolate bars the size of a human limb. Then we walked to a pub - the Raven - to watch the Cork versus Kerry gaelic football game. Gaelic football might actually be a sport I could enjoy watching, with the occasional interlude during which opponents shove and shout at one another or pitch the ball at an official. The teams were close in the first half, but in the second Kerry ran away with the game, and with a few minutes left the announcers were all but calling the result of the game. Then Cork thrilled the pub's entire populace with two late goals to win in overtime. Even we amateurs in the audience were caught up in the excitement.
Back at the apartments, I realized I'd gone through an entire day without experiencing anything but contentment and excitement for the weeks, the few short months, to come. I'm sure the homesickness will come again, probably sooner rather than later, but now that I've come through the other side of its cycle, at least I know it will pass, too.
Friday, August 22, 2008
The First (Whole) Day
During Which Ireland and I Come to an Understanding
I slept from 8:00 pm to 8:30 am and went to orientation yesterday morning. Orientation was scheduled to last the entire day, according to the itinerary-wielding girls also in my building with whom I walked over. We had left too late for coffee, so we just rowed up in folding chairs and were systematically welcomed to Cork by faculty and students alike. All of them had a sense of humor, and most had reasurring things to say. As opposed to my pre-departure session, the "Five Stages of Culture Shock" section of orientation fascinated me most. Here we all are - I thought, looking around - feeling the same way, which made me then feel small and silly and normal and finally a little bit at ease.
Our coordinator encouraged us not to worry about registering for our regular semester courses yet, only to relax, settle in and enjoy the city. She told us that we will find a lazaire fair academic attitude in Ireland, not like what we're used to. None of us seemed to know what she meant until she, and other professors, casually referenced the pub scene in combination with the likelihood we would all be too hungover to access information online the following day. That said, we were shuffled through our respective early start programs and registered as students with the University.
I remembered that I love studying literature when my professor-to-be summarized the course content: the role of landscape; the interaction between characters and setting.
Student representatives talked about clubs and societies, we were fed strange sandwiches and bottled water, and then warned that the immigration fees were now 250 euro, raised from 100, and that any one who had flown into a city other than Cork would likely have to pay them. When we walked home after the campus tour, I looked at my passport, and found I was stamped not through my stated departure date, but December 20th. I mentally thanked the polite officer for sparing me what sounded like a tricky process, as well as the considerable fee - not to mention the excuse to fly home before Christmas. What had ever made me want to do anything else?
Well; a place like the one I was beginning to see had, but I understood now that there was always going to be the draw of home and the appeal of Ireland working against one another, that life, typically, insists on providing only an imperfect happiness. And that a perfect happiness seems, aside from impossible, too uncomplicated to remain interesting for long.
The trek to the soccer game was long, but on the way I found things in common with another girl in the building: environmentalism (hers, unsurprisingly, outweighing mine as far as the ratio of practice and theory), a tendency toward shyness, and the desire to make soup as soon as possible and hopefully feed ourselves for days. At the stadium I spent far too many euro - 15 for admission, 1.50 for a diet coke, 3.50 for a cheeseburger, and 12 for a green Cork scarf. We cheered loudly, only somewhat intimidated by the fact none of us really knew the rules, the score wasn't displayed anywhere, and the frequency with which the "f word" was used truly boggled the mind. Probably the most surprising was the man two rows above us who clutched a toddler in one arm and shook his fist with the other, shouting the word of choice over her little blond head. She gazed about with the kind of unconcerned confusion I thought might be visible in my face, too.
Cork won, and mental score was actually easy to keep since the opponent never scored. In the regular student section, the assemblage cheered, booed, or sang the entire time. A part of me is still marveling at their lung capacity.
Afterward: tavern! Actually, a club, very crowded, that offered free admission and one free drink before 10:30. We filed in, and the bouncer halfheartly handled our American drivers' licenses to test their authenticity. Mine amused him. "Who's famous from Kansas?" he demanded. I could think of no one, not even - I'm sorry, Abilene! - Dwight Eisenhower. He went on: "Any astronauts?" Yes! I thought, but couldn't remember the Salina native's name.
I slept from 8:00 pm to 8:30 am and went to orientation yesterday morning. Orientation was scheduled to last the entire day, according to the itinerary-wielding girls also in my building with whom I walked over. We had left too late for coffee, so we just rowed up in folding chairs and were systematically welcomed to Cork by faculty and students alike. All of them had a sense of humor, and most had reasurring things to say. As opposed to my pre-departure session, the "Five Stages of Culture Shock" section of orientation fascinated me most. Here we all are - I thought, looking around - feeling the same way, which made me then feel small and silly and normal and finally a little bit at ease.
Our coordinator encouraged us not to worry about registering for our regular semester courses yet, only to relax, settle in and enjoy the city. She told us that we will find a lazaire fair academic attitude in Ireland, not like what we're used to. None of us seemed to know what she meant until she, and other professors, casually referenced the pub scene in combination with the likelihood we would all be too hungover to access information online the following day. That said, we were shuffled through our respective early start programs and registered as students with the University.
I remembered that I love studying literature when my professor-to-be summarized the course content: the role of landscape; the interaction between characters and setting.
Student representatives talked about clubs and societies, we were fed strange sandwiches and bottled water, and then warned that the immigration fees were now 250 euro, raised from 100, and that any one who had flown into a city other than Cork would likely have to pay them. When we walked home after the campus tour, I looked at my passport, and found I was stamped not through my stated departure date, but December 20th. I mentally thanked the polite officer for sparing me what sounded like a tricky process, as well as the considerable fee - not to mention the excuse to fly home before Christmas. What had ever made me want to do anything else?
Well; a place like the one I was beginning to see had, but I understood now that there was always going to be the draw of home and the appeal of Ireland working against one another, that life, typically, insists on providing only an imperfect happiness. And that a perfect happiness seems, aside from impossible, too uncomplicated to remain interesting for long.
The trek to the soccer game was long, but on the way I found things in common with another girl in the building: environmentalism (hers, unsurprisingly, outweighing mine as far as the ratio of practice and theory), a tendency toward shyness, and the desire to make soup as soon as possible and hopefully feed ourselves for days. At the stadium I spent far too many euro - 15 for admission, 1.50 for a diet coke, 3.50 for a cheeseburger, and 12 for a green Cork scarf. We cheered loudly, only somewhat intimidated by the fact none of us really knew the rules, the score wasn't displayed anywhere, and the frequency with which the "f word" was used truly boggled the mind. Probably the most surprising was the man two rows above us who clutched a toddler in one arm and shook his fist with the other, shouting the word of choice over her little blond head. She gazed about with the kind of unconcerned confusion I thought might be visible in my face, too.
Cork won, and mental score was actually easy to keep since the opponent never scored. In the regular student section, the assemblage cheered, booed, or sang the entire time. A part of me is still marveling at their lung capacity.
Afterward: tavern! Actually, a club, very crowded, that offered free admission and one free drink before 10:30. We filed in, and the bouncer halfheartly handled our American drivers' licenses to test their authenticity. Mine amused him. "Who's famous from Kansas?" he demanded. I could think of no one, not even - I'm sorry, Abilene! - Dwight Eisenhower. He went on: "Any astronauts?" Yes! I thought, but couldn't remember the Salina native's name.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Getting There
The Bus is a Mercedes Benz! and Other Observations
I am behind in packing and already emotional when dad shows up for the tiny percentage of my 4,000+ mile trip that is the drive to Kansas City. He distracts me with political debate on the way and we say our good byes at the American Airlines terminal, where I check in electronically and check my bag. I observe that flying is not the difficult thing it was made out to be.
Mom and Duane arrive to see me off, and naturally within exchanging ten words with my mother I am sobbing and very prepared to abandon the greater percentage of my wardrobe in check baggage and back out on the whole thing.
But I don't. Hug mom over the security rope, have my pocket knife confiscated, board the plane to Chicago.
At O'Hare I learn immediately that flying is exactly the difficult thing it is made out to be. I get off the plane and look tentatively around, soon to be rescued by a fellow passenger, a self-declared "old married guy" that claims to pose me no threat. I hadn't been worried about this until he brought it up, but he does guide me to the tram and the international terminal, talking nervously about his wife the whole time. I thank him, and then am heckled by rude security persons in customs. I now know that midwestern friendliness is most concentrated in Kansas, even the Missouri-infected parts, and does not extend to Chicago.
I take disorganized notes while waiting to board the plane. Make myself miserable reliving good byes, speculating about my chief worry: that there are those who might stop missing me.
British Airways involves a larger but no roomier cabin and leagues of multilingual stewards and stewardesses with matching red and black ties that charm me. I find that the interior of a cloud is bright and membraneous, like looking out from the deepest parts of a giant jellyfish. And even though I am not prone to sentimentality, I open my left hand as we pass, officially, over the lip of the United States and move over the Atlantic.
I watch Son of Rambow, listen to the playlist Pam assembled on my going-away-present iPod shuffle, miss Pam, turn it off. I read my Ireland travel book to rediscover my excitement, and I remind myself that this is the kind of thing that will make me the kind of person I go around saying I want to be.
Over Ireland I see nothing but the table of the clouds from above, and occasional signs of dark mottling that I think could be land but could just as easily be the light interacting with the clouds and my tired eyes. The multilingual army of stewards and stewardesses serve me delicious salmon over pasta, and I say that yes, I would like some wine with my dinner. Drinking it out of the plastic cup reminds me of my going away party and everything after - long sad silences with people I won't see for months, putting my tears into shirtfronts, frightening Joey by hugging him too tightly around the neck.
It is now August 21st in London, where I land in minutes. Heathrow is enormous and still there is no permanent gate for our plane. We passengers instead descend a stair car and wait on the enormous asphalt plain for a bus. It is cold and rainy but the weather feels good on my skin and in the deep breaths I draw in; I have been bottled for days by planes and airports. I try to see parts of London on the bus but all I can make out is the proud Mercedes Benz title emblazoned on the back of the driver's seat. I wonder if the company thinks this is good advertising.
Aer Lingus (which makes 22 daily flights from London to Ireland!) has green-uniformed stewardesses and several people I learn are studying at Cork, showing up today to be in orientation tomorrow. None are studying literature and most are from coastal colleges and smirk when I tell them I'm from Kansas. I'm impatient. I watch little Irish boys buy "gummy babies" from a vending machine. I wonder as they tear off smiling baby-shaped heads with their neat childrens' teeth why I find this so much more appalling than the familiar gummy bear.
The flight is quick and crowded and I sleep fitfully, waking in time to look down and see Ireland as promised, a network of green, its coasts a crust of painfully blue sea. The friendly man in customs asks how long I plan to stay, and I tell him I have a flight out the 12th of January, and he is surprised. Don't I want to be home for Christmas? Yes, I think. And can Christmas be tomorrow?
I don't want to dwell on this melancholy. I tell him maybe and he wishes me luck, calling me by my first name, and the friendly parts of me chilled over in Chicago and London begin to thaw. At baggage claim I heft my one checked bag off the belt and see that American Airlines attached a warning to baggage handlers to it: HEAVY. Bend Your Knees. A symbol demonstrates the technique.
I find a girl with whom to share a cab. The taxi driver zips along and I tense each time she veers to the left instead of the right to dodge oncoming traffic. The apartment I'm in, she tells me, is ideally located. I give her eight euro for my part of the fare and she calls me "love," and then I haul my stuff up the curb and into the place where I will live.
I am behind in packing and already emotional when dad shows up for the tiny percentage of my 4,000+ mile trip that is the drive to Kansas City. He distracts me with political debate on the way and we say our good byes at the American Airlines terminal, where I check in electronically and check my bag. I observe that flying is not the difficult thing it was made out to be.
Mom and Duane arrive to see me off, and naturally within exchanging ten words with my mother I am sobbing and very prepared to abandon the greater percentage of my wardrobe in check baggage and back out on the whole thing.
But I don't. Hug mom over the security rope, have my pocket knife confiscated, board the plane to Chicago.
At O'Hare I learn immediately that flying is exactly the difficult thing it is made out to be. I get off the plane and look tentatively around, soon to be rescued by a fellow passenger, a self-declared "old married guy" that claims to pose me no threat. I hadn't been worried about this until he brought it up, but he does guide me to the tram and the international terminal, talking nervously about his wife the whole time. I thank him, and then am heckled by rude security persons in customs. I now know that midwestern friendliness is most concentrated in Kansas, even the Missouri-infected parts, and does not extend to Chicago.
I take disorganized notes while waiting to board the plane. Make myself miserable reliving good byes, speculating about my chief worry: that there are those who might stop missing me.
British Airways involves a larger but no roomier cabin and leagues of multilingual stewards and stewardesses with matching red and black ties that charm me. I find that the interior of a cloud is bright and membraneous, like looking out from the deepest parts of a giant jellyfish. And even though I am not prone to sentimentality, I open my left hand as we pass, officially, over the lip of the United States and move over the Atlantic.
I watch Son of Rambow, listen to the playlist Pam assembled on my going-away-present iPod shuffle, miss Pam, turn it off. I read my Ireland travel book to rediscover my excitement, and I remind myself that this is the kind of thing that will make me the kind of person I go around saying I want to be.
Over Ireland I see nothing but the table of the clouds from above, and occasional signs of dark mottling that I think could be land but could just as easily be the light interacting with the clouds and my tired eyes. The multilingual army of stewards and stewardesses serve me delicious salmon over pasta, and I say that yes, I would like some wine with my dinner. Drinking it out of the plastic cup reminds me of my going away party and everything after - long sad silences with people I won't see for months, putting my tears into shirtfronts, frightening Joey by hugging him too tightly around the neck.
It is now August 21st in London, where I land in minutes. Heathrow is enormous and still there is no permanent gate for our plane. We passengers instead descend a stair car and wait on the enormous asphalt plain for a bus. It is cold and rainy but the weather feels good on my skin and in the deep breaths I draw in; I have been bottled for days by planes and airports. I try to see parts of London on the bus but all I can make out is the proud Mercedes Benz title emblazoned on the back of the driver's seat. I wonder if the company thinks this is good advertising.
Aer Lingus (which makes 22 daily flights from London to Ireland!) has green-uniformed stewardesses and several people I learn are studying at Cork, showing up today to be in orientation tomorrow. None are studying literature and most are from coastal colleges and smirk when I tell them I'm from Kansas. I'm impatient. I watch little Irish boys buy "gummy babies" from a vending machine. I wonder as they tear off smiling baby-shaped heads with their neat childrens' teeth why I find this so much more appalling than the familiar gummy bear.
The flight is quick and crowded and I sleep fitfully, waking in time to look down and see Ireland as promised, a network of green, its coasts a crust of painfully blue sea. The friendly man in customs asks how long I plan to stay, and I tell him I have a flight out the 12th of January, and he is surprised. Don't I want to be home for Christmas? Yes, I think. And can Christmas be tomorrow?
I don't want to dwell on this melancholy. I tell him maybe and he wishes me luck, calling me by my first name, and the friendly parts of me chilled over in Chicago and London begin to thaw. At baggage claim I heft my one checked bag off the belt and see that American Airlines attached a warning to baggage handlers to it: HEAVY. Bend Your Knees. A symbol demonstrates the technique.
I find a girl with whom to share a cab. The taxi driver zips along and I tense each time she veers to the left instead of the right to dodge oncoming traffic. The apartment I'm in, she tells me, is ideally located. I give her eight euro for my part of the fare and she calls me "love," and then I haul my stuff up the curb and into the place where I will live.
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