What's the Craic

Dublin, Ireland

So, it's been a little while since I last posted. Trust me: it's not from a lack of things to write about. Quite the opposite, in fact.

When I arrived back here in January, I had to finish a giant essay. It took a few weeks, but then it was done. I finally felt like I was an actual student.

This semester is way harder academically. I have three more essays to write, several presentations to give, and some field work to do in an "immigrant church" in Dublin. I also need to pick a topic for my thesis that's due in August. (If you've got any ideas, I'm all ears.)

Lots of reading, every day. I've been holing up in the Postgraduate Reading Room on campus, which is a beautiful wooden study room only for postgraduate students. It's open 24 hours a day, it has wi-fi, you can bring food inside, and the ambiance is really great for study parties.

All that reading means I'm learning a few things, so that's good. My classes are much better this term too. I'm sitting in on a few classes, just for the craic (fun), which is incredibly nerdy but also incredibly interesting. My four classes are Muslim-Christian relations, Buddhist-Christian relations, World Christianity, and Human Rights. The world is becoming a much more complex, and beautiful, place.

Ireland is also way more fun this semester. I've been hanging out with my friends from class a lot more. I love the people in my department. We just had a Valentine's Day party last night actually. Everyone has really come together here, making the most out of these last few months.

I miss home, I really miss Sarah, and I'm counting down the days til I can see her. On the other hand, the days seem like they're flying by. Is it really already mid-February?

So it finally happened. Our class had an invitation to the US Embassy for a panel discussion on Obama's first year in office, from an Irish perspective. We had to present ID and they checked it against a list of names. If you weren't on the list, you were out of luck. Then we went through security, the whole bit. When we got inside, there were maybe 150 people total.

I sat near the front, and there he was. Dan Rooney. US Ambassador Daniel M. Rooney. After the talk, which was great, I walked up to him, slowly, timidly, with Pip behind me, as if approaching a wild animal. He stopped talking to somebody, and I moved in. I introduced myself and said, I'm from Canonsburg. His eyes lit up. We talked about Pittsburgh in a room full of Irish people. In any other situation on Earth, he wouldn't have thought anything of me. But in that moment, he was as interested in me as I was about him. It was perfect.

I told him I was a lifelong Steelers fan, and he reached into his pocket and without saying a word gave me a Steelers pin. It was fantastic. I'm going to frame that thing, I think.

So that was the highlight of my life.

Last weekend, Pip's friend had a spare ticket to the rugby match between Ireland and Italy! Those tickets are like 75 euro, but I got to go for free! Croke Park was packed. Italian fans wearing blue clown wigs and shouting their national anthem, Irish fans waving flags and singing songs, drinking Guinness out of plastic cups. And the sport itself is actually insane.

Last Sunday, our class went to a pub to watch the Super Bowl. The place was filled past capacity. Everyone, no matter what country they were from, or if they knew the first thing about American football, was there to party. A lot of people were wearing football jerseys, or whatever sports jersey they could find.

As we were waiting to get into the pub, I was joking with the bouncer if there was a game on tonight or something. "It's just gay rugby," he said.

That night, an Irish guy who saw my Steelers jersey ran over and hugged me. Turned out he was a HUGE Penguins fan. He knew more historical player lineups than I do (granted, that's not saying all that much, but you get the idea). He pulled out his iPhone and showed me his background: it was the Pens logo. Random.

During the Super Bowl, people were cheering at the wrong times during different plays, because they didn't understand the rules, but they liked slow motion replays and long forward passes. "That's an incomplete pass, it doesn't count," I said, more than once. (They forgot that the ball can't touch the ground, like it can in rugby.) I can't tell you how many times I explained four downs, ten yards, hundred yards, twenty-yard lines, three points, six points, extra points, coaches challenges, two feet in, onside kicks, blah blah. It's not an easy sport to explain.

Pip and I have been hanging out a lot lately. Sometimes we get together to study — and sometimes, the opposite happens. Pip has a fireplace in his house, and the best thing to do is just sit with a book by the fire. There's a place up the road that is doing two-for-one fish and chips right now, so we've been taking advantage.

The other day we drove up to a pub in the mountains called Johnnie Fox's, which is apparently the highest pub in Ireland, and one of the most famous. Bill Clinton has been there, several celebrities, etc. It was built in 1798, and it looks like it hasn't changed since. Peat fires in the rooms, wooden bar stools and winding hallways and nooks, a sprinkling of sawdust on the floor, pots hanging from the ceiling, vines growing through the windows. No TVs, no radio, just live acoustic guitar.

On my birthday, the whole class went out to the pubs to listen to trad music, and then we ended up in a small pub with a backroom that was empty except for a little fireplace. We stayed there for hours. There were maybe 30 of us, including a couple of Pip's friends. One of them is an older guy named Fred. Fred lives on a barge and floats from lake to lake in the North. He doesn't have a car or a house. He comes down to Dublin from time to time, but usually he just lives on his barge, fishing, gathering sticks for fuel, drinking wine when he can find it. Talk about an interesting guy. I'm meeting him for coffee this Thursday when he's in Dublin again.

We've been going to Banker's Pub for their singer-songwriter sessions on Tuesday nights. It's a tiny, dark basement room beneath the pub filled with some of the most creative and talented musicians I've ever heard. Week after week we go back, and it's always different. That's where we met Jen Moore who went on the first Kilbaha trip.

The weather is cold, but usually no worse than 35 degrees or so. It dropped below freezing for a couple days, and everyone in the city ran their water taps overnight to prevent them from freezing, and so the next day Dublin had a severe water shortage. Thousands of people were without water, and our water pressure still hasn't recovered. It rains every day — how do they run out of water? So that's been fun to deal with.

On Tuesday some of us are driving up to Belfast to go to a talk and then spend the night in a hostel. That will be my first time in Belfast. I'll let you know how it goes! (I promise to write more!)