Steel and Potatoes

The Wild East

2010-12-26T10:40:00.001-05:00

Armenia/Nagorno-Karabakh

Pip and I landed in Yerevan, Armenia on a hot summer night in June. A strange language filled the air; the airport billboards carried a script which seemed almost too foreign to be real. We stood in line at customs. When it was my turn, I walked up to the window and showed my passport.

Everything went wrong. I had an "E-Visa" to get into the country, and there was something wrong with their system, so it appeared I had no visa at all. Even worse, my passport was apparently too tattered and worn for them, and it had no microchip like newer American passports. Three or four border officers passed it around, looked at it under a black light, and called various agencies angrily in a language I could never hope to understand. It took an hour to finally get through customs, but we made it. Pip and I burst out of the airport into the night air. The faces of the people around us were dark and beautiful ...

Stop. What do you know about Armenia? If you were like us, not much.

Armenia is a tiny country in the Caucasus, east of Turkey, sandwiched between Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Iran. It is one of the world's oldest civilizations, with an ancient alphabet and ruins dating back to prehistoric times. Religion is central to every aspect of the Armenian identity. Armenia was the first nation in the world to officially adopt Christianity, in the year 301. (The region's Biblical history is far older than that. Noah's Ark is said to have come to rest on top of Mount Ararat, in what is traditional Armenian territory.) One of the four quarters in the Old City of Jerusalem, of immeasurable importance to three faiths, is called the Armenian Quarter.

It is a Christian country on the doorstep of the Middle East, and its location has always been problematic (or strategic) for its neighbors. The Mongols, Persians, Russians, and Ottomans all once staked claims in Armenia. Armenia was also a Soviet State, and Russian influence is still everywhere, from language to food to education to architecture. Today, Armenia is fully autonomous, though at great cost...

Our friends Armine and Seamus met us at the airport. Armine was BEYOND excited to show us her country. Our good friend Seamus from Dublin was there too. He had come to Armenia, independently, to do a photo documentary of some of the most remote villages in the former Soviet Union. When we found out that our trips to Armenia were lining up in parallel, as crazy as that sounds, we knew it was meant to be.

The four of us jumped in Armine's car and sped through the dark streets of Yerevan, through small neighborhoods of tiny houses crammed against each other in the capital's many twisting streets. Armine's family lives in a lovely house near the center of town. We parked and went inside and met her family. Her mom and dad greeted us so warmly, even though none of us could really understand each other. We offered our Irish whiskey and smoked salmon, and Armine's mom fed us delicious Armenian and Russian food. (Fresh grape leaves stuffed with ground meat. Incredible.) We sat in the warm night air, amongst the strange sounds of neighbors talking, insects buzzing, dogs barking, the trees in the yard blowing in the breeze, our candles flickering in the night. Seamus tried out his Russian, which he had been teaching himself for the past several months in preparation for this trip... but for Pip and me, we relied on hand gestures and on Armine, who was more than happy to help.

We had met Armine at the WSCF Conference in Berlin just months before, although we felt like we had known her for years. At the young age of 21, Armine already knows Armenian, Russian, German, French, and English, has started various non-government organizations in Armenia, plays piano perfectly, performs Armenian folk dance, and is one of Armenia's top parasailers (what??). Her family played an important role in the history of Armenia, and her father is very proud of his country. To hear him speak about Armenian history was fascinating.

We formulated a plan to see as much of the country as possible. The next day, we explored Yerevan. Armine drove us downtown, fearlessly (she was the only woman I saw driving on the road) and we walked around all the important sites. And most importantly, we stopped by the embassy of the Nagorno-Karabakh Region and registered for our visas to the disputed territory. By following a strict set of guidelines, and with special consideration and a bit of luck, we hoped our visas would be approved and we could enter a territory whose existence neither the United Nations nor any country in the world recognizes. (More on that in a moment.)

We drove everywhere. We explored the Garni Temple, a pagan temple that dates to around the year 1. We stopped at roadside huts for cool drinks, chatting with the villagers. We sat by a running stream and ate delicious homemade kebabs for lunch. The hills were a beautiful green, with large mountains rising in the distance, and beautiful fields of wildflowers amidst the desert. Everywhere the roads were terrible. The drivers were worse, passing us by, squealing their breaks around the many twists and turns up and down the mountainsides. The little villages dotted the mountain slopes, and as we would enter them, we'd see the people of Armenia: farmers leading their donkeys carrying a pile of hay; children playing on the side of the road; old ladies working in the fields; young men fixing their cars. The vibrancy of those villages is something I can never forget. But it was just the beginning.

Each day we were in Armenia, we went to at least two churches. Since I could never hope to do each the justice it deserves, these photos are from just some of the churches we went into. We explored churches on the tops of mountains, or monasteries hidden at the end of long valleys, or churches literally carved into the rock so that their entire interior was just one elaborate sculpture. And the churches were ancient, reflecting a deep, ever-constant reverence, centuries old.

The official Church of Armenia is called the Armenian Apostolic Church (rather than Armenian Orthodox) because it was founded by an apostle. It broke away from Constantinople in 554, after rejecting the Council of Chalcedon. The Church is very traditionally-minded. Things rarely change. For instance, the Armenian Apostolic Church hasn't canonized a saint in centuries because its instructions for the rite of canonization were destroyed and have been lost to history; thus they believe the rite cannot take place. The alphabet in Armenia, which looks like this:

is based on the Christian cross. Look at each letter and you can see that at its root is the cross.

The architecture in Yerevan alternates between the crumbling concrete slabs of Soviet high-rises, the shoddy modern construction of the recent real estate boom (and bust), and the ancient beauty of a very unique Middle-Eastern-European hybrid unseen anywhere in the world. The oldest buildings are made of a unique pink stone that seems to glisten in the sun. Foreign investment is a rarity -- there are actually no McDonald's in Armenia. Armenians have spent the last twenty years rediscovering their lost national identity, and it has been with many successes and failures. On the whole, the country is energetic and optimistic. "Yerevan is full of the promise."

But the true spirit of Armenia is far outside the city of Yerevan, in a place that almost defies description.

Our new visas were approved and, at 6 in the morning, the four of us hired a taxi to take us deep into the hills of southern Armenia. At first, we drove toward Mount Ararat in Turkey, on a wide, four-lane modern highway. But as time went on, the road turned to a single lane in each direction, and then finally to dirt. This was the road to the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armine said the road was intentionally left in disrepair in order to slow down a potential tank invasion from Azerbaijan.

Our driver was a rough man, who spoke no English, and his Armenian was of the Karabakh dialect, which meant that even Armine had a hard time understanding. He drove like a maniac. We stopped here and there in tiny villages for roadside food or homemade wine. The villagers smiled and laughed, amazed to see us in that place, especially Pip with his long hair and shorts. Our driver allowed us to pull over to take photos of beautiful mountaintops, or to go inside the tiny churches and monasteries scattered throughout the small country. We would walk into the courtyard, slowly approaching the church, admiring the beautiful architecture, the sculptures, the ancient buildings. And our taxi driver would follow us from behind, smoking a cigarette silently. But when we would enter the churches, he would come inside too, cross himself, and say a quiet prayer. Armine would put a veil over her head and approach the altar and bow with such reverence. Pip, Seamus and I were in awe.

As our taxi inched closer and closer to the border, the little villages became sparser. The road was now nothing but potholes, no lines, no signs, no guardrails. Shepherds leading a flock of sheep would often take up the whole road, and we'd veer off into the brush to get around. Sometimes, the shepherd would gaze down at us from the top of his donkey, and smile. Everyone was always smiling. Sometimes a cow would wander across the road in front of our car, and our driver would slam on the brakes. Then the children in the street would laugh.

Our car was an old white Lada, the standard government-issue car in the USSR. Very few other cars would be able to handle the roads, and besides heavy trucks traveling to and from Iran, there were almost no other motor vehicles on the road.

The roads were so bad, in fact, that we ended up getting a flat tire. We stopped in Goris, a small town in the mountains near the border, where we waited for an hour to switch cars. We wandered around the town for awhile to explore and take photos. Seamus was in his element, capturing the streets in his camera: smiling children, old women on their porches, old men playing backgammon. It was just starting to rain as we got in our new Lada and made our way into the foggy mountains. We were going to take a detour to visit the Tatev Monastery.

Tatev contains the soul of the Armenian people. To understand Tatev, you have to come face to face with one of the darkest moments in human history.

The Armenian Genocide was the first deliberate, systematic, ethnic-cleansing of the 20th-century. Over a million Armenians perished, out of a total population of just a few million. Throughout the ninety-five years since the event, Turkey has refused to acknowledge the event as a "genocide" but has instead claimed those deaths were the unfortunate result of civil war. Today in Turkey, it is a crime to affirm one's belief that the Ottomans conducted a deliberate genocide. However, all you have to do is visit Armenia, hear the stories, see the mass graves. Many world governments have refused to acknowledge the truth, but the facts are terrifyingly clear: it was a genocide, which the United States and the UK, in an effort to maintain close relations with Turkey, refuse to fully acknowledge to this day.

All countries must recognize the genocide of the Armenian people so that nothing like this can ever happen again.

Accordingly, I have placed my death-head formations in readiness — for the present only in the East — with orders to them to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language. Only thus shall we gain the living space which we need. Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians? - Adolf Hitler, 1939

The Tatev Monastery is so sacred to Armenians because it was the site of one of the most tragic events of the Armenian Genocide. This is the story Armine told us, as our car weaved slowly up the worn path, to the top of the mountain, to Tatev:

As the Ottoman army was approaching the monastery, hidden deep in the mountains of southern Armenia, all the villagers from the nearby villages made their way to the top of the mountain, to the monastery, begging to be let inside. But the monastery was too small to accommodate the many thousands seeking refuge.

The Ottoman army arrived and the general stepped forward. One of the monks came out to meet him and beg for the lives of the villagers, mostly women and children whose men had already died. The general was unbending. Slavery was the only option, and after suffering years of genocide, everyone knew what that meant.

The monk struck a deal: Take whomever cannot fit inside the monastery walls, but you must spare those who step inside. The Ottoman general laughed, knowing that only a few dozen would be saved. Still, the monk was insistent. Finally the general agreed. All who who could fit inside the monastery walls would be spared.

One by one, the villagers entered the walls of the monastery -- and one by one they leaped over the edge of the cliff. No single Armenian was taken prisoner. Tatev means "giving wings" in Armenian. To this day, the event is remembered, not as another massacre, but as a moment of incredible empowerment, because it was on that day that the Armenian martyrs became angels.

We walked around the Tatev monastery, high up inside the clouds. The rain was just rolling in as we explored the silent hallways and rooftops. A group of children was playing around a tree in the courtyard, their mothers sitting on stones as they listened attentively to a monk whose stories made them all laugh. Of course, somehow Armine knew one of the monks, a friendly, bearded man who knew no English but answered our questions with eagerness and joy. He showed us a secret passage that the priests used to come and go from the basement, down to the villages in the valley. It started to rain again, and we huddled under an old stone awning... the children ran after a ball in circles around the courtyard. We left that place in awed silence.

Do yourself a favor and listen to this song. It is a traditional melody from Nagorno-Karabakh. Imagine the four of us listening to it, as we thundered across the open road in the midst of the most incredible natural beauty we had ever seen.

We stopped by some natural hot springs in the forest, and Pip took a quick dip. The taxi driver was less than happy when Pip jumped back into the car soaking wet. (Pip and his little dog have so much in common.)

Now we were getting close to Nagorno-Karabakh. We passed a small, unsuspecting sign that said, "Welcome to Free Karabakh." That meant we had just entered territorial Azerbaijan. The land suddenly became vast and empty. Our road wound round and round until finally we reached the border. Our taxi driver pulled over, collected our passports, and began our plea to cross into Nagorno-Karabakh. Despite having driven for an entire day, one whimsical guard or hint of suspicious activity could send us all the way back to Yerevan. And, of course, there was a problem. Somehow we hadn't brought all the paperwork we needed. The men began yelling and pointing angrily. Armine jumped out of the car and ran over. She pleaded to the guard to let us pass. She cried and begged for him to understand. ...How could he say no? He let us in.

Nagorno-Karabakh has no diplomatic relations with any other state. There are no embassies in Nagorno-Karabakh. There are no US consular services. If you get arrested in Nagorno-Karbakh, Jimmy Carter isn't going to come save you. It is a territory with no official recognition by the UN. Only Transnistria recognizes its sovereignty (and Transnistria isn't recognized either).

But it is gorgeous. The one winding road made its way laboriously, patiently, around the mountainsides. The beauty of the valley laid out far below. The thickest forests I've ever seen. No trace of human settlement for miles and miles. Even the road had been mostly overtaken by nature. Alongside every hairpin turn was a steel tank block that could be pushed onto the road to prevent the Azerbaijanis from moving in.

And just like that, on the radio we heard that several Armenian soldiers had been killed by sniper fire in the mountains of Nagorno-Karabakh, by the Azeri army. The taxi driver, who had driven in silence for hours, spoke with sudden intensity. Armine gasped and explained what happened. Minutes later, an ambulance flanked by military vehicles sped past us, back toward Yerevan. The taxi driver crossed himself, and Armine began to cry. Now known as the June skirmish, the incident became one of the most tense moments in years between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Pip, Seamus and I began to realize the tragedy of Nagorno-Karbakh. Azeri snipers still dot the mountains, firing on whatever moves, as Armenians continue to mobilize their military in the region... It's all just another part of the dark history of this troubled region.

We drove for what seemed like hours to reach the town of Sushi, twisting and turning, sitting now mostly in silence. When we finally got to the town, we got out and said goodbye to our taxi driver. The fee was just a few US dollars per person, even for an entire day's drive. We gave him a generous tip for showing us so much... and he refused it! We had to force him to take the money! Where else in the world does that happen?

We stayed in the only hotel in Sushi. The owner couldn't believe his luck. It was a new hotel, built out of the rubble of the town after the incredibly destructive war against Azerbaijan in 1992. The Azeris used the mountain town of Sushi as a launching-ground for bombing the capital city of Stepanakert in the valley below. Most of the town still lay in ruins, except for this modest hotel. The owner made us tea and food, allowed us to use the piano, let us use his computer, and waited on us hand and foot. We soon discovered we were the only guests there.

We explored the town that night, walking the dark streets. Everything was empty. An eeriness was on every street corner. The bombed out shells of buildings sat alone, hollow and quiet in the shadows. One or two cars drove by, slowing as they passed by with curiosity. No shops were open. No shops seemed to even exist. Such a strange place.

Back in the hotel, there were no TV stations we could find, except a very fuzzy broadcast of some folk music on Iranian TV.

Armine's friend lives in Nagorno-Karabakh in the larger capital city of Stepanakert. Armine contacted him, and he couldn't be more excited to have visitors. He sent a friend to pick us up and show us around the country. We drove far out into the countryside, exploring little towns, the ruins of others, and the reconstruction efforts that seemed underway in almost every corner of the country. One place we went to was totally devastated. We got out of the car in the middle of a mine field, and took pictures of the vast wasteland. Soviet tanks were flipped on their sides, blown apart by explosions twenty years ago. In the hazy distance was Azerbaijan, not more than a few miles from where we stood.

Our driver was friendly and helpful, though he knew no English. (I wish I could remember his name.) Having a local driver is critical here. One wrong turn and you could wind up blown apart by a mine, or face-to-face with the entire Azerbaijani army. Nagorno-Karabakh has the second-largest concentration of landmines in the world, second to Afghanistan. Many people today are still affected by the conflict: Armine found out that our driver's brother was killed by a landmine while they were playing together as children.

We stopped at a tiny, open-air museum in the desert, near the Azerbaijani border. Built on the site of an archeological dig, the museum had just opened weeks before, and we were the first non-Armenian visitors. Our tour guide spoke a little English, and he was very excited to show us every exhibit. Afterward he insisted that we sit and have a homemade lunch with him and his family. We sat in the shade and ate the famous Armenian flatbread (called lavash) that is served with every meal.

After lunch (and since there were no other visitors, of course) the guide led us outside the museum and alongside a small stream. Springs are very important in the Armenian world. At the base of each spring is always an inscription, sometimes centuries old, with Armenian letters, dedicated to some famous figure or local hero. Here we sat beside the ruins of an Azeri smokehouse, where Azeris used to smoke hookah in the little oasis beside the spring. Now the smokehouse was covered with Christian graffiti.

Our tour guide had served in the military, he told us as he leaned on a rock, soaking his feet in the water. Between puffs of his cigarette, he boasted proudly of the number of times he had been shot, and about how the Armenians shouldn't stop until they push all the Azeris into the sea. He labeled the Azeris, and all Muslims, as dogs. He laughed in a very simple and flippant way, as one who lives under the constant but steady threat of war, and whose moral code is understood only in polarizing black and white... it was all too much for me. We decided to leave our host and move on. Armine was ashamed of the whole episode, and she explained that this sort of militant nationalism was actually detrimental to the Armenian cause. Still, I wondered whose justifications for Armenian statehood were more common among the general public.

We drove on. Nearby beside the road was an ancient Azeri cemetery, with Turkish engravings in dark stone. Armine explained: When the Armenians regained this territory, they had allowed the Muslim cemeteries to remain intact. When the Azeris controlled the area, they had destroyed every last Christian cemetery. Still, the words of the tour guide were so contradictory to this decency. Morality is never black and white.

We drove to Stepanakert where we finally met Armine's friend, Marat. He owned a new coffee shop in Stepanakert in a bustling downtown area with shops and restaurants that seemed to be in the midst of being built. Marat generously ordered us lattes and asked us in English how we liked his country. Then he told us that he had made arrangements for us to stay the night with a friend in a small village outside the city. No way!!

We soon found ourselves in another car, bumping up and down the dirt roads leading into the center of a small village near Stepanakert. Pip, Seamus, Armine, Marat and I drove into the village at twilight. The car couldn't make it all the way, so we walked up the hill the rest of the way until we arrived at the house. We were staying at a friend's grandmother's house who had passed away. The friend joined us as well, and we met him excitedly as he showed us around the place. He gave us some containers to take to the well to fetch water for the evening. He set up some candles, and then boiled some water on the fire to make traditional Karabakh tea from herbs he collected in the mountains. WHAT.

We spent the twilight walking around the village, watching people as they watched us, taking photos of smiling old men and women, a group of children playing volleyball beside a bombed-away building, each of whom wanted us to take their photo, and the many cows, mules and dogs that seemed to follow us everywhere we walked. We made our way to the top of the hill, and were surprised to find a military base there. "No photos," Marat told us. We tensed up as our friend walked up to the gate and asked the guard for his brother. I have never before wanted to take a photo as badly as that one: the evening light just catching the tired look on that young man's face, as he stood there in his military garb inside his ramshackle guard post, rifle over one shoulder, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, slowly dialing the old Soviet rotary alarm. It sounded over a wire at the barracks to summon the soldier to the front gate.

A new cemetery was there too. Our friend's father had been killed during the war with Azerbaijan, when he was so young. His photo on the tombstone looked as recent as one taken that day, and it became clear to me that the war wasn't that long ago. (Armine had mentioned that as a child, she remembered waiting in line for hours for bread, only to find that it was gone when it was her family's turn. She's 21.)

It rained that night and we ran into the streets to photograph a group of cows that were on their way home from the fields, as an old woman hurried them along the street. I fell asleep transformed.

The next morning we woke up and washed ourselves in the community spring. A little old lady walked slowly over to us and smiled, carrying a bar of soap and a towel. After a picnic in the hills, we made our way back to Yerevan by another taxi. It was another 12-hour ride, stopping everywhere we could. When we arrived in Yerevan, we had only one more day before I had to begin my journey back to the US. (Pip and Seamus would stay on in Armenia for another week or two to take photos.)

Yerevan's old market was my favorite part of that entire city. We spent the last day at Lake Sevan up in the mountains. There's just too much to tell. What a fantastic country.

Armine's family was so incredibly hospitable to host the three of us for all those days. Thanks so much, guys! You are welcome to stay in Pittsburgh anytime!

My many flights back to Dublin began with a flight out of Tbilisi, Georgia. I had planned to travel the last day to Georgia alone, but my friends wouldn't have it. They wanted to come, for more adventures (of course) and to see me off. We all had a sense that this had been one of the greatest trips of our entire lives, and we didn't want it to end. Pip, Seamus, Armine and I joined our friend Ripso (whom we had met in Kiev at the WSCF, who was also from Armenia and also a close friend of Armine's) and we took a taxi-bus on the long journey to Georgia.

Back in the USSR

2010-10-15T13:28:00.006-04:00

Kiev, Ukraine

It was the beginning of June. Back home in Pennsylvania, my Masters thesis was coming along great. I was reading, holing up in coffee shops, conducting interviews, and all around being generally productive. What I needed was a distraction. What I needed was Pip.

My Irish friends Pip and John had organized a trip to the World Student Christian Federation Conference in Kiev, Ukraine. There was some funding available for us to travel there. After the last conference in Berlin (which had been nothing short of life-changing) there was no way I could miss it. Even if that meant flying all the way back to Europe and spending my last pennies on budget flights and student hostels. We planned a three-week trip, with a week in Kiev, and then nine days in Armenia (!) to visit friends. I guess if you're going to do it, do it right.

It was a reunion in Dublin to see all my friends again. We spent a day and a night catching up, filling every hour with pubs, Irish food, an arts festival in Dun Laoghaire, football, and a late-night walk through Dublin, while reminiscing about our past year. I love all those guys, and I am going to miss every one of them. (Come to Pittsburgh!)

Kiev is the capital of Ukraine and one of the most important cultural centers in Eastern Europe. It was once the third largest city in the Soviet Union. Situated in the north-central heartland of Ukraine, it lies in the middle of the bread-basket of Europe. As we flew over the country and its endless miles of farms stretching to the horizon, it was as if we were flying over Iowa.

We got off the plane and stepped out into the intense heatwave that had devastated Ukraine that summer. It was well over 100 degrees. As we crowded through the sweltering airport, and stood neck and neck in security for over two hours, Pip and John melted, their cold-blooded Irish sensibilities nearly doing them in. We changed our money at the airport, and tried to interpret the directions we had printed out to get to the conference compound. Cyrillic letters confounded us; strange words transliterated into English were little better. We tried to stay positive as we made our way blindly onto public transport with absolutely no hint of Ukrainian or Russian between us. The bus took us another hour into the center of Kiev, as we stared mile after mile at gray, concrete apartment complexes.

We spotted two young-looking people a few seats up, also staring perplexedly at what looked like a printout from the WSCF. We hoped they spoke English and tapped them on the shoulder. (They spoke it brilliantly.) They turned out to be Andrei and Andreea from Romania, and they would become our fellow nomads that night.

We took the rickety, old Soviet-era metro underground from station to station, until we finally found the train to take us to a bus stop above ground, on the edge of the city. From there we waited. And waited. We expected the right bus to come, but it didn't. The minutes became hours as we laid out on the hot sidewalk, strange people brushing past, the evening turning to night. There was no sense asking for directions: no one spoke English, and we didn't even have the proper address to ask for. With no working cell phones, we camped out, waiting for the bus that never came.

That's when Nadia arrived. She was lost too, but she could manage a little bit of Ukrainian. Nadia is from Bulgaria and is studying in the US, and even though she had never formally learned Russian or Ukrainian, she was able to basically mold together her own Slavic language based on words common to them all. In a few minutes we had two taxis come pick us up.

Of course our taxi drivers got lost. In the thick forest outside Kiev, they made countless u-turns and asked for directions from neighbors. There was much yelling as we drove deeper into more remote and empty streets. But finally... we made it. We walked into the gates of the concrete Soviet-era compound, in the middle of a forest. It was the former site of an orphanage -- gray, utilitarian, imposing. Where were we?? As we walked through the courtyard, we greeted students who were scattered around the courtyard, sitting in small groups, playing guitar, drinking Ukrainian beers, singing songs.

The World Student Christian Federation is so meaningful to me because it brings together people from both Western and Eastern Europe -- from Northern Irish Protestants to Georgian Eastern Orthodox -- to learn and worship together. The WSCF doesn't favor any particular version of Christianity; instead, it maintains that the study of ecumenism is central to helping students learn how different traditions come to God, on a historical and personal level.

The students are brilliant. Probably about fifty languages were represented. At this conference there were thirty of us or so, from Ireland, Scotland, England, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Armenia, Georgia, Greece, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, and the Netherlands. We spent the days listening to lectures, sharing stories, talking theology. When the concrete hallways would get too stuffy, we would sit outside in the shade of the trees on the broken concrete -- you could sometimes smell Ukrainian food drifting from the neighborhoods nearby.

We talked about how the Eucharist was understood in each of our traditions. The Orthodox students often took their Church's conservative standpoint, often unbending and uncompromising, whereas the Western students sometimes sacrificed doctrinal certainty for a sense of inclusiveness. No matter who was contributing, however, the level of personal devotion was staggering; these traditions were ancient, but they were so so important to them all. As the days went on, it was as if centuries of European history were unfolding in our conversations, in an insanely complicated mix of nationality, ethnicity and religion. I learned so much.

Each day, we left our remote neighborhood on the outskirts of Kiev. Dirt roads crisscrossed old trolley lines, and there were the remains of buildings that had been overcome by the forest. Beautiful little Ukrainian Orthodox churches seemed set in the strangest places (we went inside one of them for liturgy). The neighborhood shop had candy and dried fish behind a glass counter, and the entire back room was filled with warm beer and Ukrainian vodka (the best vodka in the world, they say).

As my Polish friend put it, our accommodation wasn't post-Soviet, it was Soviet. We stayed in concrete dorm rooms. Our toilet didn't flush the entire time we were there, and the shower was nothing more than a hose with a drain in middle of the floor. At night we slept with the windows open to stay cool, and we could hear stray dogs howling outside. I loved it.

We went on a few excursions to the center of Kiev, via the old trolley line. Kiev is giant, and mostly beautiful. The problem is, most of what you see has been reconstructed. All of the churches in Kiev were destroyed by Stalin under the guise of state-sponsored atheism, and most of everything else was wiped out in the War. Regardless, the beauty of these churches was phenomenal. Our tour of Kiev moved from the historic district on the western bank, past government buildings, inside churches, and up an old funicular to a mountaintop lookout over the river.

Everywhere you step in Kiev, you can feel the chill of communism. There are still statues dedicated to Stalin, or Soviet-inspired soulless architecture, or common exercise areas, or monuments to Russian heroes. Russian as a language, in fact, is everywhere, along with the ever-present stigma that comes with speaking Russian in Ukraine. Interestingly Russian was the second language of the conference: when groups of Orthodox students were by themselves, they switched to Russian. But my Belarusian friend asked someone on the street for directions in Belarusian (which is only vaguely comprehensible to a Ukrainian) rather than in Russian (which every Ukrainian knows), just so they wouldn't flat-out ignore him.

The animosity stretches back a long long time. My knowledge of Soviet history was so bad. I had no idea about the forced starvation of Ukraine, a campaign by the Soviets that killed 11.4 million Ukrainians during peacetime. For several years, Ukrainian farmers were forced on threat of death to send all their harvest to Russia. We went to a museum dedicated to the Holodomor, as they call it, and it was chilling.

And of course there was Chernobyl, which happened not more than 100 kilometers north of Kiev. A Ukrainian ecology student happened to be at the conference, and he and I stayed up late one night talking about Chernobyl. He said, in the first hours, the Soviets held firefighters at gunpoint and forced them to run into the burning reactor, unprotected, in order to put out the flames. They could only stay inside for a matter of seconds because the pain was so intense. But it was necessary to put out the fire so that a lead encasement could be constructed to contain the radiation (since lead melts at a low temperature). Many many firefighters died or simply disappeared. By the way, people in Kiev didn't even hear about the catastrophe until three days later, when relatives in the US were able to contact them. The horrors of radiation poisoning can still be seen in parts of the country.

Enough of that...

By the end of the conference, we had really gotten to know each other, and it was so hard to say goodbye. That last night, we sat in the hallway and played guitar (Stephan from Belarus knew the entire Scorpions catalog, and Guns N' Roses, but the song that got everyone in the room singing loudest was "Hotel California"). But then somehow, people started quietly singing folk songs from their countries: Polish songs, Bulgarian songs. The Belarusians sang a beautiful, sad song in three-part harmony; Viktoria is a classically-trained opera singer (opera is very popular in the former USSR). Their songs echoed through the concrete hallways... it was magical.

After the conference was over, Pip and I were getting ready to fly to Armenia the following day. We had a day to kill, so our friend Natalie showed us all around the parts of Kiev we still hadn't seen. She was a student there, and she knew the ins and outs.

Best of all was an ancient monastery in the heart of Kiev called The Monastery of the Caves. There's only one small gate through which you can enter, but inside the walls of the complex, you're surrounded by beautiful churches, stone streets, age-old buildings, and views overlooking the entire city. We went into the caves, through long, snaking passageways alongside dead monks from centuries past who have been left on display in glass coffins. Your only light is the candle in your hand.

We stayed in a hostel, and the next day we said goodbye to Natalie. Before long we were on a tiny plane headed to Yerevan, Armenia! What a story that is to tell! Just wait!

The Alps

2010-05-31T22:37:00.001-04:00

Switzerland and France

The train hummed along across the Swiss border, into German-speaking Switzerland. Pip and I popped open the windows, leaned back in our seats and breathed in the mountain air. The Alps surrounded us on either side. Our train navigated a narrow pass that took us past tiny villages and ancient church steeples, alongside skinny lakes, across rolling green farmland. It was beautiful. (It's Switzerland... what do you expect?)

The trip took an entire day. This was not the express train. We stopped 7 times to change trains. Usually we had 2 minutes or less to run from one platform to another. It was like Swiss clockwork.

Then, halfway across Switzerland, it was as if someone flipped a switch. Suddenly everyone on board was speaking French. The signs in the villages were now in French. The advertisements were in French. A group of teenage girls yapping away in German switched, as if on queue, to French.

We rolled into Geneva, and Pip began warming up on his French. He hadn't taken it since he was a teenager. Better than me: I didn't know any French at all. We walked through the train station, and words started to come back to him. He asked for directions, and stumbled through a few words. He read signs and figured out how much things cost. I got some Swiss Francs out of the ATM. (We weren't in the EU anymore.) We picked up a free map, and strolled out of the train station and into Geneva--one of the world's most international, but most expensive, cities.

Our first goal was to find a place to sleep. Our class was stuck in Ireland. The volcano hadn't let up yet, and our classmates and professor were stuck in Dublin. We were supposed to meet them, visit the World Council of Churches on an official tour, and take in some of the sights as a class. We would have stayed with a friend in her hostel, but since she was stuck in Ireland, she had canceled her room. Now what.

More importantly, what in the world were we going to do in Geneva? We tried to get food. Even the cheapest places were hovering around 15 euro (19 dollars) for a snack, and we were broke. We went into a little cafe, ordered a croissant, and sat down at a computer. I started to look for cheap accommodation, and ended up messaging my friend Jon. He knew of a website, and within 5 minutes, he had sent me a link to a cheap hostel that still had a room available. I looked up the address. I couldn't believe it. "Pip, it's across the street." My friend in Pittsburgh had found a hostel for us in Geneva that was next door.

We checked in, set our stuff down, and explored Geneva. Right away, it was pretty clear that we weren't going to be able to afford anything. Luckily, walking was free, so we wandered through the streets, admiring old bank buildings, modern international headquarters, wristwatch advertisements, and stunningly expensive diplomat cars. Money seemed to flow everywhere that wasn't Pip and Alex. What could we do here?

We decided we wanted beer, because at least that was fairly inexpensive. The convenience store clerk explained to Pip in French that it was illegal to sell beer after 9:00 PM, but that he could do it if we were careful not to get caught drinking it on the street. After having just left Germany, this seemed completely ridiculous. A long-haired hippie-looking guy was stocking up on beer too. Pip calls it the "hippie code": find a hippie with dreads, ask him what's going on in the city. We asked him, what is there to do in Geneva? The hippie shook his head. "Geneva is boring," he said in broken English. "John Calvin ruined Geneva. No good."

John Calvin! That French Reformer whose theology established the Reformed churches (including my Presbyterian Church), and who reformed the church in Geneva by establishing legislation against dancing and outdoor music in 1541 was being invoked by a dreadlock-wearing hippie buying beer in a convenience store 470 years later. I love Europe.

We met a guy at the hostel named Sohail. Sohail was from Miami, and he had quit his job and was now on a 6-month pilgrimage walking from Rome to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. He was truly one of the most interesting people I've ever met. Together, he, Pip, the hippie, and I saw what there was to see of Geneva. We got an insider's tour of the Geneva underground scene, eventually making our way inside an abandoned building by the river that was absolutely alive with grunge music, neon lights, graffiti, and beer. "We've found Geneva!" Pip said. There it was.

We decided the next day that we really did want to see the World Council of Churches, even if our class wasn't going to be able to make it. We walked over to that side of Geneva (such a small city), past the UN building, and various major international headquarters, before reaching the WCC. The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of 349 churches from all around the world who seek a way to exhibit the visible unity which they feel is worthy of Jesus' Church on earth. The mission of the WCC is something that I have been studying quite a lot at Trinity, as it's the largest ecumenical organization in the world.

Pip and I walked in with a year's worth of expectations: this was actually the WCC we had been studying for so long. Unfortunately, we weren't greeted in a particularly warm way. "Can I help you?" the receptionist said in English. We explained our situation: our class was stuck in Ireland. "Who are you with?" "Trinity College Dublin. The Irish School of Ecumenics." "Who are you meeting?" "We were supposed to have a tour." "And who are you trying to see?" We weren't getting anywhere.

Then Pip remembered something. A friend we had met at the conference in Berlin was a student in Romania at Sibiu, where Pip had studied many years ago, and he had a professor whom Pip knew in Sibiu as a personal friend back then. Apparently now this professor was working in Geneva at the WCC, and he was an ordained Romanian Orthodox priest.

"Is Daniel here?" Pip asked. It was like a light bulb went off. "Of course! I'll call him down for you." Pip's heart was racing. He hadn't seen his friend in 9 years.

We sat and waited, and then, like a scene in a movie, a man came around the corner and hurried into the lobby, his hands in the air. "Pip! My friend Pip!" he yelled. Pip, the prodigal son. They embraced after falling out of touch for 9 years. We were treated like long-lost royalty.

Daniel, like every Romanian I've ever met, is accommodating beyond words. His jolly demeanor and impossible politeness, compounded no doubt by being a priest, kept us smiling the whole time. Daniel gave us a tour of the entire WCC complex, and then treated us to a free lunch in the cafeteria, where we rubbed shoulders with theologians and diplomats. Pip and Daniel caught up on the events of the last 9 years. We talked about the WCC, about Romania, about Armenia (more on that in a bit), about the volcano, and about Eastern Orthodoxy. Afterward, Daniel led us into his office where we sat in large chairs in the shadow of dusty old books and talked theology for two more hours. Daniel is the Programme Executive Coordinator of Church and Ecumenical Relations at the WCC--a lofty position which basically aims to bring together the churches on the fringes of the WCC and address their concerns. There are always concerns. The politics in that organization run so deep. I think by the end of the afternoon we had heard about all the drama in Christendom.

After our meeting, and after Daniel walked us to the door to say goodbye in his very Romanian way, we stood outside and pondered life for a bit, staring out across the Alps. "Do you want to get out of Geneva tomorrow?" I asked. "Go hitchhiking in the mountains? It'd be free." "Let's do it," Pip said.

The next morning, we woke up early, packed a small bag, and walked to France. It wasn't far. When we crossed the border, we immediately went into a café, bought some coffee (so cheap), some fresh bread, some cheese, and a bottle of wine for a total of 3 euro or something incredible. We also bought an entire rotisserie chicken which we devoured like animals on the side of the road. Classy.

We didn't have a destination in mind, but the plan was to hike into Switzerland, toward a place called Interlaken. We walked a few miles onto an on-ramp of a highway, and planned to take the first car that was driving eastward. That's when we saw a sign for Milano. "Milan!" Pip remembered. His friend in Italy could maybe house us for the night. Why not.

Hitchhiking in the suburbs of Geneva is hard. It's not exactly a hotbed for Bohemianism or that sort of thing. I've hitchhiked in Scotland, Italy, Greece and Ireland, many times. This was the hardest of all.

Pip and I alternated our attempts, watching as BMW after BMW drove past. Finally, finally, a young guy pulled over in a beater car, wound down his window, and said to us something in French. It didn't matter what. We jumped in. Merci!

The guy knew a little English, but most of the time we just pointed at the scenery and said, "Magnifique!" He told us a bit about himself. He was a mix of French, Swiss, Italian, and a dozen other ethnicities, and he lived in the French countryside outside Geneva. It was there that he dropped us off, half an hour later. The middle of nowhere. We waved goodbye, and watched as he pulled away, leaving us surrounded by the French Alps in a place we had never seen. With no map. (My Google Maps printouts didn't show enough detail to figure out where we were.)

So we stuck out our thumbs again. This time, it didn't matter to us where we ended up. Just so long as we got somewhere.

The next guy to roll up was a hippie from Normandy, with bright red hair, a frizzy beard, two cigarettes behind his ears, and a beer in his cup holder. He spoke English fairly well.

"Where are you guys going?" he asked. "Doesn't matter," we said, getting in the car. "Wherever you are."

"I'm going to Sallanches," he said. My ears perked up. Sallanches. That's where Mylene grew up! A tiny village in the French Alps in Upper Savoy. My mind was blown. "Sure, take us there!" we shouted.

And half an hour later, sure enough, there we were, in Sallanches, France. The town is surrounded by breathtaking mountains, including Europe's highest mountain peak, Mont Blanc. Sallanches sits a 20-minute drive from Italy and Switzerland, and, due to its geographic and historical seclusion from most of France, it has developed its own unique culture. Our friend dropped us off in the center of town, and we just stood there for a minute or two with our mouths gaping. A beautiful creek rushes through the center of town, bringing fresh cold water from the mountains. Old storefronts line the creek, with pedestrian bridges and benches. The historic town church stands in an open square. It its shadow sits an old public drinking fountain that still works, and we used it to fill up our water bottles with fresh Alpine water.

We walked into the local bibliothèque and got on the computer and sent Mylene a facebook message. "You won't believe where we are," I typed. "Could we possibly stay with your parents?" She wasn't online, so we decided to take a stroll into the mountains until later, and then come back and try to message her again. Our phones were dead.

So we walked up into the mountains. We stopped at the little church and went inside to look around. We walked up the winding road far above the town and looked down on the houses of Sallanches, dwarfed by the mountainscape behind. After a couple hours of walking, we sat on a bench and drank our bottle of wine.

When we came back down off the mountain, it was getting dark. The librarian was locking up. We ran over to her in a panic. After a few minutes of Pip's French, we learned there was an internet cafe down the street. We ran down the road, searching for the only internet cafe in town. When we found the sign, we walked in on what looked like a bar. The entire room turned and stared at us. "Le internet?" we asked. The owner shook his head. "L'internet est kaput kaput." WHAT? What do you mean kaput??

We walked outside and crossed the street, our heads hanging low. We were upset. We realized we'd probably have to go sleep in the mountains. Really. As we were trying to figure out how that might work out, we crossed an intersection... and a car pulled up. Out jumped a girl. "Alex, Pip!" It was Mylene's younger sister Florianne.

And there we were. In Mylene and Flo's house, visiting her parents, eating dinner, drinking wine, trying to understand each other. Their parents didn't understand English at all really, but Pip was brilliant. He was pulling French out of thin air, and it was working. Her mom made us a delicious dinner with fresh bread and dessert, and all I could say was "très bien, merci" which isn't how you're supposed to say that anyway. But Pip was carrying on an actual conversation, and with Flo translating, we were able to make it work. I was even piecing together bits and pieces of it. I've never wanted to learn another language so bad.

The next day we woke up to more fresh bread, and a delicious breakfast, and then we hopped in the family car for a road trip into the Alps. I still can't believe this actually happened.

We crossed the border into Switzerland driving toward Martigny, where we drove up a steep steep road as high up as the mountain road would take us, before stopping to get out and admire the sights. The mountains surrounded us on all sides, and we peered down into the valleys and listened to the occasional gunshot echoing through the mountains. Mylene and Flo's dad explained to us what we were seeing, and gave us a history of the old rock walls that scattered the cliffs (very much like Ireland's prehistoric walls). We hopped back in the car, and drove back near Chamonix at the foot of Mont Blanc where we sat at a picnic table and ate a delicious lunch with more bread and more wine and even some very special "contrebande" homemade liquor. Her dad put some on a sugar cube and we popped it into our mouths. And then our faces exploded.

We walked around Chamonix for awhile, basking in a village that seemed more beautiful than a French storybook. I couldn't believe my eyes. We wandered for awhile, taking pictures, admiring the mountains, wearing off our midday buzz. I don't know how to describe it. The weather was perfect. The scenery was perfect. The company was perfect. It was so... French. Their parents are just absolutely fantastic. And Flo was so wonderful. She helped us understand what we were seeing, and helped us communicate our most simple-minded thoughts in a way that didn't make us seem totally idiotic. We had so much fun!

On the way back, Pip and I were absolutely beat. The whole family took us back to Geneva, and we got there by nighttime and checked back into our hostel. I can't believe their generosity. And I can't believe our luck. Flo was back in Sallanches just for that week on a break from college. If she hadn't been there, we would have been completely stranded, not able to understand a word. Also, their parents were supposed to be meeting Mylene in Dublin, but they missed their flight because of the volcano! They were going to stay at Pip's cottage in Kilbaha, but as they said, "We were going to go to Ireland, but Ireland came to us!" Just the fact that her parents were so willing to take us in, when we had never even met them before, is astounding. If you guys are reading, please know that you are welcome in Pittsburgh or Ireland anytime!

We did finally make it back to Ireland, but only after visiting the Romanian Orthodox church in Geneva for their parish's 35th anniversary, in the accompaniment of Father Daniel, who invited us to the party afterward where the entire parish brought food, wine, and dessert--before rushing off to catch our plane back to Dublin. The volcano had subsided! ...but Pip lost his passport. That was nearly an international incident, as he tried to explain to customs that there was a technicality which allowed him to fly from a non-EU airport inside Europe to an EU country as an EU citizen without an EU passport. I don't know... but it worked.

So now I'm back in Pennsylvania. I'm working on my thesis from home, in order to save money. My thesis topic is "Anti-Catholic Sentiment in Appalachia: The spoken and unspoken religious prejudices in contemporary Pennsylvania and West Virginia." The deadline is in August, so I have a little time to get some research done. I think it's a fascinating topic.

But this isn't the end of Europe for me. I'll actually be back there in a week! Pip and I are going to another WSCF conference, like the last one in Berlin, but this time in Kiev, Ukraine! Then we're going to Armenia to visit friends, then Georgia, Latvia, Norway, and finally Dublin to properly say goodbye to all my friends. Stay tuned!

The Volcano

2010-04-27T07:23:00.001-04:00

Berlin and Munich, Germany

Like any good adventure story, this one had it all: faraway lands, fascinating people, long buses, missed trains, accidental hitchhiking, and a natural disaster.

The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) was holding a conference in Berlin on "God and the Use of Power." It was free. Absolutely free. Flight, accommodation, food. Free. In Berlin. There was no way we weren't going.

We stepped off the airplane into the German sunshine and walked onto the tarmac. I love the feeling you get when you step into a new place like that. You take everything in at once: the orderly procession of people in straight lines, moving into the airport. The German vehicles taxiing here and there, in perfect precision. And... Pip left his camera bag in the airplane. He ran back, zigzagging across the runway, running up to the plane. "You can't do that!!" a German security guard shouted, before nearly tackling Pip to the ground. Thus was born an Irishman's cultural conflict with Germany.

We took a series of trains to an address we'd scribbled on a sheet of paper. We knew nothing more than that. We arrived at a hostel in a wide-open part of Berlin, and were greeted by two very friendly people who spoke perfect English. Like everyone there, they would turn out to be close friends of ours by the end of the week. We took our stuff to our room, and then went out to explore Berlin before the opening ceremony of the conference.

Berlin seems kind of strange, because so much of it is empty. Empty courtyards, vast green spaces. Steel and glass buildings sit in lonely squares. Soon enough you realize why, and then your heart stops for a second. Welcome to World War II.

After a good German bratwurst and a beer, we wandered back to the hostel for our opening ceremony. There was no way we could have expected the people we were about to meet.

Imagine 60 students from all around Europe. Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, Belarus, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, England, Italy, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Georgia, Armenia (Armenia! really?), Poland, Russia, Ukraine. All like-minded Christian students, some of whom had never traveled much outside their home countries, all of whom were thrilled to be there. I had never been in a group like that. I had never had personal one-on-one experiences with people from the former USSR, or from eastern Europe, or chatted about Lutheran theology with a seminarian, or talked about the Catholic Church in Slovakia with a Dominican friar.

All of them were inspiring. I learned about Moscow and their population crisis in the summer, when 3 million people unofficially work there and live in overcrowded flats. I heard stories about a 3-day train ride to the middle of Russia, learned firsthand about Siberian gulags under Stalin. I talked with a Polish friend about her grandparents saving a Jewish girl in WWII, and heard stories about people's family being in the Nazi party. I learned more about Orthodoxy than I ever could have before, listened to a group of guys practice a Bulgarian chant, learned how cheap beer is in Romania, and finally figured out what the deal is with Finland and their saunas. (And everyone's English was incredible.)

We had Bible studies and guest speakers, all around the topic of Church and State. We'd break into small groups and get to know each other better, and it wasn't long before we were all friends. Pip was hilarious. He used the Irish card quite a lot, and people loved it. "Potatoes!" they would all say, doing an Irish accent. We had a saying: "It's all gravy." By the end of the week, the whole conference was saying "It's all gravy," which even evolved into things like, "Lunch today wasn't so gravy."

We went on a couple excursions as a group into the city, to the German Parliament building, where we actually got to sit in and talk to the VP of the Parliament who spoke about his Christian faith as a politician. (We had professional translators speaking through headphones and everything. It was like we were sitting in the UN!)

We had dinner one night at an Italian restaurant in the city, and the Italians translated for us. Afterward, we wandered around the city late at night, and went into a Bohemian artist colony, filled with artists living in an abandoned old warehouse. We walked through the rooms, amongst their paintings, past graffiti and old photographs, the smell of beer (and other things) in the air, guys chilling out in the stairwells with guitars. People sat around a fire in the courtyard, and a blues band played from inside an old shed. It felt like 1970s San Francisco.

I was part of a panel discussion on Church and State, and I spoke about the situation with Christianity and politics in the US. Four other people highlighted their respective countries. It was really interesting for me, because I was the only American student, since it was a WSCF Europe conference. (A couple people had never met an American before.) We had an "intercultural night" where everyone presented their own country. Some people showed video clips, others sang songs. I taught people the Hokey Pokey. All in all, I had so many revelations about the opinion of America from the Eastern European perspective.

I also led a workshop on a paper I had written for Trinity on the Church's role in the postmodern world, and how it can remain relevant for young people, and also how important it is to embrace the Global South and their blooming Christianity. From a European perspective, it's very very interesting. Western Europe is so secularized now, but in Eastern Europe, deep religious traditions live on, especially in Orthodoxy. Some of those guys had very unfavorable views of Islam. Some of their churches are operated by the state. Some of their priests are appointed by politicians. America really is a different system. Europe has been the center of Christianity for 1600 years, and now the center is shifting southward, into Africa and southeast Asia, and other places. By 2050, only one in five Christians will be white.

I felt like I knew these guys my whole life. We got to know each other so well, and now I feel like I have so many people I can visit all around Europe. It was one of the best weeks of my life, hands down.

Then the volcano happened. At first, no one knew what to expect. It seemed harmless enough. We were having a great time, and so what if a few flights are canceled? But a few flights became a few more, became all flights. Suddenly everyone was in a panic. Many of the guys had visas until only Monday, and now they had to figure out how to extend their visas when everything was backed up. Airlines weren't answering their phones, so a few of us went out to the airport to actually talk to them in person. Some success stories, but mostly people were forced to take trains for days back home, or to take buses over shady borders, or to stay in Berlin with other now-refugees. Imagine taking a train from Berlin to Sweden, standing for 48 hours because there aren't enough seats. It was the biggest human migration crisis since World War II.

It just so happened that Pip and I were taking a bus to Munich to visit a couple friends we had met on St. Patrick's Day in Dublin. And it just so happened that three people from the conference had friends in Munich they could stay with until the volcano was over. And it just so happened that they were able to get on the bus with us. Armine and Lusine from Armenia, and Maria from Russia.

The German bus was half an hour late, an irony not lost on Pip who celebrated every second of it.

We took the autobahn south to Munich. I've never seen cars go so fast. Of course our bus still took eight hours. When we arrived in Munich, our friend Sebastian was there waiting for us. It was time to explore Munich!

We dropped our stuff off with a friend of Maria's where we were staying the night. It's crazy how it worked out: we were originally supposed to stay with another friend, but with the volcano, her flight was grounded in Liverpool! She was en route on the train, but she couldn't make it until the next day. Luckily Maria's German friend and her parents welcomed us as refugees, and we spent the night there. Her English was perfect, of course, like every freaking other European, and her family was very accommodating of us all.

Sebastian showed us his city. First thing of course was to check out the beer gardens, where you sit outside and eat sausages and drink delicious and cheap beer. Then we explored the Hofbräuhaus, which was everything I hoped it could be. The weather was perfect, and we sat outside with our litres and Sebastian told us about Bavaria. Many Bavarians would say that they're not part of Germany. The culture is so distinct, the food is different, the music and dress is different. It was such a change from Berlin. We wandered around that night, admiring the buildings, the ancient architecture, the stone plazas, the statues. Maria explained to us the tradition where you have to touch the nose of three out of four of the lions on this particular street as you walk by. And sure enough, I stood near and watched as a middle-aged guy, walking by himself in the dark, touched the lions' noses, automatically, without even looking, as if he had done it every day for his entire life.

The next morning, we had a Bavarian breakfast (white sausage and a beer) in the beer garden under the trees. The weather was warm, and the trees were blossoming. Spring flowers, the sound of running water in the fountain. Sebastian brought his guitar and we chilled out there for awhile, playing guitar, along with an Irish bodhrán that Sebastian owns. Sebastian plays in a traditional Irish band, which is what brought him to Dublin on St. Patrick's Day to meet us in the first place!

Sebastian led us into churches, up bell towers, into crypts. We saw so many things. It was incredible. We sat in a park called the English Gardens and played guitar and bodhrán for a little bit, before hiding from the rain under a pavilion with some more sausages and potatoes for dinner. Two of Sebastian's friends joined us too. It was a blast.

That evening, our friend Sonja arrived from her 2-day train ride from Liverpool. She was exhausted, of course, but she had come all that way to see us, and there was no way she was going to sleep yet! We met up with her and hung out for awhile in a beer hall near Sebastian's college. While there, Armenie told us about her idea for a student ecumenical movement that she's been thinking about starting. We brainstormed for a name, and Maria thought we should use G.R.A.V.Y. (of course!). We then came up with the perfect acronym: Global Religious Association of Vigorous Youth.

We stayed that night with Sonja and her sister at their flat. The next morning, Sonja, Maria, and Sebastian came to the airport, and we all said goodbye. It was really hard to leave! Such good friends. I will miss all of you! We need to get together again very soon! You're welcome to visit Pittsburgh anytime!

Many more tales to tell! As the train pulled away, Pip and I waved out the window. But we knew it wasn't the end, by any stretch of the imagination. We were off to continue our adventures in Switzerland!

The Edge of the World

2010-03-09T17:51:00.002-05:00

Counties Wicklow, Clare, and Kerry, Ireland

My grandfather passed away two weeks ago. He died an old man, with a loving family and a great life. But that didn't make the news any easier, especially when I was 3500 miles away.

It was early on a Sunday morning when I found out, and Pip happened to call me shortly afterward. I kind of broke down on the phone. Pip told me that the best thing in these situations is to get out into nature, to remember the good times. He called up Mylene, and that morning, the two of them came over to my dorm to pick me up. They gave me a hug, and we talked about my grandpa as we drove far out of Dublin into the Wicklow Mountains. It was exactly what I needed.

We drove into the heart of Wicklow and stopped at a beautiful waterfall. There was snow up in the mountains, and we walked around for a long time, gazing at the hills, playing stick with Little Pip, taking pictures of the ice on the trees. It was sunny, the snow gleaming with light. We stopped in a little country restaurant for a lunch of hot shepherd's pie.

Pip let me drive his car through the mountains (on the left side of the road, shifting with my left hand) which at first felt like driving a runaway dump truck, blindfolded, but I got the hang of it. Pip wouldn't say where we were going, but before long I recognized the roads and towns I had hiked through back in October. We were going to Glendalough!

We pulled up next to Glendalough, and Little Pip leaped out of the car, as if he knew we were off for an adventure. We walked into the countryside around the ruins, through the forest. We walked alongside the old monastery, the roundtower, past the church and the lakes, and up into the snowy mountains.

We met a few hikers who had come down through the mountains, and we chatted with them about the best way to make it to the top. We walked through snow, into deeper woods, farther and farther up the trail. After two hours, we realized we wouldn't make it back by dark if we didn't turn around, so we headed back down the slopes, to the ruins, and back to the car.

I needed to go home that week. It was the right thing to do. I couldn't imagine staying in Ireland as if nothing had happened. So I found a cheapish flight to Pittsburgh and went home to be with my family and my dad. I got to see Sarah for a little bit too, and she spent time with us at the house, watching the Olympics, hanging out. Good stories, good memories about my grandpa. It was a relaxing time, and exactly what we all needed.

There was about 2 feet of snow in my backyard, and it took a good hour to dig my car out of its snowdrift. I was home for a week, and it snowed every day.

I flew back to Shannon airport in the west of Ireland last Wednesday. It was reading week, which meant no lectures, and Pip had invited the entire department out to his cottage in Kilbaha. I got off the plane at 7 in the morning, jetlagged into a kind of peaceful delirium, and got a text from Pip. His car had a "flat tyre". He was changing it in the pounding rain. He and Mylene still made the hour drive to the airport to pick me up. Such solid guys.

The weather cleared up as we drove westward into the farthest reaches of rural Clare -- windows down, Pip's Hill of Tara benefit CD blasting (you should click on that link and listen to that first song, by the way), bumping up and down country roads, taking a stop here and there for a view of the cliffs, winding past tractors and avoiding the occasional stranded sheep in the middle of the road. I drove the final leg of the road, driving far too fast on a spare tire, but it didn't matter. I love driving in Ireland!

We stopped at the village mechanic and gave James our flat tire to repair, and he took every opportunity to slag Pip for driving on it for miles before realizing what that thumping sound was. "Typical Pip," he joked, laughing. That's pretty much everyone's reaction.

At the cottage were Sheelagh and our two friends from class, Mike and Caitlin. Everyone was hungry, so we drove about 15 miles to find some eggs, bacon and sausage for breakfast, which we made in the cottage and ate outside in the shining sun overlooking the ocean.

After breakfast, Pip led us through a field, with the neighbors' dog trailing along behind us, up to his ancestors' stone turret. We hung out there for a bit and then scaled down the slopes to the water's edge, where we leaped across stones into some caves. We climbed inside and sat in the dark, watching the tide come in, before we realized we were now stranded. We charged out and ran through the crashing waves back to land, now completely soaked.

We then all went up to the Hanging Gardens up by the lighthouse. Pip's ancestors had used dynamite to blow away part of the cliff face to create a little haven from the wind that overlooks the Shannon Estuary. Hidden from the cool breeze, the sun felt 10 degrees warmer, and we laid out in the soft moss and watched the sun set over the sea.

We stayed there for hours, and then made our way back down to the village pub where we caught up with some of the locals who have become friends of mine now. After a late night, we crashed on mattresses scattered throughout the cottage, beside warm fires. I hadn't slept since Pennsylvania.

The next morning we took two cars and drove out to Limerick to pick up our friend Sarah from class who arrived on the train. From there, we made the 3 hour drive into the westernmost point of Kerry, to a place called the Dingle Peninsula: the farthest western point in Europe.

Of course, we stopped along the way anywhere and everywhere. Prehistoric beehive huts, a waterfall. The Conor Pass is the only way to the west of Kerry, and it weaves its way up the mountainside, dangling off the edges of the cliffs. The road is held up precariously with crumbling stone walls smack-up against a vertical drop 2000 feet down. It's like something out of Lord of the Rings. The road can accommodate one car in one direction at a time. Meet a truck there, and you sit for 5 minutes, backing up, holding your breath, your tires within inches of death. It doesn't help that sheep like to wander down the road and graze around blind turns.

We were staying in a hostel west of Dingle town, as far west as you can get, but the sun was setting and we wanted to wander a bit before it got dark. We parked the two cars and got out near a beach and walked down to the water. Sheelagh's dogs Bailey and Holly, along with Little Pip, ran down into the water, and we walked along, watching as the sun dropped beneath the Blasket Islands: the edge of the continent.

We walked from the beach up a hill, over a fence, through a field and above the cliffs. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen on earth.

Off to our right was an island called the Sleeping Giant. Can you spot it?

Our hostel had a warm turf fire, and we sat down with a couple hikers who were spending the night, got to talking, and sat there drinking wine by the fire all night. In the morning, we made sausage, eggs and porridge for breakfast and sat outside on a picnic bench -- seriously, is this real? I still can't believe it.

We stopped at the oldest church building in Ireland, dating from the 7th century. It looked like the beehive huts we saw earlier, really just a simple pile of stones. It was built on a site that was of spiritual importance to the druids. That's the thing about Irish Christian sites: they've often been religiously significant for longer than recorded history. Its original significance we'll never know. But St. Patrick had the right idea in reappropriating these places for Christian use. Celtic Christianity has ties to nature at its origin, and when you're in those sorts of places, you can get lost in the most ancient thoughts...

We made our way back over the Conor Pass to Mount Brandon, 3,123 feet, from sea level, and the second-tallest mountain in Ireland. We were going to climb it.

We got halfway up, about three-hours walking. There was snow up there, and at the point where we realized we wouldn't make it back by dark, we gave up and plopped down on some rocks and took in the view. Not another soul for miles (besides sheep, of course). You could hear melting snow collecting in pools all around us streaming down the cliffs.

When we made it back down, we stopped for lunch at a village pub by the ocean, and then drove off back to civilization. We took the ferry across the Shannon back to Clare, and I drove the rest of the way to Pip's cottage. It was nighttime when we got there, but since it was Friday night, we walked down to the pub and chatted the night away, before coming back to the cottage with our friends from the village and sitting by the fire. We talked til 6 in the morning.

We left the next afternoon, and picked up Pip's tire in the neighboring village. We drove across the country, through little towns and villages, jamming to Pip's CDs and my iPod. We got back to Dublin at about 11 PM. What a trip! How did we do that much in 4 days?!

I have really incredible friends. Thanks so much, guys! What a blast!

The Idiot's Guide to Belfast

2010-02-23T17:49:00.002-05:00

Belfast and the Boyne Valley

Disclaimer: This post, and all my blog posts, merely represents my opinion, from the limited perspective of an American student visiting a foreign country and a foreign political, religious and social climate. I do not claim my experience to be representative of any larger truths beyond my own personal feelings and initial reactions.

We'd been talking about getting up to Belfast for ages. It just so happened that, last Tuesday night, a woman in the Irish School of Ecumenics was giving a talk on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict up in Belfast. We organized a crew. Me and Pip, and our friends Seamus, Corey, Sarah, and Ashley.

Pip finished his essay, printed it out, shoved it under our professor's office door, and we stepped out into the sunlight. It was time for a road trip.

The six of us raced up to Belfast in two cars for the 2 1/2-hour trip. When you cross the border into Northern Ireland, the kilometers turn to miles, the license plates turn to yellow, and the road falls apart. The motorway we were on became a two-lane traffic jam, riddled with potholes and construction. I had been in the North before, but only out west, where there was hardly any traffic. Now it was a nightmare.

We arrived in Belfast just in time for rush hour. As you make your way into the city, you immediately think: this isn't Dublin. The gray buildings and barren landscape give the impression of some sort of desert post-apocalypse. The drivers were nuts, beeping and running us off the road (maybe because we had Republic plates and not UK plates). We got off the motorway, lost with really vague Google Map directions, and asked at a garage for help.

This was West Belfast, at one time easily one of the most dangerous places in Europe. Police stations were actually bunkers, surrounded on all sides by concrete barriers and barbed wire fences. Security cameras were perched on every street corner. A couple times we pulled over to the side of the road, to ask passersby for directions — and people flat-out ignored us, walking quickly away.

We made it to our Israeli-Palestinian talk (a topic I thought ironically fit our present setting), and met a bunch of Northerners. The Belfast accent is so thick. I'm not going to stereotype. But it's a bit like the other Northern experiences I've had. There's that question of where you're from, right away. The featured speaker introduced herself to the room and said she was from County Clare (in the South), and then sheepishly added, "so take that as you will." Who says that? That's Belfast.

The lecture was good though. Lots of "tea and toast."

Afterward, we drove down to a student hostel near Queen's University, which has been described to me as the Trinity College of the North. Pip once lived a street or two over, and he was familiar with the whole area. Seamus, Corey, Sarah, Ashley and I walked into the hostel a little late. We found Pip chatting with the owner, sitting by the fire and drinking tea, with two little dogs running around the room. We knew right away this was the perfect place.

We set our stuff down and walked outside. It was already nighttime, and we were starving. Pip knew of a great place for cheap food. We walked through the college neighborhood, and made our way to a place called Wetherspoon's. Pip calls it the "Ryan Air of pubs," because it serves the cheapest food and drinks imaginable. Four pounds for steak, chips, and a pint. No kidding. All of Belfast was so cheap. £1.50 pints. I felt like I was back on Pitt's campus.

We went out to a pub after dinner. Even though it was a Tuesday night, it was jam-packed. I later remembered it was Mardi Gras. Pip happened to randomly know the bouncer of the pub (of course). We got into the back and found an empty table amidst the crowd. The bass was pounding and the music was so loud that we had to yell at each other to hear, and eventually we just gave up. We ended up leaving there around 1 AM, before beelining it over to a chipper for a late-night snack. We sat by the fire in the hostel with our burgers and chips and told stories and met the other people in the rooms.

It's weird though. Anything you do, people seem to judge you for it. You pull out your wallet and have euros in there, and you can feel the eyes burning into you. It's all so stressful. Everything you do could have potential political implications. Seamus and I were talking about it. The people on the street are more aggressive. The drunk college students at the chipper were confrontational and angry.

The next morning, we woke up in the hostel in our bunk beds and stumbled downstairs to hot porridge. The owner was up, and he made us tea. We decided to wander down the road a bit to see the campus of Queen's University.

What a cool campus. It was founded in 1845, and the brick buildings are really nice. It's still got an old college feel to it, that you just don't find too often in the States. There's a big park nearby with a museum and a conservatory. We explored around a bit, as we waited for our taxi to show up. We were going to take a black taxi tour.

Everyone says, when you go to Belfast, take a black taxi tour. Our driver showed up and introduced himself, dryly and without any enthusiasm, and the six of us piled into his van. He sounded serious and severe, as he drove us into West Belfast. No jokes. No nonsense. We realized right away that this wasn't going to be a joy ride.

We drove first into the Protestant area off the Shankill Road. This was the area of the Shankill butchers, men who would go around driving late at night, capturing, torturing and brutally murdering random Catholics (and Protestants too). I can't go into details, because it literally makes me sick.

We got out and wandered around the area, seeing the murals, taking pictures of paintings dedicated to men like Oliver Cromwell. I can't think of a more despised figure in Catholic Ireland. Cromwell hated Catholicism, and he massacred thousands of Irish men, women and children in the 17th century. And here he was painted on a mural, decorated as a hero of Ireland. Other heroes dotted the sides of other buildings. It felt more like provocation than genuine admiration.

We got back in the van, passing through the division between Protestant and Catholic Belfast. Our tour guide told us that if there was ever a scuffle, police would sound a siren at the top of the wall, rather than going into the areas themselves. People then had exactly two minutes to run to the other side of the wall, back to their respective sides, or the gates would lock them out, stuck on the wrong side. They were running for their lives, he said. He spoke matter-of-factly and without emotion. Otherwise they would be killed mercilessly.

"You don't have to be a terrorist to live here," he said. "But it helps."

We stopped at the "peace wall", which still separates the two areas, and stretches miles and miles into the countryside, dividing people like dogs in a kennel. He handed us a marker and invited us to leave a message on the wall. We stepped out, and stared up at the thing. Poetry, lyrics, personal messages, and prayers were all jotted down in different languages, as far as the eye could see. Quotes from Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and Bill Clinton stood side-by-side with notes scribbled in children's handwriting. It was at one and the same time inspiring and bone-chillingly sad.

Oh, and here's a car that was lit on fire this morning, our taxi driver pointed out. Debris lay all over the road and sidewalk. A puddle of water leftover from the fire hose drained slowly into the storm drain. What???!!!

Now in Catholic Belfast, we drove over toward the Falls Road. Suddenly we realized it was Ash Wednesday. Everyone on the street had a giant black cross smudged on their forehead. If there's one day a year when you can tell Catholics from Protestants, it's Ash Wednesday. And here we were. In Belfast. What a strange coincidence.

It was so sad. Again, I realized that you can't do anything here without being political. Wearing a cross on your forehead becomes confrontational, whether you mean it to be or not. It's all in the eye of the beholder, as they say.

We passed by a hospital. Due to all the knee-cappings that have occurred over the years, our tour guide told us that the hospital on the Falls Road is the worldwide leader in knee reconstruction.

There were murals here too. On the side of the Sinn Féin office, with a GIANT "Sinn Féin" sign outside, was a mural dedicated to Bobby Sands. Bobby Sands was a prisoner in the IRA who went on a hunger strike and died in 1981, directly challenging Margaret Thatcher. He was even elected to Parliament before he died, from inside prison. A Republican hero.

But clearly he was also a criminal who assisted in bomb plots and provided support for killing civilians. The man was in prison for a reason. But here he was, on a mural, painted alongside the likes of Gandhi and King? It was disgusting. Would Gandhi or King support violence to advance their cause? The answer is painfully obvious.

We brought this up to our taxi driver, and he wasn't exactly impressed. He changed the subject. Our taxi driver told us a personal story: that as a young man he had carjacked buses when the Troubles began, parking them at the entrances to Catholic neighborhoods and lighting them on fire to serve as blockades against the British.

That was the end of the tour.

We needed to get out of there, as soon as possible. We decided to leave Belfast and drive back down to Dublin, pronto.

On the way south, we stopped by a very special place to unwind a little bit. There's a valley in Ireland, just north of Dublin, that contains some of the most important monastic and prehistoric sites in Europe. We drove through winding roads, into the forest, far away from civilization, until we reached a place called Monasterboice. This was the Boyne Valley.

The most important high cross in Ireland stands here, from the 9th century. It is covered on all sides with Bible stories, which would have been used by the local priest as a way of teaching the illiterate parishioners. It is nearly perfectly preserved, and stands 18 feet high. It is said to be Ireland's greatest contribution to European sculpture.

It was easy to see why those early Christians had chosen this site. It was beautiful. The sun was dropping in the horizon, but the hills and bushes were a deep green. Nature seemed to be slowly overtaking the stones. The crosses were wearing away with time. The round tower of the monastery was disintegrating and the church walls were crumbling to pieces. But there were modern new gravestones in the cemeteries, with flowers freshly-placed. We wandered around the cemetery, passing from ancient Celtic crosses to small slabs of stone, in complete silence. The wind blew gently in the barren trees. The place felt so... holy.

We drove just down the country road to another important Christian site, called Mellifont Abbey. The whole valley has been religiously significant, since prehistoric times, but this particular monastery was basically a university for centuries until the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII. The ruins were gigantic. I can only imagine what it used to look like.

There is an important collection of neolithic ruins as well in the valley. There are three main tombs, surrounded by standing stones and henges. The prehistoric ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The whole complex dates to the 35th century BC — that's older than the Pyramids.

We walked on top of one of the mounds, one that had caved in, called Dowth. From the top we could see the entirety of County Meath, spotting old churches and farmlands, and the mound of Newgrange, not far in the distance, the most famous Irish prehistoric site. We would have gone there, but it was closed. You can go inside and see the inner chamber and the prehistoric artwork. Once a year, at Winter solstice, a beam of light enters the innermost chamber and illuminates the entire room. You can enter a lottery to try to be in the crowd for that moment. It is supposedly spectacular.

Here's a 360-degree view of the inside.

We took the long way back home, searching for warm country pubs for dinner, until we found a place in the middle of nowhere with a fire and good food. The roads leading to it looked kind of like a driveway, with grass poking up in the middle of the road. They have a name for that kind of path here: a "boreen".

I was glad to be back in Dublin.

What's the Craic

2010-02-14T08:16:00.012-05:00

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!)

Sarah's Visit

2010-01-13T11:49:00.009-05:00

Everywhere in Ireland

The morning Sarah came to visit me in Ireland is a blur. When she got off the plane, I couldn’t believe it was actually her. It didn’t compute. After three months of staring at her face through a webcam, she ran through the international arrivals terminal in Dublin airport and into my arms. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

We walked outside into the fresh air and Dublin seemed bright and new. Sarah had never been to Ireland before. I was so excited to show her everything – it even seemed like I was seeing things with new eyes. We got off the shuttle at Trinity College and walked through my campus. We dragged her luggage through cobbled pathways between the old buildings, the wheels clicking noisily between the worn stones. The sun, for the first time in days, was shining down on us, and I felt like we were the only two people in Ireland.

And we saw everything in Dublin. We saw the stately Georgian homes of the oldest city neighborhoods, explored churches and cemeteries, walked along the river and by the docks, visited famous pubs and restaurants and takeaway chippers. We ate all the obligatory Irish food possible: fish and chips, Irish stew, Dublin coddle, Guinness pie. We went on the Guinness Storehouse tour: a 7-story adventure through the factory where Guinness is made, culminating in a celebratory pint of the black stuff in their 360-degree glass observation tower. (We also took a tour of the old Jameson distillery.) We went shopping for Christmas presents, watched street performers, listened to musicians. We explored all of my campus, going into dark buildings, exploring the Chapel, looking for passageways. Sarah absolutely loved it.

We must have walked 100 miles in the 10 days she was there. And somehow, it only rained once.

I introduced Sarah to all my friends and my roommates. We went to the College chaplaincy after a Christmas evensong mass and ate mince pies and drank sherry with a few friends and the Anglican priest (who’s in my classes). We went out for a friend’s birthday in Temple Bar, where Sarah met some of my friends from the ISE. She met Jen and Mylene, and we went to the campus bar (the “Pav”) and sat outside on the steps with Trinity students across from the rugby field.

The next day, Sarah and I took the train up to Howth and walked around the cliffs there. We saw the sailboats in the harbor, explored the little town and walked through the paths around the peninsula. We stopped by the ruins of the old church I had once explored myself. I can’t begin to tell you how much nicer it was to see all of it again with her!

Sadly, in the midst of her trip there was some terrible news: Pip’s dad had just passed away of cancer. He had been sick for a few months. I had gotten a chance to meet his dad two weeks prior. Pip was devastated.

Sarah and I felt so bad. We knew we had to go to the funeral. We took a train up to County Longford to see Pip and his family. We stayed in their house, talked with Pip’s sisters, and met their family friends and extended family. People began coming over, filling the house with their sympathies and condolences, and doing their best to help Pip’s family get through that time. His mom was so strong. People brought over homemade dishes and cookies and made tea. Pip’s dad had been a Church of Ireland minister, and a very beloved one at that. I think Sarah and I met hundreds of people.

There were two funeral services. That night we went to a little stone church in the small town, on a hill surrounded by a cemetery. The air was so crisp and cold, and the stars were so clear in the sky, that their light was bright enough to illuminate our breath in the churchyard. A bell was tolling. We were the last into the churchyard. We walked quietly through the old gates, past an old bearded man who solemnly and slowly pulled a rope dangling from the bell tower. The church was packed to capacity. As we walked down the aisle, the entire church turned their heads at once. Sarah and I snuck into our seats.

The service was a celebration of life, rather than a time of sadness. It was truly inspiring, and uplifting. We went back to the house that night and I knew that Pip was proud.

The next morning the house was bustling with dogs running around and people getting ready, getting dressed, making porridge, pouring tea, hurriedly getting ready to make the drive to Florence Court in Fermanagh, Northern Ireland where Pip grew up. There we would go to the second funeral service and the final resting place of Pip’s dad.

Lots of Pip’s friends came up, and some others from Dublin made the trip up, including Mylene. Sarah and I spent a lot of time with a friend of Pip’s named Sheelagh. She introduced us to Pip’s friends, and walked around with us that afternoon. I kept seeing familiar faces from my adventures with Pip, and Sheelagh saved me embarrassment by reminding me of a few names.

At the end of the day, after we made our way back to Longford, Sarah and I took a train back down to Dublin with Mylene. We spent a couple more days in Dublin, exploring, before I got a call from Pip.

“Fancy a trip out West?” he asked.

I asked him if he was sure, but he said he needed some space to clear his head. Anyway, he had some business to attend to in Clare, so Sarah and I took a train to Ennis to meet up with him and Sheelagh in the wild west.

We drove around in Sheelagh’s jeep that afternoon, just driving basically anywhere and everywhere. We visited the famous and iconic Cliffs of Moher, where we parked the jeep and walked along the cliff edge with Little Pip (the dog), exploring an old watchtower and taking pictures. It was a cold day in December, so there were no tourists to speak of, and we had the cliffs to ourselves. We jumped back in the jeep, muddy and wet, and drove through farmland and country roads, avoiding potholes and the very occasional car, through all of County Clare.

Past fishing villages, up and down hills, through valleys. We drove toward the amazingly barren and moonlike Burren region, where we got out and tiptoed around the cracks and craters of the rocks down to the ocean’s edge, until the sun set and we couldn’t see where we were walking. We ended up in a famous pub in a small village near Lahinch where we had, you guessed it, Guinness and fish and chips, before making our way to Sheelagh’s house. We bought some groceries and some beer and wine, and picked up Sheelagh’s two golden retrievers.

With 4 people, 3 dogs, and all our groceries and luggage stuffed in the jeep, we somehow made our way to Pip’s family’s cottage in Kilbaha.

I’ve already explained a bit about this cottage in a previous post, but I can tell you that Sarah thought it was incredible. It’s truly one of the most amazing places I’ve ever seen in my life, and I know she loved it. It was late at night when we got there, but the neighbors in the village invited us to stop by their house before we went to sleep. We sat by their fire drinking tea and eating toast.

The next morning, we got a fire going and made porridge, before setting out to explore the cliffs around the cottage. Pip’s ancestors had blown away part of the cliff face with explosives to create what family memory recalled as “The Hanging Gardens.” It was a little isolated section of the cliff which was hidden from the wind. From there we could see across the estuary to County Kerry. You know what, I'm just going to stop there:

As we were walking along the cliffs, we came upon a summer home of a lawyer Pip knew. The lawyer wasn’t there, but we realized that the windows in his house had been broken in, and glass was lying everywhere on the ground. We went up the road to tell a neighbor who called the nearest police station, 25 miles away. A couple hours later, a police officer stopped by the cottage and came inside. We sat in the living room, drinking tea by the fire, as he asked us three questions or so, and then he just sat back and shot the breeze for an hour. Among the other things he told us, he was the only police officer in a 25-mile range, and he didn’t work on the weekends. This was the first time there was a “major crime” in years.

The local lighthouse keeper, Tom stopped by the cottage later that day and drank tea (Always tea tea tea… you can’t begin to understand all the tea we had…) and then took us on a tour of his lighthouse. It dates to 1720. We walked inside around a winding staircase to the very top where we took pictures of the whole peninsula and felt the wind whipping up over the Atlantic. Tom showed us the gears and engine which keeps the light spinning, and it flashed in our eyes as we watched. Pip calls Tom the "Playboy of the Western World", because the lighthouse runs itself.

Sheelagh made us homemade bangers and mash for dinner, which was delicious. We went to the local pub that night, with the three dogs of course, and drank Guinness by the fire as the neighbors told stories.

The following afternoon Sarah and I took the train back to Dublin. We had just a few days left, and we wanted to see a few more things in Dublin before we left for the States.

Yes. We! I surprised my family for Christmas and came home for the holidays! My dad and brother knew about it, but it was a surprise to everyone else. When Sarah and I finally arrived in Pittsburgh, Steven picked us up from the airport and my dad drove me home. I walked through the door and slowly peeped around the corner. My mom looked at me for a moment before she understood what was going on, and then her eyes grew wide and she yelled out, “Alex?” in disbelief. She ran over to me and cried and cried. We hugged for probably an hour, my sister too. It was a Hallmark family moment, for sure. Couldn’t have worked out better.

I got to see a lot of friends from home and from Pittsburgh, and I also spent a lot of time with Sarah and my family, but mostly I just sat home and realized how lucky I am to be doing what I’m doing. I think that this was the break I needed: to come home and rediscover who and what’s important to me, to regain confidence in myself, to snap out of it and realize how incredible Ireland is. When you’re too close to something, it’s easy to take it for granted. Well, now I’m not taking it for granted anymore.

So here I am, sitting at Chicago O’Hare, waiting for my flight back to Ireland. My classes start again on Monday and last until May, at which point I have a very large and scary thesis to write by August. I think I’ll be coming home to Pennsylvania for the summer to work on that. The deadlines are in sight! In the mean time, here’s to Ireland!

Pittsburgh and Ireland are the Same

2009-12-09T13:16:00.000-05:00

Dublin, Ireland

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this: Pittsburgh and Ireland are the same. Culturally, historically, religiously... let me explain.

The Pittsburgh/Irish Diaspora

Ireland lost half its population, going from over 8 million people before the Potato Famine in the 1840s to just over 4 million in the Republic today. Irish people worldwide number about 70 million, including 45 million people in the United States. After the Famine years, many Irish moved to Pittsburgh, to neighborhoods like Lawrenceville, where they were largely responsible for driving the engine of the industrial revolution. We all know the story: the Irish worked in our steel mills and coal mines, they built our roads, they built our skyscrapers. Pittsburgh wouldn't be Pittsburgh without the Irish.

Similarly, after the mills shut down, Pittsburgh lost half its population between 1950 and today, going from 670,000 to just over 310,000 people. The Pittsburgh Diaspora is hard to define, but the popularity of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the "Steeler Nation" might give us some clues. There are Steelers-themed bars across the United States (even the world). We can each attest to the age-old problem of young Pittsburghers moving southward and westward to greener pastures, but we can always find familiar faces in places like North Carolina and California.

But Ireland and Pittsburgh are reinventing themselves to overcome an outsider's negative perception that now seems so out of date. Dublin employs tens of thousands in the high-tech and internet sectors, with offices from Google to Microsoft now found along the old docklands. And Pittsburgh has risen to become one of the most important robotics and health care centers in the world, shaking the old dust off its feet.

The Land

It takes a lot of rain to keep Ireland this green, the locals like to say, and it's true. Most days, the gently rolling hills of Ireland are capped by overcast skies and a drizzling rain. Likewise, it rains more in parts of Western Pennsylvania than in Seattle. Pittsburgh has 59 sunny days a year. Dublin, also, has 59 sunny days a year.

A largely rural country dominated by agriculture and vast stretches of mountains, Western Pennsylvania is packed with rivers, green grass, and sheep. We've decided to name our towns Wexford, Donegal, Strabane, Carrick, and Carlow, among dozens of others.

The Language

Are you ready for this?

They say "yinz" in Ireland. Yup. It sometimes sounds like "youz" or "yiz": "Yiz up for pints later?" they say. I couldn't believe me ears at first, but I've heard it over and over again. Talk about a Pittsburgh institution.

They also say "slippy". "Watch out, the stones are slippy." I asked people about it... it's just the way they say it. Is there another place on Earth where they say this, besides Western Pennsylvania?

And the Irish drop the "to be" regularly. "The windscreen wipers need changed." Yes, it's true! I thought it was unique to Northern Appalachia. Nope. Wonder where we got it!

Revolution and the working class

Pittsburghers and the Irish are tough, gritty, hard-working people. They have experienced hardship: each have stories in their families of steel mill disasters or shipyard tragedies. The industrial town of Dublin, known mostly for its brewing industry, has fallen on harder times in recent years, as breweries and distilleries have moved out of the city or offshore. Guinness is no longer Irish-owned. Sound familiar?

The people take pride in their blue collars, and you can hear whispers murmured against the upper class in any good Dublin pub. Dubliners poke fun at their "posh" neighborhoods, the same way Pittsburghers make fun of Fox Chapel's yacht club.

Ireland's reluctance to sign the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, despite the government's begging them to do so, is exactly analogous to Pittsburgh's general mistrust of the G20 coming to Pittsburgh this past September. We Pittsburghers don't like things we don't understand, especially anything that seems fancy and European. "Ireland isn't Europe," they like to say in Dublin.

It's a conservative cautiousness ("A maglev to the airport? Git aht!") that defines Pittsburgh and Ireland for me, despite their blue-collar and, dare I say, socialist leanings. Keep in mind, Pittsburgh was instrumental in the Trade Union movement. More wealth was contained in Pittsburgh at the turn of the 20th century than in any American city but New York, but the wealth was in the hands of a few. It was strikes like the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Homestead Strike of 1892 that gave us working hours, a minimum wage, and protections against child labor, and the movements were always popularly supported by Pittsburghers, despite great loss of life. We spurred the first labor laws, we maintain the largest union headquarters.

And we cannot forget the Whiskey Rebellion of the 1790s, in which Western Pennsylvanians, in good anti-authoritarian fashion, protested the taxation of whiskey. President Washington crossed the mountains and suppressed the revolution. It was the first and only time an acting president personally commanded troops on the battlefield.

Protesting authority? Sounds a bit like the Irish situation for the last, oh, I don't know, 400 years. The Irish Rebellion of 1798, the Easter Rising of 1916, The Troubles. The Irish have been protesting the British since the Penal Laws.

Saints and scholars

They say Ireland is the land of saints and scholars. You can't begin to tell the story of Christianity in the Middle Ages without mentioning St. Columba, St. Columbanus, and of course, St. Patrick. And the literary legacy of Ireland is astounding: James Joyce (of course), Oscar Wilde (from Trinity College), George Bernard Shaw, W.B. Yeats, and Samuel Beckett, among hundreds of others. Many of them left Ireland, seeking inspiration elsewhere. But they all had a special place in their heart for Pittsb... err, I mean Ireland.

Ireland is fantastically literate. They tell stories like it's their job, and the language they use is poetic, heartfelt, and musical. Their children are well-educated, and for such a tiny island, it's worth noting that Trinity College is a top 50 world university.

Pittsburgh is one of the top 20 most educated cities in the US, despite having the lowest median household income on the list. We are also one of the most literate cities in America. And, in 2008, we were named the world’s 6th-most lively education center.

I don't need to begin to address Ireland's deep religious history. Ireland has one of the highest weekly church attendance rates in the Western World.

And just how religious is Pittsburgh? The area outside of Pittsburgh has the largest concentration of Presbyterians in the country, while the city itself contains one of the highest Jewish populations in the world and an impressive number of Eastern Orthodox communities, some unique to Pittsburgh. (And did you know that Jehovah's Witnesses started in Pittsburgh?)

But the immigrant influx to Pittsburgh was largely Roman Catholic. In fact, The Diocese of Pittsburgh counts 719,801 members, 150,000 more than the Archdiocese of Washington DC. Could we be more Irish?

Additionally, both Pittsburgh and Ireland seem to be hesitating from the evangelical non-denominational movement that's sweeping the world right now, favoring instead their traditional long-established churches. It's a unique position they both share, whether the people are Catholic or Protestant.

Food

And alongside all the churches in Pittsburgh and Dublin, there are hundreds of bars and pubs. The 84 bars within one mile on the South Side of Pittsburgh is by some accounts the most densely-packed pub scene in the world. Dublin's corresponding mix of churches and pubs is summed up in the words of James Joyce, who wrote, "A good puzzle would be to cross Dublin without passing a pub."

And food? All pub food. All root vegetables. Lots of beer. Have you heard of an Irish breakfast? Ireland ranks #1 among the world's biggest calorie consumers, at an average of 3410 calories a day, per person. (Wow!) Pittsburgh is ranked #2 on the list of the most junk food-obsessed cities in the United States. We also invented Heinz Ketchup, which is very potato-friendly.

And, I have to say, the Pittsburgh tradition of putting french fries on everything from sandwiches to salads seems pretty Irish to me.

Finally

Ireland has often been called the world's happiest country. The people consistently rank at the top in terms of the contentedness of their people, despite centuries of poverty, oppression, famine, and the rest. They are a friendly and accommodating people, generous to friends and strangers alike, and proud of their heritage.

If you're from Pittsburgh, you know we were just ranked the nation's most livable city, again. Pittsburghers seem to preach unceasingly about how nice their city is, and they take pride in even the slightest mention of Pittsburgh. We are not the richest city, or the most famous. But we love this place, and we'd love nothing better than to show it to you.

* By the way: All the photos on the left were taken in North Strabane Township in Western Pennsylvania (25 miles south of Pittsburgh), and all the photos on the right were taken in County Wicklow, Ireland (25 miles south of Dublin).

"I'm Giddy with Irishness"

2009-12-06T10:43:00.015-05:00

County Donegal, Ireland

To recap: I stayed with Pip at his friend Joe's cottage in Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.

This was last Saturday. We woke up, very leisurely, and decided that we should make the most of what was actually going to be a really sunny day. We drove over to pick up Joe and Pip's friend Chy, and the four of us thought about what we should do, over a hearty Irish breakfast of sausage, eggs, bacon, beans and toast.

Somehow, someone mentioned Donegal. My ears lit up. My friend Sarah McFadden's family is from Donegal, and I had promised her that I would try to get up there and see that county. I'd heard it was spectacular (although she might be a little biased).

Donegal is the West Virginia of Ireland. I've heard people make "sheep shagging" jokes about Donegal. It's very rural. No trains connect up there. It's overwhelmingly Catholic and a traditional stronghold of Gaelic culture. Much of the county is in what's called the Gaeltacht, or Irish-speaking region of Ireland, where Irish is the predominant language at home. It's separated geographically from the rest of the Republic, rugged and independent, surrounded by sea and Northern Ireland. It's a wild and wonderful place.

We piled into Joe's car, with Little Pip of course, and made our way north-westward, out of Northern Ireland, and into Donegal. The roads weren't great. The scenery was. You're never very far from the sea in Donegal, and as we drove along, little villages and sheep farms seemed to slip down the cliffs into the many bays and inlets of the coastline. We wound our way up into the mountains to get a better view. We pulled over more than a few times and pulled out the cameras. It was spectacular.

We were heading toward Sliabh Liag (pronounced Slieve League), which is the name for some of the tallest sea cliffs in Europe. 2000 feet high, straight down into the ocean. We got lost along the way, finding instead some of the little villages of the Gaeltacht. (There was no trace of English to be found in any of the road signs. That was our excuse for getting lost.) I'm glad we did.

I felt like I was seeing Ireland for the first time. The others laughed at me with my head sticking out the window, taking pictures of everything: from thatched roof cottages to bog lands, to the sheep that were literally standing in the middle of the road. Sheep dogs chased our car down narrow dirt lanes, and wooden and stone fences stretched down the steep slopes to the sea, which seemed to be on all sides of us now. And all the while, the mountains of Slieve League towered above us.

We parked and got out of the car. Little Pip ran up ahead, as we hiked up the tight pass, up the slopes of Slieve League, winding around the cliffs, to the very top, where we were greeted with one of the most beautiful (and dangerous) things I've ever seen.

Incredible.

By the time we walked back down the mountain, we had missed the first half of the Ireland vs. South Africa rugby match, but since Joe was especially interested, we found a little pub to stop in and see if it was on. None of us wanted to be the one to ask, in the Gaeltacht, if they could put on rugby (as English a game as there ever was). Luckily though, since it was the Irish national team, the pub we found already had it on. It was one of those little places you walk into and everyone turns and looks at you. And they weren't especially friendly about it.

But Ireland won! They're undefeated this year. What a ridiculous sport. I have to say: the players are pretty well-behaved about it, considering they could be out there gouging each others' eyes out. They have an old saying here: "Rugby is a hooligans' game played by gentlemen, and football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans."

Pip and I drove back to his parents' house that night, and I met his family, who are just so nice. His mom made sure that we were well fed, with tea and porridge, and his sister made us homemade macaroni and cheese, which was fantastic. Pip's other sister had made brown bread, and by the time we got to sleep, I think I'd eaten a week's worth of delicious, homemade food. It's been so long!

Northern Ireland

2009-12-01T14:25:00.005-05:00

County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland

We had barely been back in Dublin for a day when Pip asked me if I wanted to go with him to visit friends and family in the North. He was up there visiting his dad, so I hopped a 7:00 AM bus to Northern Ireland and met him in the southern border town of Cavan.

Northern Ireland, if you've always wondered, is the six counties of Ireland in the north that make up part of the United Kingdom. It is a country separate from the Republic of Ireland. You've heard of The Troubles. Traditionally Northern Ireland has been Protestant, though that demarcation has become less and less clear. In fact, Catholics now have a slight majority in the North. Someone here told me the policy of Catholic Nationalists has been to "breed them out". Looks like it's working.

Pip and I went to a cafe and got some tea and breakfast, and we wandered around the town before making our way back to the car to drive to the North. Little Pip in the backseat, music going, sun shining, villages and churches and ancient ruins dotting the landscape... there was no reason to worry that Pip's windshield wipers had stopped working. "No problem," Pip said. "It hasn't rained in Ireland since 1988."

That record was shattered the moment we crossed into Northern Ireland in County Fermanagh. The rain started and didn't stop (it's the rainiest county in the island of Ireland). There Pip was, winding down his window to wipe his windshield with his arm, but that wasn't doing the trick. We stopped into a little furniture shop right across the border. Pip knew the owner and wanted to pick up a picture he had left there.

This was my first time in Northern Ireland. We walked nearby to change our money into pounds sterling. We saw some hunters coming out of the woods with their rifles and hunting dogs. The accents all around us were slightly different, the signs were in miles instead of kilometers, the welcome sign was in English instead of Gaelic.

We drove down the road a bit to a mechanic, who took one look at the wipers and told us the wiper motor "needed replaced." He rang a few people, but no one in the area had a spare part today. Luckily, the rain had stopped, and we continued on our way.

It had rained 42 days straight in Fermanagh, and the flooding had wiped out basically everything. Entire fields were submerged. Roads diverted. Trees were underwater. Apparently farmers have been taking kayaks out to their cows in the fields. It's bad. Worst flooding in living memory in Ireland.

We drove to Enniskillen as fast as we could to make it to a 2 pound fry in a pub, but it ended at noon and we were 4 minutes late. Instead, we walked around Enniskillen and went into a shop for cheap chicken and chips. As we sat on a bench in the main throughway of the town, I swear Pip must have talked to about every person on the street. He had lived there for 6 years or so, running his photography shop in a nearby market. We went there next.

With Little Pip running ahead, we went to an artist's market where painters, jewelers, and photographers ran little shops selling their wares. We stopped in at each place, talking to the owners and introducing myself. Maybe it's because we're studying religion, but religion kept coming up. I was asked a couple times, casually of course, if I was Catholic or Protestant. It was harmless, but worth noting, based upon what would happen later...

We stopped in a framing shop where Pip introduced me to the "Google of Enniskillen" who told us that there was a storytelling/traditional music festival going on that night in town. Pip dropped off some photos to be framed, and we continued on our way.

We swung by an old farm where Pip's friend keeps horses. We got lost along the back country roads and farmlands, and had to stop and ask a farmer for directions. "It's just down past da two trees," he said, pointing vaguely into the horizon. Mind you, we were in a forest.

Luckily, we found the two trees we needed and arrived at the farm. Pip's friend wasn't there though. An old man offered us a ride in his truck down to where she was riding her horses. "There's only one direction she could be walking," he told us, but as he dropped us off in the middle of the woods, we realized he was lying.

We wandered around for an hour, but all we saw were old horse tracks. I felt a bit like Legolas, inspecting the mud prints, but to no avail.

We ended up walking the 3 miles back, uphill, through the Irish countryside back to the farm. It was really nice. The weather was good. We didn't pass a single car. Sheep in the fields, the sound of running water in a stream.

Then we got lost. Luckily, a completely random car happened on down the road, and Pip knew the guy! He had taken photos at his wedding! He gave us directions to the farm, and we walked over that way, and finally made it before dark.

Pip's friend had ridden back to the farm, of course, so we talked to her for a little bit, met the horses, and met an old man who got to talking with me in particular. He was keen to point out that "they're having problems in the South," referring to last week's Dublin Report, which has shocked and devastated Ireland by revealing that bishops knew of child abuse cases and kept them hidden.

And there again was that question about my religion. And about my last name. He knew lots of Moores in the area. The name is very Anglo-Irish, and it's very common in the North. Someone told me once, "Yeah, emphasis on the common," meaning that Moores are often seen as very simple people. And the old man also knew Pip's father and uncle! It's a small island, Pip repeated.

It was dark when we left the horse farm. We drove on northward, to meet another friend, but halfway along the way Pip had the idea to stop somewhere where we took a ferry to an island, where he had done a bunch of wedding shoots for clients. (It's one of the top 10 places to get married in the UK.)

Stop, park, ring for a ferry on a little phone, it floats over, hop on, it floats back, and there we are. On an island.

We went into a little pub. Fire in the hearth, Guinness in our glasses, for cheap cheap. Sat and made some friends with three 50-year old ladies from Belfast who were at a retreat with their company. The ladies didn't want to be there at all, so we sat and drank tea and ate biscuits with them, and they started asking us about our program, and before long, it was an all-out religious debate about Catholicism vs. Protestantism. Didn't mean for that to happen, but the lady across from me got into a rant about how she thought tradition was "bullocks" and how she had left the Church, and I kind of gave her my entire perspective on tradition and why it's important to maintain the mystery of God. I don't know if I influenced her or not, but she was definitely interested in the idea, as if she hadn't considered it before.

Pip later said that any moment we can get to witness for Christ is time well spent.

Neither of our mobile phones worked in the North, so we ended up swinging by Pip's good friend's mom's cottage, and we sat in her living room by the fire and drank some gin and tonic. Then we headed literally next door to see her son Joe and hang out with him for a bit. "Moore? We've got Moore's up the road," he said. Joe was absolutely great. We left there, and Joe drove us all over to Enniskillen for the storytelling gig.

And it was bad. Some of the stories were ok, but man, the delivery was dreadful. The music parts were ok. Anyway.

The place we were in was bombed by the IRA in 1987. 60 people were injured and 12 people died, including Pip's schoolteacher. It's the event that Bono goes off on in the live version of Bloody Sunday, the "Remembrance Day" bit. The building had to be completely rebuilt. Border towns really are like that. It makes history come alive in a way you never could experience through just reading a book. Joe and Pip talked about the trouble you used to have crossing the border with all the checkpoints, just 10 years ago. Anyway...

It was about 11 PM now. We walked over to Pip's favorite little, as he says, "fiddly-diddly" pub (traditional music pub) and sat by a fireplace right next to an accordionist, a guitarist, and a fiddler. They're there every Friday.

Bought Guinness. And more Guinness. And more Guinness. Pip was moving about the packed pub, talking to old friends, friends' dads, friends' kids. Catching people up on his situation, telling people he was in school, in a very chill, I'm-a-hippie kind of way. He knew half the pub, or they knew him.

Anyway, the night wears on, and we get to the final stages, and this big red-faced ogre kind of a man walks over, drunk, and sits down next to the band, and belts out this beautiful Irish tune, this melancholy kind of folk song, and the whole pub grew silent. The next song, the band joined in, and it was really grand.

But after the band packed up to leave, red-faced giant man stayed in his spot, next to us, sort of examining us with his wandering eyes, before coming over to sit down at our table. First thing we all said of course is, you have a great voice, those were beautiful songs, etc. He looks at me first and says something really derogatory about Americans. OK, I think, and I laugh. He's drunk, he's just causing trouble. No harm. He then says something about Bush and says that America has been in Iraq for so long, it's another state. I sip my Guinness nervously.

Pip tells him that we don't need any anti-American chats here tonight, and the red-faced man looks at him, and then at Joe, and then back at me and he says, "So what part of the States are you from?" I look at him squarely in the eye and say, "Baghdad." He sort of cracks a smile and the people around us laugh. He offers me a handshake.

But then he looks back at Pip. "What town were you born in?" the man asks. Pip immediately catches on. "What are you saying," Pip says. "Which foot do ya kick with?" the man asks again. Pip interrupts him: "What era are you from, dude?"

A paraphrase of what happened next:
Man: Where did you go to school?
Pip: Listen to you, asking questions like it matters anymore. It's not 1980. Welcome to the 21st century.
Man: Where are you from?
Pip: I'm from *town*.
Man: And you're a Protty?
Pip: Aye.
Man: Can you sing me a good Protestant song from your town?
Pip: You want me to sing the Sash don't you (This is a big no-no in border towns. It's the Unionist's national anthem of sorts.) I don't actually know the Sash, but I wouldn't sing it anyway.
Man: Go on, you know it.

I'm sitting there, my heart racing, my eyes darting from left to right as the two face each other. I have my fists clenched, not sure what's going to happen. Joe is sitting across from me, and we look at each other, and back at the man, ready to jump to our feet.

Pip then starts to sing a song he heard in Jerusalem when he went there with his dad, years ago. It starts "El Shaddai," and it's in Hebrew and English. As he starts to sing it, he pounds with one hand on the wooden table, shaking the place and rattling everyone's attention. He sings at the top of his lungs -- an absolutely beautiful song. Then he shouts, "Jesus was a hippie who walked around with 12 of his mates and told people to love each other."

The man stands up, reaches his arm over the table and shakes Pip's hand, shakes mine, and turns and leaves the pub. Did that really just happen? We stand up, grab our coats, and head out the side door.

Slept on a couch in Joe's cottage. Couldn't stop thinking about the whole thing.

The Wild West

2009-11-26T13:49:00.002-05:00

Kilbaha, Ireland

It's Monday afternoon and I'm in the department, putzing around on the computer, when my friend Pip walks over. He had just gotten an email from an old client of his who wanted a photograph he took at a wedding, years ago, but the negatives were in his family's cottage in Clare. He said he'd have to leave after class. "Fancy an adventure to the West?"

County Clare is on the opposite side of Ireland, a 4-hour drive westward. I've heard more than one person say it's the most beautiful county in Ireland. June loves it so much she named her daughter Clare.

As word spread about us leaving, we gathered up a crew to join us, and by the end we had packed the car: Pip's friend Jen from Dublin, and Mylene from France who's in Peace Studies. And we had Little Pip (Pip's springer spaniel puppy). We went and bought snacks for the road, went to another place to buy bread, crisps (chips), and some vegetables and flour and ingredients to make pizza later. And we also bought a lot of beer and Irish whiskey, and wine. And... now it was 10:00 at night.

There we were, driving through the middle of Ireland in the dark, blasting Pip's underground neo-Celtic rock CD, playing with Little Pip, cracking the windows and winding them up again when it'd start to rain, passing through villages and tiny towns, round and round roundabouts (we didn't see a single red light the whole way across Ireland), gazing at stars when the clouds parted, talking politics and religion, passing cars and lorries on winding potholed roads... it was perfect.

We turned near Ennis and ended up on very remote back roads, which twisted and turned down to the coast. As we got closer, we came off the highlands and down along the ocean, looking out at the clouds over the sea. Then the rain came again, and as we inched closer to the village, I realized we were in one of the most remote places I've ever seen.

It was 2 AM when we reached Kilbaha, Ireland. We pulled into a driveway and jumped out and opened a big metal gate, and Pip drove the car into the yard, through the mud, up to a little cottage. Gray, with red window frames and an old roof. It sat near the sea, but it was so dark outside, we could only hear the ocean waves hitting the rocks below, no more than 200 yards from where we were standing.

Pip realized he didn't have a key to the house, but it didn't matter. There was a window left unlocked, and he climbed inside to flip on the breaker and the water. We all climbed in through the window, drenched and muddy, and Pip gave us a tour, walking from room to room. 140 years of family possessions littered the rooms, old photographs, new photographs from Pip's studio, a couple dozen mattresses for guests, old furniture, discarded pieces of wood, 19th-century books. The rooms were laid out haphazardly, as the cottage had been added onto many times over the years. The floors creaked and the air in the house was cold. The wooden doors were painted bright red, and they had old metal locks. It was like a movie.

Pip and I went outside to chop wood for the fire, climbing in and out of the window again. It was pouring, and cold: 3000 miles of ocean meets this tiny little pebble in the sea. We walked up the country road with a torch (flashlight) to find Little Pip, who had gone to play with the neighbor's dog. The neighbor wasn't too thrilled about that: it was half 2 in the morning after all.

We went back into Pip's house, and I got the fire going in the little stove, as Pip and the girls made hot whiskey. We sat in the living room, drying ourselves by the fire, listening to the wood crack in the stove, watching the flames, and listening to the wind and rain pound the side of the cottage.

We put on the Doors and drank beer and whiskey, and Frenchy had her wine, and we had a blast! We talked about France and America, and compared stories about where we all grew up, and talked about Ireland and their different accents, and heard Jen tell stories about living in England, and heard Pip tell stories about his motorbike trip across Montana. We made fun of Mylene because of the French handball incident which kept Ireland from qualifying for the World Cup. We joked around with Jen when she realized she didn't have any money and asked Pip whether there was an ATM in the village. "Oh yeah, just walk down the road past the city center, make a left at Chinatown and through the Italian quarter."

We had a giant loaf of bread and some cheese, and we passed that around, and some Doritos, which we devoured, and we kept drinking and building the fire and singing. Eventually, Jen brought out her guitar and played songs she had written, and blew us all away. I had heard her last week at a singer-songwriter night in a basement pub in Dublin (which is where we all met Jen), and she's a wonderful musician. After an hour or two we pulled out another guitar from the corner of the room, an old dusty guitar without a G-string, and Jen and I jammed Sweet Child of Mine and whatever else we could play with 5 strings and a lot of alcohol. So much fun.

At this stage the sun had started to come up, and the sky outside the window was getting light. We peered out and could see the sea, for the first time, and green pastures and cows and little cottages in the hills. It was close to 9 AM, and a lot of whiskey later, when Pip decided that it would be fun to run outside and see the cliffs. Right now. Let's go!

We climbed out the window and made our way through the mud, laughing and running, and climbed over a gate into a cow field. Little Pip ran ahead, running with a stick into the fields.

We walked up a long path to the top of a hill where the ruins of Pip's ancestors' house stood: It had been burned down in the Irish Civil War by the angry Catholic peasants (Pip's family belonged to the Protestant ascendancy, and thus owned this land), so now all that was left was the stone foundation and wooden planks from the roof.

At the top of the hill, the wind and the rain were so strong that it could knock you over. The rain pelted our faces and left us blinded, stumbling toward the cliffs (good idea). At the very edge of the 200 foot drop, we watched as the waves crashed into the rocks, the same waves which had been pounding relentlessly into the land for millennia. At the very edge was a little stone turret Pip's male ancestors had built when their wives wouldn't let them smoke in the house. It was just big enough for the 4 of us, and there were little holes through which you could see the waves and the rocks far below. The cliff faces were directly vertical, and it was a long long drop.

We explored the ruins of the little house, for a little bit, but by then we were exhausted. We came back and slept in the living room by the fire. It was 11 AM when we got to bed. Very Irish.

In Ireland the sun sets around 4:30 this time of year, and it was nearly dark when we woke up at the crack of 4 PM. We hurried to jump into Pip's car so he could show us another part of the cliffs in the daylight, a much higher and much more dramatic view. We drove through the country roads to a little place where we got out. Little Pip took off running again, chasing after who knows what. Part of the path had fallen into the sea, so we walked through a bog, trudging through mud and across ancient stone boundary walls, to the edge of the cliffs. Part of the cliffs made a natural archway to another section, and we climbed over the "bridge" to stand at the edge. The sun had already set, and we could barely see where we were walking, but the light from the sky reflected against the sea. It was dark when we walked back, and Pip led us toward the dim lights of little cottages in the hills, back to our car.

Little Pip was soaked and filthy. He jumped into the front passenger side into Jen's lap and she screamed. We all laughed, and drove on our way, until we started to smell something. "Oh that's probably just some muck he rolled in to cover his scent," Pip explained. Jen was not pleased. I was in tears laughing.

We drove up to a lighthouse on a hill overlooking the ocean, where Pip's friend is the lighthouse keeper. Pip calls him the "Playboy of the Western World" because the lighthouse is automatic. (That's hilarious.) His friend wasn't in unfortunately, but we did get to walk through the gate and beside the lighthouse. It swept almost magically over us, and over the sea, leaving long shadows and illuminating us in brightness, before everything would grow dark and it would pass again. It was eerie. The dark sections were intermittent, provided by little blank squares against the rotating glass. Pip explained that each lighthouse on the coast has its own code. *light* *light* *blank* *light* *blank* etc. Even today with GPS, ships have to go by these lighthouses in a storm or at night, since you can't always count on GPS.

Little Pip stunk again (happiest dog in the world, by the way) and made for a fun ride back to the cottage. We climbed through the window and made a pizza. I started the fire.

In the kitchen window, outside, there was a tap on the glass. Some guy was standing outside. It was Pip's mate from down the street. He climbed in the window and had tea and smoked cigarettes and chatted with us.

After pizza we all went down to the pub in town. The dog joined us. There are two pubs in the village. No shops, no businesses. Just two pubs. And which pub you go to makes a huge difference. People have their own pub, and they split into two camps: basically, those who go to mass, those who don't. We walked through the front door and everyone turned and looked at us. "Pip!"

Little Pip warmed himself by the peat fire and we had a round of Guinness (best Guinness I've ever had, anywhere). We sat and chatted with the locals around a long wooden table, as they made fun of Pip mercilessly, digging up loads of stories from years past, about his cousin, his family, his girlfriends. They said that Pip and his cousin were "more than just cousins", and everyone in the pub laughed. "See, that's anti-Protestantism right there," Pip protested to me. The joke is that Protestants in Ireland all come from the same 7 people. Pip later told me that there's still a good amount of resentment for the whole landed gentry thing. That was generations ago. He also told me that there's a man who's lived in the town since he was 19 (he's in his 40s now) and he's still considered a blow-in (an outsider) to this day.

"Your man behind the bar", or Bernie the bartender, got to talking with me about America and snow. Hasn't snowed in Kilbaha for 50 years. Bernie's pub has a sign outside that says, "The closest bar to New York", and I asked him about that. The old men sitting at the bar thought I said I was from New York, so I just went with it. I had no idea what they were saying half the time.

After a few pints, and some good talk about America and this one couple's honeymoon to San Francisco, we closed down the pub and walked back to the house. The sky was clear now. I've never seen stars like that before. The Milky Way was as bright as the moon.

Next morning we drove back. We had to be at class at 2 in Dublin. We stopped in a little town along the way because Pip had to get some stitches in his mouth removed at the dentist. Crazy. Walk in, walk out. We nearly made it to College on time.

It was the best time I've had in Ireland. Thanks, Pip! Unreal.

So that's that. Happy Thanksgiving! You wouldn't know it's Thanksgiving here. Just another day. But the Irish really are fascinated by Thanksgiving. It's a unique holiday, and it interests them, plus they see it in movies all the time. I think they just like mashed potatoes.

You Say Potato...

2009-11-18T08:51:00.011-05:00

Dublin, Ireland

Some of these things have become commonplace to me now. Some of them are still bizarre. I'll never be able to cross the street confidently again. It's still really hard to get used to that other-side-of-the-road business.

You call on someone at their flat. You ring someone on their phone. You use your mobile, not your cellphone.

It's a shop, not a store.
Flatmates, not roommates.
Lorry, not truck. Lift, not elevator. On and on...

It's men on the pitch, not players on the field.
It's go on Ireland, not come on Ireland.
They're footballers. They play a match, not a game.
It's "Ireland have scored", not "Ireland has scored". This is common with any collective noun: "The family have a house."

Detached houses are so rare that they're called "detached houses" in conversation. Also: holy roundabouts, Batman.

The Irish have an impressive number of synonyms for common words. Mates, lads, boys. It makes conversation with them really engaging. They're so good at telling stories that you wish you had a microphone on you all the time.

You go out and have some good craic (fun). This is a big one. They pronounce it "crack."

You have pints at the pub, not drinks at the bar, although you sit at a bar in the pub. Pubs have to list all their prices on a sheet of paper. A pint of "the black stuff" is Guinness, though it has other names: Stout, "a beer". Pint o' plain is the same thing.

"When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night -
A pint of plain is your only man."

A Guinness Quality Team van travels around to pubs and makes sure the Guinness is being served to their standards. Most pubs have at least 3 Guinness taps. Pints are actually bigger in Ireland. For these prices, they ought to be. Pubs close around 1 AM, except Thursday-Saturday where some pubs can remain open til 3:30 AM.

It's a loo, not a bathroom. Usually you have to pay for it in public places. It's a queue, not a line.

Almost all doors have a button you have to hold down to exit. Light switches are big flat buttons, not little finger-sized switches. The second floor of a building is actually called the first floor.

Water faucets almost always have two spouts, with hot and cold water coming out of either. You have to switch back and forth between the two running streams as you simultaneously freeze and burn yourself.

They say brilliant a lot, and cheers. When they end a phone conversation, they say "bye" just about 10 times in a row. They pronounce it "boy". Boy boy boy boy.

Most clocks are on a 24-hour scale, though you convert to AM and PM in conversation. Older people use feet and ounces, younger people use meters and liters. Your weight is in stone, which is one stone per 14 pounds. Try to figure that one out.

All the churches in Dublin ring their bells at noon and at 6 PM.

People eat lunch around 2 PM. In rural areas (and in Trinity), businesses and banks will be closed from 12:30 to 2 or so. Typical business hours then are 10 AM to 12:30, and 2:00 PM to 4 PM. How's that for a working day! It makes talking to a particular department really frustrating.

Radio stations are on even frequencies, ie. 105.2 FM.

Water comes in two varieties, still and sparkling. This is very common in Europe.

There are no ketchup dispensers at McDonald's, only packets. Yes, it's Heinz. They have sachets of salt instead of shakers. Most people leave their trays on the table after they're done eating.

In the school cafeteria, it's likely that you'll be served a meat with 3 varieties of potatoes: mashed, steamed, and fried. When I pointed out how crazy that was to a classmate, he didn't understand me.

Newspapers are far more colorful, with bigger headlines and, honestly, far dirtier content. Also, the news is really depressing here. They show photos of people in car accidents, and they run a lot of stories of children who have been killed or abducted, with their photos right on the front page. (I guess it's because it's a small island?)

Each morning, everyone you see will be holding a newspaper, and some people stand in the streets giving away dailys. The Irish read more newspapers per capita than anyone in the world, so they say.

TV news comes from Britain, either the BBC or Sky News, and so mentions Ireland only rarely.

People say "these islands" -- never the British Isles.

Movies are coming out "at cinemas", not "in theaters".

Begging is far more prevalent here. Also, you're likely to see a very sophisticated group of musicians playing saxophones, violins, drums, with all their sound equipment set up, sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. These groups come and go, normally staying a week or two, and then you'll never see them again.

Every street has a bookmaker. Paddy Power is a big one. There are more bookmakers than fast food restaurants, and little old ladies and businessmen and kids alike go in and out. They have TVs set up inside, and they really would bet on a fly moving up the wall.

People drive up to Belfast to do their shopping in Northern Ireland, while the Pound is so weak against the Euro. It takes less than 2 hours to get up there.

Gas works out to be $7 USD a gallon.

A B C D E F G Hache I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Zed.

The number 48 is farty-eigtch. 33 is terty-tree.

There are tons more. I'll post them as they come to me.

Schnitzel with Noodles

2009-11-16T16:43:00.000-05:00

Salzburg, Austria

The last city on my tour de Europe was Salzburg. I took the midnight train from Prague to Salzburg. This was NOT a main line. I had four changes to make to get to my final destination, and at 1:30 AM we stopped in the tiniest train station in the middle of the Czech Republic. I got off unknowingly, thinking that I'd have to wait at that station until my train came at 4:00 AM.

I stepped into the freezing cold of a little Czech mountain town. No one around. Little puddles of rain filled the street's potholes, reflecting the light from flickering street lamps. A taxi driver smoked a cigarette, waiting for absolutely no one. I shuffled around for a bit, walking through empty streets, and made my way back to the train station when I saw that the same train was still sitting there, with its engine now shut off. I decided that this train was probably the same one that was leaving at 4:00 AM, so I opened the door, climbed aboard, found an open sleeper car, and fell asleep.

When I woke up we were in České Budějovice, a city in southern Czech Republic. I got off there and waited in the station for a couple hours, watching as the day began and people began to fill up the train station, on their way to work. No where else in the world can you see a businessman get off a train at 6:30 AM, walk over to a kiosk, buy a beer, chug it, and buy another beer for the road. Several people did that.

I was on my second-to-last train, about to get off the train in Linz, where I'd transfer to Salzburg... but I got off a stop too early! I heard "Linz" announced on the train in German and thought, oh, time to get off, but I was just in the suburbs. Big whoops. I knew I made the mistake right away, and watched helplessly as my train disappeared out of sight.

Do you know how hard it is to ask people on the street where "Südbahnhof" (southern railway station) is? I kept forgetting the name. What is it... hoff... Hasselhoff? Hofbrauhaus? Häagen-Dazs? I couldn't remember for the life of me, and people I asked were just as confused.

Luckily I asked this one guy, and I must have seemed so pathetic that his wife took pity and asked him to drive me to the place. It was only a mile or two away, but I had no idea where anything was. They didn't speak a word of English, and I could only lean up to the front seat and point at myself and say, "Deutsch nein." Which isn't how you say that anyway, but they laughed. "English no," she said smiling. At least they got the idea. "Danke danke danke," I repeated, getting out of the car at my train station, and then for good measure, "Thank you very much," which is the universal Americanism everyone on Earth knows and imitates. They laughed again and waved. Wundervoll!

Salzburg is a little town, way more famous than you'd imagine for how tiny it is. It sits on the border of southern Germany and the Austrian Alps. The city runs along the Salzach river, and it's surrounded by mountains, green farmland, and above everything, a mountain with a castle and the abbey from the Sound of Music.

I don't have to tell you how beautiful it was. Actually, if you've seen the Sound of Music, you know. I know that sounds lame, but it's true. That movie depicts the city and the surrounding area very well.

So what better way to see the city than to go on a Sound of Music tour? Yes, that's right. It wasn't my idea. I've heard from friends, if you go to Salzburg, do the Sound of Music tour. They were right.

I ended up in a van with 7 other people and our tour guide, and we drove around Salzburg, the Alps, and the countryside, for four hours, listening to the Sound of Music CD. (Ok, that was a tad much.) But I got to see so much of that part of Austria, including all of Salzburg and the surrounding villages. I heard the history of the Nazi annexation of Austria, heard about the creation, reception and unbelievable success of the Sound of Music (it is the 3rd highest-grossing movie ever, at $1.022 billion), and heard the real story of the von Trapps, which is actually quite fascinating - minus Gretl.

Mozart was born in Salzburg too, and the guy who wrote Silent Night.

Interestingly, Austrians hate the Sound of Music. Probably because it brings a flood of camera-strapped tourists who think that it's the cleverest idea in the world to sing Do a Deer dancing down the street. I only saw that happen once, luckily.

After the tour, the nine of us drove back to the city center and started to say our goodbyes. But a few of us got to talking with our tour guide, asking her about her background. Turns out she was an American who had lived in Austria for the last 17 years. She had so many stories to tell kind of off the record about Austrians, their response to the 20-year anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and also where to find the best schnitzel in the city. After awhile, she told us that she had missed her bus anyway, so why don't we just go to a restaurant and try the wienerschnitzel!

We had a blast. There was an American girl my age who was couch-surfing (that's my next goal), an Australian girl who was hiking around Europe with some friends after high school (which is very common for Australians), and a couple from Phoenix who were celebrating their anniversary. I got to talking with the guy and he had lived in Pittsburgh for awhile and loved it!

The food was delicious. By the end of the night, several beers later, the 6 of us were listening to our tour guide tell stories about her travels around Europe and what it was like to live away from home for 17 years. There's no way I could do it.

The next morning I took a train back to Vienna, where I spent the day walking everywhere to see the things I missed the first time around, which was a lot. I hung out with a Norwegian PhD student I met at the hostel. He was studying in Austria and wanted to go get kielbasi and bratwursts, so we did.

I'd love to do a trip like this again, maybe in eastern Eastern Europe. It didn't cost me that much, actually. It's amazing how much money you can save when you pay pennies for airfare, stay in youth hostels, and sleep on trains.

Mullets and Castles

2009-11-13T05:27:00.011-05:00

Prague, Czech Republic

[Again, I only have a few pictures, because my camera's memory card took a dump. I'll try to post what pictures I have.]

I took a train on Saturday morning from Vienna to the Czech Republic. It was a 5-hour train ride.

I think riding the train can be the best part of a trip. As we made our way through Austria and into the Czech Republic, the scenery and people began to change dramatically. In Eastern Austria, we passed through gently rolling hills and green fields, past multicolored trees and windmills, gorgeous church towers and little villages with very Austrian-looking wooden houses and sloped roofs.

As we drifted closer to the border, the landscape changed, and the houses became more sparse and more rundown. We passed through dilapidated and abandoned Czech mill towns into steeper mountain country, as a mist descended in the valleys and along the creek bed out my window. In one place, men were fishing in a stream; in another, an old man was riding a bike following his dog down a dirt road, and some guy was peeing along the railroad tracks. The church spires in the villages we passed became more onion-shaped and colorful, though they were surrounded mostly by gray shacks. We'd stop at a remote train stop, and the conductor would blow his whistle and a man standing outside in uniform would salute. You could see his breath in the cold morning air. Chickens clucked nearby, unimpeded by an old wire fence.

A group of men got on, carrying 1.5 litre bottles of beer and sporting fantastic mullets, followed by some women with the same haircut. Everyone had mullets! And the language was vastly different now, far more foreign and strange. We continued on, and the smell of beer was in the air, at 10 AM, and the people got louder.

As we approached Prague, the sun started to come out and the mountains turned into rolling hills again, but this time everything felt so different, much more wild. We wound our way down to the city, and before you knew it, there we were, in the heart of what was about to become one of my favorite cities in the world.

Prague is different from other European cities because it is still there. Something most people don't like to think about is that many ancient European cities were basically leveled in WWII, so what you see are the attempts to salvage what was left. Prague is very well preserved, with its historic center listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. In fact, it is the sixth most-visited city in Europe.

When I arrived, I had no idea where my hostel was. I had a street address, and a map, but the map had abbreviated common Czech words. It would be like if you didn't speak English and you were looking at a map trying to find the Boulevard of the Allies in Pittsburgh, and the map said, "Blvd. Allies". You'd probably end up in Bellevue. Yeah, that was me.

Speaking of Pittsburgh, people in the Czech Republic are Pittsburgh Penguins fans! Two people mentioned this to me when they found out I was from Pittsburgh. (On the front cover of the sports section was a story about Jaromir Jagr.)

So I wandered around Prague, staring with open eyes at every building, every stone wall, every church, every museum and concert hall, with a week's worth of stuff strapped to my back. The things I saw will stay with me for a long time.

The Castle:

History was all around. An exhibit of photos and interviews of people from the communist era was running in the castle square, and I walked around reading their stories. Also nearby was a tribute to the incredible number of Jews from Prague who perished in the Holocaust. It was chilling.

TVs in store windows were showing clips of parties in the streets of Berlin. The Czech newspaper stands showed photos of celebrations and concerts around Eastern and Central Europe. Posters in the bus shelters and train stations spoofed hammers and sickles, or they showed photos of crowds cheering with the giant date "1989" written above them.

And then it hit me. Here I was, in Eastern Europe on the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

There were concerts going on in Prague to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, which was just days away. Again, I just happened to be in Prague. Unbelievable. There was a festival in the main square, so I went down there to check it out.

Potato pancakes, sausages, bratwursts, Czech ham, hot mead, hot wine, Pilsner Urquell beer (the first pilsner, named after Pilsen, Czech Republic), and ALL OF IT WAS SO CHEAP. The Czech Republic isn't on the Euro yet, so things cost me pennies. I could eat a fire-cooked bratwurst for $1.50 US. And it was the best I've ever had.

The nightlife in Prague is legendary. I met a couple people at the hostel. I stayed the night and spent the next day walking around in Prague too. The Jewish Quarter, the riverfront, the Lesser Town. You easily need two days to do it all. Again, I wish I had all my pictures, but these are some:

I did not know men could build such things

2009-11-11T13:06:00.008-05:00

Vienna, Austria

[When I was in the Czech Republic, my memory card died, and I seem to have lost some of my pictures from Vienna and Prague. Figures. These are just some of the pictures I was able to salvage, and they were taken yesterday when I was in Vienna a second time.]

On Friday evening I took a train to Austria and got off in Vienna. It was dark and raining, so I hurried to my hostel to check in before setting off to explore Vienna in the night.

I have never seen so many buildings side by side that are all so complex and so beautifully built. In the old city of Vienna, every single building is stunning. I wandered the streets snapping photos in the rain, trying to capture the opera houses, the museums, and the government buildings in my little point and shoot camera.

People filled the streets, some with umbrellas, some with hoods up, but mostly just on the move, to opera houses or concerts, or to little German beer halls and clubs. Tourists packed the streets, huddling under awnings, and old Austrian men really do wear those green hats! No kidding!

A little fall festival was going on in some side street, and I stopped there to see what was going on. Again, hot wine and schnitzel. Of course in Wien (Vienna), it's really "Wienerschnitzel". And now I know why we call hot dogs --and other things-- "wieners"...

As I was wandering, I started to freeze to death. I decided that it might be a good idea to maybe just call it a night and come back later, in the daytime and not in the rain. I made my way around a corner looking for the subway station back home.

But then I saw it. A church, towering above the central square in Vienna, with the most ornate Gothic tower I've ever seen. The tower rose above me higher than I thought possible, and as I got closer, with the raindrops stinging my face with cold, I squinted up at the gargoyles and intricate flowering designs around the doorways and archways, far up above, to the spiraling stonework of the bell tower, where even the most insignificant and darkest corners had such painstaking care and skill exhibited in the smallest detail... The roof was colorfully designed with blues and greens and golds, in a unique x-like pattern. At some point you just have to set the camera down and stare in wide-eyed wonder. I did just that.

This was St. Stephen's Church, and it is my favorite church in the world.

I walked to the front entrance and noticed that some people were going inside. A line had formed nearby, with disappointed-looking tourists saying things I couldn't understand. I acted fast, and got behind some people who were walking in.

The guard said something in German, and I nodded, and he touched me on the shoulder and let me through. I made my way around the corner of the old doorway, and... I think words fail me at this point.

Just imagine this. It's 1359, and you are a worker, one of hundreds, who has been carving the lattice work around an archway for years, in the topmost part of this new cathedral, in a place where sunlight will never shine again. You have just finished the most significant testament to your skill in this world, the pinnacle achievement of your lifetime, in this one little corner of an archway, hundreds of feet above the floor. No one will see it. No one will give it a second glance. But you have poured your heart into your work, and it remains for you an expression of love, of worship for your God, for centuries. To me, each stone felt that way: like it had been loved into being. Every stone flower, each little statue in the darkest corners, all had a purpose in giving thanks to God...

I had wandered into a konzert. In the center of the cathedral, the pews were filled with people sitting quietly and waiting. I tiptoed down the main aisle, trying to keep my shoes from squeaking, and found a seat in the last row. Then the cathedral's organ began to play, and a four-part choir and brass ensemble started up. They performed songs from Mozart and Haydn (both Austrian). The concert lasted an hour. The whole time my eyes traced the ceiling for the hidden details of the cathedral, from paintings to statues to the beautiful altar. I'm not really a fan of classical music, but it didn't matter. It was absolutely perfect.

I walked back out into the rain and had some good Austrian beer and pretzels. The next morning I was taking the train to Prague.

A Day in Slovakia

2009-11-08T03:10:00.019-05:00

Bratislava, Slovakia

The greatest thing about Europe is that you can hop a flight to another country in the way you'd hop on a bus to Erie. The hardest part is picking where to go.

It's Trinity's Reading Week this week, which means that we have a week without classes where we're supposed to be studying and writing and being scholarly. The unspoken assumption is that no one is going to be doing that, and that everyone is going to travel somewhere, and that's exactly what I did.

On Friday, I got off the plane in Bratislava, Slovak Republic in the smallest airport I've ever seen, and walked outside into the freezing cold. Whoops. Should have checked the weather forecast there, buddy. The unfamiliar sounds and accent marks of Slovak drifted in the air. Not an American in sight. Perfect.

I grabbed a map and made my way to the small bus stop to take a bus downtown. Buying a ticket was nearly impossible: the words on the ticket machine were a blur to me. I ended up missing a bus just by trying to guess which ticket was for adults and which was for students. In the end it didn't matter. Everything is so cheap!

The bus dropped us off at the central train station. The first thing, of course, was to find some good Slovakian food. A street vendor lady was selling schnitzel, and I bought a schnitzel sandwich for about 2 euro. It was FANTASTIC. Holy baby cow! Maybe it's because I was really hungry, but I savored ever last bite like it was a delicacy.

I didn't know what to do or where to go, so I wandered vaguely in the direction of tall buildings. A few English signs here and there, some posters of Michael Jackson that read, "Thank you Michael Jackson: Benefičná Muzikálna Show". Street trolleys and buses, clearly decades beyond their intended use, puttered past me. The crowds began to thicken, and a steady cloud of cigarette smoke filled the air. Never have I seen so many people smoking all at once.

And then I found the historic quarter. The streets were cobblestone, the buildings centuries old, with pieces of their stone facade falling away, revealing stained and broken bricks beneath. The alleyways were narrow and winding, sometimes leading to dead ends, sometimes opening into little squares. And hundreds of spires dotted the skyline, both onion-shaped churches towers and tall iron spikes.

There were tourists around, and a few side shops catering to them, but they weren't chain stores. You could tell that the little lady sitting there had actually made those bracelets, or those painted porcelain eggs, or whatever. And there wasn't any fake tourist music blasting from every shop! You know? In Dublin, shop owners seem to think you need to play blaring Celtic flute music to lull tourists into a buying trance.

But I heard some music coming from far away. I imagined it was just some street performer, so I walked in the other direction. But I heard it louder this time, and a crowd of people was moving that way, so I followed them. I came around a corner, as the music got louder, and I realized that I was in a street festival. The Festival of St. Martin.

A group of children was singing, and another was playing instruments, and one by one, different dancers would come onto a stage and dance traditional Slovakian dances, and sing in Slovak. The crowd was small: obviously a mix of local parishioners, proud parents and whatnot, and a few tourists. Some stands were set up nearby offering Slovakian wine from the countryside. But not just any wine.

I asked for a cup, which cost me a euro, and was given a giant plastic cup of HOT wine. Hot wine! I had never heard of that before, but it's a traditional autumn beverage in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Delicious. All of a sudden, I stopped shivering. I felt like it was the exact thing I needed.

People wore furry hats and chugged their wine and ate giant sausages and laughed heartily. The music was heartfelt, and warm. The different groups of dancers were laughing and sometimes messing up on stage, sometimes tripping over their own feet, but always smiling and singing.

And all the while, a giant castle loomed overhead, like some kind of a fairy tale. I wish I knew what that was. Keep in mind, I previously knew nothing about Bratislava. Honestly, I envisioned it just as my launching point for getting to Vienna. But it turned out to be one of my favorite cities in Europe: unassuming, unpretentious, accessible, and beautiful. And cheap. I'd highly recommend going. I know I'd love to see the rest of the country too.

I made my way back to the train station, and gestured my way from the ticket booth onto a train to Vienna, Austria. The two capital cities are the closest situated national capitals in the world, and the train ride took less than an hour. When I got off in Vienna, I was hit by the sudden realization that this was one of the most significant cities in the history of the world.

Vienna is the Europe you've imagined. It's what people mean when they talk about Europe.

(By the way, German people look like Americans; Slovakian people look like Pittsburghers.)

I'm in Prague, Czech Republic now. I'm staying in a hostel, and I'm on one of their computers. I'll write more later, about Vienna too, but for now I'm going to explore the city of Praha, what some people say is the most beautiful city in Europe! (And I could really go for some more schnitzel...)

All Hallow's Eve

2009-11-02T14:49:00.012-05:00

Dublin, Ireland

Halloween has got to be Ireland's national holiday. It goes on for days.

The Trinity Hallowe'en Ball was on Thursday night. A girl in the peace studies program was having a pre-Ball party, so I went with my friend from Ecumenics. He went as Jesus, and I dressed up as a Biblical archaeologist (sacrilegious? possibly?). There were about 20 of us there. Just a crazy time.

And then on Friday I went to a party at Dublin College University with another friend, and I ended up meeting a bunch more people. I was Troy Polamalu. At least one person knew who that was, and we talked about American football long into the night. At one point I was playing guitar (badly), at another point we climbed the garden wall in the backyard. The party went till, oh, I don't know, 5 AM?

Saturday, on Halloween, I decided to take it a little easy. As the night started to settle in, I walked around downtown and north of the Liffey, following the sounds of fireworks and bottle rockets, looking around. People began to emerge, in groups, dressed in the most creative costumes I've ever seen. They must have spent months on some of these costumes. It had poured earlier that day, so, sadly, bonfires were out of the question, but in a few places I thought I saw an orange glow on the horizon...

The night was really starting to get ridiculous. I went back and grabbed my roommates, and we packed into Temple Bar and watched the crush of people, in a sea of drunk goblins and lady bugs, ghostbusters, conquistadors, and zombies, street performers, musicians, beggars, and police. I've never seen anything like it.

Haunted Dublin

2009-10-27T14:12:00.000-04:00

Dublin, Ireland

A lot of people from home have asked me if they celebrate Halloween in Ireland. Not only do they celebrate it; they invented it.

Originally a Celtic tradition dating back to pagan times, the Gaelic festival of Samhain was celebrated at the end of the harvest season. The Pope moved All Saints Day to November 1st to try to supplant it, but Samhain was never entirely eradicated in the British Isles.

From Wikipedia:
"On All Hallows’ eve, the ancient Celts would place a skeleton on their window sill to represent the departed.... Welsh, Irish and British myth are full of legends of the Brazen Head, which may be a folk memory of the widespread ancient Celtic practice of headhunting – the results of which were often nailed to a door lintel or brought to the fireside to speak their wisdom. The name jack-o'-lantern can be traced back to the Irish legend of Stingy Jack, a greedy, gambling, hard-drinking old farmer. He tricked the devil into climbing a tree and trapped him by carving a cross into the tree trunk. In revenge, the devil placed a curse on Jack, condemning him to forever wander the earth at night with the only light he had: a candle inside of a hollowed turnip."

When the Potato Famine happened, the Irish immigrants to America brought this tradition with them, and they found that pumpkins made for a better looking head.

They spell it Hallowe'en here, and it's a BIG deal. To this day, families get together and bake a type of fruitcake with a ring inside, and the person to find it in their piece of cake will find their true love. (Since it was always a Holy Day of Obligation, the traditional Halloween dishes are all without meat.)

On Halloween, there will be bonfires throughout the country, in rural areas and in small towns, but also in the streets of Dublin(!!) where neighborhoods of little kids and adults come together and, illegally, burn everything they can find, as the police stand idly by. These pictures from last year should demonstrate what I might be able to expect.

The original intent of these bonfires was to drive away evil spirits, who were thought to be unleashed on that night.

Again, from Wikipedia:
"Bonfires played a large part in the festivities celebrated down through the last several centuries, and up through the present day. Villagers were said to have cast the bones of the slaughtered cattle upon the flames.... Samhain was the traditional time for slaughter, for preparing stores of meat and grain to last through the coming winter. The word 'bonfire', or 'bonefire' is a direct translation of the Gaelic tine cnámh. With the bonfire ablaze, the villagers extinguished all other fires. Each family then solemnly lit its hearth from the common flame, thus bonding the families of the village together."

I booked a tour on a "Ghost Bus". It's exactly what it sounds like: a tour of haunted Dublin from a double-decker bus, with an overly-dramatic tour guide and lots of tacky music and scary stories. It actually turned out to be perfectly creepy and tacky at the same time. The group of people on the bus were out for a birthday party, and they were pretty tanked, so they lightened the mood a bit. And the inside of the bus though was awesome!

We started in pitch dark, drapes in the windows closed, as the bus took off. We pulled up to Trinity College first thing. Our guide explained that Trinity was built on the site of an unconsecrated graveyard, where the bodies of non-Christians, non-Baptized, and the worst criminals of all would be thrown into a common pit. When the College was built, they pulled up as many of the bones as they could find, threw them into a pile and had a bonefire.

Every so often we'd stop by an old building and look through the windows as our tour guide would explain what happened there 300, 400 years ago. It's really astounding to think of the place as looking more or less the same that long ago, and to imagine that man wandering the halls of what used to be an old classroom, dissecting cadavers and other nice things...

We stopped at an old cemetery called St. Kevin's Cemetery which dates to at least the 13th century. We got out of the bus and walked down an alleyway. Our guide had to unlock the gates, and we filed inside and stood huddled under a tree. He told us about the history of grave robbers here, and how they might bribe the night watchers and walk around from grave to grave with a metal rod, hitting the ground, looking for fresh dirt and a fresh body. He also told us how the British had exhumed all the bodies here and pushed all the gravestones to the perimeter of the cemetery, where they were leaning against the walls, stacked 3 or 4 deep. Except the cemetery used to be 3 times bigger than it is now, so many of the buildings surrounding are actually on top of graves. Nice.

In the middle of the cemetery was a ruined stone building with another gate. This section was usually off limits to the public. He opened the old gate and we went inside. Our guide told us the story of Dermot O'Hurley, a Roman Catholic Bishop who used to do candlelight masses in this place, at midnight, when practicing Catholicism was illegal. A small crowd would gather, knowing that if they were caught, they could be tortured and killed. But one night, someone betrayed O'Hurley, and the British came and took him off, and tortured him for days, finally hanging him. His bones were scattered around Ireland, but his followers gathered them up and put them in the walls of this place, where we were now standing...

Suddenly a man dressed in a zombie costume came out of the darkness and jumped on one of the girls in the group. I've never heard anyone scream that loud. It was fantastic!

We made our way back to the bus and drove over to St. Patrick's Cathedral, a famous medieval church in Dublin. Behind it was another ancient cemetery. The bus driver shined his light amongst the headstones, and we peered through the windows as our guide told us this story:

Back in the day, people used to be afraid that they might be buried alive, accidentally, by mistake. Maybe their breathing would become so shallow or their heart rate so reduced that they could be buried alive. It's happened. Recently too.

So if you had enough money, when you died they would tie a string around your finger or toe, and when you were buried they would run the string up to a bell above your gravestone. If you woke up in your coffin, scared out of your wits, you could ring the bell 6 feet above you. A man would be posted to listed in the cemetery for the ringing of bells. As you can imagine, his job was probably pretty nerve-wracking. This is where we get the term, "working the graveyard shift." If you were in fact buried alive, and you rang the bell, were dug up and rescued, you were, "saved by the bell." Ahh...

Last, we stopped at the old front gates to medieval Dublin towne, and St Audoen's Church, built in the 12th century. When people from outside Dublin would come into the city for festivals or whatnot, they would wait at the gates to be let in, and the first one inside would have good luck for a year.

...but as soon as you'd enter inside, you'd be in one of the most crime-infested places in all of Europe. There is a tunnel directly to your left upon entering, which can still be seen (but is now blocked off), that led underground to Christ Church Cathedral far away. Pickpockets, lepers, and murderers would hang out here, and prostitutes would leave their unwanted babies on the steps to St Audoen's at the entrance of the tunnel. This place was actually the origin of the term "underground crime".

It began to rain lightly, and our guide began to tell us stories. We huddled together, frankly terrified. We heard of ghosts who supposedly haunt the place, and of exorcisms performed in the area. The bells at St Audoen's are the oldest in Ireland, and they are only rung once a week. But residents in the nearby neighborhood claim that they will ring once a year on their own, and when they do, it means someone in the area is about to die. Really neat stuff, whether you believe it or not.

We made it back to Dublin, alive, and the birthday kids were still a little drunk, so they were happy too. What a cool way to see the city. I can't wait for Halloween!

Limerick

2009-10-26T04:34:00.013-04:00

Limerick, Ireland

"Ireland is a very small island in a very big ocean," the saying goes here. Until this weekend, I don't think I knew exactly what the meant.

Saturday morning, I took the 07:30 train to Limerick, which is on the west coast of Ireland, a mere two and a half hour train ride from coast to coast. The scenery was beautiful of course. The grass was green on both sides of the train, dark mountain peaks stood in the distance to the north, and old farm houses dotted the landscape. The ruins of stone barns, old unmarked cemeteries, tiny pools of water, and ancient rock boundary lines were connected by dirt paths and herds of cows and sheep. Sheep grazing on their farms near the tracks would scatter as we thundered by. The Irish people on the train were trying to sleep, but I couldn't blink.

But Ireland is so small! We crossed the island in, basically, minutes. Before you knew it we were inside dark clouds. The rain drops made streams across the windows, and the air inside the train became colder. We had entered the North Atlantic weather system, and the ocean was unforgiving and relentless.

I got off at Limerick and walked outside, and the wind nearly knocked me over. It was pouring! I ran back in the train station and looked for a map. No luck. None. Anywhere! Why!? Why do I do this to myself?!? But I knew the vague direction I had to go, and Limerick is small.

Limerick is tiny. Despite being the 4th-largest city in Ireland, only 52,560 people live there. That's the size of Altoona, the tenth-most populous city in Pennsylvania. I lowered my head and walked from the train station through the bloody rain to the outskirts of town, to my hotel where I was staying for the night. It was less than a mile to the outer rim of town, after which was nothing but farmland.

By the grace of God, I didn't get lost. I burst through the lobby door of a way-too-nice hotel and drew the stares of some very proper vacationers enjoying their lunch on leather chairs. Immediately I thought, what have I done? I wish I could have stayed in a youth hostel and saved some money, but there are none this time of year because, again, Limerick is really small! I didn't know my hotel was going to be this nice! Ugh!

The lady behind the counter helped me to my room. I threw everything down on the floor and rung out my clothes. Drenched. Luckily my spare change of clothes had survived in my pack, almost unscathed. After about an hour, I ventured back into the lobby and back outside, where again, it was pouring. But I was going to see the city no matter what, I said to myself.

Limerick, County Limerick, Ireland. A town in transition, like all of Ireland's cities, moving from agriculture to high-tech, retail, and tourism in the last decade, although it's struggling these days.

It has been labeled the stabbing capital of Ireland, though I didn't see much of that except for a couple groups of little kids running around and across traffic, knocking over a garbage can. People roam a little freer here. They talk a little more freely. They nod as you walk past on the sidewalk, mumble something about the weather, or come up to you and ask you where you're from. And their accents are crazy! Way thicker than Dublin, way faster, almost incomprehensible most times. One kid asked me if I had a cigarette. "You've a fag on you?" he said, in two syllables. He tried at least FIVE times, before finally making the motion of smoking a cigarette and speaking very slowly. His girlfriend laughed at me. No idea what you're saying, dude.

Later, an old man, probably a little drunk, stopped me in the street and began speaking in what I think was English. I thought he asked for something, and I said, no sorry, and his eyes lit up a bit, and he began talking faster, slurring his words together. I tried so hard not to laugh as I stared at his mouth, desperately looking for clues. I caught the word Tulsa, but that was about it. And bye. I heard that word.

The streets are a little rougher, the sidewalk a little more beat up. The rain finally stopped enough for me to put down my hood and take in the smells. No chain stores here, except in the very innermost part of the city, by the river. Brand spanking new hotels along the river looked pretty empty. I walked through a pedestrian shopping area. Groups of people were going in and out of the clothing stores, carrying bags and umbrellas, and I realized I was in the downtown part of Limerick. I walked down to the river and made my way to the bridge.

Oh, hello! There's a castle. Across the river was an old gray castle and a long stone bridge beneath the dark sky, like something out of a movie. I snapped pictures happily. This is King John's Castle, built around 1200. (Yes, that King John.) The Vikings set up shop here in the 9th century, but the Normans came over in the 12th century and fortified the town, added the castle and built a very important cathedral. The castle played a role in the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, which was supposed to grant rights to Catholics in Ireland, but of course England continued with its oppressive Penal Laws for another two hundred years. A stone directly across the river is known as the Treaty Stone, and it's where they reputedly signed the thing.

I made my way across the old bridge, over towards the castle. A winding staircase, covered in moss, led down to the river below, where white swans were floating by. I took pictures of the turrets and walked around the entire perimeter, but I decided not to go in. (It would have cost like 15 bucks.)

I was now in part of the town called Kings Island. It's the medieval part of the city where many important Viking and English settlements, ruins, crypts, and other important archaeological wonders can be found. From above ground though, it looks like a self-contained little village. Quiet cobblestone streets, narrow walkways, the occasional pub. And then, this beautiful church.

St. Mary's Cathedral was built in 1111 or 1168, though the date is a little hard to pin down. They do know that it is the oldest building in Limerick, and it has been added onto throughout the centuries. I walked through the gates into the old cemetery, and explored the grounds. The impressive wooden West Door is from the original structure, and it is rarely used, although I watched the priest open it on Sunday. A local legend says that the door is from the palace of Donal Mór O'Brien, the last King of North Munster, who donated his palace for the site of the cathedral. The next morning, I would get a chance to go in, but for now it was all locked up.

Back in the modern city was the Hunt Museum, a private collection of artifacts from the stone ages to the 19th century. They say it's one of the best things to see in Limerick. You're welcome to open drawers in each of the rooms. I got there late in the day, so it was just me and a couple other people walking around. A really friendly lady basically gave me a guided tour of each room. The highlight here, if you ever go, is an ornamental crosier from the 15th-century, covered in gold and featuring dozens of scenes from the Bible. You could stare at it for an hour. I almost did.

Then it was pub time. My guidebook told me about an old pub in the city, where "there's a dusting of sawdust on the floor and peat on the fire." I started there, enjoyed a Guinness by the fireplace, and made my way to other historic pubs in the city. In Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt talks about returning to Limerick, where his father drank away all their money in one of the pubs I was in. Never read it though(!)...

Anyway, I didn't stay out too late. It was raining again, and it was well after dark. I walked back to my hotel and slept straight through to the morning. And the time changed, so I got an extra hour of sleep!

Sunday morning it was sunny and nice outside! I went back to St. Mary's Cathedral for their service. The cathedral is now Anglican, like all nice churches in Ireland.

To get inside you have to walk to the south entrance to a little door with a wooden ring which you have to turn just right to open. Entrances to medieval churches are usually on the south or west (since the church faces East to Jerusalem), but never on the north. According to Isaiah (they say "Is-i-ah" in Ireland), Satan will set up his throne on a mountain in the north, and Jeremiah says demonic attacks will come from that direction. Until the 20th century, people would prefer to be buried anywhere but north of a church. That is true of this church too: the cemetery surrounded the church on three sides, not four.

I walked in, and WOW! Stone archways rose above my head, stained glass windows, loose granite slabs that moved beneath my feet. And there was no one inside. The service wasn't to start for another hour. I heard footsteps down the corridor. It was the priest, wearing his white garments and carrying a large book. I didn't know what to do. I decided to just walk around with my camera, considering suddenly that the church might be closed to tourists. The priest disappeared up a staircase behind a curtain, and I heard his footsteps as he ascended high into the walls.

All around were plaques and memorial stones in honor of various members of the church throughout the ages. Some were ancient. Some were fairly modern. There were occasional coffins encased in stone throughout the place. I could hear the wind whipping outside far above my head, and it gave me a chill. I picked up a tiny homemade pamphlet for visitors and flipped through it. In the north wall is something called the Lepers' Squint, tucked away behind the organ pipes. Lepers would come there to receive communion through holes in the wall, as they were not allowed into the church. And apparently various renovations in the last 50 years have uncovered previously-unknown hidden passageways and crypts beneath the floors or in the walls. In one burial chamber were discovered the skeletons of three decapitated men. No one knows who they were...

The door squeaked opened and an old woman came in. I grabbed a Book of Common Prayer and sat down in one of the chairs. More people began to trickle in. Soon the place was pretty well filled. The bells began to ring from the tower. I heard footsteps above in the lofts. Then the organ began to play. It was really a wonderful service.

I took the train back to Dublin late that afternoon, and arrived in the evening. The train rolled back through now-familiar green country, and the sun began to dip farther and farther behind us as we rolled along. It grew dark outside, and soon I could only see my reflection in the window. It felt like coming home in a way. In a good way.

Trinity College in Pictures

2009-10-17T16:46:00.012-04:00

Dublin, Ireland

Here are some photos I took this afternoon:

"It's all getting more Hogwarts by the minute"

2009-10-16T11:30:00.009-04:00

Dublin, Ireland

I was walking north of the river to grab something to eat, early Wednesday evening, and I saw a mass of people moving in the same direction, northward, wearing bright green jackets, and scarves, and hats and jerseys and... wait a second, the soccer game is tonight!

Somehow, I managed to forget about the second Ireland qualifying game for the 2010 World Cup. This time it was between Ireland and Montenegro, a pushover game by comparison to the do-or-die Italian game this past Saturday. It was the last qualifying game for Ireland.

Some red-faced Irish guy was standing out in the flowing crowd, shouting, "Who needs tickets? Anybody need tickets?" Feeling curious, I went up and asked how much. "30 quid," he said. So that was 45 bucks: a lot, but probably worth it. I moved away from the crowd to call my roommates. Out of the three of them, one had class, one was busy that night, and one didn't want to spend the money. I was disappointed, but I realized, why not just go alone? How often does an opportunity like this come around?

The tickets were unreal. How did I end up 10 rows from the field? Probably because it was Montenegro. The game ended 0-0, so I'll spare you the play-by-play, but that didn't matter. (Ireland advanced, by the way.) The crowd was ridiculous. And hilarious. Every 3 seconds, some guy, drunk out of his mind, would start singing, at the top of his lungs. Different people would start up different songs. And they would make them up on the spot, singing new and obscene lyrics to Yellow Submarine, or Give Peace a Chance, or just belting out the following: "Stand up... for the boys in green, Stand up... for the boys in green, Stand up..." for minutes on end. And then the lyrics would turn into, "Stand up, for the boys and drink," and the crowd would jump to their feet and clap along, singing. All men. Middle-aged men, young kids, dads with their sons, college kids waving flags and wearing leprechaun hats. One guy had an Irish flag, about 6 feet wide, with a picture of Pope John Paul II in the center. Really? ... Really?

And they did the wave, and they sang "Ole ole ole ole!!!", and somebody exploded a firecracker in the upper deck and sent the police flying over there to the cheers (and boos) of the crowd, and people were swearing left and right at the refs and at the goalie and at the coach and at Jesus, and it didn't stop until long after the game ended.

Croke Park is the name of the stadium. It was opened in 1913 and it is Europe's 4th-largest stadium. (The Steelers played there in the 90s for a preseason game.) Until 4 years ago, soccer and rugby were banned from being played there, as only non-British sports represented the sense of Irish nationalism that the ownership wanted to convey. So soccer and rugby are very new to this stadium. The most popular sports in Ireland, traditionally, are Gaelic football and Hurling. One of the guys in my class referees for Gaelic games, and he said that the Gaelic Athletic Association is this absolutely wonderful organization that establishes teams throughout Ireland based by parish, for all ages, so you'll have a Gaelic football team in the middle of Ireland where all its players share 3 surnames (because they're all brothers).

If you don't think Ireland takes soccer seriously though, you should have seen the streets around Dublin Wednesday night. I bought a green match scarf I'm very happy to have.

The next night, our class got together to meet up and go to Commons. Now Commons is a particularly old college tradition, and something that can be found today in just a few (mainly British) universities like Oxford and Cambridge. The University Chaplains invited us, since one of them is in our class (haha!). Commons happens every night for dinner, though only Scholars of the university (those on scholarship) and honored guests can attend.

Everyone waits outside until the doors to the old Dining Hall open. People are dressed up for this. Andrew, our professor, was wearing a long, black cape. We were ushered into this dark wooden room, with a high ceiling surrounded by larger-than-life portraits of dead philosophers in wigs. This is the same room I walked through with June in the daytime, when anyone can come in for lunch. We found our wooden table and sat down to a place-setting with lots of silverware. The Fellows of the university were seated at the front of the Hall at a long table, each wearing their distinctive capes and gowns. We stared around the room in amazement. Andrew was smiling knowingly at what was about to happen next.

Suddenly, the door to the Hall was slammed shut! Everyone in unison pushed their chairs back and rose to their feet at once, the chairs scraping against the floor and letting out a single high-pitched squeal that made your heart leap out of your chest, and I stood up without knowing what the hell was going on. A student walked to the podium and in a somber, low tone began speaking Latin. Everyone lowered their heads. It was a prayer. I glanced around. Was this really happening?

And then it was over. Everyone took their seats, and the waitress staff began to come around with soup. We had bread and soup, and they brought us water carafes, and then, we each received a half-pint of Guinness.

Then they brought around plates of some of the juiciest steak I've ever had, and loads of mashed potatoes and green beans. All the food you could want. It was so wonderful. Then, when we had finished eating, we each got a cup of custard dessert. Really great.

And then, without warning, there was the screech of chairs as everyone rose to their feet again, and again, the student came out and prayed again in Latin. When he was finished, we all remained standing as the Fellows lined up and left the room in single-file. Andrew whispered that the student who says the Latin prayer has to try out for that spot, and he gets to do it for a week. He has to have it all memorized. Students sometimes sit at Commons and race against each other to see how fast they can say it. "And the chaplains look down and shake their heads. It's all very pious, as you can imagine," he said smiling. At Cambridge, they just read the thing off a sheet of paper.

And with that, we left the Hall to run across the river and make it in time for a play at the Abbey Theatre called, Tales of Ballycumber, by Sebastian Barry. Andrew knew a shortcut through the gates, and we ended up in part of campus I'd never seen before. It was nighttime now, and we jogged across the cobblestones behind the dark buildings and alleyways of Trinity, until we came to a little black door in the outer wall. Andrew pulled out a key and unlocked it, and we stepped out onto the streets of Dublin. "It's all getting more Hogwarts by the minute, isn't it?" he said to me.

We ran over to the theatre, making it just in time. The play was excellent. Five actors, a very basic production, and the dialogue was brilliant. But it was absolutely depressing. We sat in our seats afterward just devastated by what we had seen. The entire play was about death and our dealings with death, and we hardly wanted to get up. We looked at each other quietly, so affected by the chilling dialogue, almost unable to speak.

Pip cracked a smile. "Pints? Pints?" And we left and went to the pub and had a great night.