Oh Dublin, You're So Quirky!

Here is a list of things that are weird and/or interesting about Dublin. I'm sure there will be many more items added as time progresses:

-The money. As one who has never seen euros before, they are somewhat crazy to interact with. It's like someone decided to combine Monopoly money with a bunch of little girls in princess dresses and it resulted in huge bills with shiny rainbow stripes all over them. I can't believe it's actual currency. Also, coins are actually worth something here! There are 1 and 2 euro coins that are useful for all sorts of things including bus fare and the conveniently priced 2 euro stores that are pretty much the European version of the dollar store. All of this has resulted in me investing in a coin purse.

-Taking "going green" to the extreme. Ireland is all about environmental friendliness and pretty much forces you to get on board. Plastic bags at the grocery store cost extra and there are signs everywhere saying "Litter is disgusting, so are those who leave it" (not to get personal or anything). Heated water is always on a timer and requires some excellent timing shenanigans to get a hot shower. Ireland also doesn't really have dryers, everything gets air-dried. Dublin is known as the walking city so everyone here, including us, walks all over the place. Crazy foot traffic for such narrow sidewalks.

-Weird expressions. People in Ireland have all kinds of crazy phrases that make me smile at how ridiculous they sound. They like to say things like "What's the craic?" and "How was the craic last night?" Craic is pronounced like "crack" (which makes the above phrases much more interesting) and basically refers to enjoyable conversation or goings on. They also like to say "your man" when they don't know someone's name. Like if you spot someone across the street making giant bubbles you'd say: "Your man with the bubbles over there is really cool and awesome!" It gets changed to "your one" for ladies. I like it because it feels like you're calling a random stranger someone's manservant or boyfriend or something.

 Your man bubbles guy is real and ridiculous.

-The weather. Obviously, Ireland is fairly rainy, but I didn't quite realize how back and forth the weather can be. It can be bright and sunshiney one minute, cloudy and windy the next, and downpouring a second later. On our first day we experienced bright sunshine, rain, hail, and then sunshine again (which resulted in an amazing rainbow!) We pretty much have to bring a sweater, sunglasses, and an umbrella everywhere to be prepared for all weather.

-Food differences. Besides differences in cuisine, there are a few things that look normal but actually aren't. Ketchup is much more vinegar-ey than it is in the US and the coke is a bit more bubbly and sweeter because it uses natural sugars. Also, most pubs and restaurants have bowls on the tables with little tubes of sauce including ketchup, mayonnaise, and something called brown sauce which apparently tastes a bit like BBQ sauce. Taste tests will be done, no doubt.

-People know you're American. If taking a lot of pictures and milling around confusedly didn't do the trick, apparently people can tell you're American just from looking at how you walk. I don't really get it, but I guess it's something about our strides and posture. Also, it's interesting to note that most Irish people will walk on a different side of the sidewalk...matching the traffic oppositeness of the Irish roads.

-Street action. Graffiti seems to be much more accepted here and we've come across a lot of big examples of it. It's also much more beautiful and arty: pictures instead of scribbley names. Also there are a MILLION street performers everywhere. Musicians, people doing random tricks...everything. It's very entertaining. Additionally, the cross walk signals make lots of beeping sounds which makes you feel like you're constantly playing a game of Frogger.

Artsy alley way!

  Lady playing a harp very beautifully!

  

Anyway, that's all for now! I've also started posting more extensive photographs to my facebook (including some of our house which I might post on here later) so check em out! 

This is the scruffy cat that frequents our street. 

I have named him Sir Ian McKellan. He is a gentleman and a scholar.

Orientating in Dublin: The Saga Begins!

Huzzah huzzah, I am finally in Dublin! So far I am loving it more and more each day, and it's only day two! The flight in was fairly decent. The plane had individual tv screens with free movies (Finding Nemo!) and it was only six hours. I didn't really sleep but I did catch a gorgeous sunrise and some lovely sightings of the Ireland coastline!

Look! So pretty :]

We arrived around 7:30am Dublin time (1:30 US time..ugh), and after passing successfully through the border patrol, me and three of my four roommates caught a cab to our new home for the next six weeks. Our cab driver was very lovely and chatty, though his chatter combined with the Dublin city whizzing by was a little overwhelming for our sleep-deprived brains. Our house is absolutely fantastic! It's three stories, slightly older, and very cute and quaint. We have one electric shower and one other that takes a half hour to heat up (we've yet to use it successfully), a small patio, a great galley kitchen, a dining room table area, and a spacious living room. We also have four fireplaces, although we're not allowed to use any of them. It's kinda unbelievable that we get to live here, especially considering how tiny a lot of other peoples' apartments are. The tradeoff is that we are the farthest away from the IES Center (about a 25 minute walk) and a good 40 minute walk from the main bar and shopping areas in Dublin. However, there are lots of public transport options and the walks will only do us good. We're also very close to a few smaller areas where we can shop and grab a pint.

After meeting with our house RA, getting settled, grabbing some lunch (at a fabulous fish and chips place), and buying a few groceries, we were all pretty beat. The jet lag was incredibly tiring and made it difficult to really for me to really comprehend my surroundings. I was feeling pretty bewildered and a tad overwhelmed by a completely new place. However, I managed to grab a quick cat nap before it was time to meet up at the IES Center and that seemed to help immensely.  There we met Mr. Roper, one of our writing workshop teachers and the head of the program. He seems very pleasant, though definitely a little intimidating. He clearly has high expectations for us and I hope we can fill them. 

 The IES Center! Where we'll be taking all of our classes.

We then all headed over to the Barge, a bar and restaurant where we were scheduled to meet up with the entire IES program. There are about 70 students working there this summer: our group, a drama group, a general studies group, and an internship program. So we sat in the pub and had some food (I had a small salad) and...more importantly, my first Ireland Guinness! It was quite tasty and also quite strong. Everyone was also very nice and friendly...we pretty much dominated a corner of the HUGE bar with Americans. I chatted with people in our group and from the other groups till about 9pm and then headed home with some of my roommates where I promptly passed out.

 We had an early morning on Friday since we had to meet up at the IES Center again for an all day orientation meeting at 8:35am. We managed to get there on time and then had an incredibly long and tedious day of information being thrown at us in regards to everything from travel to safety to housing. We signed some contracts and sat around a lot, not very thrilling. Heard some horror stories about people who made stupid choices and were robbed or kicked out of the program. Ireland is mostly known for petty rather than violent crime, so as long as we're careful with our things, it doesn't sound like we'll have too many problems. A few others and myself grabbed lunch at a little Greek-esque place where I had a spicy chicken baguette covered in sauces and veggies. Very delicious. 

After a few more excruciating hours of orientation, we were finally free! We headed uptown towards the famous Grafton street which is very exciting and interesting and PACKED with people. I made friends with an older Irish gentleman who was sitting and drumming along to some recorded Irish music. He was very friendly and after noticing me taking pictures of him from afar invited me over, slapped a hat on my head, and handed me the drum to play along with him. Incredibly sweet man.

Jammin' with the locals.

We then wandered around Grafton Street for awhile before making our way towards St. Stephen's Green which was near where were having a big IES group dinner. We didn't explore the green too much since we were tired and looking to sit, but it seems absolutely lovely and I intend on seeing more of it. From what I saw it seems to be lots of people and ducks and pigeons all relaxing in a lush green space. We had dinner at the Dandelion (all 70+) of us and it was both well organized and delicious (and free of charge!) We had three courses and several options to choose from for each course, as well as a choice of red or white wine. I ended up having some very tasty bruschetta, a gigantic cheeseburger with fancy condiments that tasted more like a meatball (very soft and lots of flavor packed in), and a passion fruit creme brulee that was FANTASTIC! After dinner we began the long walk home, checked out some friends' apartments, and dragged them all the way back to our place to check out our home. After relaxing for a bit, our friends headed out and a few of my roommates and I decided to check out the nearby Rathgar Village, which is about a block away. It's a small group of businesses including a grocery store, some cafes and restaurants, and some pubs; much smaller than what we'd find on Rathmines street, but it's super close. We went into a pub called Coman's of Rathgar and had a pint of Guinness before heading back. Tomorrow we have the historic walking tour of Dublin which should be fun and then we get to be unscheduled for the rest of the weekend which will be a nice change of pace. That's all for now! I'll write more soon and I'll leave you with this:

St. Stephen's Green! To be explored fully soon...

Pubs Pubs Pubs!

Guinness galore!

 
So! Literally just got done watching a documentary about the historic pubs of Ireland and I couldn't be more excited to just get there already! I have officially moved out of my apartment in Iowa City, put things into storage for the summer, spoken to my bank, arranged my prescriptions, have almost bought everything I'll need, have said goodbye to almost everyone....all that's left is to pack and get on a plane! Ahhh! These six days need to fly.

I also made a list of all the historic bars that I am now determined to go to and have a drink within. They are as follows:

-The Brazen Head

-Mulligan's

-Kavanagh's

-The Palace Bar

-O'Neill's

-Doheny & Nesbitt's

-The Long Hall

-Kehoe's

-The Stag's Head

-Toner's

-McDaid's

-Neary's

-O'Donoghue's

Perhaps that will serve as a checklist that I can mark off one and by one, add to, and so on and so forth. So many beers, so little time!

 I will consume so many of you in the near future!

This post is wimpy, but that's because I'm too excited about sitting in pubs to focus on writing.

Predeparture Shenanigans

Hello all and welcome to my blog!

I hope it becomes more successful than many of my other blogging attempts have been (read: wrote a weeks worth of entries and was then distracted by life). However, since the point of this blog is to record everything that I'm doing and seeing, perhaps it will become more concretely routine.

I suppose I should explain a few things in case anyone not related to or immediately connected to me should stumble upon this and find it interesting (shockingly doubtful, but you never know!). My name is Anna Krueger and I'm about to be a senior at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. I'm an English major, a Psychology minor, and am also part of the Undergraduate Creative Writing Track for poetry.

Writing has been becoming increasingly more important within my life since my junior year of high school and has seemingly led me here: about to embark on Iowa's 2011 Summer Irish Creative Writing Program taking place in Dublin! It's fairly exciting (and slightly terrifying) for me for numerous reasons, the first of which being that I've never traveled outside of the North American continent.

I'll be going here! Pretty, right? Very not-North America, which is key.

I've been fortunate enough to have a family that embarks on many traveling adventures across America, from Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon to the Gulf of Mexico. I feel pretty well versed in the long car rides through South Dakota grasslands (very beautiful, like a rippling green sea), midwestern corn/wheat/cow fields, and roads lined by precarious looking rocky precipices. However, while I've been to many of the 50 states, a good chunk of Canada, and Mexico for approximately 10 minutes, I've never made it overseas. So I'll be experiencing passport inspection and daunting airport security for the first time, which will probably lead to me obsessively looking over my required papers about half a billion times just to make sure they haven't disentegrated or blown away in the wind. I'll also be experiencing a place that is completely NEW, which is fantastic and scary in itself. I expect to get lost (more than I do at home, if that's possible) and to feel pretty googley-eyed a lot of the time. That's okay though, perhaps I can pull off the "charmingly confused American" look....and hopefully it won't come off as "stupid American fool." At least they speak English, right? But seriously, I'm so thankful to be going to such a beautiful place and I can't wait to watch that beauty unfold before me (super cheesey, but go with it).

Omnomnom, schmaltz-ey!

Okay so this started off as a list of reasons I'm excited/nervous right? Paragraph flow, connecting points, all that jazz. Second big reason is the fact that this is a writing program, specifically prose. From what I understand (syllabus outlining is still fairly murky at this point in the game) we have an Irish literature/drama/culture class where we'll be, you know, reading and discussing books and history and then a writing workshop class where we turn in original pieces and everyone gets to read them and judge how hungover you were when you came up with them. Just kidding. Sorta. The workshop thing certainly isn't new to me, but the prose thing kinda is. I've primarily been a poet for most of what I consider my "serious" writing years. I've written some prose (mostly for class assignments) and even some pieces that I can read without cringing, but it pretty much ends there.

Writing poems instead of short stories is an entirely different animal and requires the training/flexing of very different....mental muscles, if you will. It's probably going to be a bit tricky for me to suddenly start pumping out 5 page stories when I'm used to writing 20-30 lines of poem. Couple that with the fact that the writing workload for the program is anything but light, and I'm looking at some looooong nights spent feverishly bashing my head against the computer screen and willing my fingers to magically type something coherent. But in the same breath, I'm excited! I'll be forced to confront something I'm not totally comfortable with and hopefully it'll help me become a fabulous prose writer! Okay...maybe not so much, but it will at least help me learn more about myself as a writer overall, and give me some new tools to work with, even if I only write poetry for the rest of my life.

I'm realizing that this is getting super long, and I'm also realizing that the rest of the blog will probably have less to do with my hopes and dreams and more about "I went to a castle today! Irish pub beer is great! I got lost today, but here's a picture of a cool sign I found!" Pictures are definitely something I want to do on here and that goal will serve as an incentive to remember to use my camera. I always intend to come back from trips with massive amounts of beautiful photos capturing each moment...and then the camera stays nestled safely in the corner of my suitcase the entire time. Look! I visited...my socks. Ah, the memories.

This appears to be a lunchbox rather than a legit suitcase...but it does have socks with owls on them! 

Anyway, tata for now! I'm sure a post wherein I panic about packing is soon to follow. Hopefully the bulk of my posting won't end up being before I actually leave...but you never know :]