Back from break!

This is just a shout out to let you all know that I'm back from my whirlwind European adventure safe and sound. In the meantime, I have papers due very soon, not to mention work so the pictures and accounts of what happened will come as they may in little segments.
For those of you who don't know, we had March 16-31 off from work and for the first week (16-21) Ben, Kelsie and I went to Greystones to be with the other ISP group for St. Patrick's Day in Dublin, showing Kelsie around some of the historical sites, hiking in Glendalough and other local places.
Then on the Friday 21, we split up- Kelsie to visit friends in Liverpool, Ben to Dublin with Lauren and hiking in Scotland and me to France to visit Devon.
I went to Paris until Sunday morning took a train to Caen in Normandy to see the DDay Memorial and beaches. Tuesday night, we headed to Devon's town of Angers in the Loire Valley where we saw the sites and her stomping grounds. Here we decided based on cheapest train ticket price that my next adventure would lead me to Geneva, Switzerland and I so headed there on Wednesday, TGVing all across France and spending the remained of my days there until yesterday when I headed out for the marathon adventure of making it back here. I've been awake for far too long, traveled for 30 hours, sleeping on the streets of Paris and am hoping you will be patient with further updates. It was a trip full of amazing sights, people, and lots of unexpected hospitality.

PS Traveling alone is cool because you have so much freedom to do what you want, but it also sucks because it's so lonely. I miss you all and can't wait to talk to you in person again.

Historians take note!

On Saturday we took a "religious history tour" of Galway. This was not some fool guided tour with a bored kid with a memorized script. Mike knows this guy named William Henry who is probably one of the smartest men I've met (outside of Dr. Ringenberg and a few others). He was a fascinating and hilarious Irish man who's written loads of books (seemed like one on almost everywhere he took us, but the more famous ones are this book and this book, on Galway and WWI. It was wonderful to have this tour because he showed us all these fantastic historical and archaeological things that have been right under our noses this whole time. Did you know that the building I live in was once a barracks for the infamous Black and Tans? He took us to an ancient 6th century monastery that you would expect to be hidden miles out in rural Gaeltacht Ireland, but no St. Odram's monastic settlement of Roscam is a mere seven minute drive from city center! Buried in an old cemetery on Michael Collins road in Ballybane are revolutionaries from the war for independence. Surrounding it are imposing and modern apartment complexes threatening to consume the history within it. St. Augustine's Holy Well holds stories of Christianized Druidic practices from the 5th century as well as a brawl and a brush with the Gardai in Willy's childhood as he and his friends realized that coins were tossed in the well!

We heard so much in such a short time, there was no way even if I had taken notes that I could have remembered it all. Truly a remarkable man keeping alive the memories of a fascinating town in a historic land. He was so passionate about his work- especially the parts on remembering the Irish who fought in the trenches of WWI and were hated for defending their land when they returned to the anti-British revolutionary climate of postwar Ireland.

Here are my various pictures of the afternoon.

Nuns make me smile

I had the joy of washing our outside walls yesterday morning and as I was scrubbing away, I was approached by a little old nun who kept telling me that I was a good man, keeping things clean like that. She went into our bookstore for a little bit and when she came back out she came up to me and said, “Would you scrub my soul clean?” Not knowing what to say I said, “With soap and water? That’s not the trick.” And she replies “Oh I know, but wouldn’t it be easy if that were the way?” Then she tottered off. It was a very interesting experience.
Then today, we went to Mass with Aine at Poor Clare's Convent on Nun's Island and there was one nun who couldn't stop grinning throughout the whole Mass. It was great.

In other news, we're going on a history of Galway tour tomorrow, we have one more week until spring break and I'm planning a 37 mile bicycle trip to a castle on the other side of Galway Bay. Should be sweet.

Here are some pictures I've been neglecting to put up:

Claddagh Church & Cafe


Swans on the Long Walk

Irish weather

I was told of a Mountaineering Club at NUIG, so we might look into hooking up with one of their hikes to get out more.

The rest of the week was pretty classic- work and good jokes and such. Ben and I got to reconnect with Alan on the bridge and I sat there quietly while they talked in Spanish and we found out that he doesn't have a job because he doesn't have the right papers to work in Ireland, so we talked to Mike to find an organization that works with people in his situation to get it all figured out.
Then tonight while I was out wandering about I met a guy named Jason from Bray who wanted some spare change because he was "sleeping rough tonight". Having been taught not to give cash to just anyone and everyone, I got him a kebab and invited him to come our cafe sometime, even showed him where it is and he was thoroughly impressed by our prices so we plan on having lunch tomorrow. Apparently I just attract these people or God just lands them on me, but I do what I can.

We walked home from church this weekend which was really nice because it was sunny. Today I walked around a lot and got rained, snowed, sunned and winded on. The weather was very shifty today.

I sometimes fight an urge to jump in the river.