Dublin, Dublin... and away!

It's hard to say what I really expected of Dublin before coming here. Like any European city, I imagined old buildings along a river with elegant bridges and pubs on pubs on pubs with good company be they locals or not.

But as I have learned in my travels and particularly in writing about travel, our anticipatory images are always skewed in some manner, whether they be twisted by stories or media or whether they simply be an underdeveloped form of the truth. One can only really get a feel for a place in walking the streets and talking to the people. Postcard pictures of a location's quintessential sight seeing spots is never enough!

I have been here for almost a week now, and still do not quite know what the essence or feel of Dublin is. I need to do more exploring, more going out, meet more locals, perhaps read more Joyce. My inklings thus far: a tension exists in the cosmopolitan way of life. It differs so much from the rest of the island, yet it still holds true to certain facets... particularly linguistic ones, where all the signs are posted in Gaelic first and then English underneath. Irish Gaelic is officially the first language of the Republic of Ireland, and English the second. And another stronghold that permeates throughout the country: the history. It's rich and omnipresent; it's real and reminiscent. You cannot avoid it, nor would you want to.

I hope these inklings develop and become truer, purer feelings instead of tickles in my toes when I walk the cobble stone streets and pretend I'm aware of all that surrounds me.

So far for my courses, we have visited the National Gallery (currently under renovation, so most of their pieces are stored away - it has also been in the news lately due to a Monet painting that was publicly damaged), the National Museum, and lovely St. Stephen's Green, a large park which is the perfect city spot for those rare moments of glistening sunshine.

This weekend, however, we are traveling to the West coast, in the region of Connemara. It isn't a county or one of the four main provinces of the isle (Ulster, Munster, Connacht, Leinster). It is actually a fairly undefined area that takes up parts of County Mayo and Galway, both destinations on our trip. A basic agenda: Galway city, Cleggan, a ferry to Inishbofin (an island off the coast), Roundstone, the Burren, the Cliffs of Moher, Clonmacnoise, then back to Dublin. On my family's vacation just over four years ago, we visited the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher, both of which I am very excited to see again.

I'm actually posting this while in transit. I hope to report back after this glorious weekend!

Slán!