HUBRIS: From Ancient Greek ὕβρις, Overweening Pride, Superciliousness, or Arrogance.
I didn't realize I was tempting the retribution of the fates when I exclaimed to my husband, "College is easy!"
I referred to the fact that I had very little responsibility outside of taking care of myself and doing homework. There was no house to clean, no geriatric cats getting sick, no child to raise, and no relationship to navigate. I don't have to clean a toilet for five weeks. There is the fact that I have to buy water and haul the heavy packages to my dorm, but it shouldn't be too hard with all that time on my hands.
Except...
Last Tuesday night, a black hole opened up in my world and sucked all available time through it. I needed a few groceries, clean clothes, and a computer with printer, all at the same time. The nearest computer lab was closed by 8 pm despite the posted time which clearly said the closing time was 10 pm. The shuttle to the grocery store had stopped running for the day. I could walk, but it would take at least an hour and a half. I had a paper that was due the following morning and needed editing. All that was left to accomplish was laundry, but the question was, would there be any open machines? There are six machines - SIX - in place that houses hundreds of students. That isn't one machine per group of three housing units. Each group of three can have 38 people in residence. 38 times at least 15 groups equals hundreds of people who can't do their laundry because there are six machines available until 11 pm.
I had exactly just enough time to do one load. I had jeans that I had worn so many times they walked themselves to the laundry room. One load was all I needed.
And here is where I acknowledge that this was a trying day, but it is also the problems of a person
studying in Ireland for more than a month. I have to buy water, but to put it into perspective, at least I have access to clean water.
Going to sleep at night is when I miss my family the most.
OC's nighttime routine include a bath. I want to smell her freshly washed (or accidentally-on-purpose, not washed) hair and snuggle with that warm body.
Classes are challenging, but I am lucky for every minute I get to spend doing this. I'm glad it's only the one time, though, because I couldn't take another long separation from OC and OH. OC will just have to get used to the fact that we're going to live together forever.
FATES: The three Greek Goddesses of Birth, Destiny, and Death.
Otherwise known as the Moirae, these timeless old hags weave the threads of destiny that control your life.
They are: CLOTHO who spins the Thread of Life, LACHESIS who allots the length of the yarn, and ATROPOS who does the snip (the final one).
All the good and evil that befalls you is woven into your destiny and cannot be altered even one jot. You may find this a little unfair, but it's the stuff great Greek tragedies are made of.
The ladies are having fun with my life's tapestry.
Thoor Ballylee and Coole Park
William Butler Yeats lived in this tower with his wife and children between 1918 and 1929.
Frenchclass: can you decipher this? Do not cheat with a translator! I could get the gist of it, except for certain vocabulary that we haven't covered, possibly from the "Norman castle of Thoor Ballylee" chapter, which is probably a second year topic. Perhaps Madame Professeur will decipher it in class next year. *
There are four levels, sort of, in the tower. This bridge was blown up during the civil war in Ireland, which began after the Easter Rising of 1916.
The civil war brought action to this part of County Galway. Look how close the bridge is to the house...
This is the first floor, with fireplace and living area.
The tower's origins are not known, but are said to be of Norman origin, built in the 16th century. It certainly looks like it was built for defense, with tiny windows all over the place just large enough to shoot arrows from.
The snug bedroom, again, with fireplace.
Adorable castle-y door.
This would have been a child's dream playhouse, with all of the miniature spaces and corridors that lead to windows and hiding places. It would not have been a dream for the parents of small children. Here is the spiralling stone staircase of dizzying, serious head injury potential:
I would hate to have been the one to haul firewood to each room, but I would have been first to volunteer to clean the roof. Check out the view:
These are my adorable friends. They are sweet and impossibly youthful.
What is Coole Park? It is the homesite of Lady Gregory, Yeats' patron and friend. It's just a few kilometers (and miles) from Thoor Ballylee. The home was torn down as a result of backlash against large landholders, but the site is still there. There is a giftshop and teashop in the old stables, and gardens to wander.
This is the autograph tree, where Lady Gregory encouraged her visitors to carve their initials in the bark of a Copper Beech, behind us.
Can you make out W...B...Y?
Yeah, me neither, from this photograph.
This is George Bernard Shaw's, and you can definitely see a large "G" and a "B" and kind of the "S". Luckily, he made these letters large.
The group of writers which passed in and through Lady Gregory's life read like a list of the greatest writers of the era: J.M. Synge, Sean O'Casey, George Moore, Shaw, Yeats, Tennyson, and the like. What an incredible gathering.
The experience of visiting the land where Yeats walked, where he wrote, was difficult to describe. Inspiring? Yes, but that is not even close.
Yeats came from a family that was Anglo-Irish, meaning Protestant. He established the Abbey Theater with
Lady Gregory.
There is so much to read, so much to learn!
The Wild Swans at Coole
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still----- Yeats
* The text reads as follows: "En Irlande, nombre histoires sont cachées dans les ruines conquises par le lierre, dans les châteaux effondrés, dans les tours décapitees, gris vestiges d'une grandeur passée parmi lesquels errent des chouettes inquiètes et des fontomes inapaisés. Thoor Ballylee résiste à la'assaut du temps, fière et orgueilleuse, préservant dans ses murs des souvenirs envoûtants. C'est au-delà d'un vieux pont traversant la rivière que le poete William Butler Yeats a connu etre 1918 et 1928 les moments les plus heureux de sa vie sentimentale et artistique. Thoor Ballylee devient pour le poète un lieu d'epanouissement, mais aussi le symbole puissant de son enracinement, de son amour irrévocable pour son..."
Baile na Coiribe
Student housing is located in a place called Corrib Village (Baile na Coiribe in Irish) on the edge of campus. There are dozens of buildings like this one, each group with a courtyard and painted in its very own pastel shade. These are available for self-catering over the summer. I've heard so many different languages while walking around through the village.
The walk up to the back gate is bordered by dense forest. You can see why the gates are closed at 11 pm and why you might not want to find yourself here alone at dark.
La Cuisine:
When I take a shower, this is what I see. I can look at the River Corrib and whoever happens to be walking by on the river path.
My room is small so I decided I could store my giganto suitcase here:
The river path heads north about a mile before it ends at a game field. Along the way there are put-in points for boats. I've gone for runs along this course and usually there are rowing teams out along with some people in a motorboat following behind, screaming at them with a bullhorn.
Tomorrow is the first field trip, to
Coole Park, once the home of William Butler Yeats, and
Thoor Ballylee, the tower home that Yeats bought and restored in order to live there from 1919 - 1929.
Under my window ledge the waters race,
Otters below and moor-hens on the top,
Run for a mile undimmed in Heaven's face,
Then darkening through 'dark' Raftery's 'cellar' drop,
Run underground, rise in a rocky place
In Coole demesne, and there to finish up
Spread to a lake and drop into a hole.
What's water but the generated soul?'----- W.B. Yeats 'Coole Park and Ballylee, 1931'
Galway City
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present your American representative in Ireland:
I bought a coffee, checked out of the B&B in Salthill, and promptly spilled some coffee on my shirt. This was how I arrived in Galway city. Uncle Sam would be so proud.
I had several hours before I could check in to student housing in Corrib Village, so I decided to tourist it up and take pictures.
Eyre Square (pronounced "air" like Jane Eyre) is the center of the city. It has a park, Kennedy Park, so named because JFK gave a speech here only months before his assassination.
Walking around is easy. Galway is not too large so that you get lost, but leave it to me to get pretty close.
I wandered the streets near Eyre Square, slowly familiarizing myself concentrically. Streets are not so much laid in a grid system, rather, on an ancient behind-the-city-walls, whatever works kind of way.
These flags display the names of prominant western families of old.
I don't think anyone noticed my coffee shirt. At least, no one pointed and laughed. They might have been laughing on the inside, though.
I predict many Euros will be dropped here:
And, quite possibly sprinkled throughout the shops here:
Céad Mile Fáilte
I arrived in Shannon after a long day and night of flying. I don't think my excitement registers in the photo, but I'm all a-twitter.
This is an odd subject for a picture. I blame jet lag. I don't know what to blame for sharing it with you as I am, sober and fresh from sleep.
It was a quick hour and a half bus trip and ten-minute taxi ride to the bed and breakfast in Salthill. Mine's the third one from the left. It is as adorable inside as it is on the outside.
I took a shower, then a nap. Witness the restorative powers of these basic human activities.
Salthill is a seaside resort town whose heyday was in decades past, but has enjoyed a comeback as it became a suburb of Galway city. Here is Galway Bay, quite handily just across the street from the B&B.
Another view of the bay...
There is a promenade along the bay, along which people of all kinds were strolling and enjoying the pleasant afternoon. I came across a bachelorette party, decked out in "hen party" sashes and sparkly accoutrements, taking pictures of themselves beside the by before climbing back in their limo for more partying. They were adorable.
Maps can be deceiving, because distances look greater than they are. Salthill seemed a distance away from Galway, but it is actually a part of it.
Galway is a beautiful city. There is vibrance and activity, but it is entirely navigable due to its smaller size. It is not as overwhelming as, say, Dublin, but still full of ancient history.
My guidebook quite rightly relates, "The city of Galway is a delight, with its narrow streets, old stone and wooden shopfronts, good restaurants and bustling pubs."
The Future Looks Temperate
That is a-okay with me!
Across the Pond
I'm going to Ireland to study history this summer.
I don't know what it is about an old pile of stones that attracts me.
Galway is the third largest city in Ireland and home to the
Lola Rose yarn shop.
“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” ----- Samuel Johnson
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ----- Mark Twain
