June 30

Prepare to be blogged.

Today began with a usual morning at Common Ground. Catching up on whatever needs to be done. Siohban had a meeting for a while so I just got things in order for the morning. Shortly after, we had a staff meeting. (The first staff meeting I've been present at.) So Irma was taking minutes, and apparently the way things go in these meetings is we go around the circle and update the rest of the team as to what's going on with our various tasks. Siobhan and I tend to work on things together, and then Irma and Ger have other projects they kinda take the lead on, so we just make sure everyone is up to date on everything. Ger went first and talked about all she needed to share, then Siobhan goes "Ok Rachel, would you like to go next." I laugh now, but I kinda froze hahah. Something eventually came out of my mouth, I guess, cause the group gave me suggestions on how to run the database and what to plan for the class I begin teaching on my own next week. Haha, but I got a bad rush of the nerves today.

(Staff meeting. During the meeting, I quietly reached in my bag...before I even pulled out my camera, Ger says to the group, "Prepare to be blogged!")

(Lunchtime; and 2:07.)

(Irma gave me free copies of three of the Twilight books and two other Irish books of a similar genre... my roomates were very excited.)

After the meeting, I worked on the database for the rest of the day. This company has a list of contacts in about 12 different programs digitally... and they also still have their old roledex and old print outs, which seem to be the most accurate thus far... so Rachel's job is to make that all... work. Ha. It's interesting so far.

After work I headed home and Jenny, Julie, John, Kim, and a girl I just met today named.. Maddy?... were all here. Megan came in a few minutes later. It was Julie and Kim's night and they cooked breakfast for dinner. It was fabulous, they made sooo much food! They started us with toast, and made TONS of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and chocolate chip banana pancakes. Nice work ladies. Mandy and Maggie came over later tonight and had the plates we had left for them, while the rest of us found a passion in common we didn't know about... RENT. :) We ended up singing RENT songs for a while and then working on some planning for the future weekends we have in mind. That's about it for tonight.

(Being a super creeper and taking this guys picture in the bus mirror. I wanted to show Kim his Penn State sweatshirt.)

(Back at home.)

(I love bacon, I love you, I love bacon, I love you.)

(Cooking HUGE pancakes.)

(Delicious.)

(She makes this face alot.)

(Thanks Kim and Julie!)

(Doing the robot with John of course.)

(Got a little excited about singing RENT.)

June 29

But you can't wear a cath-bag with skinny jeans.

Today we started work with another meeting at St Michael's Estate. This meeting was about a proposal for a public art project, years down the road. A big group of some artists and mainly administrative members of art development groups gathered to try to be productive. The meeting was two hours long and was productive, but hilariously jumpy. This is one crazy group of people to try and function together. Frequently a toy dinosaur was brought out and placed with a member of the group? I think they thought it was funny..? Mind you... I can only understand about half of what is said in these meetings. The accents are so thick and strong and extremely fast. It is much, much harder to understand Irish people than I ever expected.

(We had the meeting in the homework club room.)

(Scones, tea, and coffee are a requirement at Irish meetings. The dinosaur was an added bonus.)

After the meeting, we went back to Common Ground and had some lunch. For the rest of the day I worked on posting (mailing) books out to libraries around the town as well as people who didn't show up to the launch, but are still entitled to a free copy. We had to package them all with little notes and mail them out. That's basically how I spent the rest of the day. I left around 4:30 so I could drop off another package on the way home. I met the rest of the girls while I was in town. They had been jersey shopping for the match we're going to this weekend. We walked around a little and grabbed a quick dinner. Then we were pretty beat and headed home.

(Packaging.)

(Boss-lady.)

(Dinner- Amber's last day.)

(No idea, haha.)

(We asked the waiter what the brown sauce was... he was like "uhhh I don't know... are there ingredients on the back?"... There weren't..)

June 28

I can feel the waistband on my trousers expanding.

Work today was pretty slow. Just general, around the office tasks to get done. I wore Mai's red sweater to work today. She would have been proud. The real significant part of work was my interview with Darragh Shanahan. He's the photographer running the pinhole photography workshop in the Gallery of Photography. I had the rescheduled interview with him today, to confirm that it was a go, being his assistant for the workshop that week. Think it went pretty well. He's a nice guy, but very laid-back, so kinda hard to read. It should be fun though. The kids make their own cameras and paper negatives and spend the week developing in the darkroom and scanning and learning photoshop. Busy week.

(The map Siobhan gave me to try and get there.)

(Found it!)

(This is Darragh.)

After the interview, I was done for the day and it was only 2:30pm. It was nice, just taking my time walking home. Went and walked across the famous bridge... just cause I could. Went in a few cool bookstores on the way home. Then ran to Tesco to pick up some last minute dinner stuff for tonight. Then I got home and did the dishes and prepared for dinner.

(The Ha'Penny Bridge.)

(Looks rainy today.)

The girls and I have decided to save money by pairing up and doing group dinners. Jenny and I were first. We had a mexican night. We put out chips and salsa at first and made the group chicken fajitas with red peppers, sour cream, corn, and onions. It seemed to be a success.

(Hanging out while we slave over hot stoves.)

(My lame decoration attempt.)

(Fajitaaaasss.)

(Ole!)

(Kim took the camera.)

And this is how we'll end the day:

June 27

We hope you come as a visitor, but leave as a pilgrim.

Since today was such an historical day, this blog post will also be filled with facts :)

Hope you have your learning caps on, cause we are going to learn a little history, now.

We began the day at Trinity College. You have seen pictures here before, but today we actually took the guided tour and learned about the history of the college. First and foremost, it is the oldest college in Ireland commissioned by the Queen in 1592.

(This was our tour guide, a third year law-student at Trinity, Jack.)

We are now standing in what is known as "Parliment Square" and looking at the entrance building. This building was the first building built on campus, and now serves as the administration building on the bottom, and student dorms on the top. The only students allowed to live in this building are the students known as "Guail-Gores" (clueless on the spelling). These are students who speak Irish as their first language. This is to promote the speaking of the Irish language. Jack says most of those kids are pricks though and think they are better than everyone else.





This is the dining hall, built in 1660. Every evening at 6:15, the bell tower sounds and signifies dinner time. The students are invited to have dinner in the hall with the professors, who all wear robes to dinner by the way. But Jack says the food isn't very good.

Not pictured there is the Trinity Chapel built in 1798. Still used for weddings all the time today. But you can only get married in there five years after you graduate from Trinity.
Facing the Chapel, we have the Examination Hall. That sounds dreadful. He says the only reason he would want to be in this building is because the graduation ceremony is also held there. Although, the entire, lengthy, grad ceremony as well as the actual diploma are all in Latin. So no one understands what's actually going on.

On to the bell tower. This stands at the end of Parliament Square. On it are the faces of Aristotle, Homer, and Socrates. There are also four females representing the four original schools they had when Trinity opened; law, medicine, religion, and one more that I forgot to write down!







On the left is a white statue of a man named George Salmon. He was the college's first provost and swore, literally, over his dead body, would women ever attend this college. Eight years after his death, women were admitted, and now the college is 63% women. Also the women are the only ones allowed to wear caps in the grad ceremonies, representing the fact that there is no longer a cap on their education.











On either side of the bell tower stand two statues. On the right is a green statue of a man named "Lecky." He is important because he wrote the first "Complete History of Ireland."












This building was used to film the movie "Educating Rita." The author of the book "Dracula" donated the money to the school to build this Gothic building. Ironic eh?







At the back or Parliament Square stands a red brick building partially hidden by trees. Called "Rubrix", it was commissioned in 1690 by Queen Anne and now houses the professors that live on campus. Fun fact: There are 16,000 students that attend this school and they only have enough housing for 800.







Now we are walking to another part of campus... but it is bad luck for undergraduate students to walk through the center of the bell tower... they have to walk around. So all the undergrads, including myself, followed Jack around the outside of the bell tower.






On the other side of campus, this is the most ornately decorated building. There is a different plant represented around the outside of each window, and this building used to serve as a Natural History Museum. It's now used to teach geography and geology classes.

We have now arrived at Berkley Library (pictures below.) The bronze piece in front of the library is a replicated cast of the one from the Vatican. There are also replicas in the United Nations in New York, Geneva, and at Berkley in California. This is the same George Berkley (Irish Philosopher) that the library pictured below was named after. Fun fact: Trinity is one of the 8 libraries in the UK with "Copyright Status." Meaning it is legally entitled to a copy of every single book published in the UK. Speaking of which.. I hand delivered a copy of Common Ground's publication to the library for legal deposit already.

Here we have another part of campus known as "Fellows Square." Although Trinity College is a public college and state funded, it is still technically "owned" by the Fellows Family. The only people allowed to step on that grass are students that are members of that family. No Joke. Fun Fact: In Ireland, you don't apply directly to a college. You take a national test and your scores on that test automatically place you at a school. The non-EU residents that apply to Trinity go through a normal application process, though.

There was much more to the tour, but I'm sure you're tired of your history lesson now, so I'll move on. At the end of the Trinity Tour, we asked to see Jack's robe. He says they have to wear it to give tours and he feels "absolutely ridiculous."

(Precious.)

(Megan, from Oregon, in front of the largest Oregon Tree Europe.)

(Outside Trinity.)

(Again.)

Now, let me tell you a little bit about the Book of Kells, because I find it facinating. You were absolutely 100% forbidden to take photographs of it, near it, or even in any educational room leading up to it. I would have chanced it, but there were like four guards in every room. The book is protected in special light and oxygen controlled cases for maximum preservation. The Book of Kells is made from vellum (calf skin) and is the most celebrated visual reminder of the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ. The monastery it was written in was established c563. There were many books which transcribed parts of the Bible, before Kells, but Kells is so important because it is the oldest and one of the only versions of the Bible written in Latin and old Celtic. It is also particularly famous because it was written in year 800, stolen in the year 1007, the city it was from burnt down in 1016, and then miraculously the book was found in 1653 in a field in Kells (another city)!! It was then named, obviously, the Book of Kells. It basically is the Celtic version of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is cut into four sections so you can see eight different pages when it is laid on display. Every few weeks they carefully turn the pages so different ones get to be displayed. It was pretty cool.

But the Book of Kells, to me, was nothing compared to the next, also photo-forbidden part... The Long Room. The Long Room is an absolutely incredible space in the Old Library of Trinity. It houses the 200,000 oldest books in Ireland the latest one being added in the 1850s. There is also a collection of busts in the room that were added in 1743 with names such as: Homer, Locke, Boyle, Swift, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Milton, Newton, etc, etc. I took a secret picture in here that turned out horribly, but I'll post that one along with some google images. Honestly though, I could stay in that room forever. The smell was overwhelmingly incredible. Am I a loser? Maybe. But it was amazing.


We spent the rest of the day exploring the Christ Church Cathedral, connected to Castle Dublina. It was beautiful. It is still an active Church with frequent services and while we were there actually, choir practice began. It was unreal. Echoed through the amazing ceilings. Beautiful. Here's a collection of images on the interior and exterior of the Christ Church Cathedral.


(The Baptism Room.)












(This ones my favorite.)









Sorry about all the delays in posts lately. The blog has been taking like an hour per picture to upload. It's just insane.