Failte!

I am here in Ireland, on my 21st birthday, and it is amazing! I have wanted to come here for so long, to get here at last was...I don't know, almost a relief. I've been imagining what Ireland was like, reading, living, thinking IRELAND for at least the past 5 years, to come here was almost holy. And yet...I did not feel some kind of completeness, a return to a state of wholeness, or any sense of 'welcome home.' I'm hoping that will happen when I go to Galway and Clare tomorrow. (my family originally came from Clare, and it is supposed to be incredibly beautiful there).

Today we went to see the Book of Kells, and also the Chester Beatty Library, which houses a collection of old manuscripts from the middle ages on...It was very beautiful. I love old books because of the way they really show people's love of writing and reading - it's like they made an effort to make them beautiful because the ability to write and read is something beautiful, worth celebrating.

The coolest thing here - the way all the street signs are in Irish (ie Gaelic) as well as English. Wherever I can, I pick up the pamphlets in Irish as well as English (you know how you get leaflets with information about the exhibitions in museums and stuff), so that I can try and translate them later. (for those of you who don't know, I study Irish at uni...)

I JUST CAN'T GET OVER THE ACCENTS!!! FOR THAT ALONE, I THINK THIS TRIP WAS WORTH IT!!!!

Failte!

I am here in Ireland, on my 21st birthday, and it is amazing! I have wanted to come here for so long, to get here at last was...I don't know, almost a relief. I've been imagining what Ireland was like, reading, living, thinking IRELAND for at least the past 5 years, to come here was almost holy. And yet...I did not feel some kind of completeness, a return to a state of wholeness, or any sense of 'welcome home.' I'm hoping that will happen when I go to Galway and Clare tomorrow. (my family originally came from Clare, and it is supposed to be incredibly beautiful there).

Today we went to see the Book of Kells, and also the Chester Beatty Library, which houses a collection of old manuscripts from the middle ages on...It was very beautiful. I love old books because of the way they really show people's love of writing and reading - it's like they made an effort to make them beautiful because the ability to write and read is something beautiful, worth celebrating.

The coolest thing here - the way all the street signs are in Irish (ie Gaelic) as well as English. Wherever I can, I pick up the pamphlets in Irish as well as English (you know how you get leaflets with information about the exhibitions in museums and stuff), so that I can try and translate them later. (for those of you who don't know, I study Irish at uni...)

I JUST CAN'T GET OVER THE ACCENTS!!! FOR THAT ALONE, I THINK THIS TRIP WAS WORTH IT!!!!