Climbing part 2

I want to climb outside in Ireland.

I have tried on numerous occasions to find good rock to do so on.  However, I have had few results until recently.

Before leaving the states I did some research and found an index of outdoor climbing routs in Ireland here.

I recently revisited this sight to find that one of the climbs is within biking distance of Lousburgh.  With this in mind, I, and my brave partner in crime Joy, decided to look for it. 

After about two hours of biking running and rollerblading we came to the base of the hill with the cliffs.  We hopped a fence and a river and started the accent to what appeared to be the tallest cliff.

About half way up I noticed a red splotch moving up the cliff.  I soon realized that we were not the only ones looking to climb today. 

When we got to the bottom of the crag we introduced ourselves to the fellow climbers who were from a college in a nearby town.  They regularly climb in the area and it just so happened that we were out on the same day.

We chatted a bit and got some information on a man in the area who leads climbing groups.

Joy and I then continued our own exploring and I did some bouldering of my own.

It looks a lot scarier than it is in this picture, I am actually pretty close to the ground.

The rock in this area is pretty nice, and we had a good time bouldering and really enjoying the view from the top of this hill.

When we had had enough we walked back down and ran into the same group again who then offered us a ride to Louisburgh.

We got dropped off at the filling station on the outskirts of town, and we biked and roller-bladed the rest of the way home.

It was a pleasant supprise running into that group and we hope to organize some climbing or maybe some sea cave exploration through the school in the next month.

Climbing Part 1

I am sorry for my temporary hiatus from blogging.  Last week was spring break and I was too busy to blog.

I will talk about my travel experiences soon, but today I want to talk about climbing.

Recently I have been climbing a lot.  I started at the wall at css, and sense the end of last semester I have been hooked.

Coming to Ireland I was disappointed to find that there was very little climbing to be had in or around Louisbourgh (I have heard of one group but haven’t been able to find them yet.)

Therefore, in coming to Dublin and going on spring break I decided that I really wanted to climb at some point.  After a little poking around on the internet I found this, and after some asking around in the class I found some willing adventurers. 

The whole group did a tour of Kilmahnem Gaol as one of the last things for the day today, then a pack of four of us split off in search of this bouldering wall.

We were in a completely forign city with little to go on other than my memory of the google map location.

Nonetheless we walked confidently into what seemed to be a few blocks of storage units.

Noticing a sign for “Gravity” our confidence was bolstered, and we soon pulled open the door with a handle made of a climbing hold.  We walked in, to the front desk, and introduced ourselves.  The two women working the desk seemed a little surprised that a group of four Americans who had never been to Dublin before had found their gym, but they were very helpful despite their surprise.

The gym was excellent. There were many routs that were suitable for all levels of climber.  If you ever find yourself looking for a place to climb in Dublin, I would recommend it.

We climbed for about two hours, then we started our walk back.

Google Maps says the walk should take us an hour and six minutes.  We thought that we could to it in much less time.  However, between stopping for a street burger and not being completely sure of where we were going, we ended up taking the whole hour.

It was a great adventure; I was very happy to get the chance to climb.  The group we had was just the right size, and we all had a dandy time.

As always your comments are appreciated.

Climbing part two is on its way

Thanks,

Willie

Sports'n stuff

Today we went to the nearby town of Castlebar to watch a Hurling game and a Gaelic football match.

Honestly, this morning I did not want to get out of bed,  there has been a bout of flew running through the class and apparently it is now my turn.

None the less, I did manage to find my way onto the bus and before long we were at the stadium.

The first match to be played was a Hurling game. 

Hurling, for those of you who don’t know, is kind of a cross between Lacross, baseball and soccer in which the team uses wooden paddles to hit a baseball sided ball into a goal or through a set of uprights.  Here is a video for reference.

The match we got to see was about equivalent to a division 3 college.  I found it entertaining, but I never really got into it.

As the game of Hurling drew to an end more and more people started showing up.  It was clear that the Gaelic football match was the main event of the day.

Gaelic football is a cross between rugbee and soccer played with a round ball.  Each player can only take a certain number of steps with the ball before he/she mist kick it or dribble it.  The points are scored in a similar fashion to Hurling, and here is a video for reference.

The stadium filled pretty well for this match, and it did get significantly more exciting.  The thing that stood out to me the most from this game however, happened right at the end.  After the final bell rang, fans started rushing onto the field.  At first I thought that it was some super excited fans going a little crazy, but I soon realized that it was a normal thing.  The fans could go up to the players and get pictures/autographs, and there was no security or people stopping them.

This was so foreign to me because in the US fans are rarely allowed on the court/field.  It was a nice change of pace to feel this openness.

Have a wonderful day,

Willie

Bucket lists

I have never come up with a bucket list before this trip.  I have always liked the idea, and I have a number of things that I would put on my life bucket list such as go to machu piccu or climb in Yosemite.

I decided to make an Ireland bucket list about 3 months before I left, and here is an abridged version of said list.

1. Buy a sweater

2. Climb Crough Patrick bare foot

3. Go rock climbing outside and not sustain any injuries

4. Sleep outside

5. Surf

6. Get so lost that I have to ask for directions

7. Do art

8. Send Letters

9. Chase a rainbow

10. Eat dinner with an Irish family or person in their home

How much of this have I done?  Not much.  I have been here for well over a month and I have completed 3 of the list above (1,3, and 8).

Number 1 was completed on the South trip.  I know what you are thinking, and yes it has elbow patches, but it also has shoulder patches! 

Number 3 has been a project.  I have found a few places to climb outside, and I am planning on finding a climbing gym while on spring break.

8 has also been an ongoing process, and I realize that I have not written as many letters as I would have liked, but hey it is a work in progress.

Am I disappointed? No, I know that I will get the ones done that I am supposed to get done.  I don’t see it as a list of things that I need to do, more as a list of suggestions, a gentle nudge in the direction of adventure.

This weekend I intend to complete numbers 4, 6, maybe 9 and hopefully a little more 3.  There is a place to camp not too far from where we are staying in Louisburgh, and near there there is an abandon stone building that I hope to climb around on.

As always comments and feedback is appreciated.

Have a wonderful day,

Willie

The Tri-Fecta

Traveling is a blast.

Ireland is a groovy place, and there are a lot of little things that, legend has it, will give you certain skills or blessings.

Three such places are the cross at Rock of Cashel, Blarney Stone, and the hole in the Gallarus Oratory

The first challenge is at the Rock of Cashel.  Legend has it that if you hug the cross of St. Patrick and you are able to reach all the way around and touch your hands on the other side, then you will never have a tooth ache again.

Here is a picture of someone else doing it, no one managed to snap a picture of me.

This was an easy test for me as I have quite the wing span.

The second challenge is kissing the Blarney Stone.  By doing so, you are given “the gift of gab” that is to say you find a way with words.

Once again I did not get pictures of me doing this but there are witnesses.

Seems pretty simple doesn't it?

Well here is where the plot thickens!  Apparently the stone that everyone kisses may not be the real Blarney Stone.  So with this knowledge, my buddy Seamus and I decided to not risk it.  We instituted a no stone left un-kissed policy.  So, while hiking the many stairs we insured our gift of gab by kissing many a rock in the wall of the blarney castle.

The third challenge consisted of climbing through a small window (about 18 cm by 12 cm) in the Gallarus Oratory (an ancient stone church.)  Climbing through said window is said to cleanse the soul.

Would you like a play by play?

I knew you would.

At this point I was thinking to myself that I may have gotten in a little over my head, but at least backing out was a possibility.

Now I was thinking hey I can do this all I have left are my hips.

But I pulled through, and found myself with a cleansed soul on the other side, and in doing so I completed what we have deemed the Tri-Fecta

To be honest I do not believe in these old tails of fortune, but for me that is not the point.

When I travel I do things because I can and because they make for a good time, and seeing as my lips have not fallen off from an ancient mold on the inside of the Blarney castle, I intend to keep doing things this way.

Thanks,

Willie

A Whale?!?

Two days ago we caught word of a whale that had been beached not too far away from us.  The story went that it had been injured and unable to swim very well so it had died and washed ashore.

We decided to pay it a visit because how often do you get to see a whale?

So after about two hours of driving and multiple stops for directions, we found ourselves on a beach in northern mayo.  We walked along for a while and finally saw it.

The first thing that struck me about it was the size.  It was 40-50 feet long and six feet in diameter.  It’s mouth was open and that too was immense, it looked like it could swallow a soccer ball whole.

The second thing that struck me about it was the smell.  It smelled like an open fish market that had been sitting in the sun for a day or two.  Honestly, I thought that I would have been able to smell it from further away, not that I am complaining in the slightest.

The one thing that I was most fascinated with was the mouth, and upon further examination of it, I saw that someone had come before it and cut out its teeth.

I am by no means an animal rights activist, but that struck me as a very strange thing to do.  The way that they were cut it was clear to me that whoever had done the cutting had planned to do so before seeing it. 

It is an interesting ethical situation.  The whale was just left there to rot, no one was going to bury it.

Seeing it dead on the shore made me think of it swimming in the ocean.  Thinking of a pod of these massive animals swimming together is kind of blowing my mind.

Thanks for reading,

Have a fantastic day,

Willie

Community Day

This past Wednesday was community day at St. Scholastica(a day with no classes and a number of service opportunities offered in the Duluth area), and we here in Ireland decided to have our own community day.

Around half of the group decided to participate in our service project of trash clean up around the town of Louisbourgh, and as you can see we were looking pretty fly in our vests.

I love doing service projects but it has not always been this way.

In high school I wasn’t a big fan, I think I just didn’t get it.

Then when I got to CSS, I joined STLF (Students Today Leaders Forever) and through their programs I have developed a love for service. 

There are many reasons to love service.  For me, it comes down to the people.  For me, it is not as much about the smiling faces of the people that you help (don’t get me wrong, that is great too), but for me it is more about the connections you make with the people you are working with.  Free work is not something that happens much in our world, and when it does happen, it can be a beautiful thing.

So why do I bring this up on a travel blog? 

It gets back at another post about traveling somewhere vs. living somewhere, if you haven’t read it, here it is.  I think that part of living in a place as opposed to traveling to a place involves giving back to the community. 

Generally when travel somewhere the only time that you give to the community is when you open your wallet.  When you really live in a place, you find ways of giving back to the community that go deeper than a monetary exchange.  This is obviously not a hard and fast rule, but it made me think so I am sharing it with you.

So I want to give a big shout out to STLF and all the people who make it great.  A special shout out goes to my sister who is co-leading the first ever St.Ben’s St.John’s Pay it Forward Tour this week and to the CSS chapter who are leave this Friday for Philadelphia.

Thank you,

Willie

Musings

It is amazing what food can do.

I am sitting in Louisburgh Ireland, in a cottage by the sea, and with one sip of mint tea, I am transported to a dock on lake Manitowish.

Last summer, as I do most every summer, I spent some time at the family cabin in Manatowish Waters Wisconsin.  For me, it is as close as it comes to heaven on earth.  That could be for a number of reasons:  I have years of great memories of the place, it is in a picturesque location, and yet the one thing that really makes it stand out to me are the people whom I have spent time with there.

Oh yeah, last year, that’s right.  I was at the cabin with my immediate family, as well as many of my family who are not genealogically related to me.  One of the members of the “adopted family” had brought a box of peppermint tea, and a bar of dark chocolate that she was sharing with the rest of us as we sat around the fire playing cribbage and sharing stories.

To my surprise, I unintentionally picked out the same tea from a supermarket in Galway this weekend.  I have had a cup of this tea twice now and both times have brought me back to last summer.  I am now sipping on a third cup as I write this.

I like to have things that remind me of home, things that can bring me to a happy place when I am away.  I think I just found one of those things.

Looking back on what I have written so far on this post I realized something.

I am so so lucky. 

Ok i didn't just realize this, I just thought that I should throw it out there.

Part of my luck is due to the fact that I was born into a lot of privilege, but the part that I am most thankful for is that throughout my whole life I have been surrounded with wonderful people who love and support me.  There are too many of these people to name here, but chances are that if you are reading this than you are one of them, and I am so lucky to have you in my life.

I’m sorry if this post was a little bit scattered.

But what the heck lets stick with it.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Maya Angelou that I somewhat ironically remember well.

People will forget what you said

People will forget what you did

But people will never forget how you made them feel.

Stay excellent,

Willie

Travel Preperations

As promised, here are the pictures of the rocky beach.

These pictures are taken at high enough tide where I could not walk around in the rocky area.

Now to change topic completely, I want to talk about preparation for a trip abroad.

But I am not going to talk about what to pack, that is boring.  If you want advice on what to pack look here, here or here

What I want to talk about is mental preparation for a trip abroad.

Personally, I feel like this is an often overlooked and yet very important aspect of travel.  So, I have come up with a few pieces of advice for your next foreign escapade.

1. Know something about U.S. foreign policy.  I know it sounds boring, but foreigners really enjoy talking about politics of the United States.  If you know less than they do, then not only do you look stupid but it also feeds into the stereotype of the “Ignorant American Tourist.”  You really should be informed about the politics of the U.S. even if you are not planning on being abroad.

2. Write a Bucket List for your travels.  When I say write, I mean actually on a piece of paper; writing down goals makes them more concrete.  If you actually have a tangible list, you are far more likely to complete it.  I am by no means a lists person, but I have to admit that I enjoy crossing things off my “Ireland Bucket List.”

3. Learn something.  For me this is inevitable as I am taking classes, but even if you are taking a three week vacation, it is worth it to learn something new, be it a hobby, game, or a skill.

4. Be able to vent.  If you are on a trip that last longer than a week, chances are you will get annoyed with something or someone.  It is ok to be unhappy on vacation, but the sooner you vent these frustrations, the sooner you can go back to having fun.

5. Write.  I for one have a mediocre memory for events, and let’s face it no one can remember everything.  Keeping a journal or a blog is a great way to reflect on and record the adventures you have.

6. Stay positive!  Attitude is 90ish percent of the battle if not more.

Well, that is all I have for you.

I hope your day is groovy,

Willie

Adventure on the Rocks

Four days ago there was a light rain, and because I had gotten no exercise, and because I felt adventurous, I decided to go exploring on the rocky end of the beach.

A few days prior I had seen a rather large rocky section of the beach from a distance, and as I have an inclination to climb anything that I can, I decided to go back and have a look.

The tide was very high by the time I got to the rocky section.  This along with the fact that it was raining led me to the decission that that day was not the day to climb.  Despite this decision, I did go poking around a little bit.

I found myself standing on a ledge about five feet off the ground near a little inlet.  Then all of a sudden, I see a wave come crashing out of what seemed to be the rock it’s self.  After a second I realized that there was a tunnel through the rock!

Fast-forward two days and I am back at the same place at low tide.

It was as I had imagined it.  There was a tunnel about ten feet tall and six feet wide that led through the cliff.  The tunnel is somewhat of a passage to another side of the beach.  On the side you enter from there are a lot of pebbles, and there is a river emptying into the sea. On the other side there are huge rock cliffs that surrounded me as I clambered over massive boulders.

I have gone back there twice since then and I have yet to bring my camera.  I plan on going tomorrow to take some pictures of the spot because it is really something worth seeing.  When I do get the pictures I will post them up here.

Speaking of pictures, here is a picture of the group of us that played rugby on Pallentines day.

It looks on here like we tore up the lawn but we really didn't I promise...

Stay excellent,

Willie

Pallentines Day

Today is February 14^th which means a lot to some people.  Personally, I find myself on the other end of the spectrum, closer to the end that says Hallmark invented Valentine’s Day to sell cards.  So, in an effort to stick it to the man, and because I am at present a few thousand miles from my significant other, I have decided to celebrate Pallentines day. 

What is Pallentines Day?

It is a day when you hang out with all of your palls and do things that make you happy.

On my Pallentines day I woke up, looked out the window, and what did I see?

Snow!

At first I was a little crestfallen, but after breakfast was done and the snow had not given up I heard a knock on the door, and two girls from another cottage came in and asked if we wanted to have a snowball fight.

My roommate and I jumped at the opportunity, and after getting dressed up, we were outside throwing slushy snowballs at one another.  After about 15 minutes of this, three guys came outside and brought their rugby ball.

We split up ourselves up into two teams, named Team Ramrod and the Riders of Johan.  We spent about an hour running into each other, falling into the four inch deep pools of slush, and Laughing like crazy.

So between that and my own personal ice cream cake, I think that today is going to be a great Pallentines day.

So as always, any questions, comments, or snide remarks are encouraged.

Have a beautiful day,

Willie

Culinary Adventures

I love to cook.

However, I have very little experience actually cooking.  I have watched a lot of people who know how to cook and I have learned what I can from those people.

In coming to Ireland I decided to just go for it and cook whenever possible.  I thought I would share a few of my successes and failures with you.

Day 1: we made pasta with tomato sauce. 

The pasta is easy.  Or so I thought…  There were two important things that I forgot. 1: you have to stir noodles or they clump together. 2: pasta doubles in size when cooked.  To be honest it could have gone worse, the first day of noodles were great.  It was the leftovers that were pretty much one solid mass.  Cooking noodles really is pretty easy, you just can’t totally forget about them, as I did.

The sauce is the fun part, so here is what you do.  You start with oil (I used olive oil but vegetable oil works too) on low heat(3 out of 10 was the setting that worked for me) and chopped up garlic (I use about half a bulb but I love garlic so you can change that by your preference).  After say five-ish minutes, you add chopped onion, I used a little over half of a baseball sized onion.  You let that simmer (stirring it occasionally) and as you are doing that you cut up 3 tomatoes.  The tomatoes should be cut up fairly well, no bigger than a piece you would put on a salad.  After adding the tomatoes, you can pump the heat up (not too hot, medium hot-ish is good I went 7 out of 10.) You stir that a lot as it cooks.  Then I added a little sauce from a jar (just for color… I think.)

If there is a message to be gained from this story it is this: don’t get so caught up in the new exciting things that you forget the fundamentals that you rely on.

As usual, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Living vs Traveling

About a month before I took the hop across the pond, I was talking to a friend of mine about what it meant to “live” somewhere.  He studied abroad in London, and after he got back to the states he was told that studying abroad did not “count as living there.”   He and I both disagreed, but that raised an interesting question: when does it change from “I traveled in Ireland” to “I lived in Ireland?” 

There are any number of metrics that could be used to distinguish the difference between living and traveling.  He was of the opinion that if you pay rent in a place, then you have lived there.  Since then I have asked a few people and have gotten mixed answers, I heard anything from knowing the names of 5 locals to cooking your own food.

I did an exchange program in Germany in high school and looking back on it I don’t think that I really lived there.  Honestly that is just a feeling.  When I compare that to being in Ireland, it feels a lot more like I am living here now than I was then.  That may be because I will be here three months as opposed to three weeks, it may be because I never went off exploring by myself. 

This is clearly a complex and subjective question that is very difficult to judge… blah blah blah. The bottom line is we all have different ways of knowing when we have lived in a place.

So what’s my metric?

Toilet Paper.  It plays a vital but often overlooked role in everyday life.  If you travel somewhere you are generally provided with it, but when you live in your own place, you have to fend for yourself.   

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful day,

Willie

PS Did you catch the pun?

Here We Go

I had originally intended my first blog post to be something about travel.  I have done a considerable amount of travel in my life and I believe that I have something to offer others in the way of stories and advice.  However, I am going to save that for another post.

Today started as I imagine many days here in Louisburgh will start, I rolled out of bed and walked to class.  After class I was on my way back to the cottages when a group of us stopped to talk to a man named Barry whom we had met a few days ago.  As we were about to go our separate ways he asked if I would like to go look at the damage that the storm had done to the coastline.

Having no other plans and wanting to get to know Barry a little bit better, I, along with two classmates, decided to go with Barry for to see what the beaches looked like.

We met Barry at his house for tea at quarter to 2.  We sat in his living room for a little while talking about what we wanted to do and see while abroad.  Before long we set off.

Driving into the first beach I could see that there had been some serious damage done.  Both sides of the road that we were driving on had fields of standing sea water in them that had not been there before the storm.

When we got to the beach, the parking lot was barely there.  The storm had thrown boulders the size of watermelons into fields used for farming; it had swept away storage units used to hold football and surfing equipment.  There were mounds of what Barry called “sea rods” (a brown form of sea weed that grows on the bottom of the ocean) three feet high and stretching all the way down the beach.

We drove along the cost for the next hour stopping at half a dozen beaches that the storm had torn up.  There were a number of places where we could not pass because there was too much damage to the road, or because the road had been completely flooded.

I have always had a love for big bodies of water.  I grew up 100 feet from Lake Superior, and much of my childhood was spent in the sun playing on the beach that was our back yard.  When I first saw the ocean it was on the coast of Oregon and I was enamored.  I remember my brother sister and I played on the rocky beach together whenever we could manage it during that trip.  Coming to Ireland, I was excited to live so close to the ocean, but today really put it into perspective for me.  The sea is equally beautiful and powerful.

Well I can’t end my first blog on that note so I’ll do a little explaining.  I will be posting here about twice a week while I am studying abroad here in Louisburgh Ireland.  I would love any feedback and/or suggestions that you may have for future blog posts.

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful day

Willie