Rome & General Update

It's been a bit since I last posted. We went to Galway in the meantime, and enjoyed it. Nice weather too, believe it or not. The link to the album for the Galway trip is here if you haven't perused it yet. In the past month or so most of my classes have ended - not very long after my March break, I had to write another set of essays as "finals." I must say they haven't been my best work. Between the 19th century library system with its 10-day loan times and 2 Euro per day fines and the fact that I had two weeks and a day to produce 5,000 words with few sources and no feedback, my output was not on usual par. Not to mention that simply printing off my finished paper required 45 minutes, a trip that involved three buildings and three sets of computers, requesting the advice or help of 4 people, and ultimately ended with me printing it off the History department secretary's computer. I thought I hated OIT.

Anyway I have the rest of May to study for my Old English final on the 28th. In all likelihood I'll be flying home on the 29th. In the meantime I also have to do some more research for my senior thesis next year, which may involve a couple more short trips. I also have the Trinity Ball this Friday, which is allegedly "the largest private music party in Europe." Trinity is walled, so they let ten thousand or so of us in, formalwear required, and we listen to semi-famous bands all night. Expect some info on that adventure.

In other news, Nicole and I spent last Thursday through Monday in Rome. The aforementioned paper-printing fiasco happened when we were supposed to be leaving for the airport. Even worse, I was forced to depart without a book to read, but luckily I was able to pick up a copy of Angels and Demons in the airport. That way I could pretend like I was a debonair historian trying to save the Vatican from an antimatter bomb while we were there.

Flying Ryanair is an experience difficult to describe to Americans who've never experienced it, and think that Southwest, or the flying they do in general, is total shite. For starters, Ryanair skips the little tunnel into the airplane to save money, instead walking you out onto the tarmac. In Dublin Airport, you must fly from Terminal D, which takes over twenty minutes to walk to (no joke), and is constructed exclusively from wood. Rows of metal chairs are screwed into the wood, and you can look out the plastic windows to wait for your plane. Ryanair passengers are tactless, desperate people. Whenever the card is put up saying the gate destination (=/= screen), people literally sprint to queue up, even if it's still 45 minutes before your flight is scheduled. These craven subhumans will jostle you and cut you in line if you get lazy as well. Once out the door, they sprint to the stepladders, and you have to throw bows like Dikembe Mutombo to get a seat. Also, we were plead with by a guy who looked like Michael Essien to let his wife have the window seat, because she had a rare condition where her cancer flared up if she wasn't next to a window. Something like that.

The first thing I noticed off the plane was the humidity. I guess Ireland has relatively low humidity, though that seems really counterintuitive to me. The second thing I noticed was all the fumare going on. We got in late, and a little old dude that looked like Joe Pesche tried to hustle us 30 Euro for a cab ride that should have cost around 10. After sending this bufone asino packing, we arrived at our small hotel near the Spanish Steps. It was overpriced but not a bad room. We had a small balcony which was cool.

In the morning we got up early and grabbed an open-top bus tour. We went with a third-party tour group after seeing the official ones had a queue that stretched back half a league, four-deep. It was around 75 and breezy, a welcome change from the mid-50s and cloudy of the last few months. I got burned pretty quickly - I always start off the season with a horrendous farmer's tan. We took the whole route on the bus just to get our bearings, which was very pleasant just to ride around given the climate and the scenery. While stopped in front of the Vatican, the cops stopped traffic for a convoy of Ferraris that all burned out going up the Via della Conciliazone to St. Peter's Basilica. I got pictures of most of them you can see in an album below, but we saw them go by again later at the Colosseum and I managed to film it through the fence. If nothing else, it's good for the sound of the engines.

We looped back around to the Colosseum and got off. The area that surrounds it is littered with ruins, between all the streets and buildings: the Forum, the Imperial Forum, Trajan's Forum, various temples and palaces, so forth. We had lunch outdoors under a canopy of grape vines and umbrella pines, surrounded by these ruins. I had some red wine and kick-ass pizza and I must say it was a pretty blissful moment.

There were pretty long lines at the Colosseum, and we picked up a private tour from a cool-looking Australian guy who unfortunately handed us off to an annoying old woman. The Colosseum is about as impressive as I expected it to be. I think it's more impressive that its capacity for its size and the ease with which it was filled and emptied have not been equaled often in the two millenia or so since it was built. It's pretty evident from touring the Colosseum and from visiting other Christian sites in Rome that the Church has a complex about the Christians that may or may not have been killed in the Colosseum. Interestingly, no documented evidence exists to suggest that Christians were ever martyred in the Colosseum, that is, specifically because they were Christians. However, the Colosseum has been defaced by tons of plaques and carvings of various popes who were dedicating things there to the martyred Christians. There is a yearly ceremony and mass held in the Colosseum in their honor as well. As you can see in some of the photos, the Emperor's seat has been replaced with a large cross. Anyway, I suppose it's fitting, given that the Colosseum itself was built to take a shot at Nero, whose colossus of himself as Sol Invictus was destroyed to build it.

After the tour, we stumbled through the museums. I say stumbled because my stomach was giving me a painful reminder that I can't drink three glasses of wine with greasy food without paying a price. We headed to the Palatine Hill for another tour afterwards, with a much more pleasant younger Irish girl named Daniela who would also be our tour guide at the Vatican. The Palatine was great...being among those ruins gives you an idea of what it must have been like to be an Emperor. It occurred to me that living somewhere that sumptuous, in a city like Rome, makes hubris virtually unavoidable, and also makes things like self-deification easier to understand. With that and the lead pipes they used, you can see why they were all a bit crazy. Our dinner that night was similar to lunch, but with a dude walking around with an accordion playing tunes from The Godfather and other jaunty little songs.

Day two started out early at the Vatican. We quickly realized that this was a poor strategy. If you go, DO NOT try to get there early to "beat the crowds." Showing up at 8:15 resulted in a 3-hour wait. The best strategy is to eat early and go when everyone is at lunch. I think I would have enjoyed the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel a lot more if not for the horrendous crowds. They're an interesting reminder of how popes competed with one another to expand and enhance the richness of Vatican City, because everything is labeled with the sitting pope and the date. Ancient sculptures, paintings, everything. I found the Sistine Chapel more impressive for its size than its quality. There's just a ton of shit painted in there. Michaelangelo must have liked painting at least as much as he liked pizza. We went into St. Peter's Basilica after that, and I was pretty impressed at that point. The thing is just huge. There is one church in the world that's bigger, in Cote Ivoire, but its no less impressive for being second. The canopy over the altar is huge in itself, and it is dwarfed by the rest of the building. Not to mention the sculptures by Michaelangelo, and, I dunno, Peter's bones.

Pretty worn out by then, we laid in a park for a while before going back out to see the Trevi Fountain and eat. The Trevi Fountain, while very nice looking, is infested with tourists at all hours, and even worse is covered with annoying-ass people that I could be way less politically correct about if I so chose. They number probably one to every 10 tourists, and the hover around selling buzzing snake eggs, l.e.d. sunglasses, miniature helicopters, and little moldable balls that you can make animals and shit out of. Worse still than them are the ones that hover around with a handful of roses and a camera. They approach a couple, shove the flowers into the girl's hand without saying anything, and then start trying to shake the guy's hand while gibbering in ungodly languages. They want to take your picture on their Xbox-sized polaroid cameras, charge you for the picture, and then take the flowers back. If you hang around the Trevi Fountain or the Spanish Steps for any length of time, you get accosted by these fuckers every 7 minutes or so. Periodically, they walk over to the fountain, rinse their flowers off, drink from it, and go back to the crowd.

On the third day we slept in and went to the Capitoline Museums, which have most of the ancient sculpture and later painting that the Vatican doesn't have. I found them much more agreeable because they weren't as crowded, were well-lit and cool, and had interesting contents. In general I find it easier to look at sculpture for long periods of time than paintings - after a certain point I get fatigued looking at paintings and everything starts to look the same. From there we went to Castel Sant'Angelo. It was pretty cool as fortresses go, and has some good views. With its tunnel to the Vatican, it serves as the pope's "Oh Shit" button, and has worked well, never falling in any of the sacks.

Our departure the next morning did not go as planned. You have to take a special Ryanair shuttle from Termini Station so they can bus you out to the small-ass airport they fly to. We were advised to take the 6:30 shuttle. Termini Station is large and rectangular, bisected by a wide shopping-mall like hall. However, one of its ends turns into a wall that continues ad infinitum, making the station itself impossible to circumvent. We came out of the tube on the wrong side of the building, then started sprinting down two sides thinking we would come to the bus area and realizing to late that we were screwed. When we finally found the bus area, we were too late and had to take the next bus out. This actually ended up being good, because Ciampino Airport is so crappy and poorly laid out, I had no desire to spend more time there. The apron is little more than a parking lot for planes, and your "gate" is where you board still another shuttle that takes you to your plane, and you get on and taxi away.

Rome is great. It was like Disneyland, but the rides and stuff are real. Also, you have to stand in line for everything, it's hot, and people hassle you all the time. I recommend checking it out. I made three albums of pictures, one of the city and various places, one of the Ferarris and leftovers, and one of art and sculptures. Check them out, they have lots more info on specific places and things than I included here.

Special Note: I need to print a retraction of my criticism of Chris Lofton. Turns out he had cancer the whole time and was playing through recovery from radiation and surgery. Boy do I feel like an asshole.

NCAA Tournament/UT Season Recap

I meant to do a more blow-by-blow version of the tournament on the blog, but wasn't able to for manifold reasons. Perhaps in a future sports-incarnation of the blog I would do this. Going through the three Tennessee games blow-by-blow isn't worthwhile at this point either, since you already know the outcome.

Before the SEC Championship began, I believed that this season, I would not be forced to create a special "Tennessee Wins the Championship" bracket, that I could legitimately choose them as the winner in my real bracket. Our subsequent performances erased this possibility, however. Two things in particular I think sapped the Vols' competitive advantage:

1. Collapse of a perimeter threat. I lay most of this at the feet of Chris Lofton. As the season wore on he declined to the point of being a tenacious defender, safe pair of hands at the free-throw line, and little else. Jajuan was able to put up average numbers from long range, but we ceased to be the deep threat we once were. The consequences were that teams were not as frightened of our guards, and could commit more resources to Chism and Tyler Smith down low, who are great but can't be expected to carry our offense. You might categorize this under a more general "Decline of Overall Shooting" problem. Oh, and Jordan Howell stopped playing basketball.

2. Loss of hustle, zeal, edge, etc. This frankly surprises me of a Bruce Pearl team. Especially in the tournament and with the Louisville game as the culmination, we just looked tired - like we didn't want it. I have a suspicion that this problem may be part of a larger team chemistry problem, which is more worrying. A couple of things suggest this to me - Jajuan, who got a little too thuggish for my tastes at times this season. The prime example is him talking shit to Arkansas' coach in our SEC tournament loss, which at the time amused me slightly but didn't seem so cute after we lost. Someone as vocal as Jajuan needs to be a mature emotional leader for the team, and I don't see him as that. Second, JP Prince. This one is more of a gut feeling...it might just be that I stigmatize him because he's related to Tayshaun and Tayshaun played for Kentucky. If I remember correctly, JP bitched at a teammate during the Memphis game, which is not cool under any circumstances, and more importantly, he makes key mistakes and key times, which really hurt us in the tournament.

Anyway, my initial bracket selections had us beating Louisville, but essentially after the American game I knew we were on Casey Jones' train. Another thing that didn't make me feel very good was watching the pre-game interviews with Pearl and Pitino. Bruce talked -exclusively- about being happy to be there, lucky to be there, etc. He mentioned nothing about the game itself. Pitino, while not exactly George Patton, at least mentioned preparation against our team, players to watch for, etc. The difference in focus was clear.

I'm sad that Davidson failed to pull it out against Kansas - their last possession was complete rubbish, they didn't do so much as drive on the basket having come out of a timeout; as great as their story was they didn't deserve to win that one. I had vehemently hoped that Memphis would be exposed already as a worthless team, but alas, they've smoked their opponents. I heard of a strategy that I really think an early round team ought to have used on them: start your 3 worst players, and 2 starters. Foul Memphis on every offensive possession they have, and rotate your unskilled foulers so that by halftime, each has 4 fouls or has fouled out. Memphis' horrible free-throw shooting will halve their normal offensive output, and in the second half you put starters in and play against your deficit, and bank on out-hustling them. It's not all that ridiculous; I think it could work.

I'd still bet on UNC but I wouldn't be surprised if someone else beat them. I'll be having my own Final Four party this weekend because everyone will be gone again.

Scotland

So obviously my posting frequency has declined somewhat and I apologize for that but I've had to write my midterm essays, which took a lot of time. I also would have had Scotland stuff up sooner but I haven't edited videos before so I had to teach myself this - as you can see, it still says "Evaluation copy" on the bottom. If anyone knows of a powerpoint to video converter that is free and works, let me know. Or a video editing tool that's free and as easy to use as powerpoint is, for that matter.

The video ought to suffice for a lot of the narrative that I normally do. We flew in Ryanair and ninja'd 3 carry-ons past their sleeping foreigner employees. Things went well until we decided to take a cab into town, which ended up costing roughly 25 sterling. It's ok though, I managed to pee in his cab before we got out without him knowing.

Our BnB was quite nice, as the video shows briefly. It was run by a Marioesque Italian guy named Franco who danced around and made food for everyone. From his demeanor, I don't think anything bad has ever happened to this man. Anyway, we got heated towel racks, a four-poster bed, mimosas in the morning, and most importantly, wi-fi for me to Slingbox the tournament on. More on the tournament later.

The first day our flight got in later than we expected so we didn't have time to do anything significant. That turned out to be ok though, as Edinburgh is a perfectly nice city to just stroll around in. Much of it is done in Gothic-style buildings, cobblestone streets, etc, all interspersed with crazy volcanic topography. The castle sits on an extinct volcano, as is Arthur's Seat that we hiked on in the video. We walked up and down the Royal Mile, which is rather like an extended version of Dublin's Grafton Street (pedestrianized, lots of shopping), and ended up at a pub. We were hoping to sneak in a ghost tour, but they were more popular than we anticipated so we had to schedule one for Monday.

The next morning we did Edinburgh castle, which had massive lines. I had to wait in line behind a girl who looked about eighteen and was there with her grandparents and little sister. This girl thought she knew some things about history. Her grandparents were kind, pseudo-inquisitive types that were willing to encourage her verbal diarrhea. The line for tickets lasted an hour. Needless to say I almost dumped a cauldron of hot burning oil on her. Anyway, the castle was a lot of fun despite the snow and gale-force winds. After some lunch we walked down and saw the horrendous parliament building, just completed a few years ago after Scotland got its parliament back from London. It's avant-garde architecture and it looks like something out of a Doctor Seuss book, making it stick out like a sore thumb from the rest of the city. If I was a Scottish MP I'd rather resign than go to work there.

Our hike up Arthur's Seat paid off with some great views. It was a fairly decent climb and we ended up walking several miles that day. That night I ate some dodgy seafood gumbo, and then later I un-ate it.

In the morning we started our "Highland Adventure" at 730. I was feeling less than awesome, even less so after out bus driver Chris informed us that there was a 40 pound fine for ralphing on the bus. There was some pretty heavy snow when we got into the highlands, stopping first at a Gatlinburg-esque town called Pitlochry. We continued to press north towards Loch Ness, all the while in crazy weather conditions. Just before arriving we received word that there had been a bus crash, and that we wouldn't be able to use the road we'd intended to. That meant no whisky=tasting and Sterling castle after Loch Ness, and that we'd have to go further north to Inverness and come back that way. It was unfortunate, but the accident happened on a stretch of road we had passed five minutes earlier, so we felt lucky to be in good order.

We took a cruise out on Loch Ness, which was very pretty, and the boat was really well done. They have high-def sonar imaging of the loch floor, so you can see whats underneath, as well as one that images all the objects in the water. In places the loch is almost 1,ooo feet deep, seriously. Apparently, it holds more water than any other thing on the island of Britain combined, and if you emptied it there would be enough water to cover all of Britain six inches deep. There are a lot of interesting things on or near the loch as well, like Fort Augustus, Boleskine House, and Urquart Castle (on video).

We got back to Edinburgh late and rather tired but we went straight to our scheduled ghost tour. It was a lot of fun despite being bitter cold and snowy, and the tour company owns some deserted 19th century vaults that were build over by streets and bridges that apparently have a lot of paranormal activity that is filmed by NatGeo and the like. They have a pretty sweet little dungeon-office down there too with a tavern and the works.

The next morning we took a bus out to Rosslyn Chapel. That's the one at the end of the Da Vinci Code where the annoying French woman finds out she's Jesus' daughter or something. Our bus driver handed us a pretty awesome evangelical booklet as we exited his vehicle that I mistook for chapel information. Evangelicalism is actually fairly prevalent in Scotland. The inside of Rosslyn is every bit as impressive as popular media suggest. The carvings are mind blowing, and it seems like every inch of the interior space is covered with them. There is a good deal of pagan imagery interspersed with the Christian, the coolest looking of which is probably the Green Man, who has vines growing out of his mouth. The most impressive thing in my opinion, however, is a window that is bordered by images of what is clearly (very clearly) corn. Rosslyn was done well before Europeans supposedly went to North America, and corn isn't native to Europe. This corroborates a legend that a Templar ship landed in America well before Columbus, and through their connections to Rosslyn (the patron family, St. Clair, had a Templar background), had the corn carved for them. Pretty crazy stuff.

Back in Edinburgh, I ate haggis. Haggis is beef and oatmeal mixed with spices, punched into a sheep's stomach, and boiled. It's served with "neeps and tatties" or turnips and potatoes. I found it all very agreeable actually, it tasted like a sausage-meatloaf. The rest of the day we wandered around and enjoyed ourselves, and checked out the "Scottish Whiskey Experience" which was pretty touristy but we got whiskey. We caught our late flight home and that was that.

Forgot to include, addressing previous questions:
As I may have mentioned in the past, weather reporting here is not as specific as it is at home. Nor can it be - the weather is so volatile that it's hardly worth forecasting in the kind of detail we're used to. Hourly forecasts are sometimes useless, if they had 15 minute chunk forecasts perhaps they'd be helpful. Anyway, a cursory glance at the weather before we left for Scotland suggested that it would be roughly the same temperature. When we arrived in Edinburgh we discovered that this was a patently false assumption, and as I've shown, there was nearly constant snow falling in Edinburgh as well as the highlands. In a last minute decision before leaving, I elected to leave my sleek, manly, and gear tech-savvy Mountain Hardware gloves at the apartment. In Scotland, realizing my mistake, we had to go on a perilous quest for gloves...not that it seemed too difficult, the Royal Mile literally consists of clothiers selling sweaters, kilts, and the like every other door for a mile...but it proved startlingly difficult. There were pink fluffy gloves, knit wool mittens that cost 70 quid, and children's gloves everywhere, but no normal gloves. At long last, we found some that actually fit and that were not colored so as to mark me as an aggressively homosexual male, with the trade-off that they were electric blue. Hence the "Aqua-Man," "Blueberry," "Voidwalker," or as Spence said, "Papa Smurf" gloves.
And no, peeing the in the cab was figurative language.

St. Patrick's Day/Cinco de Drinko

Note: this post will be updated and infused with pictures at a later time

I've discovered something that I and virtually everyone else loves dearly: a great irony. After spending a first half of St. Patrick's Day in Dublin, I've discovered that the holiday is about American ex-pats and American visitors. I slot myself into the "ex-pat" category because I'm using the "visitor" category to refer to tourists who showed up here specifically for St. Patrick's, which I am not.

We rose at 9:15am, because we'd planned an early morning kickoff. 66 eggs were purchased yesterday in anticipation of a "Kegs n' Eggs" event to start St. Patrick's Day in our apartment. In another ironic twist, because St. Patrick's Day is a national holiday in Ireland, and no one works, businesses, including alcohol vendors, are not in operation for the majority of the day. There's a further reason for this - in days of yore when stores did remain open, they sold out of their entire supply of alcohol early in the day, much of which fell into the hands of underage drinkers, and the city essentially deteriorated into an anarchic war-zone. Even still, most businesses, shops, cafes, and even some pubs closed early last night in preparation. It reminds me of the way coastal areas prepare for a hurricane, what with everyone boarding and barricading everything up - literally, and then fleeing to their homes or rural parts of Ireland.

Luckily we managed to purchase a fair amount of "groceries" yesterday to have enough for the morning. We served up egg sandwiches for about 20 people, and with the nice weather we were able to open our windows and party until around 12:30. At that point we left for the city center to try to catch the parade. Supposedly 500k non-Dubliners were in downtown Dublin today, so needless to say it was pretty tight going. Nicole and Jaci and I found a place close enough to the road for me to hold up a camera, snap pictures, and tell them what was going on. It lasted about 2 hours. We had to smash up against a multitude of people with tricolors painted on their faces, floppy foam hats, fake red beards, and "kiss me, I'm Irish" paraphernalia.

The big "I hate mankind" facet of this holiday is that young hooligans (in this country, everyone between the ages of 12 and 18 is a free-roaming, vandalizing, misdemeanor-committing hooligan) were out in force today with a new weapon: whistles. "Tell us about the whistles." "The whistles? 'Dey go woo-WOOOO" No, not Bubb-Rub whistles, and not just "Only in the morning." Referee-type whistles, that were blown incessantly throughout the day by Ireland's future prison occupants and single parents.

Anyway, the irony lay in the fact that probably 65% of the parade consisted of marching bands, and easily 90% of those marching bands were American. Auburn University was probably the showcase of the group, with a few other tertiary institutions represented and tons of high schools. I took the liberty of screaming "SEC! Skeeeeeeeew!" as Auburn passed. The non-band part of the parade were people dressed up like psychedelic zombies, bugs, space aliens, and fish that make even the soberest of revelers feel like they're on acid.

Taking into account that despite the size and extensiveness of Dublin's St. Patrick's Day festival, I understand that those of Boston, Chicago, and New York are far, far more involved (they don't dye the river green here, for instance), it seems that in the U.S. St. Patrick's Day is for Americans to act like they're Irish, and in Ireland its a day for Americans to feel like they're at home. There were literally so many Americans on the street today that I felt like I was in an American city. Better still, the preponderance of band members, band directors, and band boosters on the street made me feel like I was at a band competition, an even more comfortable habitat of mine. So in sum, St. Patrick's Day in Ireland is a nice taste of home for us Americans. More to come later.

The Hell with Sports

A number of things went wrong today. Something was out of whack in the cosmic alignment. Some heathen god has not received its sacrifice.

Ireland 10 - 33 England
It was a sign of things to come this morning when I failed to rise early enough to make it to the library to do work before the 3:00 pm rugby kickoff. It was yet another sign when a mediocre English team took Ireland to task 33-10. In reality, I didn't actually see this match because The Barge was so packed out when we got there that we had to sit on the 3rd floor - where the staff were unwilling to change the channel off of the Manchester United vs. Derby County match. Not that I minded getting to see United...more on this later. England's big-name flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson was dropped from the squad in the run up to this match in favor of the younger Danny Cipriani. While I couldn't see the match, I could hear it over the loudspeakers in the pub, and I must have heard Cipriani's name called 50 times. (At his position, he would have done a lot of scoring through kicks and the like). A sad end for Ireland's 6-Nations campaign and probably the death knell for the manager.

Wales 29 - 12 France
Wales, with this final victory, secured the 6-Nations title and the "Grand Slam," which signifies an defeat of all teams in competition. I understand it was the 10th such Grand Slam for the Welsh, but I heard offhand that it hasn't been done in 101 years (this could be wrong). Apparently Wales has had quite a renaissance under new manager Warren Gatland, a Kiwi who I believe used to be on Ireland's coaching staff. I would very much enjoy seeing Wales face off against South Africa or New Zealand.

Manchester United 1 - 0 Derby County
Many of you are probably saying "Now, Jesse, obviously not everything went badly, you just wanted a dramatic intro to your post so you spat out some spastic nonsense." Well, here's what I'm saying to you. Derby County is probably the worst team that has ever played English Premier League football. (In case you don't know, the bottom 3 teams get relegated to a lower division each year to be replaced by the top 3 from that division, so the teams change). We didn't score until late in the game, and had countless missed opportunities. With every near miss or dink off the post, the players became visibly more frustrated. I think Ronaldo was crying at one point. He did something I haven't seen him do in years: look up into the sky and plead with God after missing a shot. He used to genuflect after doing this as well. When he finally knocked one home late in the 2nd half, he counted out his missed shots on his fingers - 5 I think, before celebrating. We've now reclaimed the top spot from Arsenal, with a game in hand. Oh yeah, and don't ever take that tone with me again. I don't like having to explain myself.

Tennessee 80something - 80something more Arkansas
Yeah, I don't actually know the final score. Why? Because when I saw what was going to happen, I just walked away from the computer. It may have actually been in the 90s for all I know. I'm not really sure who to blame for what happened. Suffice to say we got abused down low - and I do mean abused - but the fact that we committed a foul on every possession and got all of our players in foul trouble didn't help either. The refs controlled the pace of the game. Another reason I don't know the score is because I quit - I'm not looking it up on ESPN. For the last week I've been watching basketball every day, reading all the articles on ESPN about them, hell, I've even watched some NBA games, which if you know me is pretty bizarre. I was actually excited last night when tornadoes hit the Georgia Dome because I thought with the super late game I was going to get to have a basketball sleepover party with myself. But no more. Until I complete the process of getting over this game, the hell with sports. If we get a good draw on Selection Sunday, perhaps I'll quit being a bitch. For now, I'll stay one.

While writing this post, I set an all-time personal record for fart duration.

I've got a busy week ahead. Tomorrow, Jaci is arriving early (too early - before God gets up), so we'll have a guest in. Monday is obviously St. Patrick's Day, and it is going to be non stop mayhem in the city all day. Tuesday is my birthday, which doesn't matter here because I can already drink. Oh, and I need to finish two essays before we leave for Scotland next Sunday. The city is crawling with tourists, which get really annoying in a city like Dublin with bad infrastructure. A ramshackle carnival has been set up near Nicole's place of business. There are lots of carnies milling around (small hands, smell like cabbage). One of the rides is titled "American Adventure," and has an airbrushed mural behind it, the center-piece of which is Jerry Rice busting through a brick wall. When I first saw it, I began to laugh so abruptly that I snot-rocketed in front of some people on the sidewalk. It was worth it. I will try to get a photo of this immensely stupid attraction.

In other news, I threw an orange towel into my load of whites without thinking about what I was doing (I only have rights to the washer/dryer/iron maiden for 24 hours a week, sometimes things get desperate). Now, one half of my undershirts and socks are salmon. Is this a tragedy or am I going to be RICH because I'm the only person in the world with access to salmon-colored undershirts? Oh yeah, I forgot there's this store called American Apparel that sells nothing but blank t-shirts and zip-hoodies in every conceivable shade, and make tons of money off of punk-ass scene kids who think they're being fresh with a poorly coordinated neo-80s look. So much for that idea. I have a skin-tight pale yellow polo from there that's good for picking up guys at the Carousel. Not that I've ever done that. What?

I will try to document as well as possible what it's like to be in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. I say "try" because typing takes small muscle control and we all know that's one of the first things you lose. In the meantime, I'm off to drown my sorrows in green tea and peanut-butter toast. Yeah, I can put honey on it and call it "dessert."

Howth & Misc

First of all, you may notice I gave the blog a facelift. I'm getting more familiar with some of the tools available on the Blogger and I'm trying to put them to use to make the blog more readable and aesthetically pleasing. You still have some time to vote in the "Blog Appearance" poll, but after it expires I'll add another one so that we're constantly engaging in statistical entertainment. Also, I'm looking at different ways to add media to the posts - you can put up videos and slideshows, but you need to interface with a Flickr or Photobucket album to make it happen, and I'm not sure I'm willing to go to the trouble of putting up photos on multiple sites. Also, I don't have a videocamera and the video on my digital camera lacks sound. Contact my parents at jmtumblin@aol.com to see about donating money for one.

Side Note: How galling must it be for people like writers and directors who have their work "Busted" by Mythbusters on national television to see that little Asian guy, with his squirrely little voice, holier-than-thou demeanor and perpetual sneer say stuff like "Yeah, this one is definitely busted. There's no way a 9mm could puncture a Propane tank and cause an explosion." Well guess what, Hirohito. Casino Royale is still more entertaining than your show, and Daniel Craig would shellack your candy ass.

Lennie and Joy (Nicole's parents) arrived on Thursday for a weeklong visit. They were able to fly first-class, which means their chairs reclined to almost horizontal position. Perhaps someday I will be able to enjoy such a privilege, but for the foreseeable future I'll have to settle for sitting between Andre the Giant and a single mother with octuplets in coach. We went out with Nicole's co-workers the first night they were here, which was great fun but raised a number of questions about her workplace. First, given the preponderance of shenanigans and buffoonery we saw out of her co-workers, I wonder how they're ever able to do business. Furthermore, given that we all drank on the company, out of something I heard called the "Social Fund," I wonder how any revenue isn't immediately liquidated (Literally).

On Friday I gave them a walking tour of Trinity and we visited the Book of Kells. Afterwards we met the Shanleys (Nicole's host-parents) for supper. We planned to go to Howth on Saturday, which is a harbor town north of Dublin, after watching the rugby match.

Ireland 12 - 16 Wales
Ireland had several stretches where they looked brilliant, with lots of swift ball movement and threatening play. Unfortunately, they were unable to maintain that pace, resulting in somewhat of a defensive struggle. Wales are the type of team that punish even the slightest mistake, and did so frequently. It was all over for Ireland when, down 12-13 and looking to get in position for a kick that could win them the game with 5 minutes left to play, an Irish player inexplicably drilled a sitting Welshman on the edge of a pileup, resulting in an immediate penalty that allowed Welsh assassin James Hook to put the game beyond reach. Ireland retain second place, but undefeated Wales, who captured the "Triple Crown" (defeating Ireland, England, and Scotland), look nigh certain to win the "Grand Slam" (defeating everyone).

Scotland 15 - 9 England
Scotland bagged their first win against sorry England, who look to be ending their tournament in ignominy. They'll be celebrating in Edinburgh, and eating their young in London.

After the match was over we started towards Howth. Joy was having shoe trouble and I led us on a pretty lengthy hike to the train station, decreasing in popularity all the while. Finally we caught the DART, and got off our feet.

Howth is not a very large place. It has an extensive dock and wharf area, and a few main roads with pubs and small establishments. There was some sun left, but the wind was pretty fast and made it bitter to stand out on the pier.

Nevertheless, we braved the elements to go out on the pier, and it yielded some photographic dividends - there were actually 2 rainbows. I'm assuming the pot o' gold was actually on the sea floor in this case, which would have made it too difficult to retrieve. As always, see the facebook album for more pretty rainbow pictures.

After walking around we repaired to an Asian Cafe - I say Asian not because it was themed as such but because it was staffed exclusively by such - for some coffee to raise our core temperatures. We then went to attempt to eat supper. Nicole's company had arranged for us to eat on them - yes, Nicole's hard, American work ethic and long hours have made the folks at her company feel guilty about the terms of her internship...she gets lots of little perks and favors like this. We were supposed to eat at a place called Wright's, but to our dismay, standing in the middle of Howth and looking at your surroundings, you would see no less than 3 establishments named "Wright's"...a few minutes and phone calls later we entered a restaurant called "The Findlater" above a pub called "Wright's".

Dinner was tasty. I had whole prawns with my steak, which are shrimp that are about as big as my hand with my fingers outstretched. They had their heads and eyes still attached, which made for great fun. They were delicious and I must say very competitive with American shrimp I've had. We also had some good desserts...I'm finding that my Lenten vow not to eat sweets or dessert has been difficult not to break, but in fairness I have opted out of countless opportunities in the preceding weeks.

I spent most of today cleaning, partially because I had essays to write and also because we're getting "inspected" this week by our program people. As I'm out of school I'll be working on my essays and not much else during the days, so you might expect some more frequent blogeration from me. We have upcoming visits by Jaci and a trip to Scotland this month, as well as, of course, St. Patrick's Day/My Birthday. As I write, we're going through what some of the Sunday tabloids have called "The Storm of the Century." Supposedly there's a high tide, a new moon, and a massive storm system all at once, and last time this happened 47% (made-up) of Dublin flooded. I stuffed newspapers in all our windows today to help with the banging, but so far I'm unimpressed by the meteorological mayhem. We're pulling ~40mph winds, but unfortunately that's not too much higher than normal.

Check out the rest of the photos on the facebook album

The Narth of Arland

Yeah, that's how someone from there would say it. It's funny the things you don't think about before you visit a place, like the fact that Ireland has a whole range of completely different accents. At home people would be hard-pressed to reproduce the difference between an Irish and a Scottish accent.
Anyway, we paid IES 200 Euro flat to take us on a trip to the North, which is decent considering the quality of our accommodation and the fact that we didn't have to worry about logistics. The train ride northward is arguably the most scenic, as it has more vertical topography than do the rides to Galway or Cork. You also go along the coast for a considerable distance. We had the (mis)fortune of sitting across the isle from a smelly old man with a great beard but whose eggs were completely addled. When he realized we were American he wouldn't leave us alone. He went so far as to wake Perry up and demand that he invent a caption for this picture of Obama and Clinton in a newspaper he had. He then went on a long rant about how the economy was collapsing, replete with statistics, most of which were "80%." Roughly 80% of the statistics he quoted were "80%."
As we arrived in Belfast we immediately boarded a bus that took us to the city center, which we should have walked. We disembarked to have lunch at Belfast's Crown Bar. This bar is a famous establishment with lavish Victorian decorations and elaborate woodcarving. We had what I thought was a lovely meal. This meal will be revisited later.
Outside the Crown the group (which contained roughly 40 people) piled in to "black taxis" to take a tour of West Belfast - a sectarian "hot-zone." These ubiquitous black cabs, like the ones found in London, are a sort of alternative bus service for the people of Belfast, most of whom have been historically mistrustful of using common public transport in rough areas. A specific fleet of them acts as a guide service for tourists.

We stopped first at the Shankill Road, a Loyalist stronghold, and got out to take pictures and hear a short bit about Loyalism. I'll put one mural up here, for the rest of them I'll direct you to a link to my Facebook album that has more pictures at the bottom of this post.
Much of the Loyalist graffiti and mural had to do with internal feuding and drug traffic. As Catholics have improved their situation with the thawing of relations, many Protestant communities have been left behind, resulting in economic and community stagnation.
From the Shankill we moved on to the Peace Line, one of many large walls that separate the "Interface areas" of the two communities. These were erected by the British back in the 70s to prevent late-night traffic and the throwing of projectiles back and forth. At the Peace Line we were given a short talk by one of the strangest sounding people I've ever met. As my camera unfortunately lacks sound on its video, I lack an example but some of my friends got one, so I'll insert it here if I can get my hands on a copy.
From the Peace Line thence to the Falls road, a Republican/Catholic area. Some of you may recall my shenanigans walking around alone in the Falls on my previous visit to the North. About the time we entered this area, I realized that something was very wrong in my gastrointestinal command center. Attempting to remain calm while stuffed in a cab with 7 other people, I hoped for the storm to pass. At a small IRA memorial garden that you will not see pictures of unless you look in my previous trip's archive, I executed a perfect ninjavomiting maneuver. Without attracting the attention of the 40+ onlookers, the speaker, or the cluster of chatting cab drivers, I managed to empty the entire contents of my stomach onto the sidewalk, and then proceed as if nothing had happened. Passers-by apparently treated the cesspool of ralph that had not been there before as a glitch in the Matrix.
Our tour ended with some Republican murals on the Falls that you have all probably seen on my other reports. We almost died at the Bobby Sands mural because Gabe saw a little kid with a mohawk and proceeded to take pictures of him while his disgruntled father leered on.
We boarded the bus again for our journey to Portrush, which by the way is nowhere near Belfast. Many dark sorceries and evil machinations were done inside the tiny lavatory of that bus as it bumped along. The drive, most of it along the coast, was beautiful, although I slept through most of it because my stomach still needed to be settled. 2-odd hours later we arrived in Portrush, which is on the northern coast of County Antrim, near the Giant's Causeway.
Our Ramada was quite a nice hotel, and I was put in a room with Danny. Everyone went to a small pizza parlor for supper, and was told by surly hotel staff that food was not allowed to be brought in to the hotel "for health and safety reasons." Handles of liquor, however, were not so easy for them to spot. The showers in the hotel were of such quality that they were used recreationally by our group - I and many others took multiple showers a day, many of them longer than 20 minutes.
The first night we went to a local pub/pool-hall called Rogue's. Everyone got housed and when we left with two friendly locals, that is, 20 of us, we were convinced to go over to their apartment. When we passed our hotel I made a conservative choice to retire, which proved the right choice when the next morning I discovered that my friends had been made to walk for 30 minutes to get there. In the morning we boarded the bus and went to nearby Bushmills to visit the Bushmills whiskey distillery. It is the oldest licensed whiskey distillery in Ireland. While the Jameson Distillery in Dublin is a good experience with a creative tasting session at the end, Bushmills really shows you how whiskey is made. We were allowed access to the actual mash vats, distillers, and bottling facilities. All of these rooms had very pungent smells and oppressive temperatures, but the sheds where the barrels are kept for aging smelled amazing - like sweet apples mixed with wood. It was interesting to learn how whiskey is blended by using different kinds of wood in the casks, sometimes changing several times over a period of years. After having a nice glass of whiskey to start off the morning, we got back on the bus to go to the Giant's Causeway.
By this time in the day the wind was ramping up and there was a light rain in the air. The Causeway sits on a small peninsula on the northern coast of Northern Ireland, not far from Scotland. We had a quick lunch at a pub near the visitor's center and went in for a small video. Always prepared, I had my rainpants ready to rock. Some members of the group looked disparagingly at my attire...how sorry they would be when we descended the rocky slope to the seashore.
I've done a lot of backpacking in my time, and I've experienced wind in the Adirondacks and places like Icewater Springs that gusted between 50 and 70mph. I can state categorically that the gusts at the Causeway were the most intense I've ever felt, and must have been well in excess in 70mph. At times it was basically impossible to walk against the wind, and at times I was literally forced to take steps in a specific direction because the wind was blowing me along the ground. Really, I'm glad it was that intense. It added to the severity and harshness of the environment and enhanced the richness of the experience.
The Giant's Causeway is basically a peninsula of black, hexagonal, basalt rock cylinders that were formed millions of years ago by volcanic rock cooling and cracking in geometric patterns. For further info on the Causeway, check out the captions of the facebook album - I go into more detail. We ventured as far out on the Causeway as we dared - high winds and monster waves made the area extremely hazardous, and yes people die there every year. Needless to say, I did a lot of yelling and whooping, usually involving the word "extreme."
We walked along the shore of the bight - yes, "bight," a small bay bordered by two promontories or headlands. Richard Spencer the geography major took issue with my initial naming of it as a "lagoon," as it lacked a sandbar at its mouth, as is his prerogative. At the opposite end of the bight is another exposed section of columns in the cliff face, known as the "Giant's Organ"
This picture looks over the top of the Causeway columns across the bight to the opposite headland. Once on the other side, we took a steep trail that switch-backed up the side of the ridge, and emerging on top, walked along the edge overlooking the Causeway back to the green pastures and the visitor's center overhead. Gabe and I were the last back, having been too busy punching sheep to return punctually.
When we returned to Portrush, we had a break which virtually everyone used to squeeze in an additional shower (in fairness, a salty film covered everyone's face from the sea-spray), and nap. The Hobbit on audiobook was perfect for knocking me out. After our break, we were scheduled to have a group supper at a nearby restaurant. Once we arrived, it quickly became apparent that groups of 40 people were not suited for this particular establishment. Though the food was of great quality, table service was not normal and the staff were too few to handle our party. Ordering took no less than an hour. After two and a half more hours had elapsed, I enjoyed a nice steak dinner. At least we had a chance to work up an appetite.
I might add that all during dinner and break time, Chris was wrapped around the toilet hurling up his soul. Something, we're still not sure what, possessed his innards of a deathly affliction. He apparently was at that unhappy stage of human existence where he was chugging water strictly to have something to throw up. We gave Chris our pity, and prepared to go back to the pub.
At the pub we staked out the snooker table. I'm not even sure if what we were playing was snooker, but I know that the balls were only two colors and the 8-ball, and they were smaller than pool balls. Gabe and I easily dispatched two hood-rats, but were eventually ousted from the table by a spider-monkeyesque younger man and his bonny lass. At least I got a kiss on the cheek out of it. There was a live band in the pub this night, consisting of two guitar-wielding men with a loop machine and pints of lager. They were playing some pretty stock Rolling Stones type tunes, then they realized that 70% of their audience were Americans. They hastily rolled out Sweet Home Alabama, which I took full boisterous ownership of in my inebriated state. The closing number was a rendition of Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner from Woodstock. An opportunist, to be sure.
As a brief caveat, I have made it my personal mission to find a live musician on this continent who can play me some Styx. I'm interested for a number of reasons - to see people's reactions when I request Styx, to see their attempt at playing Styx, and also simply to hear Styx because I like them. These gentlemen had no Styx in their repertoire...I doubt sincerely they had the vocal capability to manage, though I would have loved to witness the attempt. Their reaction was a mixture of apology and confusion. Look for new chapters to come; the saga continues...
On the final day of our journey we visited Dunluce Castle on our way out of Portrush. Dunluce is a cluster of ruined buildings that lie on a cliff that juts out into the ocean, separated from the mainland by a narrow rocky bridge. It was a prehistoric hillfort in a bygone age, a Norman palisade from the 11th century on, and the residence of the O'Donnells - Scots, from the 15th century on. The 17th century saw the castle's heyday as well as its collapse - literally.
Having been impressively expanded and fortified and lavishly furnished and decorated, part of the kitchen collapsed into the ocean in the mid 17th century, taking kitchen staff with it. As nice as the castle must have been, it's in a rough place - the sea and wind constantly batter the cliff face that it rests on, and it must have taken the brunt of gales that blow in off the ocean.
From Dunluce we cut through the center of Northern Ireland through Ballymena straight to Belfast, rather than driving along the coast as we had on our way to Portrush. We had to kill time eating bad sandwiches in the train station for a few hours, but finally boarded the train back to Dublin. As luck would have it, we sat next to a 7-man stag party, who drank several large flagons of spirits and whose laughter increased in volume steadily as we steamed southward. It was nice to get off the train back in Dublin and start using Euros again.



Check out the rest of the photos I took on this facebook album.

London & Sports Weekend

So this weekend I flew over to London to do a little work in the National Archives. They're located in Kew, which is in southwest outer London. To cut down on my travel time, I arranged to stay with a family in Kew that rents out rooms in their house for researchers. I chose this particular place specifically because it proffered wireless internet - a rare luxury in these islands.
I had a late flight out on Thursday night that was pretty uneventful. I got the airport earlier than expected so I chose the Ted Kennedy option and went to the bar and started drinking. By this point in the day I had ingested no less than 3 packaged sandwiches and I needed to deaden the impact of forcing down another one to keep my body running. I got to Heathrow and had enough Sterling on my person from previous visits to Britain to buy myself a Tube ticket - this would prove unnecessary later when I realized that no Cossacks would be around that late at night to see me breeze through the turnstiles. Apart from being accosted by a band of Senegalese who were muttering something about "a bus station" and "a bag of drugs" at me, I got out ok.
I met a friendly British guy on my way to Kew station who helped me figure out why the directions of the lines didn't make sense. He seemed nice and well-dressed, but he didn't have a good enough explanation for why a man of his age was returning from central London at midnight on a Thursday. Usually I see these lone, older, affluent-looking guys in clubs. It has to be assumed that all of them have some massive tragic flaw - like one of their legs is made of fiberglass or something.
Anyway, I felt bad about barging in to the Lees residence at 12:30, but I wasn't about to sleep on a bench. My room was quite clean and well-furnished, and my first night was a good one. I wanted to be at the Archives as soon as it opened, so I rose early. I was informed that eating downstairs would be "unacceptable" because of something to do with "the children," so my marmalade toast and cornflakes were brought to my room. Breakfast was actually quite good though, and as I've developed a morbid appetite for tea, that was welcome as well.
The British National Archives are a massive complex of two main buildings with a big reservoir in between. One looks like the Chinese Imperial Palace and the other looks like a spaceship. The main reading room is located in the spaceship. I had to get photographed and registered and all before I could begin, which was simple enough. There were plenty of English-speaking Anglo-Saxons who were very informative so I learned the system fairly quickly...it's not too different than the Irish National Archives.
The only negative thing was the preponderance of Indians and Jamaicans that prowled around making sure people followed protocol. Make no mistake - these people are expressly necessary in the building to make sure people don't mess things up. The problem is they have the lower-rung jobs and they don't speak English. I brought one-two-many boxes back to my table the first day (because I was an assclown and didn't read the signs), and I got violated by an older Jamacian woman with really bad fake hair. She couldn't understand my questions or apologies, so every time I opened my mouth she cut me off and pointed to a placard nearby, and commenced to read it. This continued to occur until she finished reading me the placard. A major scene later, I was back down to an acceptable number of boxes.
As my time there was limited, I did zero critical reading of the materials I called up, I just took document photos for eight hours straight to use later to maximize my time. It's depressing to discover how much better pensmanship was back in the 1890s. It was pretty cool to handle tons of documents stamped "Secret" (nevermind that they've been declassified since the 70s). I also got to read the biggest book I've ever seen.
For scale, the blue sticker is about the size of a quarter. This monster is a register of illegal organizations. I'd show you a page from it but I'm pretty sure uploading images of them is a massive violation of copyright or some other laws.









The canteen in the Archives had some decent fish and chips, but for supper I was left to my own devices. There was a Marks and Spenser nearby, which is kind of like a Target with groceries, so I went there. The rest of Kew is a labyrinth of houses. After stocking up on cheese and yet more packaged sandwiches, I headed home.
Nights I spent locked up in my room, watching some Slingbox and doing homework. It was kind of depressing the number of hours I spent doing work those two days...because I had nothing else to do. On the upside, the weekend was a great one for sports -

Arsenal 2 - 2 Birmingham City
It's great to see Arsenal drop points. The fact that the final equalizer was a late penalty makes it even better. However, I had to feel sorry for Arsenal after this game. In one of the most horrific sports injuries I've ever seen, or even heard of, Birmingham's Martin Taylor performed an ill-timed, ill-placed tackle on Arsenal's Eduardo, snapping his shinbone like a twig. Double compound fracture. Seriously don't watch this if you just ate.

Manchester United 5 - 1 Newcastle United
A great win especially on a day when Arsenal drew. Ronaldo had 2 again racking up muchos fantasy points for me.

Ireland 34 - 13 Scotland
Ireland moved into second in the table with this convincing win. Scotland have yet to win a match, making this a national catastrophe for the Caledonians. The ice may be thawing for the majority of Irish rugby fans on the current regime, that is until their showdown next round with red-hot Wales.

Wales 47 - 8 Italy
Undefeated Wales are playing the kind of rugby that is fun to watch even if you don't remotely understand rugby. They intercepted passes and ran them in for tries, generally making the Italians look like fools. At this point they're clear favorites to take the 6-Nations crown.

England 24 - 13 France
A tactical grind that was closer than it looked. England are the kind of team that grind out results. 'Nuff said.

and finally...


Tennessee 66 - 62 Memphis
The Vols, for the first time in school history, are the #1 team in men's college basketball. I had ruminated and brooded over this game for over a week, sometimes nervously taking out my wallet-schedule and staring at the date. I had to go to sleep early and wake up to watch it as I had an early flight the following morning. Before I went to sleep I was nauseous and jittery.
Part of it was knowing that we were at an unprecedented level of success. Part of it was hatred for that grease-ball John Calipari and those over-rated thugs on Memphis's team. Part of it was the hype leading up to the game, arguably the biggest in either school's history and only the 5th in-state 1 versus 2 showdown, and the price of tickets (up to five digits).
As luck would have it, when I woke and turned the Slingbox on, our internet in Franklin was down. Words cannot express the level of my rage and frustration at this. After talking to dad on the phone for a bit we got it sorted out about 7 minutes into the game.
The game unfolded in a bizarro sort of way. Memphis, the bigger and more tenacious team down low, was shamefully outrebounded by a smaller UT frontcourt. Memphis bombed the lights out in the early stages of the game from 3-pt range, while UT's stellar guards made little impact from outside the entire game. Lofton only had 7 or so. Wayne Chism, a bigger down-low player for us, actually had three 3s, I think.
Ultimately I think the decider was that Memphis was worse at foul shooting than we are. That isn't easy, as foul shooting isn't our strength. At the end of the day, neither team ran its characteristic style of play, which probably would have resulted in a 100-110 game rather than in the 60s.
After bouts of extreme nerves halfway through the second half, I was strangely calm at the close. At times, as I lay there in a dark, quiet, strange house, my abdominal and leg muscles simply spasmed uncontrollably with anxiety and pent-up aggression. But I never doubted Lofton would hit his foul shots.
Finally, we can't expect to retain our top billing forever. Unlike Memphis, who gets handed their wins by embarrassingly poor opposition week to week, we have a tough schedule and a conference tournament ahead of us. Nevertheless I think its realistic for us to retain a 1-seed going into the tournament, which is more important.

Overall, a great weekend. One of the best in sports for awhile, and I got a lot of work done.
Cheers.

Kilkenny

After a 2 hour train ride early Saturday morning, Nicole and I arrived in Kilkenny. We had a nice albeit fairly cold day. The city is actually quite small, however our B&B was geographically as far from the train station as possible without being outside the city. We walked there and stowed our stuff in our pink room that smelled of false apricots. After walking back to the city center and getting stone dust in my eyes from a construction site, we went to the tourist center.
The tourist center was in a nice old building, but the people weren't nice, or even old. The one thing that this place ought to have had if nothing else was a map of the city. There were no maps of the city readily available, even though there was a whole map section of the shop. There was a fold out roadmap of the city that was roughly the size of a car hood. We ultimately settled for a local culinary guide with a small simplified map inside. I don't know if it was free or not, but if it wasn't we freakin stole it.
We sought lunch in a nearby pub, where we were served by an older gentleman who used every term of endearment in the book to address Nicole. When we entered, the Eagles' "Take it Easy" showed promise for the song selection, but came crashing down with "There's a Tear in my Beer." The Soggy Bottom Boys' "Man of Constant Sorrow."

A view of Kilkenny town center.












After the pub we went to Kilkenny Castle, a massive structure that dominates the city skyline and is one of the largest and best examples of a Norman castle in Ireland. We were informed that all the tours till 4pm were booked, so we put our names down and left. We went first to Kilkenny's Rothe House, build around 1600 and preserved as a museum. It was home to a wealthy local family, mayor included. They also hosted rebel activity in the 17th century before Cromwell got there.

Their sitting room had a massive skull of a Great Irish Elk over the fireplace. A cursory search on this monster revealed that its scientific name is Megaloceros giganteus (haha) and that it was 7 feet tall at the shoulder. Add on the big-ass skull in this picture.













After the Rothe house, we went to St. Canice's Cathedral, the second largest in Ireland. They have a round tower, but it was "closed for winter," whatever that means. They guy inside asked where we were from, and brought up Davy Crockett. I once had a guy in Cork start interrogating me about Davy Crockett's accomplishments, mincing words with me over events that I'm not sure he was aware were "tall tales." Anyway.

The inside of St. Canice's is basically a gallery of wealthy Anglo-Irish dead folks. They have a ton of tombs and crypts, and some awesome stained glass. The church is over 1,000 years old, but the present building was renovated in the mid 1800s.















The best part was probably the ceiling, done in Canadian redwood during aforementioned renovation. Each end is carved with some kind of figure, human or bestial. Ironically I found the wood more striking than some of the other stone or mosaic church roofs I've seen.















The view above the altar in St. Canice's.











After St. Canice's we went back to take our castle tour. Our tour guide was Amy Winehouse minus the redeeming vocal qualities. Unfortunately, they don't let you take pictures inside the castle.

The castle was the family home of the Butlers until 1963. They were an Anglo-Irish noble family that were awarded the stewardship of Ireland by one of the earlier Edwards. They once owned massive sections of Ireland, and received a royalty on all wine sold in the country. They were big supporters of the Stuart dynasty during the turmoil of the 18th century. We got to see the library, which had virulent yellow walls, and the main hall, which had a ridiculous ceiling. It too was carved wood, but it was also painted over with intricate landscapes and designs. It also had tons of portraits of important folks. Originally four-walled, Cromwell and his roundheads battered down the fourth wall during their siege of the castle. The gardens nearby are made in the shape of a Celtic cross.




After the castle, we walked around Kilkenny's two main streets for a while. I bought a great woolen green hat from a "man's store" in which everything was tweed, argyle, or plaid. The proprietor was convinced it was for my father. Eventually, we retired to a pub called Kyteler's which was formerly the home of a woman named Alice Kyteler in the 14th century. After her fourth wealthy husband died, local authorities tried her for witchcraft. She was prosecuted by the bishop at St. Canice's and held at the Castle. More than likely she poised the poor bastards with arsenic. Through some of her powerful connections, she was able to smuggle herself out of the country, but her servants were left behind to be burned at stake. The pub was great, really interestingly decorated. We got in in time to see the Manchester United - Arsenal FA Cup match, and there was a group of United supporters inside. United trounced the Gunners 4-0, and a good time was had by all. We stayed in Kyteler's for several more hours after having supper there, and then made our way back to our room.
The next morning was one of the coldest so far, a bit under 30. We arrived at the train station with about 20 old women taking a trip with their social club. On the way back, a Nigerian woman with two small boys kept the entire train car at triple digit decibel levels. It rocked.
Overall it was a nice little trip. This weekend I'm flying to London to visit the British National Archives so there will be a post on that, as well as on all the sports stuff going down this weekend. I won't even get into that now because I don't even want to think about the implications yet....

My Ears are Cold

Yes, for the first time since early in 8th grade, my hair is short. I feel a bit vulnerable and susceptible to the elements. I figured what the hell, I'm in a foreign country where a bunch of punk-ass kids have the same haircut, none of my loved ones see me every day so if it ends up being stupid it won't hurt as bad.
The girl who cut it was Polish and spoke no English, so I had to point something out in a magazine to her. That was pretty alarming but she did a decent job. I did it on Monday. On Tuesday, I passed Daithi inside Trinity (for those who dont know, Daithi is the guy I worked for two summers ago, and whose office I sometimes hang out in/do some extra work to help him finish his book) Daithi walked straight past me without so much as a word, and when I called him out, he turned, looked confused, and muttered "Jesus..." 'Nuff said.
Nicole found out today, when I approached her to go to lunch. She babbled for a bit. I think she likes it, or at least pretends she does. I've had girls that are in my classes who have never spoken to me pass me in the halls and go "Oh God, you cut your hair!"
Anyway, you be the judge about whether it was a good choice. Any time I save during washing is lost again because it has to be fixed, so stalemate there. It actually stays right without being fixed, but I prefer to put that awful goop on it to make sure it doesn't go crazy on me. We'll see what its like as it grows.
Oh yeah, and sorry for the emo pictures. I had to take them in the mirror for lack of a helper.

Trip to Newgrange and Tara

Saturday Nicole and I took a bus trip north to County Meath to check out Drogheda, Newgrange, and Tara. Our bus driver was quite a colorful individual. His name was John Bolton and he told us extensively about his family history, including that we were obligated to call him "Your Grace" as there had been an archbishop in his family. He talked for basically the entire bus ride with the exception of part of the drive back into Dublin. Two women of considerably advanced age sat in the front seat and laughed at all his jokes.
We stopped several times just north of Dublin so John could show us some old cottages along the road. He explained how they were built by neighbors and friends, and incorporated mud, rock, and thatch. There are a good amount of these fallen-down cottages everywhere, most of them are over 100 years old.
A bit north of Dublin we passed through the town of Drogheda. It's a good sized place in a nice area and a little river running through it. In 1649, Oliver Cromwell came to Drogheda and laid siege to the city as part of his campaign to suppress the Royalist resistance to his anti-Catholic Puritan regime. He ordered his men to put the captured garrison, all Catholic clergy, and a number of other Catholic civilians to the sword. The death-toll was somewhere between 1,000 and 3,500, though most cite the upper limit.

St. Peter's Church in Drogheda, which contains the relics of St. Oliver Plunkett, the last Irishman to be canonized and the latest Irish martyr in several centuries. After Cromwell's terror campaign, the practice of Catholicism was highly illegal, and Plunkett was the Archbishop of Armagh, or the Catholic Primate of Ireland. He continued to carry out his duties until he was arrested, hanged, drawn, and quartered.





Oliver Plunkett's mummified head, on display in St. Peter's.


















For Kyle, who suggested I go to Drogheda.











From Drogheda we moved on toward Co. Meath and stopped to explore the ruins of the monastery at Monasterboice. There is a round tower there, a key feature of Irish monastic sights, as well as several high crosses, which were used to teach stories from the Bible to illiterate parishioners. The tallest high cross in Ireland, as well as one of the best-preserved, are found at Monasterboice.







The first high cross in Monasterboice churchyard, considered one of the best preserved in Ireland.

















The second high cross, and the tallest in Ireland. However, the middle section is not original, so it's not exactly a legit claim.
















A view of the round tower that shows its height.
















From Monasterboice we moved on to Newgrange. We stopped first at the Boyne Valley interpretive center, a really nice facility with a museum and a restaurant. The Boyne Valley is probably the most strategically important location in Ireland. It acted as a kind of "fertile crescent," when the first Irish began farming many thousands of years ago. These people grew in wealth and importance, eventually constructing Newgrange, the largest passage tomb in Ireland and one of the oldest Neolithic constructions in the world at about 3200 BC, before the Pyramids at Giza. The valley continued to be of strategic importance into modern times, after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, when William of Orange defeated James, solidifying Protestantism in Britain ending the Stuart dynasty, and assuring that Ireland would remain in a penal state for many further generations.


The entrance to the tomb. It goes in a small passage into the center, in a cruciform fashion. The hole at the top is a "lighbox," and at the winter solstice, the rising sun shines into the box and illuminates the inner chamber. They don't allow you to take pictures inside, but the intricate carvings on the rock in front are all over the inside. There are three recesses in the chamber, which rises in a dome of igloo-style rock, covered at the top with a few meters of earth and grass. There were stone basins and urns inside, as the tomb was probably used as a site of renewal, when the cremated dead of the tribe (or maybe just the leaders) was placed inside urns in the chamber for a year, until the life-giving sun god illuminated their remains and sent them forth into the next life. All in all a very cool experience.



After Newgrange we moved on to Tara Hill. Also a site of massive political significance in ancient Ireland, Tara was a ceremonial site and the capital of Ireland when it was ruled by High Kings. From its crest one can supposedly see 16 of Ireland's 32 counties on a clear day. This image shows the Lia Fáil, or stone of destiny, which was touched during the coronation of a High King. It was said that if the rock cried out when touched, a man was fit to be High King. The ceremonies were wedding ceremonies, as a High King was thought of as being wedded to the land of Ireland. If he was doing his duty dishonorably or incompetently, famines, droughts, and disease from his bride Ireland would expose him as an unrighteous ruler and he was deposed. The last High King of Ireland was Brian Boru, who died defeating an army of Vikings in the Battle of Clontarf, 1014.


A statue of St. Patrick on Tara Hill. When Patrick arrived in Ireland in 432, he set about converting pagan customs and beliefs into similar Christian analogs. He lit the first Easter bonfire on Tara hill, which was a violation of Irish law. According to custom, the High King was to light the first bonfire at Tara to begin the pagan fertility festival of Beal Taine, or May Day, and the fire would spread when it was seen by the next watch-hill and another bonfire lit. Patrick's stunt triggered the sequence too early, causing the Irish to unwittingly commemorate Easter. Patrick was brought before the High King to answer for his crime, and there he used a Shamrock to explain the mystery of the Trinity to the King and his court. The rest is history.






A nice view of the waning sun and the view from the top of the hill. It was a bit hazy but it was still a good view of the countryside.











This ditch-thing is referred to as the "feasting hall," but the historian-author-old guy that gave us a slideshow about Tara says he thinks it was just the grand entrance to the palace complex.







After Tara we cruised back to Dublin in time to learn that Ireland lost a close match to France in Paris. Given that French were heavily favored after Ireland's poor showing last week, the 26-21 scoreline was positive for the Irish. The Welsh were victorious against Scotland, giving them a share of first place with the French. England got back on track with a close win over Italy today.
Tennessee had another close shave against LSU, who held us to 40-some-odd points, when we had put up over 100 on Florida. Given that LSU is the worst team in the SEC, it was a discouraging result. Hopefully the team will get this out of their system and have some positive showings before our big showdown against Memphis. A win over them will catapult us into the top-5, and possibly into a 1-seed in the tournament, depending on the performance of other teams.
All in all it was a fun weekend, and the guys had a great time in Amsterdam. The details of their trip are not best suited for a wider audience, so I'll save them. In other news, the assclowns that live beneath us have begun setting off their house alarm. They don't know the code that shuts it off. They may not be alive much longer.
More photos can be seen from my Facebook album.