More Craic...

And now, Ireland - part 2...

Our last day of 2009 was spent traveling across the country. Galway lies on the West coast, on the Atlantic, while Dublin is on the East coast and the Irish Sea. Our only stop along the way was at Clonmacnoise. This former monastery lays in ruins on the Shannon River and offers stunning photo opportunities with its large collection of celtic crosses and large guard towers. This must have been a fantastically beautiful place to live when it was still inhabited by the monastic Christians over a century ago.

From Clonmacnoise, we made the rest of our journey to Dublin. Most of the bus dozed in and out whilst Eunan informed us of various aspects of the lives of the Irish, including healthcare, education and the economy. My most memorable moment from this sleepy ride was when Eunan told us that New Zealand lamb was the best in the world. I can't say I disagree. :)

Our hotels were located in Dublin 4, which at one point was the most expensive locality in all of Europe to buy property. After settling into our hotels, we took a short walk around the suburb before eating dinner and getting ready for our New Year's Eve party! At most Dublin bars on New Year's Eve, huge cover charges apply and reservations are an absolute necessity. So instead, the UMass and UDel bands were brought together at our hotel for a party worthy of bringing in the New Year. What a fantastic night. For the last four years, I have spent my New Year's at work. And while this is one of the most fun nights of the year to work, celebrating with your best friends at a bar in Ireland is a much more fun way to ring in the New Year. And about 4 hours into the New Year, I headed to bed. I had to get some sleep before the parade in the morning.

Friday morning was the day we had all been waiting for. Our parade through the streets of Dublin followed by a performance outside the Lord Mayor's house for her family and representatives from the American Embassy. This was one of the strangest parades I have ever been. 1. There were only three pieces to the parade: a 25-member police band, 25-member community band and the approximately 400-member UD/UMass band. 2. We did about 3 U-Turns. It was bizarre. Nevertheless, it was a wonderful experience. Our sound echoed off of the buildings that lined the streets. The vibrations from our warmup set off a car alarm. This was really funny, but also made tuning a nightmare...

After our performance, we had the rest of the day in Dublin to explore before returning to the hotel for dinner. After dinner, a bunch of ΦΜΑ brothers from UDel headed over to the UMass hotel to mingle with the guys there who are in the process of starting a chapter. It was fantastic just being able to spend some time getting to know them.

Next day? Exploring Dublin! Eunan gave us the full guided tour, showing us the Georgian style of housing that is prominent throughout Dublin, the government buildings and some other historical sites. We made our first stop at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Ironically, it is not a Catholic church, nor is there an official Catholic church in all of Dublin. However, this extremely old church has absolutely gorgeous exterior and interior architecture and a beautiful, yet ancient, organ. Our next stop was Trinity College and the Book of Kells. The campus looked incredible covered in snow and based on looks, I could totally go to college here. The only bad thing about the Book of Kells was the unfortunate rule against photographs being taken. These ancient texts have lasted for hundreds of years and surprisingly still have the vibrant colours that their illustrators intended them to have. Our final stop for the day was the Guinness Brewery, the "Holy Ground" in Dublin. I became a fan of Guinness for sure during this trip and there is none fresher than that at the brewery. My favourite fact from the tour? 2/3 of all Guinness is exported. That means that 1/3 of all of the Guinness consumed globally is consumed in Ireland. Just more proof that the Irish win at drinking.

Our last day in Dublin was spent first with visiting Phoenix Park and then we were let loose on the streets of Dublin for the day to finish up shopping and see anything else that we had yet to see. It was a fun day, wandering around in our groups looking for bandos from other buses. Cold day, but a fun one. Most people spent the last night in Ireland at the hotel bar, enjoying each other's company before we all came back to America the next day.

This trip was better than I ever imagined it would be. The chance to travel a foreign country with so many of my friends was just fantastic. I can't wait to be abroad again in the future with these people again.

Keep reading...

Liam

Sláinte!

Apparently going to the South Pacific, Down Under and Down Under Down Under wasn't enough to quench my thirst for experiences abroad. After a mere 20 days in the States, I boarded yet another plane, this time heading over the Atlantic Ocean. After my flights earlier this year, this one should have felt reasonably short. Just 5 hours!

However due to a late arrival, rain, fog and god knows what else, I was somehow able to watch half of the movie The Hangover before we even took off. I didn't sleep a wink on the plane but instead stayed awake with one of the UMass drum majors, Jon Swengler. Great conversation was had, many starbursts were eaten and I ended up with not only a new accessory for that random button hole that serves no other purpose on my pea coat, but also a fantastic new friend. Needless to say that it was a long travel day. Luckily, we had a 3 hour bus ride from the Dublin airport to our hotels in Galway; giving us plenty of time to sleep. After checking in and settling in a bit, all of the Delaware bandos boarded our coach buses and drove to the UMass hotel, where the entire band got out our instruments and rehearsed in an underground parking garage. Wow. I thought I missed band? I realised how much I missed it after that rehearsal. There's just something about making music with hundreds of other people that I really love. After rehearsal, we had a delicious dinner at our hotel (beef stew & bailey's cheesecake...does it get any better?!) and began making plans for the night. A group of eight of us hit the town, wandering around Galway until we found a suitable pub. Pub 1: full of elderly people. We stuck out like sore thumbs. However, clearly a classic example of an Irish pub. Pub 2: louder & a younger crowd. We had a blast here, including watching some guy pass out from either too much Guinness or too much whiskey. Or for combining too much of the two. This night was an absolutely incredible first night in Ireland and it was tough for any subsequent night to even come close!

Waking up early? Not my favourite thing to do. However, when you're greeted by a fantastic Irish breakfast, you feel much better about it. We then loaded our coach buses and headed out to the Burren. * A note about our bus driver. Eunan, or Smithy, was an absolute wealth of information about Ireland. He talked literally non-stop from Dublin to Galway and back again. His sense of humour was incredible and he had great delivery of all of his punch lines. Also, his voice was really soothing and it was quite easy to fall asleep while listening. One girl even said that her dreams had begun to be narrated by Eunan. In short, fantastic driver/tour guide. * The Burren is an area in the northwest part of County Clare that is known for its rocky terrain. Stone walls stripe the countryside and it was eerily familiar to the terrain of New Zealand. Our destination for the day were the Cliffs of Moher. These stunning cliffs rise from between 120 and 214 metres above the sea and offer magnificent views of the Galway Sea. This was an absolutely beautiful location to visit and the drive there was just as spectacular.

That evening, we went to the Latin Quarter of Galway where several pubs hosted us for "dinner" and drinks. I had fantastic luck in that I was able to find everyone I wanted to that night. After a bit of bar hopping and some late night snacking, we returned to the hotel in order to get at least a little bit of sleep before our first performance.

Our first performance in Ireland consisted of a cramped parade through the streets of Galway and a street concert for the Lord Mayor all the while being pelted with rain, sleet and snow. The most comfortable parade? Definitely not. But still, we were performing in Ireland! Yet another reminder of how much I missed this group. The rest of the day was spent exploring Galway with the altos and then heading to Munroe's for a night of Irish food, music and dancing.

Our second day of touring brought us to Kylemore Abbey. This Abbey is a former castle that was built in the mid-1800s and became an Abbey in 1920. This absolutely beautiful building sits lakeside in County Galway. It was a disgustingly cold and wet day but we managed to make the trek lakeside to both the Abbey and the neighboring church. This building now operates as an all girls boarding school. These are some lucky high schoolers.

That night, some of us trekked over to the UMass hotel to enjoy a different setting for dinner and drinks. They definitely had the nicer hotel in Galway. Worth the taxi fare there and back for a great dinner and birthday cake for Andrew's brother, Michael. It was a low key night, although the extremely intoxicated 16-year-olds from Dublin kept us entertained for a good portion of the night. This was the perfect way to close out our time in Galway.

In case anyone didn't notice...I fail at keeping things short, or getting them done in time.

More about Ireland, specifically Dublin, asap.

Until then,

Liam