Midlands

Alright so yesterday was cool. Clonmacnoise is really awesome. So old. They have a little museum with the high crosses and the oldest of the grave slabs--some of them use Ogham. Ogham is the ancient Irish writing system that's a line with different numbers of slashes through the line meaning different letters basically. Basically. Those are from the 400s or something crazy. On the actual site there are five temples, two round towers, and a cathedral. All stone, all gray, all ruined mostly (one temple the Church of Ireland still uses, so they fixed it up). It's right next to the River Shannon and is on the ancient east/west road through the country. It was cloudy all day and that makes for some cool dreary photos.

The Belvedere House was nice. I think there's more to see in May or June though. The whole point of going there is the house itself but then the grounds which are a bunch of gardens and a "forest" but nothing is in bloom right now. Except for these on the left. Do you know what they are Grandma? They have a really pretty color. It's not exactly pink. Anyways, the house is creepy. It has a mote. The story is that the "Wicked Earl" that lived there--Robert Rochfort Lord Belfield--put his wife under house arrest for 31 years because of an alleged affair between her and his younger brother. Sometime later the younger brother build a bigger house nearby and the Wicked Earl had the Jealous Wall built so that he wouldn't have to look at it. It's made to look like the ruined all of a castle, but it's from the late 1700s. There's also a "Gothic Arch" which is made to look like a ruin, but it's not. Then there's this octagonal gazebo thing out in the middle of nowhere. Those three things they call "follies" because they serve no real purpose--not what they normally would anyway. The house is supposed to be haunted. The Irish Ghost Hunters went there and got some activity apparently. The wine cellar is super creepy, but I think it's supposed to be--they don't put any lights in there. There are huge, massive mirrors in all the rooms too. And they're all raised so it's not like they were used to see yourself. I guess just to make all the tiny rooms look bigger.

I didn't know anybody there--except the Dutch girl who I don't talk to anymore and this other girl from Irish class last term who I don't talk to either--and I didn't really expect to (or really want to) make acquaintances. But I got on the bus and sat by a window and this girl runs on the bus and sits next to me. She's Russian and talkative. It's funny because I understood everything she would say but I don't really think she got anything I said cause she would always just answer "ah yes" not matter what. I don't know. She was kind of weird. We'd been driving for 20 minutes and she said we should plan on going to Sligo together just because we both want to go there. Let's take it slow lady. We also talked about how much we enjoy traveling alone. You'd think that would mean that once we reached our destination we'd go our separate ways, but instead when we got off the bus she was like "let's" do this or that or what should "we" do, so she adopted me. It was good though. I shouldn't be so hateful haha. She likes taking tons of pictures like I do, so that was good. She walks really fast though, which is fine, but we ended up seeing everything really fast and having an hour to sit there and chill before coming back to Maynooth. Every little thing though she asked me if I wanted a picture with it. I guess that's nice too. I didn't have to ask anybody. She wrote down her name so that I could find her on facebook if I decide I want to go to Sligo with her. I don't know...

Tonight the International Society is doing is weekly film showing and trip sign-up. The next trip is in two weeks to Killarney, the Ring of Kerry, and the Dingle Peninsula. I'm going to sign up. I want to see those places but didn't think I would because you have to go on day trips from either Cork or Galway and they are a bit pricey. With the International Society though, you pay one free and everything is included, and we have our own bus driver the entire time which is awesome because there's no tight schedule that way. It's three nights from the 22nd to 25th. That also leaves the 18th through 21st for me to do other things. So yeah, there are only so many seats available, so hopefully I get one. I don't think I'll stay for the movie though. It's In the Name of the Father with Daniel Day Lewis. I'll see how I feel when I get there.

I woke up really late and have been feeling lazy ever since today. I should go grocery shopping, but I just don't want to. I'm out of garlic though. It's serious.