Grove Island Student Village

Going to Supermac's was a good preparation for moving into this flat. Have a look at this microwave! "Oh, I'm moving out tomorrow anyway", Sarah says, placing her mug between two coal-like popcorns and bits of paint that have come off the interior of this dirt box. "Oh, and be careful where you place your food in the fridge, somebody has spilt milk or something". Mmh, this really might have been milk - some years ago.
"Holy shit", somebody behind me roars. It is Sweaty-Hand from Finland, who has just discovered wet plates in the cupboard. Wet? Who cares?! It is dirt I hate. I have spent an hour cleaning the stove in my old flat, as the Polish left without even saying goodbye. So I handed in my key with my fingers a centimetre shorter just to arrive here and carry on scrubbing?

Where "super" is the Creed

When I was in Dublin, I discovered the Irish version of McDonald's: Supermac's!
Supermac's is
- super-cheap (always about 20 Cents cheaper than McDonald's),
- super-delicious (try the chocolate muffin with ice-cream),
- in Limerick super-empty,
- and in general super-dirty.

Yesterday, I felt like having a chocolate muffin, so I entered the restaurant and was immediately served (remember: super-empty). The Asian assistant shuffled away to get a muffin and cut it with a spoon (!) so that half of what I paid for landed on the floor. I think she didn't care at all. Super-indifferent. GRR. I also got only half of the icecream I would have been served with in Dublin - so, super-mean too. I went upstairs to find an empty seat, which was not very difficult. The really hard thing was to find a clean seat. Yeah, there was one, in the corner. I sat down. And was stuck.
Amazing, this dirt: super-present and sometimes even super-invisible.

Impression 2: Penneys in Pictures

Today, I entered Penneys and tiptoed through the shop, secretely filming "the place where chaos rules". Hope you'll enjoy the result!

Dearest Creature in Creation, Studying Irish Pronunciation

Heading to a destination you cannot pronounce is always difficult. Was it "Cliffs of Moher" or "Cliffs of Moher"? Moher sounded strange, but Moher?! Couldn't be either, after all, these rocks were famous for being enormous and not for consisting of mohair!
I decided to compromise and stressed both syllables equally - the woman at the ticket office seemed to understand me. I then asked the busdriver if I had to change at Ennis or if this was a direct bus. He obviously did not want to be disturbed and let his head sink even lower, concentrating on the newspaper he was reading. And yet, I then tracked a slight nod. Yes, he was nodding! Well - was that "yes, change at Ennis" or "yes, it is a direct bus"?! Good for him I haven't learnt any Irish four-letter words (so far), really.
I did not have to change, but in Ennis the bus driver was replaced. Yeah, FIRED! - well, probably not, just finished his working hours, I suppose. The new bus driver was the exact opposite, absolutely sweet. "Sorry, folks, it is sooo hot in here!" Hot? It was the first time I did not need my extra jacket! Irish buses are freezing - they should really provide blankets. Still, our poor man was obviously sweating, checking nervously the air-conditioning ("not working - SHIT"), climbing seats, trying to open the roof window - which was (thank God) locked.
"Anybody for Cliffs of Moher?" he asked after we had passed the extensive golf course of Lahinch. There it was! "Mo:hR". What an R! Irish out-and-out. My family can confirm that I have been practising Irish vowels: "O:wen, tho:se two lo:nely, mo:aning gho:sts have to go: ho:me." I think I have come near it, but I might never be able to pronounce an Irish "r". How can they put so much drama into one small letter?

Painters

Yesterday I went to the Cliffs of Moher - I will tell you all about it as soon as I have finished the text. I hope it will still be today! There are painters in the house who slightly distract me. Apparently they want to paint all the flats in our block. Now guess what the corridor smells like!
Paint, perhaps?

No, alcohol.
And I don't think it's the solvent.

Impression 1: Train Station

I'm helping you with the quiz..

Gaelic everywhere - really?

When I first came here, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the amount of Irish Gaelic I heard. I had thought that most people would speak English - but no, at every corner I came across a language I did not understand.
It took me some days to realise that it was not Gaelic but Polish.

My (Polish) flat mates once complained that there were just too many Polish people in Limerick and that you could divide them into three groups:
Group 1: Older people who came here ages ago and have adapted to Irish life. (except for the bread maybe)
Group 2: Young people who work a lot and send some money home.
Group 3: Young people who do not work a lot and do not send money home.

They assured me that they deeply abhorred group 3. Mmmh, after one week I was still not sure what group THEY belonged to. They had hardly left the flat, spent hours watching TV, DVDs and playing video games, had stayed up until 2 or 3 in the morning and slept till lunchtime. They could not possibly belong to group 3, could they? They did not look as if they hated themselves.
If they had ever belonged to group 3: In my second week they apparently changed to group 2. When I came home from my "holidays", they all had a job. Thank God - now I have the telly for myself.

Are my neighbours in quarantine?

I wondered for almost three weeks what this building opposite my place exactly was. It looks like an old prison somehow, but I have often observed taxis stopping in front of it, dropping off elderly women or people just like you and me. The mysterious gate is then opened and the visitors are welcomed by people in military uniforms. Could it be an army camp? But would Irish soldiers be visited by their grannies so often? Are all Irish soldiers softies? Oh my God - the sign said "Sarsfield Barracks". They could not mean "SARS-field", could they? Was I neighbour to thousands of infected people locked up behind barbwire?! Was this the reason why I was here one of about 15 students in a building set up for hundreds?
Don't worry about me :-). By now I have also come across Sarsfield Bridge and Sarsfield Statue, which has convinced me that I should do some research and stop speculating. Apparently, Patrick Sarsfield was an important miliary figure here in Limerick, which suggests that my neighbours are no patients but mere milksops. What a relief!

PS: There is a new quiz and a new quote.

Modern Praying

I thought that after almost three weeks here, I should start looking for my college. Meandering through the south of Limerick, I passed an enormous church which I just had to enter. Now you tell me how people in your churches pray for whatever is on their minds. They pay a franc and light a candle?! Oh gosh, how old-fashioned! Look, what we have here! You pay some money and then you switch on any bulb you choose. Switch on, switch off, switch on - you may even pray if you still feel like it. I just wonder who switches the bulbs off again. Does the sacristan "reset" them in the morning? Probably each bulb has a timer - it switches off automatically when the lifetime of a candle has passed. Eh, envious?

By the way: I have to take back what I said about bags from Penneys. They are NOT worth more than their content, not even "almost". This is what my bag looked like after I had run after the bus for 15 seconds; then I had to stop - not because I was out of breath, but because I had to collect all my things again.

Outside "Limérique"

After several days of illness and rain, it was high time we had done something! Happily woken up by the fire alarm (it was only the third time in one and a half days that it had gone off - they will probably test it until students get used to it, so until the alarm alarms no longer), we prepared to go to Bunratty Castle.
How many chickens you get to see for 10 Euros only! Well, no, I mean, the castle is really well restored, and the re-enacted village is absolutely charming. They show how fishermen and farmers lived and how people shared one room with their cows. Still, although I've grown up in the country, it was the chickens that were the attraction - and not only for me. A tiny boy left the fisherman's house almost before his parents could even enter. On his face utter boredom. "No chickens inside!" he declared vigorously and trudged along.
After two, three hours of exploration we walked back to the bus stop. "Bes do Limérique?" a French woman asked the two Irish ladies sitting next to us. How did they do it? The corners of their mouths didn't twitch even once!
It was the first day in a very long time that should have been sunny according to the weather forecast. And it really was. When we were back in Limerick, of course.

When even sheep laugh at you

The Wicklow Way is absolutely beautiful - I believe. We've seen the first ten kilometres after all! And as the signposts are painted in a striking colour (black): a lot of surroundings too.. a lot!
On the day before we started, Christine told me hahaha about the five top flops hahaha of some tourists in Sweden hahaha. In the picture on the left, you see us smiling naively, not even dreaming of the amount of top flops WE were facing.
All began when we missed one signpost and carried on walking the wrong way. (Rain on) At some point we were told that we were wrong and started walking back. (Rain off) Soon, however, we met about 7 huge rucksacks, under which we then spotted some French speaking scouts who assured us that we had been right all the same. We turned round again. On the peak of the hill we realised that we really had been wrong. We stood on "Three Rock" instead of "Two Rock". (Why do we always have to exaggerate?!) A nice lady showed us a shortcut through which we should have got back to the Wicklow Way, yet, instead of listening to her, we followed the scouts again... After THREE hours of detour we decided to walk back and look for the signpost we had missed in the beginning. How happy we were to see this forest track a forth time.

Yeah, back on track! With such a lot of delay, we had to find an other accommodation. Glencullen looked like a decent village on the map. There just had to be some B&Bs. (Rain on) Look at these sheep! All staring at us and baaing. Baa! I agree, we must have been funny to look at – with more than 10 kilos on our backs and I wearing a pinkish mac. Baa! How tired we were! Nice surprise that Glencullen was hardly anything more than a junction of two roads. Even nicer that there was not even a dog kennel to sleep in. “There’s a bus stop up the hill”, someone said. Mmmmh, up the hill and down the hill and down and down and down we walked. There you are, bloomy bus stop. “Bus 43 diverted”. Enough!
Someone then told us that it was only diverted later on, but still: no bus was in sight. I entered the petrol station to ask what we should do just to see bus 43 passing in front of me... Heck, and it was already six o’clock.
We caught the next bus, went back to Dublin, luckily got an accommodation, slept really well, felt absolutely great and eager to take up the trail again when we suddenly felt the first symptoms of a nasty cold. We spent another night (this time a miserable one) in Dublin, where we had to bear a fat English lady, ah, who could hardly move, ah, without ah. No, she could not climb the upper bed, because of her leg, ah (yeah… I’m sure it was the leg and not her 140 kilos). “Oh, you are not drunk?” she asked us in the evening for example, or: “Oh, you are already 23? I would never have guessed! You look so MUCH younger! And still travelling, at your age?”
The best was yet to come: “Ah, we had such a hard day, ah!” I started looking for my earplugs. Woman, you want to tell ME about a hard day?

Penneys - where bags are worth more than their content (almost)

Staring at my badly treated t-shirt and at my socks which look as if they suffered from roseloa (don't ask me where these pinkish spots come from! Biting traces of the washing machine, probably!), I decided to go shopping.
There are no cheaper clothes than the ones at Penneys. And people treat them as such! So, typical Penneys customers shuffle innocently out of the fitting rooms, but as soon as they have passed the observing shopassistant, they quickly fling everything that doesn't fit over the nearest clothes rail or even onto the floor. Honestly, it's amazing how good they are at this! I followed a stout lady pushing a pram, and when she was about to leave the shop - and the security agent was looking the other way - she catapulted everything she had carried on her arm onto the poor umbrellas near the entrance. But how gracefully she did it! Respect! With elegance that revealed years of training.
Thus, you'd better not linger at Penneys. Don't think about buying, just do it. Or you might be considered inventory and therefore belong to the target...

Well, well, dear all: I will spend the following week walking (or rather swimming) parts of the Wicklow Way. So - no new posts for a week. But it would be nice if you stayed with me!

Duelling two machines

Today was not my day. One of the (very, very) few shirts I have with me was damaged by an aggressive Irish washing machine and the stylish Goblin Topo vacuum cleaner revealed its stunning inside to me personally. This is really what I have waited for all my life.
Doing your laundry at home, you have to take such a lot of exciting decisions: 30, 40, 60 or 90 degrees? Long or short? Prewashing? Gentle washing? With conditioning? Makes one feel so skilled, doesn't it?
And here: decide between cold, warm and hot and press "start". How boring! Passionless I put my clothes into one of the many machines. Had I known that this was my last look at my clothes as they were back then..!
It was also high time I had hoovered my floor. That intrinsic values are more important than looks is also true for vacuum cleaners, by the way. Guess who won the duel: my hoover or the spider on my ceiling? I know, embarrassing - I mean, it was an athletic spider, no doubt, but it can't have been that strong, can it?!
Well, I then noticed that the hoover bag was filled to the brim. I had no other choice, but to empty the bag. I will not recall what was in it, I am still feeling sick. But if anyone wants a DNA test of one of the first inhabitants of this flat: Call me, I'm sure I can offer you a hair.
And now ask me if the hoover worked when the bag was empty!

No. It didn't.

Swift Sunday

Sunday - the day to learn if the Irish churches are really still full. I had no idea when mass would start, but 10 am seemed like a reasonable time to me. I got ready, crossed the park - and there the big choice had to be made. St Michael's? St Joseph's? The Dominicans'? St Mary's? Definitely not St Michael's. Dong. Could it really be, dong, that they had only one bell? Dong. Sounds like a funderal. Dong. No wonder noone is hurrying in that direction.
I tried the Dominicans' - they have a nice chime, but, as I then saw, a nearly empty church. My God, I felt so out of place. The youngest by fourty years at least, but the one with the slowest tongue. Best trick to cover up: Concentrate on the Amen. Amen - ha! Even quicker than the lady behind me. So in fact, the church service was over in a blink, the priest hurried down the steps and could hardly reach the aisle before the sacristan exstinguished the candles. Ding! 41 minutes. Their record?

I passed the church at 1 pm againg to go to town and I noticed that the place was crowded. Well, well, this is Ireland. 10 am had been the early mass...

PS: I've changed the quote. Have a look!
PPS: This picture shows Tait's Clock in front of the Dominicans' Church. (Did you notice the little bit of blue sky in the background?!)

My future view

In September, I am going to move into a new flat at the other end of town and this will be my new view. (Well... not from my room, probably, but from nearby)
What I am going to miss, however, is the fine park just around the corner.

Terror of vegetables and raindrops

Today the thought of a whole year of rain just overwhelmed me. I'm turning grumpy in this flat. Yet - George Bernard Shaw said:
"A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth."
Seems as if I should be thankful for every raindrop, ha ha. But as you can see: I at least had the time to become an expert on quotes! I collected so many last night that I can hardly wait to pass them on to you! And so it was through quotes that I found a way out:
"The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation." Thank you, Mr. Shaw. And thank God that Tesco has magazines. That is occupation! And reading tragic articles such as "My husband's terrified of fruit and veg!" shows the triviality of one's own sorrows. There is even a picture of poor Chris, facing a plate filled with frightening tomatoes. The reporter's comment: "Chris is confronting his demons with Clare's support". Anyone help me to confront raindrops?

King John's fascination with Irish beards

Since the weather is bad and the last time I heard of King John was in the animated film "Robin Hood" (and I watched that a long time ago), I went to see King John's Castle today.

Don't expect to see any pictures though - I neglected one of the basic rules of handling a camera:
Rule 1: Never forget to recharge the battery.
Rule 2: Never forget to put the battery back in place once it is recharged.

It took me many holidays to memorise rule 1. It seems that Ireland is going to teach me rule 2.

Anyway, for 5 Euros, they offer you a lot at the castle:
- a friendly, individually tailored welcome ("hello", smile, "where do you come from?", smile, "I see, but is a leaflet in English ok?")
- a large gift shop (the bargain: a beer-mug shaped stone, which, when rubbed, will miraculously let you forget your thirst. 3 Euros only - make your orders here! I've already bought ahead ;-))
- two open fires in the courtyard, probably intended to evoke medieval feelings, but all they do is force visitors to walk detours. Still, there is no chance of avoiding smelling like smoked bacon when leaving the castle.

I'm not ironical though when I tell you that the castle is really well-preserved and that visitors are even led to the excavation sites. Yet, I would never dare to say that my picture of King John has become more complex in any way with this exhibition. I still have the animated film before my inner eye, see him lying in his bed and sucking his thumb. Nevertheless, now I have also learnt that upon his arrival in Ireland, he was so amused by the sight of these strange-looking Gaelic kings, that he started pulling them around by their beards!
What a man! So impressive that no English king has been named "John II" so far.

Coming to Limerick

There are several ways how you as a student can get from Dublin to Limerick:
- Either you never land in Dublin but fly on to Shannon (clever),
- or you take the train (about 22 Euros for "students from 3rd level colleges" - WHATEVER these are! Poor students? Underdeveloped? Hah?! Those who wear shirts from Penneys only and flipflops?)
- or you simply walk
- or you take the coach from Bus Eireann, which is nearly the same as walking. Costs you only 9 Euros, however (with International Student card).

I could not resist - I took the coach. There is a fine motorway from Dublin to Limerick, but I agree with the bus driver - it will live longer if you don't use it. Thus, we spent four hours jolting over side roads and counting the tempting motorway signs which pointed to the left at every round-about.

The area where I'm going to live for the first month is rather dirty, but as you see in the picture in the banner, I already found some nice corners of Limerick. King John's Castle is really picturesque.

Arrival and First Day in Dublin

What a coincidence! Marianne, who has attended the Ulysses seminar too, was on the same plane. I got rid of the Greek lady and we caught a bus to town. The bus driver, who apparently did not know the difference between Upper and Lower Dorset Street, dropped me at the wrong bus stop.. With 20 kilos on my back I tumbled along the street, carefully avoiding all the dogshit. Then I realised that it wouldn't matter if I stepped into it - the smell was present everywhere anyway. Greek lady! Come and rescue me! Finally I saw the hostel. I only had to cross this last street, ten metres perhaps ...

and then I was almost run over. How could I forget! Look right!

There are also nicer areas in Dublin, of course. We saw Trinity College, a long queue (behind which the Book of Kells was said to be on display), the James Joyce house (a bit disappointing), the Spire (see photo), and the tourism office of course. I had never seen an information centre before where the helpdesks were so well hidden behind the gifts, I must say. Admirable.

Flight to Dublin

When I handed in my application papers for an exchange year in January, I did not expect time to fly that fast. There I suddenly was: sandwiched between a plane window and a slightly over-weight, excessively perfumed Greek lady. I buried my nose in the magazines I had taken with me and was glad that she fell asleep on the shoulder of her other neighbour.

Travelling west was exciting. When we crossed France, the weather was splendid. England was... well... cloudy. Ireland.. mmh, Ireland? Ireland?! Where the heck are you?! Battling through a snow-white wall, we then had a magnificent view of the port of Dublin, however.

Welcome to My Blog

Welcome to all of you who care about news from Limerick, the city with the highest crime rate in Ireland! And welcome to all of you who care just about me ;-)