Bittersweet moments

 We have made it to the last weekend of this trip. This week has been very bittersweet. I am ready to go home, but I do not want to leave the people that I have met while I have been here. Seamus Heaney wrote a poem called Scaffolding. He talks about how scaffolding is put up to ensure that things are stable when we are building something. When you take them down, the poem says that there is a solid wall, there when you take the scaffolding down. That is what has happened with the people that we have met here.

We have put up these crutches to help us build relationships while we have been here and find friends. While having these up, they have helped not only me but the university as well. For me it has helped me to make lifelong friends whom I look forward to coming back to see, but with my family next time. For the university, it has helped us to rebuild the connections that we need to have so that the program can flourish. As we leave though, we have been taking them down and seeing the beauty of a friendship that we have built. When they come to say goodbye, it is not going to be easy, but one thing I know for sure is that this is not goodbye, this is just a see you later! 

Heavy with Memories

"Too heavy with memory, too light to forget." This is a line within Yeats's poem titled "To Ireland in the Coming Times. He wrote this in a time when the country was divided, the North and the rest of the island. The past is heavy, but it is not something that they can forget. I feel like I can hold this close to home. my time here in this country is coming to an end, and I am 100% sure heavy with memories. There have been so many experiences that I have had while I have been here that I am excited to take home with me and to carry with me for the rest of my life. 

When an event happens, there are key things that tend to stick with a person or as a group as a whole. While being here, I have had these events, key events that I am excited to take home with me. One of the first things that really stuck with me was our arrival here in Dungarvan. The fact that all of these people had no clue who we were, but they were so welcoming and were not afraid to tell us to reach out. This has happened all throughout the trip, people being so welcoming. One of our Irish friends has told me that if/when I come back, they have a spare room that I can stay in. 

The memories of all the sights that we see are things that I am looking forward to remembering for years to come. I have seen things that I never thought I would see in my life, and I have gotten to take the time while on this trip to take it all in and reflect on it when I am home with my family. These things go as vast as the vast landscapes that we have seen in the West to the big cities such as Dublin and Cork. 

One of the final memories that I will always look back on is the time that we have had with each other. There has been ups and downs but, in the end, we can look back on the times we have had together and the activities we have taken part of as a group as a whole or in smaller groups. Overall, this trip has left me with so many memories that I will look back on for years to come!

Being awake in the culture

 "Had I not been awake, I would have missed it." This is the title and a line of a poem by Heaney. I feel like this best describes the time that I have had while being in this country. I feel like sleep can represent two different things here. One of them is actually sleeping. The other is not taking in the world around you. These days it is so hard to not be alert when you are in a place, and I feel like that is because of our phones. We tend to be so absorbed in them that we do not pay attention to what is going on around us. On this trip, that was not the case for me. I did not have an international service plan, so unless I had Wi-Fi, I could not use my phone. I feel like that was the best choice that I made. I was not asleep. I was able to view everything that was happening and able to appreciate it as it was happening. 

Another positive of this was that I really got to know people. Not just the people that I traveled here with, but those whom we have met while being here.  The other night was a prime example. We were invited to a bar, and there were musicians playing music, and it was nice to just sit and listen. I was awake and able to immerse myself in the culture, and for that I am so grateful!

I love a good festival!

 This past weekend was the Waterford Festival of Food! As part of our study abroad trip, service at the food festival was one of our duties! "Through intricate motions ran/ Stream and gliding sun/And all my heart seemed gay:/Some stupid thing that I had done/Made my attention stray." These words resonate with me as I look back on this past weekend. The sun was shining, and even though we were sweating through our sweatshirts, I would not change the experience of this weekend. It felt like the weekend went by fast and not much had happened, but it was quite the opposite. So many things had happened that were catching my attention as the weekend went on. 

On Saturday, I was stationed down at the Dungarvan Castle. This is where all of the children's activities were located. There were carnival rides, a petting zoo, face painting, a couple of food booths, and many children's activities that were going on throughout the day! I was mainly just there to make sure that if any children were to get lost, I could help them find their parents, or if people had questions, then I was there to answer them. Ella was also assigned to me on these duties! It was actually a lot of fun! The sun was shining, and it was really just a perfect day. After our festival duties were over, we changed and went back just to be spectators. There were so many people. The food vendors were located down along the quay, so it was a little tight, but overall, it was nice to walk through and see everything that was happening. 

On Sunday, she and I were back on volunteer duty, but this time we were where the vendors were, and we had the same duties as the day before! It was a little colder on Sunday, but it was still very enjoyable! Festivals are something that I enjoy very much, so being able to be a part of this festival meant a lot! I do not think, though, that I was expecting to be as big of an event as it was! So yes, my attention may have strayed because of all of the lovely food and culture that I was surrounded by, but I was happy, and to me, that is all that mattered 

Cork City Jail

 One thing that has been interesting to me is true crime. It can either be watching it, reading it, or learning about it! This is part of why I am a criminal justice major, and that is what has brought me to Ireland. One of my classes is to compare the criminal justice systems between America and both Northern Ireland and Ireland. With that being said, our adventure as a class yesterday was to Cork to visit the old city jail. This jail was in operation from 1824-1923, which means that it was open during the country's civil war to gain independence from Britain. A little history of the prison. It held women, children, and men all at once at one point of its working life. In the year 1878, it became a female-only prison, but that changed during the revolution to house both male and female inmates, just keeping them in different wings. 

It was a very interesting place to see. There are parts of it that they have kept updated so that people can visit since it is now a museum, but there are some parts of it that they have left to deteriorate and let the elements take over. In a way, this is a symbolic way to show the kind of life that the prisoners were living when they were in there. They were forgotten about and left to sit with very little good treatment. Within the poem Easter 1916, it talks about the Easter Rising and how people were changing because of the cause, and they wanted their freedom. He says in the poem, "He, too, has been changed in his turn, Transformed utterly." Within this line, he says that a man whom he has either seen or known has changed or been transformed because of the conflict that is going on, almost like he has changed for the worse, or was it for the better, because he was fighting for his country. These were the kind of people who were held in this jail during the war of independence. Those were doing what they had to do for their country and in the end, they ended up in jail. 

Amsterdam Flowers and a Blackberries Life Cycle

 As part of our Amsterdam trip, one of the stops that I had to make was to see the flowers. The Netherlands as a whole is known for its flowers, so it was a must! When planning, we did not know if we were going to go out to the fields or what we were going to do! With some further research, we found a floating flower market! It was free to go see unless, of course, if you bought something, which I did. 

In the poem "Blackberry-Picking" by Seamus Heaney, he wrote, “At first, just one, a glossy purple clot/Among others, red, green, hard as a knot." In this poem, he is talking about going out and picking blackberries, and how some are at different stages in their growth than others. The poem also talks about the life cycle of the berries, from how they look when they are ready to be picked to when they are rotting. The same could go for the flowers in Amsterdam. At the market, they were all different, both in their sense of color and the amount that they had grown. No matter what, they were beautiful! When it comes to the life cycle of the flowers, we saw them at their peak. 

I think that it is important for us to look at everything, no matter what stage it is in, as beautiful. That is what is happening in this poem, and I feel like this is something that everyone should be able or at least try to do! If we did this, I think that we would all have a different perspective of things that may be at the end of its life. 

Van Gogh and Art

While in Amsterdam, we were able to go to the Van Gogh Museum. Being in that museum, it was really breathtaking to see the work of Van Gogh. We learn about it in art classes, but to be able to see it in person was an experience I never thought I would be able to experience. Within one of Seamus Heaney's poems titled "Making a Picture," he wrote "Between my finger and my thumb/ The squat pen rests;/ snug as a gun. / I’ll dig with it." 
When there, you can really see the effort that he puts into his work and how much it means to him. I feel like this poem is a good example of that.  Heaney reflects on the act of creation, making art as a kind of anchoring in the world.

I think this is important because without art, the world would be boring, and I take that to include all kinds of art. I could not think of a world without paintings, but not only that works of art like books, music, and poetry. Things like this make the world pretty, and being in the museums, this was really something that I was able to see. Like everything else, this is something that I am so glad that I got to experience.