soldiers of destiny

The political party that has led Ireland for much of the time since independence was achieved in 1921 is named Fianna Fail--translated from Gaelic, it means 'Soldiers of Destiny'. How awesome is that? Why do Americans content themselves with boring party names, boring currency schemes, boring suburban architecture, and other boring things? Actually, it's really just the party names I am annoyed about; you have to admit that our flag is about as crazy and busy as they come (I think we misunderstood what having a tricolor flag meant), and our national anthem is both difficult to sing and apparently difficult to remember, judging by all of the Olympic athletes who start off lip-synching on the podium but gradually fade away around 'whose broad stripes and bright stars'.

Anyway, I'm debating whether to go downtown tomorrow; there's a military parade in honor of the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising, as well as some vague commemoration of the Battle of the Somme during WWI, so that the Loyalists also have something to celebrate. It's the first time they've had a parade on Easter in thirty-five years, and there was talk of cancellation after the riot a couple of months ago, but it's still on for tomorrow. We'll see how I feel about it tomorrow, but I don't have a huge desire to go watch a parade, so I may stay home (or better yet, go shopping).

The weekend so far has been really nice. I had dinner at Sandra's house last night, and ended up staying over because she lives about fifty minutes away by train. The dinner was great--she had raclette, which is traditional Swiss/German variant of fondue. It involves a tabletop electric grill; you use the top portion to grill things like eggplant and meats that require more cooking, and then you put your ingredients into a small metal pan, top liberally with cheese, and then slide into the bottom half of the grill so that the cheese melts and everything gets warm and yummy. I was quite intrigued by this process, and may have to procure a raclette before I go home, although this would necessitate ordering from amazon.de and getting it shipped to the States, so there's really no rush. But clearly, a raclette is just the thing to add to my waffle iron, my pizza stone, my George Foreman grill, my genius sensor microwave, and any number of other kitchen gadgets large and small.

After we had consumed sufficient amounts of wine, talk ended up turning to politics; actually, for Sandra and Stephanie, it turned to something unknown since they were talking to each other in German, but for me and their boyfriends, we discussed politics in English. I typically don't discuss politics, but it all started off with rather innocent questions from me about the state of affairs in Ireland, which gradually descended into a dissection of relationships between Protestants and Catholics in the north, followed by a rather harrowing description of Belfast. I paid for this by having the dubious pleasure of discussing American foreign policy for half an hour with people who are as well-informed as I am, since people here actually make an effort to know what's going on in America. General consensus seems to be that the war is deeply unpopular (surprise), but the guys were curious to understand what the mood is in America and where we think we'll end up going in the next election. I clearly don't have any of these answers, but it was a good discussion nonetheless.

Today, I took the train back to the city, which gave me some really lovely views of the Atlantic/Dublin Bay from the train. The train was built into the cliffs over the sea, and frequently used tunnels in places where the cliff was too steep to cut across the face. It was sunny in the morning, so I decided that it was a perfect day for doing the Dublin bus tour, but of course it turned cloudy and overcast for most of the afternoon. I was bundled up in my pink bomber jacket, though, so I was happy as a clam on the top of the open-air double-decker bus. I didn't take full advantage of the on-off privileges on the bus; instead, I rode the whole tour straight through once, got off for lunch, then took the bus again to the National Museum. It's clear that the quality of the tour guides varies widely, and I wished that I would have ridden the entire way with the second driver, rather than the first, but overall it was a good introduction to the layout of Dublin. Everything really is rather close together, and many things are within walking distance (albeit a half-hour walk, not a five-minute walk). There are many things that I will have to make time for while I'm here, particularly the museum that specializes in glass and pottery, the jail where tons of revolutionaries (including almost everyone from the Easter Rising) were incarcerated and executed, and St. Patrick's Cathedral. The line for the Guinness Storehouse was ridiculous--it looked like it was as painful as the line for the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and considering that you were just getting a free pint of Guinness, rather than the chance to see 'The Birth of Venus' and hundreds of other priceless examples of Western art, it seemed just a little bit ridiculous. But, apparently the view from the top of the storehouse is worth it, and so I'll go there--but I'll wait until someone visits me, so that I don't go more often than I have to.

I ended up going to the National Museum after the bus tour, and I was really impressed--the museum doesn't charge an entrance fee, but it was very polished and had an extensive collection of Celtic, Viking, and Medieval jewelry and weaponry. Their gold displays were breathtaking, and I could only sigh longingly over the idea of getting to wear huge solid-gold collars and bracelets. It's of course easy to banish such longings when you remember what the gold came with (war, plague, pestilence, famine, and the general discomfort that would come with never bathing and being constantly pregnant). But, when the gold is stunningly displayed in a well-lit modern museum, it's very far removed from the circumstances in which it was born. Since I love all sorts of history, but especially pre-industrial history, the museum was well worth the trip for me. I was a little disconcerted, though, by their small Egyptian wing; the entire rest of the museum was dedicated to the Irish experience, but they had a couple of rooms to house a collection of Egyptian artifacts that some rich Irish Victorians had bought up from shady antiquities dealers and eventually donated or sold to the museum. The mummies and maps of the Nile seemed horribly out of place...and almost too British, if that makes any sense at all, since the British love their Egyptian antiquities and refuse to part with them.

After that, I wandered around a bit, then came back to my apartment, ordered some take-out Thai food (which was tasty, and which I grossly overtipped for because I misunderstood what the total was, but c'est la vie), and have been rereading Georgette Heyer's 'The Grand Sophy'. I should go to bed, but since I have the next two days off, I think I'll stay up and read for a bit. But, on the whole I'm very excited about all of this exploration that I did today, and I really need to draw up a list of everything I want to see. I had initially planned to take weekend trips to other parts of Europe, but I have a feeling that I could confine myself to Ireland and the UK (Scotland, Wales, Bath, etc.) and have more than enough to do with my approximately 20 remaining weekends. Regardless, Dublin is really cool, and I can't wait for the nights to get even longer and the days to get just a tiny bit warmer :)