Mulling over Ireland and the Cotswolds
The trouble with keeping up this blog is that I'm supposed to post regularly, even when I don't think I've got anything to say. Now, the idea that I have nothing to say right now is quite ridiculous, considering my last few days. I've seen marvelous things. Maybe not quite as marvelous as all that Howard Carter saw when he first peeked into Tutankhamun's tomb (I think "marvelous things" is the phrase he reputedly used), but pretty darn marvelous anyway. It's just that my last few days have been so chock full of experiences it is difficult to put them into words and not to simply resort to an itinerary. And since I've been going now for several days straight, I am very tired and my frazzled brain wants sleep and order and time to let these experiences "marinate," as my 7th-grade algebra teacher used to suggest when we'd learn a new concept like FOIL.
Probably the most marvelous sight was viewing the Book of Kells and the Long Room in the library at Trinity College Dublin. But I also saw the prehistoric sites mentioned before, including the engineering marvel of Newgrange, with a stone roof so carefully constructed that not a drop of water has leaked in during the 5,000 or so years it's been around. I saw the Georgian Dublin Castle, which was pretty cool, but also the remains of 11th century Viking castle built underneath it, which was very cool. I walked about a vibrant, verdant, expensive, bustling city, popping into shops and eating at great restaurants. I saw an impressive display of stone and bronze age items at Dublin's Natural History museum.
Then there were the natural wonders. Our group of four spent our final day in Dublin first on a sunny beach outside our luxurious seaside hotel (we splurged after a night in the hostel), then driving through the Wicklow Mountains. We stopped at the private Powerscourt estate in the mountains to view Ireland's tallest waterfall, and then hiked through the high moorlands surrounding it. We sat for a long while on the banks of a quiet stream, listening to the singing of spring birds and admiring the blossoms on the gorse bushes. Finally we drove back to Dublin, returned the rental car, and flew back into Nottingham East Midlands airport.
But there hasn't really been time to think since then, as we arrived back home just in time for my housemate's birthday party. This morning I got up early to make her requested birthday breakfast of American pancakes and bacon, much to the amusement of two American friends who are visiting (a story in itself that I will save for another day). And then I hopped into the car with my English "mum," as I call the mother of the family with whom I am lodging, for a day in the Cotswolds. It was a lovely, sunny day and we walked for four hours through gently rolling green hills, sheep and cow pastures and sleepy villages.
These past four days I've been saving brochures and business cards like crazy so that I can faithfully recommend various places I visited and ate at. I also took loads of photos, of course, but those will have to wait until tomorrow's work is done and I can post again. The most frequent thought that crossed my mind these past few days, however, was wondering if I was enjoying all of these experiences enough. I know that sounds a bit perfectionistic, and I would never want to obsess over an event so much that I cease to actually live it.
I certainly lived exuberantly and extravagantly all day today, as my "mum" and I wandered up and down the streets of Chipping Campden, got slightly lost on the footpaths around Laverton and sat in companionable silence on a hill above Buckland, eating our sandwiches, listening to the baaing of lambs and watching cottony clouds meander across the blue sky.
But as I was in Ireland the last few days, it so often felt like normal life. I kept metaphorically pinching myself and saying, "Stephanie, you are in Ireland! You know, the place where so many of your ancestors come from? The land of step dancing, a sport you adore, studied and even competed in just a few years back? The place you longed to visit so much you entered an Irish-American beauty pageant because the grand prize was a trip to Emerald Isle?" Oh, I enjoyed my time in Ireland, certainly. But I couldn't help thinking that it felt just like being in England or Scotland, apart from the accents and Gaelic phrases on signposts. I expect that if I'd visited Ireland straight from the States, without having spent seven months in Great Britain first, I would have been more enchanted, more awestruck. It would've felt mystical and magical. Yet I must confess that my visit to Ireland, while delightful, was in many ways just like being at what I've come to call home.
