Spring Term & Other Travels

           Washington and Lee mandates that all students take a “spring term” course. This course is 4 credits as opposed to 3, takes place over a 4-week period, and often concerns a specific and creative subject. For example, last year I took “Buddhist Meditation” and some of my friends took “The Philosophy of Time Travel” as well as “The Ethics of War”. W&L also allows offers study abroad programs for the 4 weeks, which is exactly what I did. Ireland is the only country I haven’t visited that is part of my heritage so I decided to go there (I also loved the professor that was guiding us through the rural West of the country).
           The course took place in a small village called Dingle, which is located on the Dingle Peninsula, and is one of the Western-most points of Europe. It reminds me a lot of Block Island, a place that my family and I have “holidayed” every Thanksgiving for the past 10 years. We arrived on a beautiful Sunday afternoon – the rain was lovely and warm. After the bus ride to Dingle we got a tour from our guide/coordinator Sean Pol. My favorite part besides the harbor street and “Fungi” the town dolphin was the number of pubs/(insert business here). The most famous of these establishments is “Foxy John’s”, which is a hardware store on one side and a bar on the other. It wasn’t profitable enough in those days to only own a hardware store so they decided to sell beer on the side.            

View from my window in Dingle

Harbor street in Dingle

During the four weeks there were activities scheduled for us non-stop. I would estimate that we spent 40-50 hours/week on class related activities such as lectures, group discussions, and most of all site visits and tours. We only had to write about 20 or 25 pages for the course (Writers of Western Ireland), and about 80% of that was relatively informal, but those tours and visits sure made up for the lack of writing we had to do. My three favorite places (activities to come later) we visited were: Muckross Manor (especially the Abbey), Thor Balle Lee (Yeats’s House), and Coole Park.
           

 

Muckross Manor was an estate owned by English Nobles in the town of Killarney, Co. Cork (?). The estate’s claim to fame is that Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visited for about 3 days as a stop on a summer holiday. The servants of the house and the owners expected the be knighted or made gentry for their exceptional efforts to accommodate the Queen (who was very picky), but Queen Vick died before she could thank them for their hospitality.
           The Abbey was chilling to say the least. As you emerge from dense woods that separate the Abbey from the street you see that the churchyard overlooks a lake and mountain-scape that is hidden, save one small window, by dense woods. The church was not in ruins, but it had no roof and part was in the process of being restored. The Abbey housed a Yew tree surrounded by a walkway that connected two of the main rooms. The most impressive thing about Yews, besides their deep connection to Celtic and Christian religion, is that they that average lifespan of the trees is unknown since the oldest one on the planet is estimated to be between 3,500 and 4,500 years old! This was the highlight of the day for me and it seemed that some of my classmates were just as captivated by this as I was.
           

Coming out of the Muckross estate woods to the churchyard

Muckross Abbey

Later in the course we traveled north to Galway, Co. Clare, and made several stops along the way. One of the stops was at Thor-Balle-Lee, home of W.B. Yeats’s farmhouse and tower. We stopped here to hear three of his poems, “An Irish Airmen Foresees his Death”, “Sailing to Byzantium”, and “The Tower”. Our English Prof has a phenomenal voice and an eye/ear for reading poetry out loud. Getting to listen to him recite these poems, which we had studied intensely the term before, sent shivers up and down my spine. It was the first moment on the trip where the class was held breathless as a whole.
           

Thor Balle Lee (Yeats's House)

Professor Conner reading to the class

Thor-Balle-Lee is located on the grounds of Coole Park, which was owned by Lady Gregory until the mid 20th century. Lady Gregory was a dear friend of Yeats’s and together (along with James (?) Synge they began the Abbey Theater, which became the epicenter of all great Irish plays and performances. We also studied Coole Park, which is why I thought it was so interesting getting to see it in person. This is a picture of the “autograph tree” that Lady Gregory kept. On it are all the signatures of great authors and other figures that visited her.
This is where her house used to stand but the state tore it down and used it as building materials for other projects.
           

Where Lady Gregory's house used to be

Autograph tree

The three best experiences I had were: climbing Mt. Brandon, Visiting the Skellig Islands, and visiting the Blasket Islands.
           Mount Brandon is just over 3,000 feet and overlooks Dingle and the surrounding towns. Its peak is always visible no matter how what angle you look at it from, and clouds often cover it (sometimes holding rain and sometimes not). Climbing it was the most adventurous thing I’d done in a while mostly because about 3/5 of the way up our guide (Sean Pol) said that it was “totally cool” to start climbing straight up. Little did the leading group (self-appointed Seal Team Six) know that this lead to a rock-less incline of about 75 degrees. Spider crawling up 100 yards of mountain moss, at that incline, with a backpack filled with 4.75 liters of water pulling you backwards, is a terrifying and exhilarating experience. We made it to the top of the mountain and found that someone had brought up a giant cross. We took a picture together at the top with only clouds as background. I was delighted at how isolated the peak was. Though our communal efforts and experience atop Mt. Brandon the few who did climb grew much closer.
           

Part of the way up Mt. Brandon

At the peak of Mt. Brandon

The mountain's "false peak"

Behind the Mt. Brandon climb were the Skellig Islands and the Blasket Islands. The Skelligs are the Western-most inhabited part of Europe. In the 12th century Monks journeyed to the set of rocks in the Atlantic and built a monastery. Their goal was to devote themselves to God completely through isolation and difficulty of task. They built 600 steps into the side of the rock and built beehive huts along the sides of the mountain. The most impressive part of this is that they used all stone from the mainland, and in their days the voyage took 1.5 days each way. .The Blasket Islands were home to a few great writers, who we studied during our time there. If anyone is interested in day-to-day life of these people I highly suggest reading “The Islandman” by Tomas O’Creahan (?). It should be easy enough to find on Amazon. At first it seems like a string of disconnected memoirs, but in fact, when examined literary themes and motif emerge making it a true work of literature. The islands were abandoned in the 1950s after a series of events that made life impossible on the islands. We saw the remains of the village, untouched, and climbed “the saddle” (mountain on the Great Blasket), and made some donkey friends.

Birds on the side of an otherwise dark rock. Total count 15,000+

         

Skellig Michael

Huts on the side of Skellig Michael

That was the bird rock from the top of Skellig Michael

Joanie on the boat

  

Dolphins on the way to Blakset Islands

Abandoned village on the Great Blasket

Closer abandoned village

Donkey friends living on the Blaskets

Cliffs of Moher. Where Harry Potter 6 was shot (Voldemort's cave) and also the "Cliffs on Insanity" in The Princess Bride

Me & Jake on a "Hill Walk"

I met a new friend on the trip, Jake, who is one of the cooler people I’ve met at W&L. The best part is he isn’t Greek, which goes against everything that W&L freshmen and sophomores are taught. It is a pretty limiting system socially, but does have its benefits and merits. Jake and I golfed twice (he’s on the team) and I ended up doing pretty darn well in his opinion.


 



Part Duex: Paris with Joanie.
           After saying goodbye to the rest of the class at Tralee, Joanie and I made our way to Paris for a week (followed by Spain – writing to you now on the way there). We arrived Saturday evening to a marvelous hotel (Thank you Mr. Rosenson).
 
Sunday
           We walked around and hoped to visit Notre Dame, the Catacombs, and something else. Instead of doing these we saw the Pantheon, which turned out to be better than all three put together. We first went to quench my religion major thirst, but we soon discovered what might have been the surprise highlight of the week. Voltaire, Rousseau, and most importantly Alexander Dumas (my relative) were all buried in the crypt there.
 

Outside of the tomb

Voltaire in the basement of the Pantheon

Monday
           We visited the Louvre. This was an all-day affair and we were exhausted afterwards. I was excited to see the Islamic Exhibit (like Babbo, Yia Yia, and I went to at the Met), but it was closed. Instead Joanie and I saw the Egyptian, Grecco-Roman, and medieval sections of the museum.
 

Tueday
           This was “my day”, in other words, military madness. Now that I think of it I should have made it Monday for alliteration purposes (Military madness Monday – or something of that nature). We began the day with a walking tour of Paris focused only on WWII & the week leading up to Paris’s liberation. We were told stories of the great resistance figures and how the conflict escalated drastically during the dog days of summer. We ended the tour right next to our hotel and took a quick break before heading to the Musee du L’Armee. Here we saw Napoleon’s tomb and a new exhibit of Charles De Galle (who has taken his place at #2 behind Churchill on my “favorite military figures of history” list). Most of the other exhibits were closed due to a concert, including one on Algeria 1820-1970 and the WWI &WWII exhibit, but this did not dampen my spirits. I still got pictures with the cannons in the courtyard. (PICTURE: MUSEUM)
 

Me @ Napoleon's tomb

Dome @ Army Museum

Wednesday
           Thank you SO MUCH BABBO for my birthday present. I got to visit Versailles and Babbo’s old home in the village. I had never been before and besides the palace being gorgeous I got to see the place where my grandpa once called home. This was something that we wouldn’t have done just because of the distance away from Paris, but it really was amazing. My favorite part was definitely the hall of mirrors and the gardens (which we took a quick nap in).
           At night we visited the Eiffel Tower – something that neither of us had down at night. We got to see people taking pictures of it as it lit up at 10 PM, and we took pictures after descending the steps at 11 PM. Unfortunately we only had time to reach the second floor before it closed.
 

Me & Joanie outside Versailles

Hall of Mirrors

Fountain in the gardens

Outside of Babbo's old house

Thursday
           Thursday we woke up early and saw the catacombs. Neither Joanie nor I had been before and it was a partly creepy and partly humbling experience. I couldn’t help but think of how the people organized all the bones so deep underground and how intricate the designs were. We saw everything from crosses made of skulls to archways comprised of skulls and femurs. The 2km journey was humbling because of the sheer amount of “people” we saw down there. It is estimated that over 6 million soles are organized down there, and to think “if I lived back then I could be one of these people, nameless, and mixed in with the mass of others like me”.
           After the catacombs were changed pace abruptly. We was to the museum of decorative arts, which included a temporary exhibition on advertising, Louis Vuitton / Marc Jacobs (Joanie), and best of all Babar! I got some great pictures of my childhood favorite and returned with a clock featuring the elephant in different stretching poses that will look great in my room back in Lexington.
           Joanie and I finished up the day with a friend who graduated and works for JP Morgan Chase in Paris. We got our tradition 5-course meal in. Every course was a surprise, which made the experience all the more fun.
 

Wall in the catacombs

Outfits in the Babar exhibit

Friday
           We slept in today and then visited Musee D’Orsay and saw the Monet and Degas exhibits. My favorite part of the museum was the entrance hall, which looked like a train station and featured bronze sculptures (and had an entire section of mythologically-inspired sculptures!). (PICTURE: SAINT MICHEL & THE DRAGON). I wanted to go next door and see the waterloo exhibit (and British victory over the French is a good British victory in my book), but we were exhausted by that point and decided to turn in.

 

Musee d'Orsay main hall

Statue of San Michel & The Dragon (my favorite in the hall)

Joanie and I are now on the way to Palma de Majorca, which means that translation and communication now rests on my shoulders instead of hers. Hope everyone is doing well! Talk to you all soon, see you on August 4th?