The Pipes, the Pipes are Calling

As always, it has been a busy nine days in Oxford... well... mainly out of Oxford... but you get the point. Since we last met our intrepid hero, he has traveled to Salisbury, Stonehenge, Avebury, London, Dublin, and the Wicklow mountains. So without further ado, let the games begin!

Last Sunday, I took advantage of the opportunity to go sightseeing with the Clarendon Scholars. Twenty-three of us piled into a pair of vans and left a quiet Oxford bright and early in the morning. The most important thing about the trip I am about to describe is that the weather was absolutely gorgeous, perhaps even the best thus far in 2012. So after every succeeding sentence, think about my descriptions in the context of a bright blue sky, cool air, and a green landscape just shy of bursting into springtime!

So, avoiding the motorways (highways), our drivers took us through several small villages en route to Salisbury. There was Wantage, home of King Alfred the Great (9th c), Hungerford, located on the Kennett River, and Marlborough with its antique wheat straw thatched cottages. All along the way, we witnessed wild pheasants meandering by the roadside and rabbits peacefully munching away on the fresh grass. Driving into Salisbury, we saw the nearby Old Sarum, a natural hill that served as a settlement, castle, and fortification from 3000 BC until the 1200s AD. Because the settlement had no water and there was no risk of attack, the people decided to move. Legend has it that the ruler of the time shot an arrow from the top of the hill and where it landed would indicate the site of Salisbury's first building: the current Salisbury Cathedral. Never mind that the cathedral is 2 km from the top of Old Sarum... it makes for a good story.

With an hour of free time, many of us walked from the cathedral where we were dropped off, into the town to grab a bite to eat. Another American and I chose a particularly inviting pasty shop and - in American fashion - immediately gravitated towards the "Large Traditional Pasties." These must have been crafted simply to lure gullible Americans as ourselves to spend more money, for we both quickly realized that - while delicious - the large pasties were unnecessarily large; we should have gone for the regular sized ones. After picnicking in the cathedral close (see below), our driver gave us a tour of the cathedral. It was constructed in a speedy 37 years (no sarcasm intended), with its completion in the year 1258. The simple, yet beautiful interior featured a large bronze fountain, extremely tasteful in its design and location.

More interesting, however, was the interesting set of personal connections that I soon found within the cathedral. Four copies of the 1215 Magna Carta are extant: two in the British Library, one up north, and one in the Salisbury Cathedral. As it turns out, the Magna Carta was forced upon King John in 1215 by his half-brother, William Longspee of Salisbury, among others. Longspee was the first person to be buried within Salisbury Cathedral and his effigy remains in the nave along with a placard identifying him as a (illegitimate) son of King Henry II, the Norman. Thus, supposing Grandpa's genealogy is correct, I serendipitously visited the grave of a family relation. Interesting, right? Furthermore, one might find it interesting that the Magna Carta was signed in Runnymede, which now happens to be the sister city of Herndon, where I grew up. Very strange, but very cool.

Anyway, I digress. I know you're all dying to read about Ireland, and here I am blabbering on about my relations (though Grandpa would have been utterly fascinated, to be sure). So we left Salisbury behind at last, driving the short distance to Stonehenge. I hope you are still thinking about the beautiful weather! On the way, we emerged into wide open fields with broad hills. All of a sudden, there it was: an oasis of rocks providing the only shade for a mile on any side. Now many people seem to express discontent with the ancient landmark, saying that it is just a bunch of rocks and it is a shame one cannot get close to them. I did not share this Mona Lisa-esque opinion, however. Rather, I was awed by the complex engineering and inspired by the resulting artistry. Indeed, the stones came from a site over 20 miles away. Weighing up to 45 Tons, it must have been an impressive feat to carve, position, and erect each sarson stone. Further, each of the three-stone assemblies is fitted with a pair of mortise-and-tenon joints such that the horizontal cross pieces would remain balanced on top. Further still, the concentric henges are perfectly circular and perfectly oriented to the solstices. Pretty impressive for a 4500 year old construction! Yet, not only was the engineering impressive, but the bluish-gray stones seemed perfect among the landscape. The rocks were extremely photogenic from every angle. The stillness of the day provided a calming peace at the site, yet somehow the stones seemed alive given their stark contrast to the wide open fields. It was truly captivating. Unfortunately we were on a schedule, but I would have loved to simply sit under the golden sunlight in the fields of green to admire all the rocky goodness.

Alas, we proceeded on our way to Avebury, a quaint village with yet another stone henge. The village was very quaint, complete with an 1100 year old chapel. The henge at Avebury predated that of Stonehenge, but the rocks had been left unshaped and had been selected from a nearby site. The henge itself was 18 times wider than that of Stonehenge, though the stones did not make a perfect circle and many were missing. Nonetheless, it was a nice and tourist-free alternative to the popular younger sibling.

"Ok, enough of henges already. Yes, you had a great day and the weather was beautiful, but get on with the main attraction already."

Fair enough.

On Wednesday, I welcomed Katlin and Jordan into Oxford, fresh off the plane from North Carolina. We spent the day wandering around the city and countryside seeing the typical list of sights. Taking advantage of the opportunity to see something new, I led them into Merton College to look around. It was one of the original Oxford colleges, so the interior was old, labyrinthine, yet garden filled. It was fun to see. We also walked through the countryside up to Wolvercote, but I will omit our interesting adventure consisting of me attempting to find a new route back to Oxford. Thankfully, none of us got soaked. ;-) On a personal note, I realized that day that I am already becoming accustomed to Oxford; I'm starting to take the old walls, the ivy, and the cobblestones for granted, already losing my ability to see the uniqueness of the supposed commonplace. Thus, I am hoping to give way to my inner photographer once more, seeing the detail of daily occurrences. Speaking of photography, by the way, did I mention that I placed 2nd in a Keble photo competition:

http://www.keble.ox.ac.uk/students/activities/photo-competition/keble-photo-competition. The photo is of Keble chapel reflected in an appropriately placed puddle. Thanks to Kalli for lending me the camera during her November visit!

Moving right along... on Thursday, we got up early as I was attending my first conference in London. I left the ladies to fend for themselves while I caught an early train from Oxford. The conference was at the Institute of Structural Engineers (ISE), the body responsible for structural engineering licensing procedures in England. There were several interesting posters (including two particularly relevant ones) and a variety of interesting presentations. I talked with two members from Arup, a London-based international structural engineering firm. While Arup was involved with the London Millennium Bridge design (upon which my research is based), they are a world renowned firm - a potentially good future employer. 

Following the conference, I held my own Olympics-inspired London quintathalon:

Stage One: Run to London Victoria train station.

Stage Two: Catch train to Gatwick airport, taking the opportunity to get organized. Upon arrival, run to bathroom to rearrange bag. Ryanair has a notoriously extreme strict baggage policy: one carry on no greater than 10 kg (22 lb) and no greater than 55x40x20 cm. Fail to meet the restrictions and they gate-check your bag for a fee of 50 Euros. Dan:1, Ryanair:0

Stage Three:  Take plane to Dublin. Part of flying a no-frills airline is not having a complementary drink but having to listen to the salesmen flight attendants pitching their newspapers, scratch-offs, and smokeless cigarettes. 

Stage Four: Pass customs (new stamp = yay!) and catch a bus to the city, getting off at an ambiguous bus stop, asking bus driver for walking directions.

Stage Five: Walk to hostel, meeting up with Katlin and Jordan, whom had flown earlier in the day!

That night, we went to a pub (theme developing: Dublin is home to over 900 pubs) and ate traditional Irish fare. I had "Dublin Coddle" for dinner, and it was amazing! Essentially, it was a stew consisting of potatoes, sausage, and bacon in an herb-laden broth. On the side, I had a slice of delicious Irish soda bread, which was also very good! Afterwards, we took a quick walk into the green-lit Trinity college before heading back to the hostel for bed.

Friday, we awoke early, excited for a long day of sightseeing. First, we dropped our stuff off at a new hostel (even booking in November, there were no hostels with three beds available Thurs-Sunday, so we had to switch), which was across the River Liffey from Four Courts (their judicial court house). We walked 1.7 miles (oops - map not to scale!!) to Kilmainham Gaol (pronounced: jail), which housed prisoners from the 1790s until the 1920s. The jail figured prominently in the Great Famine, housing over 9000 prisoners in a mere 115 cells in 1850. Also, the jail was a rallying point during the fight for independence since 15 members of the 1916 uprising were held and executed there. To me, it seemed much like Alcatraz - a cold, damp, and creepy prison. 

Speaking of cold and damp, Friday had a lot of both. We caught a bus back into city center, and avoided the chilly drizzle by having a pub lunch at a restaurant called "The Quays." Once again delicious, I chose cottage pie, evidently defined as shepherd's pie without the lamb. The pie was served with a piped-mash crust and a tasty red wine-based gravy. Notably, I ordered my first ever pint of beer, none other than Guinness.

As an important commentary, Guinness is an institution in Dublin. At any given time on any given day, it would not seem to be an exaggeration that three-quarters of the patrons in any given pub are holding a pint of Guinness. It is unbelievable. The Guinness logo features the national logo, the harp. Fittingly, the Guinness label seemed to be plastered on literally everything in the city. Not only that, but the restoration of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin (more to come) was funded by the Guinness family (though the Christ Church Cathedral reconstruction was funded by the Jamesons... of Jameson Irish Whiskey fame). The Guinness family have an estate in the Wicklow mountains nestled on a lake which - I kid you not - looks like a pint of Guinness. If you don't believe me: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=53.108917,-6.269073&spn=0.02079,0.037208&t=h&z=15

Fully stuffed, we left The Quays and headed to the tourist info center to start our walking tour. Yes, it was chilly and damp, but we went on a walking tour. The tour covered city hall, Dublin castle (reconstructed in the 1700s... i.e. doesn't look much like a castle any more), the gardens of Dubh Linn (meaning "Black Pool" in Irish; the pool was buried by the castle since the city's founding), Christ Church Cathedral, some original city walls, and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Being a St. Patrick's Festival tour, we learned much about St. Patrick. He was originally born in Wales in the 5th c, and brought to Ireland by the vikings as a slave. His dad had been a priest, so he became consumed with the will of God while enslaved as a shepherd. At last, God told him to run away and return to England. After formal training to be a priest, God told Patrick to return to Ireland to spread Christianity to the pagans. It is rumored that he devised the shamrock metaphor to describe the nature of the Trinity to nonbelievers, and that he banished all snakes from Ireland as a miraculous sign (to this day, snakes supposedly live in England but cannot survive in Ireland). While St. Patrick was never canonized by the church, he has been given the title of Saint thanks to popular consent throughout the ages. 

That evening, we grabbed fish & chips take away from Leo Burdock. They were amazing- easily the best fish & chips I've had since arriving in Europe. I say this mainly as a point of reference in case I ever return to Dublin :-) We also took some time to wander the streets, already filled with plenty of green people and green buildings.

Saturday morning came quickly! The weather improved slightly, omitting the rain but remaining slightly chilly. We desired to have a glass of Irish coffee (coffee + Jameson whiskey + cream)  before the parade, but we found out that - by law - pubs are not allowed to serve alcohol before 12:30 on national holidays. We found this peculiar given that the Irish national pastime is drinking, but perhaps the law was in place to ensure that no one had an unfair advantage going into afternoon festivities on holidays! At any rate, we bought some lovely green garb and staked out our spot on Lord Edward St, well along the 1.4 mile parade route. Good thing too - some 500,000 spectators came out for the brilliant costumes and talented bands in the parade. Everyone was wearing green - you've never seen so much green! The parade took a solid hour to arrive at our location and then another hour to pass by. Admittedly, most of the bands were from US high schools and universities, including Notre Dame and Missouri. Everyone seemed to enjoy it though!

Following the parade, we reembarked on our mission to find Irish coffee, ending up at Nealon, a pub on the north side of the river. It felt great to sit and relax with something warm, especially since we were all visibly exhausted. After our coffees, Katlin and Jordan - undoubtedly jet lagged in addition to having walking exhaustion - decided to return to the hostel for a nap. In the mean time, I decided to check out the interior of Christ Church Cathedral. While I was there (being unimpressed compared to St. Patrick's Cathedral), I received a text message from Roos, a fellow Kebleite! I had known that she was also going to be in the city for the holiday, and it seemed that she had some spare time in which to meet up! Thus, she and two of her friends met me outside Christ Church, and we walked around the city for a bit, catching up. 

Leaving her friends at a crowded sports pub (oh yeah, England was playing Ireland in rugby! Too bad Ireland couldn't pull it out..), Roos and I returned to St. Patrick's Cathedral, where we met Katlin and Jordan for a St. Paddys service. The service featured readings about the ministry of St. Patrick, interspersed with songs by a harp quartet. The quartet had a surprisingly crisp, refreshing sound in the large, open space, and I could easily have spent double the time enjoying the service. When the service ended, however, the four of us plus a person we had met in the hostel all wandered toward "Temple Bar," a section of city centre (aptly named as an actual bar, a street, and the section, owing to the quantity of surrounding pubs). After the parade, most of the crowd simply filtered into the pubs, so it was rather difficult to find a place for dinner, even five hours after the parade. After leaving Roos with her friends, the remaining four of us ended up having dinner at the "Hairy Lemon," an overwhelmingly green (surprise!) pub (surprise again!). I had Irish beef stew (surprise), but unfortunately they had run out of soda bread. I said that wasn't a problem, but the waiter showed up some minutes later, bearing a complementary half pint of Guinness (surprise) to compensate. 

We finished dinner quite late, and ended up walking around the city for a while to assess the overall situation. By midnight, we were ready to turn in, but we couldn't help but notice that most of the city streets were completely trashed. Crowds of people were (quite humorously) stumbling around. Broken glass was rampant, as were assorted food containers. Naturally, having only had three drinks all day, we were perfectly sober. This perhaps made our observations even more humorous. It was really a fun (and culturally enlightening?) day.

Consider this: we went to bed at 1 am. By 8:45 am, when we were frantically running to catch our tour bus for the day, the streets were almost entirely clean. Katlin, Jordan, and I could hardly believe what a quick job the city had done to return the streets to normal. True, a fountain in city center was still overflowing with soap suds (lol) but by-and-large, one would never have guessed what insanity took place the day before. In fact, I give huge credit to the city for the whole day: traffic was adequately controlled, police were everywhere and helpful, the parade route was lined with precautionary EMS staff, and everything ran according to schedule. It was a brilliant handling of a holiday event. Anyway, we caught our tour bus (piloted by Dave, a comedic Irishman who evidently stayed up until 5 am celebrating with his own family) destined for Wicklow Mountains National Park. In a nutshell, the park was stunning. The mountains were only 1000 feet tall, but the unending peat bog landscape reminded me of the Klondike in Maine's Baxter State Park. Apparently during the summertime, the mountains become covered in purple, gold, and green wild flowers, which must be amazing. We really enjoyed our day driving around the countryside and the mountains. Perhaps some day I will even get a chance to do some hiking in Ireland. Who knows.

Finally, we finished our Dublin experience with dinner at O'Sheas, yet another pub. I had Irish lamb casserole (which was more like a stew), but the highlight of dinner was sharing ice cream and a shot of Bailey's Irish Creme. The ice cream came in three flavors: sea salt, brown bread, and chocolate. Perhaps this may not sound very tasty, but let me assure you that after a weekend of heavy foods, the ice cream was remarkably delicious. I shall have to make some (esp brown bread ice cream), for sure. 

Sadly, yesterday I returned to Oxford (Dan:2 Ryanair:0) and Katlin and Jordan continued their five-week adventure by flying to Barcelona. Wish I could join them, but it is back to reading for me. Time to start planning my next trip!

CULTURE CORNER

The most interesting event happened during the St Patrick's Day parade. One high school marching band from Texas was walking the parade route with a couple members handing out American flags. American flags in an Irish parade?! I couldn't believe it! I was really astonished and aghast that they would even have the audacity to do such a thing. I felt really embarrassed, honestly. But then what happened next left me completely confused. A little girl and her mother had been watching the parade next to us, evidently of Irish descent. As the person came by with the flags, the mother goaded her daughter to obtain one. Upon successful receipt of said flag, the girl turned around with happiness and the mother expressed sincere joy, stating (only marginal paraphrase), "Look, you got one! Everyone will be so jealous of you!" Thus, I really didn't know what to make of the situation. I do not think I have honestly heard such pure joy about anything American in all my travels. I do not tend to hear that many negative opinions either, but it was certainly rare to hear someone so excited about receiving an American flag. Perhaps this was an isolated event, or perhaps it was a manifestation of close America-Ireland ties, but nonetheless, I still remain baffled.

St. Paddy's vs. St. Patty's?
ONLY St. Paddy's! Paddy derives from the Irish Padraig or Patrick; Patty derives from Patricia or what you call a slab of meat. Look it up on Google if you must, else "Happy St. Paddy's Day!"

Words o' the Day
Pasty n. A pastry in which minced meat (chicken, lamb, beef) is mixed with onions or other fillings and wrapped into a semi-circular crust, similar to a calzone.
Close n. An enclosed area near to a building such as a cathedral; typically a garden or large courtyard
Sarson n. A type of stone from a particular region in southern England. Along with "Blue Stone," these rocks made up the sculptures at Stonehenge and Avebury