FOTA Wildlife Park

So on Saturday Montana, Kyla, Holly, and I took a train to FOTA and then Cobh! It was a beautiful day without a single cloud in the sky, but it was VERY cold so we all had to bundle up nicely.

FOTA Wildlife Park was our first stop. It's almost like a zoo, except a lot of the animals, like the kangaroos, maras, ducks, geese, and peacocks have free range of the park. You can literally get within snuggling distance of them (though you'll get kicked out if you do). The larger and more dangerous animals like the cheetahs and ostriches are fenced off like they would be in a normal zoo. The monkeys however are kept on islands in the center of the park, and have huge climbing frames that they can play on all the time!! Its not possible to capture this place in words, so here are gobs and gobs of photos for your enjoyment!!

A Day in One Photo: Coppinger's Court

This is Coppinger's Court in West Cork. We visited it as part of a field trip for our Archaeology Early Start class (where we went to school a month early in order to get used to the different school system). This building represents a transition from the Late Medieval period and castles into the Early Modern Period and gentleman's estates. It was built by Walter Coppinger, a successful business man, in the 17th century. It thrived for a short amount of time but when his son took over, the estate faltered and fell. In front of this would have been an expansive garden. Now, it is on farm land and cows can graze here! You can see the little metal fence there in the entrance; that's some sort of modern animal pen. Only in Ireland!

There is a TON more I could say about this, but I don't want to go on and on! For some more quick reading: http://www.abandonedireland.com/cc.html

A Day in One Photo: Newgrange

This is Newgrange, one of three large passage tombs in the Bend of Boyne outside of Dublin in Co. Meath. Passage tombs are from the Neolithic period and are named after their long passage down the center of the structure that ends in three chambers (forming the shape of a cross) with the east end being the largest and most important. Each chamber has a single basin stone, which is where cremated remains of several different people would have been placed. This particular passage tomb has an entry stone which you can see, its the long horizontal rock in the center of the photo. It features original artwork including three swirls and several squares. These are thought to perhaps represent the surrounding landscape, with the squares being farmland, and the three swirls being the three passage tombs (Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth). 

The current reconstruction of Newgrange is based on Professor O'Kelly's excavations in the 60s and 70s. He found these white quartz stones on the ground in front of the mound and using their position calculated the exact angle of the wall before it fell! Some disagree with his findings however and say that the quartz was actually a pathway around the front of the structure. According to O'Kelly's plans, the quartz would have continued up to the opening and people would have slipped over the entrance stone that I mentioned to get into the tomb. Because that would gradually destroy the artwork, they opened up part of the wall (illustrated by the grey stone) and put in the stairs. The interior of the structure hasn't needed any work however. The creators of the tomb placed the ceiling support rocks so perfectly that even without mortar the structure has stood since the Neolithic, and not even a drop of rain has ever penetrated the cover.

Ok, I'll share one last thing!! Inside the tomb is pitch black but when the sun hits the entrance just right on the winter solstice (right Holly?) the light projects into the end chamber and goes across the floor. Even now, important Irish leaders and a lucky lottery winner get to go into the tomb and witness this same phenomenon that people witnessed thousands and thousands of years ago. 

Morte la bête, mort le venin.

This Sleeping Beauty's castle was actually inspired by a real castle in France!

The main focus of our trip to Paris was in fact Disneyland. I know that its not the proper, cultural, adult thing to visit when you're in Paris, one of the most amazing and quintessential cities in the world, but as soon as Brianna and I walked through the Disney gates, everything was perfect! If the entire trip to Ireland hadn't been worth it already, it would have been made worth it in the moment when we saw Sleeping Beauty's Castle. So anyways. Disneyland Paris is very similar to Disneyland in CA. There are two parks, one magic kingdom-type-park, and one specifically catering to Hollywood/movie-based rides. They had a Thunder Mountain and a Tower of Terror that were pretty similar to their Anaheim counterparts, but most of the other rides were quite different! The Indiana Jones ride was a roller-coaster, the Pirates of the Caribbean was reformatted (and all the pirates yelled at each other in French), and the Space Mountain had a modified track and was called Mission 2. In the Walt Disney Studios park there was also a "Crush's Coaster" based on the turtle from Finding Nemo! This one was more similar to Mr. Six's Pandemonium or Tony Hawks roller-coaster from the Six Flags franchises.

Disney was all decorated for Halloween!

This was a cove near Pirates

Pirates was a lot of fun. Brianna actually judges it as better than the one in Anaheim. It had a few different scenes and you actually went up into the second story of the building instead of the basement. However, this Pirates didn't have a skull saying "Dead men tell no tales" in the ride at all! Other than that, the ride was a lot of fun! It was especially fun to try to translate what the animatrons were saying to each other.

Space Mountain Mission 2

 Mission 2 was actually quite different from #1! They started out by shooting you from the bottom of this tube into the other building, where you went upside-down! Multiple times! Paris definitely had more intense roller-coasters, probably because the Paris park opened more recently. They're celebrating their 20th birthday! Just like me :)

C'était tres chouette! Au revoir!

P.S. "morte la bête, mort le venin" literally means "dead the beast, dead the poison" but it's the French equivalent of "Dead men tell no tales" :D

Paris et Notre Dame

So eventually we got into Paris and checked into our hostel (Friends Hostel near le Sacré Coeur) which was decent but in quite the sketchy neighborhood. We decided to walk by le Sacré Coeur and then to continue on to Notre Dame, which is a LONG walk but totally worth it as we got to see a lot of the city that way.

Le Sacré Coeur

The view of Paris from Le Sacré Coeur

Notre Dame

 And of course, there were some references to Ecclesia and Synagoga on the lovely Notre Dame!!

 We got to go into the cathedral when there was actually a service taking place, which was pretty special. We tourists must have been pretty annoying though!

The Eiffel Tower at night

 After staring in awe at Notre Dame Holly and I went back to the hostel, but Brianna and Montana took a night tour of Paris in a boat on the Seine. They totally recommend it, so keep it in mind if you plan on traveling to France!

Midnight in Beauvais

This past weekend my friends Brianna, Holly O'Brien, Montana, and I took a trip to France!! The first night Brianna and Holly and I stayed in Beauvais, a town about an hour outside of Paris. Unfortunately we decided to walk into town instead of taking the bus. An hour and a half later, at midnight, we finally arrived in town, and all hotels were closed!!! So instead of staying in a bed. We slept for about an hour on the southern porch of the Beauvais Cathedral, the most awe-inspiring building I have ever laid eyes on!

Beauvais Cathedral

 This cathedral is so tall that when it was first built it actually collapsed while people were inside!! Luckily, it collapsed so slowly that everyone was able to get out. They rebuilt it but never successfully finished it, so there's no nave. If you were looking at it from the sky, you would just see the top of the cross-shaped form, with a small more modern church added on where the body of the church should be.

The "Pimple" Church where the nave of Beauvais should be.

A side street on our walk back!

So after that hour on the porch of a cathedral, we got very cold, so we started the hour and a half walk back to the Beauvais airport. We even ran into a new furry friend!

Finally, we got back, and we slept/tried to keep warm on some tables outside of the airport for about four hours until it opened.

Altogether, the night was unusual and eventful, but totally worth it, at least for me. I wanted to see Beauvais Cathedral ever since I took a course on Castles and Cathedrals, and we sort of stumbled upon it. If we hadn't been walking into town that night, I don't know if I would have seen it at all!

Nancy DREW!!!!!!!

I just wanted to say that after a day and a half of trying to get the Deadly Device to download, it finally worked. And I'm off to Paris today. So I could not be happier at this moment. :D :D :D I hope you all have a beautiful beautiful day!!!

St Fin Barre's Cathedral

 St Fin Barre's Cathedral

 This was founded as a monastery in the early 7th century AD, supposedly by Fin Barre himself (although there is some speculation that this man ever existed). Over the centuries many churches were on this ground. The most recent church, the cathedral pictured, was started in 1862 by William Burges.

 The Wise and Foolish Virgins

These were probably inspired by the sculpture on Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany. The story behind these goes along the lines of the story in the bible about the 10 Virgins who wait for their bridegrooms in the dark. The Foolish Virgins can't keep their candles lit and are then lead astray. These ladies are accompanied by their own bridegroom sculpture that is featured on the jamb in between the two center doors. The bridegroom sculpture in the Cathedral of Magdeburg doubles as the devil, with snakes and all sorts of nasty things coming out of his back.

Ecclesia and Synagoga

This is my personal interpretation of these two faces, I don't claim to know too much about them! These were probably inspired by similar full-bodied sculpture at Cathedrals like Bamburg in Germany. The woman on the left with the crown and regal face would represent the Church, while the blindfolded face would represent the Hebrew religion. Here they are trying to reinforce that Jews are blinded because they did not accept Christ as the Messiah and that Christianity rules all.

The back of St Fin Barre's and the Resurrection Angel

There is so much more to talk about on this cathedral!!!! I wish I could know everything about it but that would be impossible. I definitely recommend stopping by and staring for a bit if you ever get the opportunity!
Thanks guys! Night!

A Day in One Photo: The Four Faced Liar

This is the four faced liar, the main clock tower in downtown Cork! It's right next to the Butter Museum I posted about yesterday. Behind the clock is a little field (the only grass in the vicinity) and a small cemetery. The tower features four clocks, one on each side. The mechanisms inside the tower can never be in sync, so none of the four clocks have ever displayed the same time. That's how it gets its name!

A Day in One Photo: A short lesson in Irish butter.

Hi!
I was thinking that, on days when I have nothing out of my daily routine to share, I would post a photo from one of my previous trips and do a short blog post to go along with it. I only just started blogging, and I've already been here for a month and a half, so I figured that I should make up for some lost time.

 This is me and my friends Kyla, Holly, and Montana, respectively, outside of the Cork Butter Museum! This museum is located near the Four Faced Liar (Cork City's clock tower, a story for another time :D ) in downtown Cork. For about 3 euro you get to go in, watch a documentary about butter in Ireland, and explore the two floor's worth of butter related artifacts! Unbeknownst to me before we visited, the southern part of Ireland including Co. Cork and Co. Kerry was an incredibly important part of the world's butter industry in the 20th century. I thought it was just potatoes. Some of the artifacts in the museum included churns and vats that would have been used to make and store the butter. Upstairs there is a wooden bucket with butter still inside (to my knowledge, not edible)! Sometimes the people making the butter would siphon it into one of these buckets and then stick it into the peat bog to keep it preserved. Men working in the bogs today will still find containers of this "bog butter" when cutting out peat for fuel. Fun fun fun.

Killarney and the Ring of Kerry!

Ok! I'm not going to pretend to know how to blog so please please please bear with me!

Today my friends Kyla, Holly, and Montana went on a Paddywagon Tour around the Ring of Kerry! The ring is a beautiful scenic route around the coast and countryside of County Kerry. We got to see many a sheep and took over 700 photographs amongst the four of us! It was also quite refreshing to get out of Cork city. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Cork, but there is nothing that can compare to the green rolling hills and the perpetual smell of peat that accompanies these smaller towns. Our tour guide was also an active member of Sinn Féin and provided some fascinating conversation over a full Irish lunch, featuring meat and two different forms of potatoes. Here are some photos from our trip!!

Our first stop was in downtown Killarney! It was really early in the morning, I think around 9 or so, so no one was around and it was FREEZING. Two shops were open, a coffee shop and a woolen mills shop, both perfect for helping us tourists keep warm!

One of our next stops was the Dingle Bay. You can see Dingle in this photo, it's the faint land towards the back of the picture, on the right. Sometimes you can see dolphins and even whales swimming about in this water, but unfortunately we weren't quite that lucky. We were lucky to have such perfect weather though!

This was one of our photo stops in the hills! There were two men there with heavy Kerry accents, hard to understand, but they were beyond friendly. The man on the left had a 16 year old black lab named Pluto (my new best friend, not pictured here). Pluto has been drinking Guinness for 15 years and apparently was quite hungover today (though you could hardly tell). We played a mean game of tug-of-war. The man on the right had a kitten named Bluebell, a german shepherd puppy, a 4 month old red dear, a chihuahua, a sheep, and a goat, all for the tourists to pet! Safe to say, I got some serious animal loving in at this rest stop, something I've sorely missed.

This was a river in Sneem, one of our stops. This town was gorgeous and quite picturesque, with a small tourist industry. I got some lovely homemade irish coffee and baileys cream ice cream and met a very friendly husky who followed us into the restrooms (oh my!). There were signs up around the town cheering on a girls sports team, hand painted on wooden boards. Yay community!

This is a photospot right at one of the entrances into Killarney National Park. Queen Victoria used to bring people here to relax and enjoy nature, it was one of her favorite spots, so it came to be known as Ladies View. The light was perfect for about 2 minutes, so I played around with the shadows a bit, haha.

This is the Torc Waterfall in Killarney National Park. There were some horse and buggy rides you could hire to bring you around the park, complete with wool blankets and an Irish tour guide. There were also some puppies running around! One of the dog's owners let him play in the waterfall!

The Ring of Kerry was beautiful, fun, and a welcome escape!

On Tuesday I get my pre-order of Nancy Drew: The Deadly Device (Computer Game) and then on Thursday Montana, Brianna, Holly O'Brien, and I head over to Paris! This week is going to be fun, I'll keep you updated!

Thanks guys! Night :D