I know you can’t tell it from the pictures, but by the time we left Trim Castle, the weather was horrible. We discussed whether it makes any sense to drive to the site of the oldest remains of civilization in Ireland – the Megaliths. Finally, we decided that we’ll make our way to the Loughcrew Cairns and then decided whether we felt like getting out of the car.
We did, and I couldn’t be more thankful to my friends who brought me there! Yes, muddy and rainy, and we had to climb the hills in the pouring rain, but it would be unforgiving if I would not use a chance to connect to these pieces of history,
Everything about them is unknown: who, when, and why put so much work into bringing the stones from all over Ireland into one place and worked so carefully on positioning the whole structure in accordance with the movement of the sun.
Standing there, I felt the presence of unknown forces, both empowered and humiliated simultaneously…
This post was sitting in the drafts for almost a month. So many things happened after I traveled to Ireland! However, I still wanted to show the pictures of the city of Trim and its amazing Castle! The city is very beautiful and very Medieval (I believe it is considered a city with the most Medieval building in Ireland.
My last day in Ireland was all about ancient history. First, we visited the Hill of Tara:
I know that pictures tell nothing about this place. It’s a feeling. It’s not that often that you visit a Christian site dated the 5th century A.D., but knowing that the place had a special meaning even during the Stone Age, gives it all a new perspective.
This place was visited by St.PatrickHere, St. Patrick had a theological dispute with the Druid priest which resulted in the burning alive of the latter oneContinue reading “Ireland Day 4: Hill of Tara”→
Back to my third day in Ireland: after visiting Glendalough National Park, we drove to Kilkenny – a small town with a gorgeous castle! Kilkenny Castle has a rich history, being continuously occupied for over 800 years. It’s even harder to imagine that for more than half of that period, it belonged to one family. The last owner handed the castle to the state so that it would become a museum and not turn into ruins, as many Irish castles did.
Currently, most of the castle rooms represent the later stage of the castle’s history, with elaborate furniture and decorations.
Sure, it was funny, cool, and special to visit a museum on the street with my name:
But regardless of the name, the house’s history is remarkable, and the museum is extremely interesting. That’s what I have been repeating to myself for the last couple of weeks since I returned from Ireland: yes, these days, you can find all information on the internet, but I would never think about looking up this information if I won’t visit Ireland, and if my incredible friends won’t take me everywhere!
So, back to Henrietta’s street. In the 1700s, it was a place where noble Irish families lived, and this particular house was occupied by the family of Lord Viscount Molesworth. But after 1801, when the power moved to London, and all noble families followed, this house went through major transformations. After being used for different offices, in 1876, the building was bought to be converted into a rental property. Shame on me, but I didn’t know that “communal apartments” were not invented in the Soviet Union. Apparently, in Dublin, a tenement was an 18th or 19th-century townhouse adapted to house multiple families. Thus, Henrietta Street 14, instead of being a home for one family, became a home for over 100 people.
The museum shows all stages of the house’s history: several 18th-century restored rooms would give an idea of how the Lords lived, and several restored flats represent different living conditions for families on different socio-economical levels.
I took very few pictures because I was very busy listening to the tour. It is astonishing how much life in the tenements was similar to life in the “communal apartments” in the Soviet Union.
During my first full day in Ireland, I walked more than 30,000 steps!
I am back home and going back to work tomorrow. Although not everything happened as planned, I am happy with my trip. I boarded a plane eleven times during these two weeks, my personal record. Out of these eleven times, four times it was business class.
It turned out that business class might be very different even within one airline, from “barely any difference” to something very sophisticated:
The bug plus was that I was able to use lounges on every connection because of the Finnair Gold. If not for the lounges, I won’t survive the travel of that intensity. I stayed at nine different lounges (two different ones in Helsinki and three different ones in Heathrow); Vaanta and Heathrow are on the top, although one of the lounges in Heathrow was so crowded and loud that it was not much different from waiting in the gate (of cause, there was a delicious food which makes a difference :))
I loved this tea service in one of the Heathrow lounges: you can pick up the tray with the teapot and milk pitcher, choose your teabag, pour the hot water and the milk of your choice, and happily enjoy the tea!Breakfast in ParisFinnair lounge breakfast
Another thing I learned on this trip is that you can survive without some beauty products for several days. I always take my “thirteen bottles of liquids” everywhere I go, and I mastered the art of fitting them into a one-liter bag.
This time, I knew I would need more than that because it was a two-week journey without touching base in Helsinki, so I had some extras in my checked luggage. However, when I was heading to Paris from Stockholm, I was already more than a half through, and I decided to consolidate all of the remaining liquids in one bag. And I left this bag in my carry-on, just because I always think: what if the luggage is delayed and I will need something?
And you know what happened?! In Stockho;m, they told me that my one-liter bag was”too big” and I needed to repack my liquids into a smaller bag which they gave me. And they told me “it’s EU regulations” as if I was not on the second week of my trip! They would not give in, and I was nervously choosing what I could leave behind (my checked-in luggage was already checked!) I decided that the hotel would have shampoo, conditioner, and a body lotion and parted with those, only to find out that this hotel in Paris had only the body wash! It was a completely ridiculous situation because some of the tubes had very little of the cream left. At the same time, I had two bottles of the eye wetting drops in two bags inside my backpack, and nobody paid attention!
But I learned that I could wash my hair with a body wash and survived without the hair conditioner. And moreover, when I forgot my eye cream in the hotel, I found out I can survive a day without it as well 🙂
I know you do not have to visit Ireland to learn about the Book of Kells, and most like, it would be better if I knew about it beforehand – then, I could be more appreciative in advance of what I was going to see. In case you are like me and had never heard about it before, it’s an amazing 800 A.D. manuscript containing four canonic gospels (BTW, I thought that the four gospels were canonized later, but that happened in the 4th century!) This amazing manuscript was produced by four monks who copied the text and three illustrators.
The wiki page for the Book of Kells reproduces a lot of illustrations and provides a lot of historic contexts. And obviously, you can’t take pictures of the book itself, so that’s the only way you can have an idea of how it looks like. Just one thing I want to say – it feels surreal when you think you are looking at the book produced 1200 years ago and think about real-life humans who did it!
Here are some pictures from the exhibition about the Book of Kells:
I thought that many years ago when I was really into history, I read about the origin of the name Pangur, and I thought it was used in the Gargantua book, but I can’t find any references now. All the links point to that cat 🙂 Continue reading “The Trinity College And The Book Of Kells”→
I am on my way to Helsinki from Paris, and tomorrow, I will fly back to Chicago. There are 400+ photos in my picture gallery, and I know that the moment I am back in Chicago, other things will take priority. That’s why I will try to show more while I am still en route.
Going back to my first day in Dublin, I discovered that the air temperature felt different than in Chicago, and what I thought of as late spring weather was anything but. The first day was the warmest, even with the strong winds from the sea.
Hettie's Reflections 