Guard Yer Taytos! Our Return to Dublin

After a fair amount of effort, we're heading back to Dublin--or, in Peyton's opinion, the motherland. A land of the doughy and the Guinness guzzling. A land of little sunshine and amazing mass transit. A land of chicken stuffing sandwiches and gravy. In other words, paradise.

For those of you who don't know, I'll be spending the next three weeks in Dublin teaching with my friend, Tim. I'll be teaching a course on Irish memoir and he'll be teaching political theory. So, in essence, we'll be spending three weeks exploring how the personal affects the political and how the political affects the personal. It's hard to imagine a more perfect way to learn how disciplines and epistemologies intersect. Is it wrong to be jealous of my students?

Sadly, however, this means we're leaving our darling kitties at home--although they did try to make a case for coming with us. We patiently explained to them that there are no litter boxes on the plane, so they've decided to stay at home with their friend, Destiny.

And, while it's only about 8:00 a.m., we've already had lectures on the virtues of synthetic oil from the man driving the shuttle, the hazards of leaving a wallet in your pocket from the TSA man, and the danger of Trader Joe's trail mix left in a purse from the X-ray technician/man. All in all, it's been a mansplainy morning, but we did wrangle seats together for both flights, which is nothing short of a miracle considering we had to book our tickets separately.

And, best of all, we get to spend the next several weeks in one of my favorite cities with some of my most favorite people. I'm sure that Eleanor (read past blog posts for more about her) is pulling out her finest placemats for us.

Last, but not least, I'm looking forward to visiting this gorgeous beast again very soon in the Natural History Museum.

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Dublin, Day 1

While domestic flights will provide you a small glimpse into what makes human beings both delightful and horrific (sweat pants, 20 carryons, various kinds of drunken businessmen), the international flight is better. Peyton and I often lament about Americans, but we really shine when crammed into an Air Bus 330 and then forced to breath each others' air for eight or more hours. However, it turns out that the cure of exhaustion and jet lag to to be met at the house by an adorable Irish child. To ratchet up the cuteness a notch, add an American flag. After a giant Irish brunch, Peyton, Eleanor (friend of 20 years and local Irish host extraordinaire), and I headed out to Dalkey--an adorable seaside town about 12 miles south of Dublin. Eleanor lured me in by announcing that there was a 10th Century cemetery at Dalkey Castle --that's all I needed to hear. Once we arrived at Dalkey Castle, Eleanor bought us tickets for the medieval tour. Moments later, we were o...

Dublin, Day 4

Day four is the day when Dublin begins to take on a familiar feel. Yes, that's St. Stephen's Green. Yes, that's Grafton Street. Yes, the river is that way. Building a relationship with a city is like getting to know a new friend--even if you really, really, really like them, you still don't want to come on too strong or get too familiar too fast. So, we're taking it easy with Dublin, but we're beginning to get a feel for one another. My favorite way to get to know a city is through my stomach. We've been harassing Eleanor to take us to a grocery store and she finally indulged us. After getting the girls off to school, we walked to the local shopping center. Then, we were faced with the hard decision of sightseeing in the grocery, or eating pastries. I'm no dummy, I chose the pastry. I think "American Style Donuts" is a great name for an all girl punk band. This is the face of a happy man. I especially love the bit of custard filling i...

I Always Get a Sunburn in Ireland--Days 12 & 13

I was extra prepared this time-- more sunscreen, more varieties of sunscreen, repeat applications, etc. I still got a damn sunburn. Are we closer to the sun here? Is the sun more intense? Am I outside more? I guess it doesn't really matter. All I know is that despite what people tell me about the typically dreary weather here, it's always relentlessly sunny when I'm in Ireland. I'm not the only one with a sunburn though, I'd say about 80% of our students are sporting some variety of sunburn as well--peeling noses, red necks, scorched parts. Also, I'm still fighting off this damn cold. To make things even worse, when we got home from Belfast yesterday, I discovered that I've got some kind of conjunctivitis in my right eye. So now I'm sunburned, coughing, and I have a crusty right eye. The pharmacist gave me some drops and I'm praying that they work... Brolene eye drops. But, hey, we're still having fun! Day 12 Friday started off with Tim and ...

Learning How to Pronounce Sláinte

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