Croeso Cymru

I have no idea if that title is at all grammatically accurate, but those are the words for ‘welcome’ and ‘Wales’ in Welsh…so welcome to Wales with me! It’s been a ridiculously long time since I had any significant amount of internet time, so I have a lot to catch you up on! Since the last time I wrote, our group has been in Dublin and we’re now near Aberystwyth, Wales, in the most charming hotel on the face of the earth, I’m pretty sure: The Hafod Arms. My room has flower-patterned bedspreads and curtains, with a windowseat looking out to the rugged hills and ravines of Wales! This place is almost like a little Scotland, with rugged countryside and thick mists, but the flowers are starting to bloom, and they’re beautiful: blackthorn, bluebells, wild primroses, wood sorrel, and celandine 🙂 We took a 6 1/2 mile walk around the area on Tuesday with a retired couple who spoke Welsh and studied botany, and learned a lot about the land and language. It’s funny, parts of the landscape look like California, with the brown-tinted rivers and oak leaves scattered on the ground, but then you see a little cottage tucked into the sheep-dotted hills or see ‘diolch’ (thank you) on a postcard and know you’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Speaking of not in Kansas, they’re feeding us here like we were in Buckingham Palace! Oh my gosh, I’m convinced that they’re out to feed us to death! They’ll serve a splendid lineup of breakfast foods on a buffet table (including warm croissants :)) and then come around and take orders for a hot breakfast…and the first night, we were shocked to find out that dinners include three courses and last an hour and a half! I think that if I don’t die of amazement at the tastes, I will certainly die of explosion. It’s really wonderful to have a place to unwind and relax after Dublin. We’re ten miles inland of the small town of Aberystwyth, which really puts us in the middle of nowhere. Compared to the constant sightseeing craze of Dublin, our days here are like rafting down a lazy river: eat, sleep, curl up with a blanket and read beside the fire, drink tea, walk in the hills…it’s absolutely lovely. How I manage to still be behind on sleep and homework is beyond me!

Yesterday was Gia’s birthday, one of the girls on our trip, and the day got even more interesting. After a failed attempt to see some of the medieval manuscripts at the University of Aberystwyth in the afternoon, the hotel staff got rambunctious and really wanted to set up their karaoke machine for us…so after our (yet again) sumptuous dinner, our entire group, professor and his wife included, had an impromptu karaoke party in Wales, including ‘The House of the Rising Sun,’ ‘I Want It That Way,’ and ‘A Whole New World.’ It was hilarious. And THEN one of the girls along, Sandra, who knows a variety of English Country Dances, took us into the hotel’s large all-purpose room, converted it into a ballroom, and we imitated Pride and Prejudice in Wales…it was marvelous 🙂 We’re all starting to look like painted portraits in the clothes out of our small suitcases, but although we were a motley crew, it was very delightful. On Sunday, we used the same room to put together our own homemade church service–complete with gluten-free communion and a devotional out of the Chronicles of Narnia. It was wonderful 🙂

British elections are also today, as we found out from a colorful taxi (‘tacsi’ in Welsh!) driver yesterday. The Labor Party is expected to be ousted after 12 years in favor of the Tories. It was interesting to hear his perspective on Welsh-English politics. Apparently Wales has recently gotten its own parliament, which can make decisions on things like schools, but they still have no power of taxation, and our driver didn’t think Wales would ever have that kind of power. Our walking guide on Tuesday said she thought the difference between being English and being Welsh was a feeling of superiority versus a feeling of defensiveness. I’ve read about English colonialism in books, but I didn’t realize how current it is, and how real for ordinary people in 2010. Even if the lives of ordinary English and Welsh people seem similar on the surface, there’s a whole stew of frustrations, power plays, and resentment under the surface. It was similar in Ireland and in Scotland as well–the English are generally seen as the oppressors, who seize power and don’t give it back to these ethnically and linguistically separate people groups. It’s sobering, and a little scary to wonder how all these political tensions will manifest themselves, even in the very near future.

Anyway, speaking of Ireland, I have to tell you a little about Dublin! It’ll have to be just a little slice, because the 5 days we spent there were absolutely jam-packed, but it was fun experience. I knew very little about it before going, and was amazed by how old, diverse, and buzzing the city is. Old, because it was originally founded by the Vikings around the 9th century (I think) and they’ve found valuable sites of Viking archaeology buried in the city proper–even under a site proposed for government offices, just a few years ago! Diverse, because every kind of people have come to live there. The Temple Bar area, where we stayed, is not just a tourist magnet, but home to great Italian, Indian, Spanish, and Chinese food, not to mention pubs serving Irish stew and Guinness. It was really nice to find some lasagna on the other side of the world 🙂 But I’ve also decided that brown soda bread is my favorite Irish food–so good with Irish cheese 🙂 Dublin is EXPENSIVE, and Alyssa and I perfected the art of the picnic in the city–which gave us superior views to any of the restaurant windows, from the lawn of Christ Church Cathedral to the steps across from the Old Library in Trinity College! And lastly, buzzing, because there are a million and one things to do in Dublin and I’m pretty sure the town never sleeps, especially on weekends. Falling asleep on Friday night was a little tricky with the pounding music in the downstairs bar coming up loudly through three floors…

Well, some of the highlights of Dublin (for me) were definitely books. On our first day there, we took a historical tour of the city, which ended us up in Trinity College’s Old Library, where lives *drumroll, please* the Book of Kells: the most beautiful and perfectly preserved illuminated medieval manuscript in existence. It’s a set of the four Gospels illuminated (decorated) with embellished letters and full pages of colorful Celtic art, dating back to the 8th century AD. It was magical to learn about how such manuscripts were made, and then getting to enter the dark room with bulletproof glass protecting the treasure itself. I was inches from the penstrokes that told the Gospel story 12 centuries ago…the designs were incredibly ornate and detailed, and so well preserved considering their enormous age. I was blown away. And then–completely unaware–we walked into the Long Room: where the Library keeps its collection of 200,000 old and rare books. It was breathtaking. They actually raised the ceiling to fit more books in 🙂 It reminded me of the Beauty and the Beast library, with sliding ladders and all! I was in heaven.

And as if those weren’t enough old books to keep me happy for the rest of my life, the next day we visited the Chester Beatty library, the collection of a wealthy American expatriot, which included (ack!) papyrus copies of Biblical texts dating back as far as AD 150!!! I saw a scrap of the Gospel of John, written down by someone who could have known the Apostle himself!!! And they were all in Greek…I was able to recognize the word ‘chairo’, ‘I rejoice,’ in an 1800-year-old copy of Philippians…ack!! I almost died (again) of sheer delight!

So, I really enjoyed the book aspect of Dublin, needless to say 🙂 Other really cool things were getting to hear an evensong by the choir of Christ Church Cathedral with its soaring ceilings, eating delicious fish and chips on its lawn, seeing an exhibition on W.B. Yeats in the National Library (including some of his original manuscripts! Books again 🙂 and the Brooch of Tara in the National Museum. St. Stephen’s Green has to be one of the most beautiful parks I’ve ever seen–equivalent to Central Park in New York, but filled with tulip gardens, waterfalls, and Irish schoolchildren 🙂 Our group went to see the musical ‘Evita’ at the Gaiety Theatre–a great production, but a little funny to hear Irish actors singing in Spanish 😛 On Thursday, I had the day off class, so I went on a bus tour of  Tara and Newgrange, really really really old sites in Irish history–the picture of the carved rock is from Newgrange, a tomb dating to 3200 BC (yes, BC!! That’s 5000 years of history!). It’s a mound of stone under a green hill, all built without mortar, with one entrance into which the sunlight would only enter for 17 minutes on the morning of the Winter Solstice.

Ack! I’m afraid I’m talking your ears off, but a week and a half of adventures with no internet access leaves me with so much to tell you.  Some of the other subjects of the pictures I’ve posted: a visit to the Rock of Cashel, the ancient seat of Ireland’s archbishops, en route from Dingle to Dublin–amazing Celtic crosses and a 12th (?) century round tower, unique to Ireland. Caernarfon Castle, en route from Dublin to the Hafod Arms–one of the best-preserved castles in existence, begun by the Normans in the 1200s, where Prince Charles was ‘invested’ as Prince of Wales…a long time ago. The picture of the group of us in the gazebo is from the top of Jacob’s Ladder, a set of steep stone steps, with a beautiful view out to the ‘rhaeadrau’, waterfalls, near our hotel. There are some views of the countryside around here–just beautiful, with the cloud-shadows drifting over the hills, or the blackthorn blooming in pastures dotted with grazing sheep. Oh man, I can’t believe I have the gift and privilege of being here. I feel insanely blessed.

Well, if you’re still awake after that million-mile trek through the last 10 days of my adventures, diolch! We’re leaving tomorrow for Cambridge, and hopefully it won’t be another 10 days until I can write to you, but Britain is full of sheep, not computers 🙂 I’m realizing that efficiency here is not considered the virtue it is in the U.S.–here, you deal with people, not machines. It can be a bit frustrating when you’re trying to get things done, but then you realize that the conversations you have with waitresses and taxi drivers are so much more important than getting things done, anyway. I would send you a bouquet of Welsh flowers if I could, but I’ll just send love and long-distance hugs instead.

And…a happy early Mother’s Day to all you moms (especially mine)!