Voice class was awesome today. I normally just do the meditation/breathing/vocal excersizes and hope for them to be over quickly but today I really clicked with them, which was awesome. Maybe I am actually improving... perish the thought. We worked on Beckett text today. I have now worked on Beckett in EVERY class. Those of you who were in Script Anal with me know my opinion of Beckett. Dry, boring, pretenious... etc. HOWEVER, this semester has really opened my mind to Beckett. He is only boring when people suck at doing Beckett.
WOW.
I openly laughed today at Beckett. Seriously. As in, I found the humor in it. I actually got up and did a scene from Endgame... and enjoyed myself.
I have an interview at the Ark Theatre in... 1 hour. I need to make myself presentable and walk over there and wow them with my personality so I can volunteer there, which I really want to do.
Today I am going to see my friend Annie's Irish manfriend (boyfriend) play at a pub downtown. Toooootally excited. I went Sunday night and saw him play. Good craic.
Monologue presentations tomorrow.
"Don't be afraid to take a risk, and fall on your face." says Donal, my acting tutor.
Before you say anything... I know, I know. Its been like a week. I am a horrible blogger. I couldn't get myself to sit down and write about my weekend adventure (which was awesome). But now, I will.
The bus ride to Galway was ridiculous. Just plan ridiculous. Long. The guy next to me kept yelling on his phone. When he finally got off an Italian couple made out next to me for the remainder of the trip. It was raining when I got to Galway and I got lost going to my hostel. I know what you are thinking. I thought you said it "was awesome", Jule. I did. Hold your horses.
I finally found it. It was really cool. I met a girl with in a few minutes who had graduated from UF and we chatted and had some tea. Then I met Joey, Josh and Lauren for dinner at the King's Head pub. I finally got those Irish tapas I had been dreaming about. Yumm. Then we met up with the other people who happened to be in Galway that weekend and got drinks. Desi had a friend (from Dallas) named Preston who was studying in Galway who we met up with. He was cool and funny and we got along. He went to high school with Nelson, I later found out. Weirdness.
After a bit I headed back to my hostel as I had an early morning. I got sick during the night. Probably those Irish tapas I had been dreaming off. Not Yumm. I got up eaaaaaaarly to catch the bus to Leenane. It was basically deserted. The bus ride was about an hour and a half... when I finally got there I de-bused and walked down one of two roads in town to my B&B. The people who owned my B&B were.... strange. The young lady who greeted me (I say young... she was probably late 30's) I have decided is actually a character in 'Beauty Queen of Leenane', as is her mother. The Dad was very friendly, though slightly deaf, and made me a fire to sit by and read.
I wandered the town, taking pictures. Got lunch,went to the cultural center and the wool museum (hahah.) and interviewed a lady there. Found out there is actually a woman who called herself the 'beauty queen of Connemara' who lived in Leenane, who everyone believes the play was probably based on. I had dinner at the hotel after over hearing 4 conversations between the mother and daughter that convinced me that my theory was correct. I treated myself to cheese cake (which is NOT the same over here) and then returned to my B&B, read and then called it an early night.
I awoke the next morning to a full Irish breakfast. YUMMMMMMMMMY. Seriously. So good. Then checked out and walked to the Killary Cruises dock so I could take a lovely boat ride around Ireland's only Fjord. HOWEVER. I learned, after my 3 mile walk to the place that was 'just down the road', that in October the 10:30 cruises no longer run. SOOOOO... I walked back to town, wandered around, then headed to Letterfrack which is about 1o miles away, where I was to catch my bus. I met a lady who I talked to more about the 'beauty queen'. She told me she had met her and though everyone thought she was crazy that she had found her to be quite nice.
In Letterfrack, I decided, since I had 6 hours to burn before my bus to Galway, that I would go to the Connemara National Park. I wasn't planning on hiking but one thing led to another and before I knew it (actually it took a while) I was at the top of Diamondhill (not a fitting name for the BEAST I climbed) with torn up, leaky boots, my backpack and an apple. Lucky, I made some Irish friends on the climb, Tristan and Ciarian. They were kind enough to keep me company and offered me some of their food. We all walked down together and they bought me a pint at the bottom and chatted with me till my bus came. The bus ride back to Galway was fine but the bus to Dublin was delayed, then took forever. I got into Dublin around 12:30am, grabbed a taxi and fell asleep the minute my head touched the pillow.
Nothing to exciting has happened since then. I leave for Switzerland on Friday to met Michael and hike the Alps!!! Then I have a day turn around before I go to London for 4 days. Its going to be a wicked sweet and exhausting break. :)
So I need to pack. Bah. I leave tomorrow at 1pm for my great solo adventure. I am slightly nervous actually. I am not sure what to pack. I forgot to get some of the books from the library before I left today... I am dumb. That means I have to do it tomorrow before I leave.... bah. That makes my day tomorrow.... stressful to say the least. I need to buy a camera too...
ANYWAY. I saw an amazing show tonight called "To Be Straight With You". Its a movement based piece about hate crimes surrounding the gay community around the world. It was incredibly moving... there were some awesome projections and light effects that really pulled the piece together. The actors moved (or "danced") to recorded testimonies by real people but also "became" those people finishing the sentences, speeches, etc. It is kind of hard to describe it but when it ended they got a standing ovation and 3 encores.
For me, well, I was really moved by it. Some of the stories just hurt to hear. The fact that people use the name of God as a weapon to hurt and kill, hurts me deeply. I was reminded of an article I read some time ago in Vanity Fair.
"I could not for any part of me be able to keep quiet, because people were being penalized, ostracized, treated as if they were less than human because of something they could do nothing to change- their sexual orientation. For me, the Lord that I worship, this Jesus Christ, actually concurring with the persecuation of a minority that is already being persecuted. The Jesus who I worship is a Jesus who was forever on the side of those who were being clobbered, and he got in trouble precisely because of that, Our Church, the Anglican Church, is experiencing a very, very serious crisis. It's all to do with human sexuality. I think God is weeping. He is weeping that we should be spending so much energy, time, resources on this subject at a time when the world is aching."
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu
I have always felt an incredible connection to that quote and this piece of theatre just touched that part of my heart again.
Today for Devising class we went to the National Art Gallery to see the Edvard Munch(you know..."The Scream"? Ya. That guy) prints. Really cool stuff. We were instructed to people watch... so we wandered around the museum... I saw the 20th Century Irish Art exhibit I had missed on my last visit along with the Yeats Exhibit. I left earlier than most people, though I did stop in to see my favorite "Connemara Girl" ( by Augustus Nicholas Burke), before I left.
I walked across the street to Merrion Square Park and walked around for a bit taking in the beautiful scenery before I settled down on a bench and finished the play I was reading. It was a lovely relaxing afternoon. I wandered a bit more around the park and went to hang out with my good pal Oscar Wilde (his statue is in the park) then headed back to the apartment which is literally 2 minutes away.
I spent the next 2 hours calling and searching and finalizing my trip to Leenane this weekend. I must be out of my mind, but I am going alone. Yup. My first solo trip. I haven't even been to a movie by myself, for goodness sake. But as all of my tutors seem to say, I "didn't travel 3,000 miles to be comfortable." I got all the details figured out so I am extremely excited. It is actually quite complicated to get out there... that whole area is basically cut off... not a big touristy place.
Well, I still have more plays to read before tomorrow and I need to make myself some dinner or something. More later.
I am getting really bad at doing this... I have even slacked on my private journaling.
Hokay so...
On Friday I got up at around 7am in order to make sure I wasn't going to be late to Voice class again. Cathal will seriously end me if I am again. Yikes. So I was there early. That class is ridiculously relaxing. So after we all rushed to the Center to make the bus to Glendalough. After about an hour we got there and started our trek to the top of the mountain. This is just a taste. It was awesome face. Me and some of the lads being epic on the top.
We took a really long time walking up and then back down so we couldn't make it to Johnny Fox's (Ireland's highest pub) so instead we went and saw some beautiful monastic ruins, which in my opinion, was much more awesome than drinking... again.
We got back on the bus after that and headed back. It was Culture Night in Dublin so we changed and got ready to go out. Culture Night is a night when most of the museums and other cultural type things are open late into the night and are free. A few of the lads and I went over to Trinty College and went to the international student reception and joined the International Student Club. I met a some French guys who were baffled by my name and some cool German girls.
After that we headed to the Science Museum because there was a Bubble exhibit. I stood inside a bubble. Literally. The bubble was formed around me. I also got put my hand through a bubble. It was flippin' sweet. Then we kind of wandered around for a bit trying to find more stuff to do. Half the group went to The Stag's Head and the other half went to Temple Bar area. I went with the Temple Bar group but after a while I walked my friend back to the train so she could go home. Then I tried to find The Stag's Head and got horribly turned around. I ended up walking around Dublin for about 2 hours on my lonesome. Finally I went to meet up with some people at Doyle's and danced for a bit. Discussed the Lisbon Treaty with a man named Andy at the bar. It was quite funny yet informative. After a while I decided I needed to sleep so I headed home. So walking done the streets of Dublin around 1am I ran into my friend Ethan on the street. We both agreed it was a completely bizarre happenstance but he walked me part of the way home since it was 1am.
Saturday I went to the Temple Bar market for breakfast and got a Blueberry Scone. YUM. :) Spent the day catching up on some work then got Indian food with some folks for dinner. They all went out dancing and I stayed home (like a lame-o) and read an awesome play by Marina Carr.
This morning I woke up and the roommates and I headed to Howth, a seaside town just outside Dublin. There was a lovely market, which was unexpected, which we bought some delicious baked goods at. We walked by the seaside for a while then ate the lunches we packed, enjoying the view. Headed back on the train after a few hours.
I bought Carrot Cake at the market which is currently sitting in my fridge and it is taking most of my will power not to devour it.
Got off to a bad start. We miscalculated how long it would take us to get to the train station so we ran the last 6 minutes of the journey. I went to pick up the tickets I had purchased online but they couldn't find my reservation. We went to the kiosk to try to buy more but our student cards weren't working. Finally, as we were about to miss our train, Nina bought adult tickets and we RAN to catch our train. Since we got there just in time we lost our seats so we stood in the luggage section for about an hour and a half. We found seats and played 'MASH' and 'Soulmate' for the remainder the trip. Awesome.
We got to Galway about 5:15pm and went to figure out the ticket situation. Turns out we only bought one ticket on accident. But we got it all sorted and headed to the hostel. We got there around 6pm. Met some French Canadian guys only to find out that the website I had booked through didn't communicate with the actual hostel so they didn't have beds for us. They apologized a bunch and got us beds at another hostel one block over. It was okay though because we all adored the guys who worked at the new hostel's reception who were awesome and Australian.
We got to our room that we were suppose to be sharing with another girl. We changed and head out for dinner. We walked around trying to find some place to eat and decided on The King's Head pub. We all shared a bottle of wine and I tried my first mussel! Bah! Not half bad. Then I ate potato and leech soup with brown bread. YUM. We chatted with some English guys who were at the table next to us who recommend pubs for when we go to London.
We walked around after dinner for a while and went to a pub called Tuffes and Nina and I had James and Ginger and listened to some Irish music. Best ever. Then head to Supermac's ( an Irish fast food chain) and got Italian icecream. Weird? Then headed to another pub we had heard about that had a live band. Jenni and I ordered a Cider and Black (Cider with Blackcurrent... so gooooood). Nina then decided I need to talk to the group of guys that were eyeing us. To all of you who know me well, you must realize how completely against this I was. Jenni and I went to listen to the band, Molly and Nina talked to them. Finally, I sucked it up and went over.
We spent the rest of the evening talking. They were very interesting guys actually. Their names were, wait for it... Andy, Andrew and Jaime. Sadly, not an Eamonn or Seamus or Patrick in sight.
*giant frowny face*
Jaime and I hit it off, as he was a complete bro. I don't think he realized that that was the only reason I talked to him for so long. That, and he was attractive. But I digress. He was impressed with my knowledge of Hurling and Irish things. He said I was smart for an American. He was from County Kerry and completely offensive.
Andy was from Kilkenny and was really nice so we talked for a while. He wants to visit America... I recommended Texas; he agreed. He asked how I had liked his town and we had a lovely chat about how its not REALLY 'Medieval'.
We were exhausted so finally around 11 we head back to the hostel. We ended up talking for a while about random things which was really nice.
The next day we all woke up, enjoyed free hostel breakfast and headed to catch the bus, then the ferry to the Aran Islands. We got to Inis Mór around 11am, rented bikes and set off on a fantastic adventure.
It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my entire life. I can't really describe how peaceful and wonderful it was to take a leisurely bike ride. It is the only way to see the Island in my opinion. Little tour buses kept passing us and I felt bad for them actually... they were really missing out.
Just an example. Pictures can not do the scenery justice.
We rode for about 2 hours and stopped for lunch at Dun Aonghasa, a Celtic ruin that dates back to 2000 B.C. We debated taking the hike up to see it as we were having such a fantastic time biking. The lady at the visitors center basically told us not going would be like going to the Grand Canyon and then not going to see it. She was a little intense about it, but we paid our euro and went up.
IT. WAS. INCREDIBLE. I was completely and utterly dumbfounded by how spectacular the view was. You could see for hundreds of miles. The view of the Atlantic will be ingrained in my mind forever. At least I hope so. We stayed for more than an hour, talking and looking, relaxing and being generally flabbergasted. We reluctantly started our decent as we needed to bike back to port to make the last ferry back to the mainland. Unfortunately about half way through that trip my camera broke so I don't have pictures from the second half of the journey which is really, really sad because it was amazing as well. We got back just in time to make the ferry.
We got back to Galway around 8pm and were exhausted and starving. We had delicious dinner and coffee and discussed our amazing day. We all agreed it was out favorite thing we have done so far. We got some dessert crepes at a local crepery. Greeeeeat stuff. Headed back to the hostel and played cards since no one wanted to spend more money. Spent the night talking, which again, was great.
The next morning we parted ways. Jenni and Molly stayed in Galway to see the sights and Nina and I head out on our bus tour of the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher. The tour was nice, though we were spoiled by the day before and the bus was not as awesome (especially for pictures). We had a large Irish lunch followed by coffee and cheesecake at a pub called Fitzpatricks then went to the cliffs.
The cliffs were incredible, obviously. We went out past the "Don't go past this point" sign... as everyone does. That was totally worth it because the pictures were so much better.
We spent about and hour there then got back on the bus and saw a Celtic burial site then toured a cave (in which they found bear skeletons). That is a big deal here as bears haven't inhabited Ireland in 1000 years. The cave itself was kind of lame but Nina and I made the best of it.
We got back to Galway around 5:30 then went to the train station to catch the train back to Dublin. However, our train had a technical malfunction and we ended up spending 2 hours on the platform before FINALLY leaving. That got us in to Dublin around 10: 45 and we didn't get home until 11- something. Needless to say I was exhausted.
All in all, it was a completely fantastic weekend.
Jeez, that was a lot to write. If you got to the end of this and read it all, you really are a true friend. ; )
