is there an elevator to the big lake this way?

Ah Glendalough, we finally made it to the Wicklow Mountains. And not a moment too soon. Fran has been trying to get to Glendalough for the past 5 months, and myself for the last month. and it was meant to be because when we left Dublin, it was gray and had rained the previous day so we were afraid it was going to be crap weather and that it would be miserable but as we drove away from the city and toward the mountains we came into sunshine and had too many clothes! we hiked for about 4.5 hours then stopped for lunch and a nap then back to the bus. we were supposed to leave on sunday but it was raining and miserable so we scrapped that idea. instead i went and saw the african art, it was art from Nigeria and it was gorgeous, wood carvings, paintings and weavings of the Queen Mother, a very important figure in the tribes. Brightly colored and abstract, and all i could think of what skilled sculptors there were in Nigeria.

then i went to the Photography institute where someone had done a personal project documenting how dublin and ireland had changed since he left back in the early 80s. Apparently there were no jobs here in the country so people were going to london to work and outside of the country to work and always had plans of returning, some did and some didn't but this gentleman went to school for photography in London and then ended up staying in London as a freelance photographer for several years and then came back about 15 years later and did not see the same ireland he knew. There are many irish people who feel this way and can't relate totally to the changing cultural diversions within the city and the country. And right outside in Meeting House Squre was tada an African Market with tribal clothing, dancing singing, again beautiful very similar to some of the things i experienced in elementary school growing up with the Native American culture. Then it started to rain. So Fran went and picked up a Mihizaki movie "Kiki's Delivery Service" not so impressive like Spirited Away but still a nice cartoon to watch on a rainy. Then we decided to go to The Celt for some traditional Irish music sung by 2 woman, who hypothesize are mother and daughter. The Celt was packed and sweaty and smelled horrible but the music was great, and i am so glad there is no smoking allowed inside the pub. So after 2.5 hours of music listening and singing Fran walked me half way home and she went to find her friend Selana who went back to Italy on Monday.

So after going to bed at 2am I found that Fran came home with a friend of her's but did not go to bed until 5am. and we got up the next moring at 10am to go to Glendalough. We still hiked up the mountainside, we saw both of the lakes, including a lake that was in a photograph from the photo series i had seen on Sunday. We also saw a waterfall, and did some tresspassing to an early christian ruin, it was gorgeous and you could see some of the celtic knot chisilings on the stones. This is where i insert a funny story about the title. so we rain into several sets of people who said to us, is this the way to the lake? and it was like did you see the sign that said Lower Lake not this direction? then there was an irish gentleman who asked if the elevator to the Upper Lake was this way, and i told him he's just walking up the mountain at this point and he should turn around if he wants to go to the lake. "Did you not find purchase your 50 cent hiking map?" The mountain side, is what you imagine when you think of ireland. so green and lush with valleys and lakes in the valleys, goats, sheep and my cousins the cows!
The funny thing is we almost missed the bus to leave dublin and we almost missed the bus to get back to dublin, i told fran she is not in charge of time keeping once i get a watch! so we had a contest to see who would fall asleep first on the bus and i won! so we napped the entire time into town, but as we were leaving Glendalough we saw an antique shop that had this strange manequin with a flag wrapped around it holding a pole and we looked at each other like what the hell is that? Once we made it to Dublin we got off the bus and were practically carrying each other down Grafton St. and Wicklow St. where we decided to stop in to Cornicopia for an oat bar! We got a mixed berry oat bar with soy yougurt and a Gluten Free piece of Cake with cream. Both were great and we just managed to get in before they closed. oh just what we needed after a day of hiking. We then headed to the DVD shop where we promptly decided to rent another Mihizaki movie "My Friend Totoro" when we went to exchange the DVDs we found that we had not put "Kiki's Delivery Service" back in the case, so we carried an empty case with us all day (no this is where i introduce Fran's word for her air headedness that i will use from now on it is Spindadta which is what we say when we do something silly) so we walked home and then i volunteered to go back to exchange the DVDs. We defrosted our freezer this day as well, and found a hamburger frozen in the ice (big chuckles here) it was like uncovering a mammoth in the arctic circle, only it was a hamburger in aluminum foil! so she dealt with that and disinfected the hell out of the freezer, perhaps Grandma's cleansing bar recipe would have been helpful at this point! So we both took our showers and sat down at 10pm for our movie and by 11pm i was like i can't keep my eyes open anymore so we turned it off and had to go to bed.

Tuesday Day 3 of being off from work: woohoo! so i did some lame thing around the house like trasfer our food from Paul's fridge to our own and then i went to the library where i picked up a book called Vive le Vegan! what a great cook book. i also found a design competition that i think i am going to work on and enter to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the European Union, looks fun and i checked the rules, it just said i had to be living in one of the EU states, i didn't have to be a citizen of the EU, woo hoo loop holes! i also dropped more stuff off at the homeless shelter, shampoos, deoderant, face soaps etc. Then i headed to the National Gallery for the Caravaggio. Finally a Caravaggio, the taking of christ in which Caravaggion inserted himself as a bystanndered in the back right corner holding a lantern, oh it was great finally a Caravaggio in real life, not a slide a printed image the real oil pained thing. it's amazing that something pained over 400 years ago can still be in such great shape today, i'm sure it has been touched up but what a master of oil paint the man was. absolutely have to appreciate an artist like that. so that was the weekend here in dublin, i'm christie culliton, good night.

xoxo,
christie