Overdue Belfast post

So, I finally got around to writing up my thoughts on the political murals in Belfast. I made post about it on the recently renamed CMC Center for Human Rights Leadership blog. Check it out here.

Twitter

I can now be followed on Twitter for anyone who is interested: http://twitter.com/TRClifford

SB 09, Tom Goes Everywhere

So, I've been back from my spring break for 9 days now, and I've just got the pictures uploaded. It was the time of my life. My itinerary followed by pictures are below. Click on the pictures to see the whole album.

Itinerary
3 nights in Paris
2 nights in the Cinque Terre
2 nights in Florence
4 nights in Rome
2 nights in Naples
Train to Bari, night ferry to Patras (in Greece), where I continued to
3 nights in Athens
Night train to Istanbul
5 nights in Istanbul
Night plane to Vienna
2 nights in Vienna
Night train to Frankfurt, 11 hours in Frankfurt then,
3 nights in the Netherlands
Back to Ireland

Paris

Versailles

Cinque Terre

Florence

Rome

Ostia Antica

Naples

Pompei

Bari

Athens

Thessaloniki

Istanbul

Vienna

Frankfurt

The Netherlands

UK Nationals

Two weekends ago, I played with UCC at UK Ultimate Nationals. The weekend was a blast, as Ultimate tournaments are wont to be.

After an 3-ish hour wait at Robin Hood Airport, we finally got into our rental cars, put miniature Irish tricolors on top, and headed for our hotel. After spending a few hours not being lost, just exploring the English countryside, we finally arrived at the Days Inn. As I walked in the door, in front of me were a group of Ultimate players from Cambridge. Upon seeing my Claremont Braineaters sweatshirt, they give me a quizzical look and one says "Braineaters? Do you know Paul?"

At this point, a short man in a brown sweatshirt turns around and says "Hi, I'm Paul. Or, Icecock." And that's how I met Paul Robustelli, the man, the myth, the legend, and Braineater alum '06.

Anyway, let me give a run-down of this tournament. First of all, the top two teams from Ireland qualify to play in the British Nationals, the top one in D-I, the second one in DII. Trinity has been the best team in Ireland for years, and supposedly the best they've ever done at this tournament was 9th place. We came in seeded 14th. Most of the team was pretty pessimistic at first, basically saying that we'll be happy if we just win a game. Now, I'm not a fan of this attitude, but I also don't think its my place as a visiting student to become the rude, obnoxious American lecturing people about winning. In any case, our first game was against the 8th seed, Newcastle's Too Many Pies. Anyway, we started off strong on these guys and never looked back. final score was 9-3 if I recall correctly. At this point, our team got our mental at together and realized we were going to win more games.

Next game was against the (12th seeded) Sussex Mohawks. Howling winds destroyed our game. Well both teams made lots of silly hucks into the wind, Mohawks were consistently able to come down with more of them, and that was more or less the story of the game. Final score: Cork 5, Susssex 9.

We ended our pool play on Saturday with a game against Cambridge (2nd seed). I felt like I played my best in this game, but Cambridge was clearly a better trained, disciplined, and conditioned team. Final score was somewhere around 4-11. Paul never played, so I missed out on the opportunity to match up against an ex-Brain.

Crossover game was against Exeter Uriel. Winner of this game would have the opportunity to play for the top 8 spots, while the loser would be relegated to playing for 9th at best. It was a tight game, each team trading points, with the wind getting a tiny bit softer than it had been all day. Point trading was still essentially dictated by the wind, and despite finally getting an upwind break, Exeter got two, ending the game at around 10-8.

Sunday, however, would be much better. First game was against London School of Economics (LSE). despite trading points early on, we built a comfortable lead and ended up winning, I forget the exact score. Following this, our game against Dundee came up. We immediately went down 3-0. We were making stupid mistakes. I could tell we were the smarter, more experienced team, but fatigue was getting to us. Then, we started hucking it into the endzone and our tallest guy, Kyle just kept bringing 'em down. Game ended somewhere around Cork 9, Dundee 6.

Final game of the day, the "plate" final, for 9th place was a doozy. Everyone on our team was worn to the core. Just warming up was rough. We actually started off quite strong, eventually taking a 10-6 lead. However, lots of breaks soon put us a single point ahead, 11-10, with the cap at ten. Despite us dropping the disc in the endzone twice, we were able to recover and end the game at 12-10. So, Sunday was 3-0, and the best day of Ultimate we've ever played. Everyone on the team was smoother, making much better decisions, great movement by our handlers and cutters.

The championship game was incredibly boring to watch. Warwick won the game 13-1. Blowout. Final seedings were:

1. Warwick
2. Portsmouth
3. Loughborough
4. St. Andrews
5. Edinburgh
6. Cambridge
7. Manchester
8. Exeter
9. University College Cork
10. Cardiff
11. Sussex
12. Dundee
13. Newcastle
14. Liverpool
15. Bristol
16. LSE

Yeah, we ended up ahead of the Mohawks, relieving.

This tournament was way different than most tournaments I've played in the U.S. First of all, it was not run by a non-profit organization just made for Ultimate. Rather, it was run by BUCS, the British University & Colleges Sports group. They were running championships for college sports all over the UK in Sheffield during the course of the week. This brought excellent organization, all players playing any sport got a t-shirt from BUCS, and pretty good free boxed lunches, a huge step up from the standard PB&J and bananas. The one thing that was planned poorly was seeding, but it must be tough for a lot of these. Cork, for example, had never played any of these teams. I'm told it was completely based on the teams' results from last year. You have to work with what information you have, I guess.

Another odd part is simply the amount of women playing. As they really don't have enough people to sustain competitive women's Ultimate teams, most open teams have a few women on them, rather than just men. I guess you see this at schools in the States where they don't have a women's team yet, but those are just developing programs, not the National championships. Cork's captain is a woman. However the top teams did appear to be all men. A winning team is probably indicative of more established programs, where they are also more likely to have developed a separate women's team.

Pictures from the weekend are below. Click to see the album:

Intensive Training Weekend

The weekend after the Siege of Limerick, the UCC Ultimate club went on the "intensive training weekend". We rented out a couple "Irish cottages" (not different from any other house you might see somewhere in the U.S.) outside the town of Kenmare, Co. Kerry, for the team to stay at for the weekend. Anyway, it was really just a good opportunity to hang out at night and bond, while getting some good practices in during the day on actual grass (we normally practice on astroturf).

Not a lot to report happened, but Saturday morning my friend Jindra and I walked into the town of Kenmare to look around. There's a stone age stone circle outside of town, which was kind of cool but not somethng that really takes your breath away. Other things were a beautiful church and some quaint looking houses. Take a look at the pictures (Click to see larger).

Siege of Limerick

Sorry for the delay everyone. A short recap of what I've been up to since I last posted.

I spent two weekends with the Ultimate Frisbee team, Skulltimate, at UCC. The first was at the Siege of Limerick, a really fun tournament hosted by UC Limerick. Saturday was great, we went 2-1. Our day started out playing against Johnny Chimpo, a club team and the top team in Ireland who went on to win the tournament. We opened up to score the first point, but after that it was a struggle, and their superior experience definitely showed. Even with a diminished squad, they beat us 11 to 5.

Next game was against Jerk Factory, a club team that hadn't played together in months. Their lack of chemistry from being out and overall fitness were not up to ours, we bet them handily 13-4.

Our final game of the day was a real nail-biter, playing against NUTS, a team that flew in from Amsterdam. This team had great spirit and made us work really hard. We were trading point for a few rounds, and then a time cap came on while they were up 5-6. The end of the point would determine what the final cap was -- if they scored, it would be 7-5, game played to 8. If we scored, it would be 6-6 and the next point would win. We didn't give it our all, they ended up scoring. We turned on the afterthrust, scored three in a row, ending with a sweet D by Steve Kehoe running down the field to get the D, then Brian throwing a hammer to the breakside in the endzone. NUTS kept us close despite having only 2 or 3 subs compared to our 7.

The next day, we started out playing Broccoli, a club from the Dublin area. We went in with high hopes, but we didn't play the defense we should have, and the result was lots of hucks and lots of us getting burned deep. The first couple points were traded but it was really a one-sided game. There was one highlight of the game for me, though. After cutting deep for a huck, I realized the throw was coming in too short, my defender behind me had the chance to get the D. I was able to get next to him, jump and reach over him, grab the disc between my middle finger on top and index and ring finger on bottom for a nasty sky. However, this sweet moment was irrelevant as we still lost.

Next game was against DIT. With the Irish wind kicking in, their zone shut us down and we made a lot of stupid turns early on that they were able to capitalize on. However, pretty soon we were able to chill out and spread the field better. A sideline from the rugby field the tournament was hosted on confused us, because it was not the sideline for our field but we though it was. Despite some unnecessarily long points with lots of stupid turnovers, we closed the game 11-3.

The final game of the day would be an epic rematch against NUTS. We were tired going in, none of us thought we had the legs to maintain. Using a FSU zone defense, as a handler mark I failed to make the necessary switches, and among other defensive errors by UCC, we ended up down 6-4. Something in us kicked in then, and we went on a 5 point run and the game ended 9-6. NUTS played great, and showed great spirit. I'd love to play against these guys again.

Overall, Our team played great but definitely some communication and focus issues needed to be resolved. Hopefully these will be worked out for UK Nationals, which we're playing in this weekend (March 14-15) in Sheffield, England.

Aran Islands

This weekend, I went to Galway and the Aran Islands with my friends Dylan and Zak. Friday night we stayed at the apartment of Dylan's friend in Galway. We got up early Saturday to get tickets to the Aran Islands. For the price of 36 Euro, we got roundtrip bus rdes to the ferry, ferry to Inis Mor, and a night in the Kilroan Hostel on the island. The Hostel was at Kilronan, the main town on the island and where the ferry lets off.

The Aran Islands are part of the Gaeltacht, the parts of Ireland where Irish is still the local language. For the first time, I actually heard people in casual conversation using Irish. Inis Mor, the largest of the three islands, is about nine miles long and two miles wide. For 10 euro, we rented bikes for the day and explored.



We headed out down the main road for a few miles before coming to a spot where we sat, rested, and took in the beautiful surroundings. The ground on the island was completely covered with rocks. This makes for an amazing visual, but also has a depressing understory. People on the island once used dragged seaweed out of the ocean and layered it with sand to make soil so that they could farm something. Many of the farmers here still use this practice, I'm told. Oliver Cromwell used to say towards his enemies in Ireland "To Hell or Connaught"(the Western section of Ireland). I understand why there was a time when the two could be equated.



A little further along, Zak got into some trouble with his bike, and this friendly farmer whose property we were nearby came out to see if we were alright.


We pressed on, and soon we got to Dun Aengus, a fort originally built in stone age, pre-Celtic Ireland. The fort was restored and expanded many times later, up through teh medieval period. The back of the fort is a sheer cliff face that drops 100 meters into the sea. Sitting in this ancient fort built thousands of years ago felt unreal. I imagined myself in the sndals of an ancient warrior, and honestly, I felt pretty good about this fort. I mean, it's a difficult run up that hill, it's steep, stony, and full of obstacles. My prehistoric enemies ain't got nothin' on me.



After taking in the feeling of the fort, we sat outside and ate our lunch. We brought a picnic of loaves of bread, serrano ham, and cheese, which we shared by passing around a knife to cut off chunks. It was the perfect break for a busy day fending off attackers from our fort.



After lunch we kept moving, got to the "Seven Churches", which are actually only two old churches at an old monastic site, now covered with graves, many of which are actually very recent. Then we began the ride back, for which we took the low road, which was along the coast. We stopped for a break by a beach, then pushed on until we got back to Kilronan.

In town, there were a bunch of French tourists waiting for the day's second, and last, ferry back. An impromptu rugby game broke out as they passed the time.


Ah, now just to end the fantastic day of biking with a hearty meal in town, right? No! Not a single place in Kilronan was serving food past 4:30 PM (much of the town shuts down during the winter, summer is the tourist season). We hiked about 15 minutes outside of town to the island's hotel, where I got a hearty traditional Irish stew with lamb, barley, carrots, and potatoes. The perfect ending to a fantastic Irish day.

The whole time we were there, we had near-perfect weather. The sun was shining most of the time without any clouds in the sky. The weather was cool, but when biking, it became the perfect weather to keep cool while moving around. The day before we were told it was freezing. The islands are absolutely beautiful, and from what I've done here so far, biking Inis Mor is the first thing I would recommend to any visitor to Ireland.

All my pictures from the trip can be accessed here.

The Siege of Limerick Trailer

There's a fun Ultimate tournament coming up in February. It's called the Siege of Limerick, and will be in Limerick (surprise) February 14-15. I've been playing Ultimate with the team here, and I'll be going up. A team from the Netherlands just released a trash-talk video, which I found pretty entertaining. Click here to check out the video.

Getting Acculturated

My Culture, Literature, and Language of Ireland professor (actually called a lecturer here, a professor is the head of a specific department) is exactly what you expect an old Irishman to look like. Short, pale with reddened cheeks and frazzled, thinning red hair. He's also hilarious, and spends half the class making jokes. The following is a gem of a conversation. First, a little background. Irish classes are scheduled from the beginning of an hour to the end of an hour, with no passing period. Since it would be unreasonable to expect people to be there at the exact times, most classes start 5-10 minutes into the hour. The lecturer walked into class yesterday at 6 PM, looked at the full room, and said: "Wow, everyone's on time. That's so un-Irish of you."
Me: "Give us a few weeks, we're not adjusted yet."
Lecturer: "Ah, yes, in a few weeks you'll all be acculturated and come late. Then you'll be drunk, too. But that's not a problem, it will make the lecture better."

(American) Gladiators

American Gladiators, the beloved, patriotic television franchise, is simply known as "Gladiators" here. Europe, stop kidding yourself, we all know who invented it.

Also, in the Eliminator, they replace the hand bicycle part of the eliminator with monkey bars for women. We need to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in the United States immediately to make sure this doesn't happen to our treasured institution.

Immigration, Classes, and Belfast

This post is going to be all over the place.

First, I'm a bit frustrated right now because I just wasted an hour in line to register with the Irish Immigration department. Anyone staying here over 90 days has to register with immigration so the Irish government can make sure we're not trying to move here and mooch off their services. We need to prove we're actually a student and can support ourselves. So, after getting all my forms filled out, I had to walk to the Garda (police) station and wait in line. The walk wasn't bad, only about 1k, but after waiting in line for an hour and getting to the front, they announce they're closing and are not going to take anyone else, because it was 4:00 PM, when they close (it was actually 3:55). So, they sent about 20 of us home without bothering to tell people who had no chance of registering that they were wasting their time waiting. Now I need to go do this all again on Monday morning.

On a different topic, my class schedule is finalized now, here are my list of courses:

1. Introduction to Modern Irish
2. Introduction to French
3. Culture, Literature, and Language of Ireland.
4. Moral Responsibility
5. Citizenship and Human Rights
6. Theories and Origins of Democracy and Ideology

The first three are courses specifically made for visiting students, and the last three are with actual Irish students.

Finally, I reserved my spot on the trip to Belfast that Arcadia University is organizing. It's heavily subsidized, and for only 20 euro, I get transportation, accommodation, a few meals, and some guided tours. It's a great deal and should be a fantastic trip. Below is the itinerary:

Arcadia Belfast Field Trip
27/02/09 - 01/03/09
Itinerary
Nestled on the coast below Cave Hill and the Black Mountain, Belfast is a vibrant city where the
hospitality is legendary and the warmth of the people is genuine. Dramatically transformed in recent
years, Northern Ireland’s capital is a warm and welcoming place just waiting to be discovered.
Day 1
Friday
February 27th
8:45 a.m. Depart Deanshall, Cork for Belfast
4:30 p.m. Arrive in Belfast, check into Belfast International Hostel
6:00 p.m. Dinner at Jury’s Inn Group 1
7:30 p.m. Dinner @ Jury’s Inn Group 2


Day 2
Saturday
February 28th
8:00 a.m. Breakfast at the Youth Hostel
Depart the Hostel for Field Trip to the North Coast and the Giant’s Causeway.
10:15 a.m. Guided tour of the Giant’s Causeway
Stop in the scenic village of Portrush for lunch on return to Belfast.
7:00 p.m. Depart hostel by coach travel to Dinner in The Edge restuarant.
Day 3
Sunday
March 1st
9:00 a.m. Breakfast at the Hostel
9:30 a.m. Check out and depart by coach for Wellington Park Hotel.
Talk and Slide presentation on the rich culture of Belfast’s Murals, with Professor
Bill Rolston.
Followed by a Q&A session.
This session will orientate you to the unique political and cultural background of Belfast and
Northern Ireland. It will address the history of the conflict and will clarify the main players:
political parties, paramilitary organisations and the communities that they represent. This
will help create a context for the guided tour.
12:00 p.m. Lunch at The Wellington Park Hotel
12:45 p.m. Board coaches for a Guided tour of Belfast City.
Guided by Belfast City Guides, we will explore the city of Belfast. We will visit the political
murals of East and West Belfast including the Catholic Falls and Protestant Shankill roads.

c.3pm – Depart Belfast for Cork



Accommodation
Belfast International Hostel
22-32 Donegal Place
Belfast
Tel: 048 903154354

Faucet Frustration

Almost all the sinks here have separate faucets for hot and cold water. This is an awful system. Rather than adjust the temperature to anywhere on a spectrum of hot or cold, I am forced to choose between scalding hot water leaving my hands with third-degree burns, or a freezing blast of water in an already cold country. The superiority of one faucet is clear.

Homestay

This weekend Arcadia arranged a homestay for all the students with different Irish families. My friend Dylan and I stayed with an Irish couple who lived in a rural area outside of Buttervant, Co. Cork. Undoubtedly the best experience I've had in Ireland so far.

The husband's name is Philip, and he's originally from a rural area outside of Dublin. He moved to Co. Cork years ago after he married Mary. Mary's family has a farm in the area, and her sister and her husband live just down the road from her. Most other family members of hers seemed to live in the area. Both Mary and Philip work in Cork city, a 45-minute commute.

After a late start Saturday, we were given a short tour of the family dairy farm. We saw the cows, which are pregnant right now, and the milking machines. Then, we went to a local public park in the area for a walk. The park was formerly an English estate. The park was beautiful and well-kept, but knowing the park's history can make the view a bit darker. Essentially, the land was taken by the English and then they gave the land to an English noble to rule. There was a huge manor house and a beautiful walk up to it. As Philip said, "Beautiful front yard to have. You can imagine riding your horse-drawn carriage up to it. Just make sure you kick the peasants out of your way." Everyone who worked on the estate was forced to live in a series of small houses in Buttervant, and the English ruler got the large estate house. Beating Irish peasants was common.

That being said, the whole area is still beautiful. The best part of my homestay came Saturday night. After dinner, we went to a local pub, O'Neill's, where we met up with the rest of the family. This pub was about as traditional as they come. It was also a small gorcery store, and you had to walk past the grocery area and open up a door in the back to get to the pub area. We then went to another pub. Philip warnedd me that there would be bad music, and that's an understatement. There was a singer who brought a synthesizer to play the accompanying music. I still can't get the synthesized Danny Boy out of my head. But even though the musi was bad, I still had a great time laughing with everyone about it, and it was great to have the experience. Then, we got a taxi back to the house. A family friend came over with a guitar, and we ended up staying up until the wee hours of the morning talking and singing. The experience was great, I felt like the family really bonded with Dylan and me. Their hospitality was touching.

Here's a special note for my mother. I was talking with an Irish man in O'Neill's about American perceptions of Ireland. He complained that American movies made images of Ireland that don't exist. I asked if Waking Ned Devine would be a good example, and he said, "Yeah, that movie is a load of shite!" I asked for another example of a stupid American characterization of Ireland and he mentioned The Quiet Man, accompanied by a finger in his mouth and a gagging expression. "Nothing like that ever existed!"

Week in Dublin

I just spent my first few days in Ireland in Dublin. After Arrival Sunday morning, I really didn't have anything to do until Tuesday morning. I spent the week exploring Dublin.

Unfortunately, much of what I wanted to see was closed for the holidays. I couldn't see the Book of Kells or some of the museums. However, I think I'll get back to Dublin and be able to explore those areas. I did get to see the Guinness Storehouse, the Trinity College campus, St. Stephens Green, and bunch of places that are in Joyce novels. Unfortunately, I haven't realy read any Joyce yet, but I'll get around to that. The rest of the students and I who are on the UCC program brought in the new year by pub hopping in the area around our hostel. It was a great time, some old Irish guy gave me an entertaining lecture on politics.

One night we went out, I started talking to some young Irish people I met. I told them I was from Chicago, and their first reaction was, "Do you follow the NFL? I love Devin Hester!" I didn't even know anyone here watched the NFL, but it was a easy point to bond over.

Orientation was fine, but it is really expensive in Dublin. I'm really banking on Cork being a bit cheaper.

I arrived in Cork this morning. It looks pretty cool, not too much else to say yet.