Coole Park

We got to sleep in on Sunday for the first time!  We loaded up in the bus around 2 to head to Coole Park which was at least an hour and 15 minutes away.  Right now there is some construction going on in Galway on a major road, bringing it down to only one side of it, so it gets pretty annoying always getting stuck there for a few minutes before we can pass.  Also, in Ireland you run into really random traffic on small country roads.  For those of you from CG, it would be like having stopped traffic on Keats Rd.  For those of you in St. Joe it would be like having stopped traffic on Minnesota St. I'm not sure that Ireland has any big highways like we do in the U.S.  One of our professors said that they are trying to make one from the north down to Dublin but it would pass right by Tara and ruin some archeological sites that haven't been completely researched yet.  

So, before we went to Coole Park we made a quick stop to see the castle of William B. Yeats.  He was a really famous poet in Ireland.  Here we met up with the professor that would be teaching our Literature class.  He took us around the castle and explaining the historical occurrences here as well as the aesthetics of the building.  After his explanation, he then read a poem written by Yeats himself about his castle home.  It was really cool to connect things together like that and actually see what he is talking about.  Next we went on to Coole Park.  This is where Lady Gregory had lived (she was close friends with William Yeats).  The acreage that is left of the park is only a sliver of what the family had when the land was first bought.  The house of Lady Gregory no longer stands, but the foundation is still there covered with grass. Again, Gerard explained the history and then connected that with a poem that Yeats had written about the house.  The next spot on our walk through the Park was at the Autograph Tree.  We went into the huge walled garden that was still there and if anyone has seen "The Secret Garden" that's kind of what it looked/felt like.  So on the tree are the carved in signatures of famous literary people in Ireland.  Some of the names included Lady Gregory, William Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, a countess, and a guy from NY who had been crucial in getting Yeats's poems popular in America.  

On the way back to the hotel we finally stopped at a grocery place to get food.  This was a little stressful because it was our first trip.  I'm sure that we will get the hang of it soon.  We've been having family dinners most nights, so we have to shop and plan things out together.  I'm happy to say though that I got some peanut butter! :)  I tried the Nutella that they have here, but I will always love actual peanut butter.  If you've never had Nutella, it's more like eating chocolate frosting.  Another thing that I've tried over here is the hard cider.  It's actually pretty good, although I might be one of the few who actually likes it...