The weather has been pretty dang awesome for the time I've been here: not Atlanta-hot, and only occasionally drizzly. In fact, when Irish hosts apologize for those times when it rains, I just reply that it doesn't bother me and just reminds me of my Oregon roots.
Today I really felt at home.
This morning I received a campus tour of Trinity College before seeing the Book of Kells and their picturesque library. About 20 minutes into the tour, the guide was describing the campanile and the surrounding Oregon Maple trees that are the largest in the world of their type, when he stopped mid-sentence and remarked that he'd had enough of the liquid sunshine. (It really wasn't that bad. Somewhere between an Oregon Coast Mist and Halloween Drizzle.) A couple in the group beat me to it, "It's okay, we're from Seattle!" I had thought there was something special about them; out of our group of roughly 20, the three of us were the only ones not using an umbrella. (Side note: at Oregon State University, that's how we knew who the Californian out-of-state students were.)
Also, no wonder the Oregon Maples did so well in that location; it's like Oregon weather x10.
I got into line early enough to avoid the death line that built up later in the day, saw the Book of Kells (how many monks went blind illustrating that? Holy cow!)
I really wish I'd meant to make that pun. Let me explain: the pages are made out of vellum, which is processed and preserved calf skin. As this vellum has the Four Gospels written on it, it is literally a holy cow! I'll pretend like I planned it.
Then I saw their gorgeous library and took the requisite photos that 3,213,567 tourists take every year. As I left, I pitied that poor souls that had to wait in the extended line in the rain.
A coping/strategizing method that my mom taught me as a child was to look at tricky situations and imagine that I were an orphan who had to resolve it alone. Well later in the day today, the rain got into full-on Late November Storm level, and I had to keep telling myself, "Just pretend you're a monk on Skellig Michael." It was moderately assuaging.
***I've heard that there are many different ways of describing levels and types of frozen precipitation in the Russian language because so much of their winter is full of snow/hail/дождь со снегом. It's fitting that I am so well-acquainted with liquid precipitation that I can easily classify levels of it.
Today I really felt at home.
This morning I received a campus tour of Trinity College before seeing the Book of Kells and their picturesque library. About 20 minutes into the tour, the guide was describing the campanile and the surrounding Oregon Maple trees that are the largest in the world of their type, when he stopped mid-sentence and remarked that he'd had enough of the liquid sunshine. (It really wasn't that bad. Somewhere between an Oregon Coast Mist and Halloween Drizzle.) A couple in the group beat me to it, "It's okay, we're from Seattle!" I had thought there was something special about them; out of our group of roughly 20, the three of us were the only ones not using an umbrella. (Side note: at Oregon State University, that's how we knew who the Californian out-of-state students were.)
Also, no wonder the Oregon Maples did so well in that location; it's like Oregon weather x10.
I got into line early enough to avoid the death line that built up later in the day, saw the Book of Kells (how many monks went blind illustrating that? Holy cow!)
I really wish I'd meant to make that pun. Let me explain: the pages are made out of vellum, which is processed and preserved calf skin. As this vellum has the Four Gospels written on it, it is literally a holy cow! I'll pretend like I planned it.
Then I saw their gorgeous library and took the requisite photos that 3,213,567 tourists take every year. As I left, I pitied that poor souls that had to wait in the extended line in the rain.
A coping/strategizing method that my mom taught me as a child was to look at tricky situations and imagine that I were an orphan who had to resolve it alone. Well later in the day today, the rain got into full-on Late November Storm level, and I had to keep telling myself, "Just pretend you're a monk on Skellig Michael." It was moderately assuaging.
***I've heard that there are many different ways of describing levels and types of frozen precipitation in the Russian language because so much of their winter is full of snow/hail/дождь со снегом. It's fitting that I am so well-acquainted with liquid precipitation that I can easily classify levels of it.
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