Our “Jewish Thought and Culture” professor, Ariel, has a special relationship with Ireland and some of the people there. And when he heard that we were going to Ireland he perked up and got really excited. He gave us many good suggestions and recommendations of where to stay and eat.
Our trip started off on Thursday, November 8 with a taxi ride to the airport. All five of us had all we needed for 10 days on our backs, and we were filled with excitement and uncertainty about the week to come. As you can imagine, Israeli airports are not a place that one can get into easily. I’m talking about all of the security. We got there 3 hours early and it was just enough time to get everything settled so we could get on the plane. We got questioned by security more leaving the country than coming into the country, which was surprising to me.
But once we got our boarding passes we found our gate. Our gate was situated right where one of those people movers, or the flat escalators, started. And as the gate opened for boarding we all stood in line. Now when I said that we all had our stuff on our backs, that isn’t totally true. Garrett had all of his stuff in a trash bag so he could carry it on. And as we were standing in line Garrett had the bright idea of sitting on the handrail of the people mover, and it sort of grabbed his jeans and lifted him up, but he was able to jump off quickly. It was a close call. But he didn’t learn his lesson. He was leaning up on it again and this time he wasn’t so lucky. The rubber handrail stuck like Velcro to his pants and lifted him off the ground and was taking him down the people mover. So he panicked and jumped off but didn’t land on his feet, rather his face. And he almost kicked a lady in the face who was sitting on the outside of the mover. So with about 50 other people around, we all were laughing. And the people behind us noticed that we had American passports, so they asked us where we were from. And its hard to answer that question in a foreign country because you can’t be super specific. So we said obviously the U.S. and from there, California, then Los Angeles, then Santa Clarita, then The Master’s College. Most times when we tell people where we are from it stops at L.A. but the people we were talking with were actually from the same area. The woman went to Master’s and knew my sister. And she went to my rival in high school. So after we met each other and talked, we got on the plane headed for Manchester.
We arrived in Manchester and it was about 7 degrees Celsius and 1:30 in the morning. We didn’t have a place to stay and our flight didn’t leave until 11:10pm November 9. So we walked around the airport looking for the train into the city. And we got a free ride into the city. Which was so nice because they use the British pound there, and our dollar is not strong there at all. Two American dollars is worth 1 pound. So we walked around and got something to eat, and tried to find a place to sleep for the night. We found a 24 hour café and ordered some coffee. But they weren’t too keen on us sleeping in there booths. So we just decided to sleep in the bus station.
And at 6:30am we got the treat of the semester. I drank my first Starbucks that I’ve had since August. And it was amazing.
That day we just walked around Manchester waiting for our flight to Dublin. And when we finally got on our RyanAir flight, there were 6 drunk ladies in front of us. Mind you, this is midnight, and we just slept in a bus station. As you can imagine, we were not too happy. Or at least I wasn’t. But nonetheless, we made it to Dublin. And that night we slept in the airport, because we didn’t think it was worth spending the money for a full night if we were only going to be at a hotel or hostel for a couple hours of the night.
So the next morning started our adventure in Dublin. This was a total shock to us coming from a Middle Eastern country where it is a harsh language, and culturally rude people (rude to Americans), and a pretty dirty country. The city was beautiful, clean, and the people were great. It was nice to be in a place where you don’t have to worry about people not understanding English to communicate. Even though some of the accents were thick, it was nice to know that we were speaking the same language.
We had a total of 5 days in Dublin, and we did a lot. One day we went to Trinity College which houses the Book of Kells, which was basically 5th century gospel tracts. It was a copy of the New Testament that monks would slip into people’s travel sacks. This was amazing to see because of how many countless hours of work went into making these hand written copies. And the artwork was unbelievably detailed and small. It was incredible. Other days we just walked around in the parks, and fed the birds. One day we took the train up to a city named Howth. This was a small fishing town and it was probably the highlight of the trip. We took a hike along the cliffs and it was just beautiful.
Most of the pubs there in Ireland you can sit down and have a meal. And that’s what we did most of the time if we needed to eat. And we got to a particular one named The Pale, just as some people were setting up to perform some music. This was another high point of the trip. There was a man in his late 60’s who was the lead singer, and another man playing the guitar, and another playing the mandolin. And as they were playing I could hear an accordion playing, but I couldn’t pin point where it was coming from. And when I finally found it, it was someone in the same room just playing along with the songs, and he wasn’t a part of the band. So the guys invited him up to play with them and it turned out they knew each other from like 10 years ago. It was neat to see how they just rolled with the punches.
On Wednesday of our trip we took a 4 hour bus ride to Cork. This drive was great to see some of the rolling hills and countryside of Ireland. We basically had two days in Cork, and one of them was used to sleep in and rest up a little bit. The other was just walking all around the city. Trying to find cool places. We found a huge cathedral, and some nice parks. Also, Blarney is not too far from Cork, so we went and kissed the Blarney Stone. It is a piece of stone on the top of Blarney Castle the myth promises to those who kiss it upside down, eloquence of speech. So we all kissed it and I guess we’ll see if the promise holds true.
And then on Saturday we got the same bus ride back to Dublin. We had the afternoon to do last minute shopping and relaxing in the city. And that night we spent it in the airport because our flight left early in the morning.
So we made all of our flights and we are back at the Moshav safely.
I learned so many things about leadership on this trip. So many things that I wouldn’t have learned anywhere else. It was such a good trip. I am glad I went and I am glad that God kept us safe with whatever we were doing. I will never forget the lessons I learned and the grace of God manifested in this trip.
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