Painting Pumpkins

Several weeks ago, I attended the Rotary District 1160 Annual Conference.  Every Ambassadorial Scholar in Ireland attended and I met quote a few incoming and outgoing scholars who lived in or near Dublin.  Although all the scholars were fantastic, I was thrilled to learn that Emily, the girl with whom I had most in common, lived in Dublin.  We also had the opportunity to meet Emma, an Irish outgoing scholar for the 2011-2012 year.  Both Emily and Emma attend University College, Dublin (UCD) and since we all hit it off, we decided to get together to celebrate Halloween.

Pumpkins aren't a huge part of the Halloween festivities in Ireland.  In fact, my classmates tell me that it's only been in the past 5 years that you could even buy them.  Because of this, Emma had never carved or painted a pumpkin before.

Because no Irish recipes call for pumpkin, it is impossible to buy canned pumpkin in Ireland.  Thus, as Michael and I want to have pumpkin pie (enough to share) for Thanksgiving, we decided to only paint our pumpkins so they would last longer before we had to cut them up and freeze them.  We did enjoy explaining to Emma the most important things to know about carving a pumpkin (making sure the lid is at an angle, the best recipes for cooking the pumpkin seeds, the secret of tracing complicated designs from computer paper, etc.)  I love teaching people new things, and she was very enthusiastic to learn about American Halloween traditions.

We wanted to know all about Irish traditions as well.  Emma told us that in Ireland, fireworks are a big part of Halloween.  Bonfires are also associated with the holiday.  In fact, there was quite a controversy a few years ago when city counsels began banning bonfires for health and safety reasons.   Citizens felt as though part of their culture was being taken away.  It's still a little controversial, though less so now that people are more used to it.  The Irish Times even reported that the South Dublin County Counsel is giving out daffodil bulbs to communities that prevent bonfires in locations where there were fires last year.  http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/1018/1224281343590.html

Since we couldn't enjoy Irish bonfires, we enjoyed American pumpkin painting.  Emma, quite the artist, made a cute pumpkin with a half smile.  Michael made a scary clown pumpkin.  I tried to make Edgar Allan Poe on my pumpkin, but I thought the result looked more like Salvador Dalí.  Emily, more of a scrapbooking fan, worked on her book.

After a successful day of pumpkin painting, we took a tour of UCD's campus while the pumpkins dried.  One of the highlights was seeing the tree Bill Clinton planted during his visit on September 30th for the opening of the UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies.  For security reasons, none of us had been allowed to see Clinton actually plant the tree, but it was still nice to see it afterward.  http://www.ucdclinton.ie/events_conferences_2010_clinton.htm
 
After our pumpkins were dry, we carried them home on the bus and I began cutting our third, unpainted pumpkin up to boil, mash, and freeze (so the liquid separates out) for pie next week.  Had we been at home in Murray, we would have spent the rest of the evening in the Curris Center ballroom participating in Rocky Horror festivities.  The tickets here were €15 a person ($20) and we just couldn't justify spending so much money.  As it turned out, Michael surprised me by bringing a copy of the movie to Ireland on his computer and just as we were beginning to watch it, Emily called to say she was in city center and was wondering what we were doing.  She ended up coming up to the apartment, having some pumpkin seeds and diet coke, watching Rocky Horror (a first for her), and doing the Time Warp until we were exhausted.  All in all it was a great way to spend our first Halloween away from home.

Monster Class

To fulfill my options requirement for popular literature this semester, I am taking a class entitled "The Monster Show" taught by visiting lecturer and well-known film historian David J. Skal.  We are learning quite a lot about the first horror films that terrified audiences: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. The class itself is fantastic, but it's all very intellectual; with the textual analysis and the comparison to the films, there's not a lot of time to squeeze in humorous interpretations.  So, our "Monster Class" decided to take matters into our own hands and to host our own screenings of films a little more light-hearted.  With Halloween coming up, it wasn't difficult to get our hands on a copy of Mel Brooks's "Young Frankenstein," and, as one of our classmates has an HD television, we determined to have a class (plus spouses) get-together / viewing.

The evening also turned into a sort of cultural exchange, as we all brought snack food to share.  We "foreigners" brought some of our American / Canadian food (microwave popcorn, pumpkin bread, Cheetoes) and the European students brought Irish / British food we can't get back home (a sort of raw veggie dip similar to ranch, various European chocolates, etc.)  In the upcoming weeks - time permitting - we hope to make the "fun" film screenings a regular thing.  Perhaps Rocky Horror or some of the more campy horror films will be added to the list.

On a side note, our class also decided to celebrate the lecture before Halloween by wearing plastic fangs to class.  Since Skal is most well known for his research on Dracula films we thought he would feel right at home.

Exploring Howth

About two weeks after arriving in Dublin, my host Rotary Counselor invited my husband and me to dinner at her home.  She lived just northeast of the city (about 9.5 miles) in the suburb of Howth (rhymes with "both").

Although we didn't get to see much of the town during our visit, the area was highly recommended for hiking, so Michael and I decided to go back one weekend and explore.  Thus, this afternoon we boarded the DART (Irish Rail) and set off once again for Howth. 

Howth is a peninsula that juts out just north of Dublin Bay.  It's still in County Dublin, though it has a completely different atmosphere.  The port town harbor was full of both sail boats and fishing boats when we arrived.

The first thing we did was stop by the harbor to feed the seals that beg for fishing scraps.  They were in a great mood and, as a little boy was throwing fish to them, they put on quite a show.  Afterward, we visited the lighthouse and watched the sailboats go by.  It was beautiful, but despite the bright sun, it was very cold.  Michael and I walked around a bit, then decided head up to the shoreline cliffs to begin our hike and (hopefully) warm up a bit.

The cliffs offered 4 different trails: 6 km, 7 km, 8 km, and 10 km.  As they all started out on the same path, we decided to see how things went before determining the trail.  We took our time getting to the trail head and enjoyed the view as we walked up the path that lead to the cliffs.

Despite the steady climb, the trail wasn't bad at all, and the scenery was breathtaking.  We could see ships far out to sea, and the birds flying below us looked so far away.  (At one point, we even saw some blackberries growing along the side of the cliff and stopped for a little snack.) 

Just before we reached the summit, the clear skies turned cloudy, and it began to rain.  Despite being cold and wet, it was quite beautiful to be able to see the dark clouds right above us and the sun shining behind the clouds farther out to sea.  (If you look closely at the photo, you can see a lighthouse on the very edge of the land.  That will give you an idea of just how small everything seemed from that height.)

Having already passed the 6 km and 7 km trails, we decided to take the 8 km path instead of going on for the full 10 km.  We headed off the cliff trail and hiked into the interior of the peninsula.  At times we found ourselves walking through dense, wooded areas.  It was much less scenic, with one exception.  At one point, the trail took us through a grove of birch trees whose yellow leaves had covered the path.  It was so beautiful, especially since the rain let up for a bit just as we were coming into it, that it was well worth hiking through all the mud to see it.

We eventually made it back to civilization after approximately 3 hours, and it even stopped raining toward the end.  Overall it was a great day - especially when we celebrated our victorious athletic endeavor with some well-deserved ice cream!

Dracula Dinner

This past Thursday I had dinner with an extraordinary group of people.  Elizabeth Miller, the world's leading historian on all things related to Dracula and Vlad the Impaler, invited me to dine with a group of scholars and professors, all of whom were in Dublin for various Dracula-related reasons. 


Elizabeth Miller is on the left of the photo.  Next to her is David Skal, a renowned Dracula film scholar and the man responsible for discovering and re-releasing the Spanish Dracula (filmed in 1931 on the same set as the Lugosi film of the same year - the Spanish cast and crew filmed at night while the Lugosi cast and crew filmed during the day).  Skal is also a visiting teaching fellow at Trinity College and is teaching an options course on Monsters (that I am taking).  Behind the group is Clemens Ruthner, a German professor at Trinity and a participant in "Dracula 97."  Dr. Ruthner is also working with Dr. Miller on her upcoming book to be released in 2012.  The man on the right is Dacre Stoker, great great nephew to Bram.  In addition to writing the sequel to Dracula, he has been working to procure funds to erect a statue of Bram Stoker to be displayed in Dublin in 2012, the centenary of Stoker's death.  Dacre is also working with Dr. Miller to write a bibliography of Bram Stoker.  Missing from the photograph (because he was taking it) is Brian Showers, author of "Gothic Dublin."  He is quite informed about everything Stoker-related going on in the area and I have already corresponded with him several times to ensure that I don't miss out on anything while I'm here.


Conversation ranged from memories of past Dracula events and the people who were there to events related to the 2012 celebration.  They mentioned their colleagues, Radu Florescu and Raymond T. McNally casually (two researchers who were responsible for making known the atrocities of Vlad the Impaler - perhaps the two most influential men in the study of Vlad, and everyone at the table was laughing about old memories with them!)  I learned much about the Stoker family and will be attending various lectures and events in the upcoming months that I learned about over the course of dinner.  Overall, it was an incredible experience and I am thrilled to have been a part of it.

Planting Crocuses with Dublin Central Rotary

Today, Michael and I went to the Children's Sunshine Home in Foxrock to plant 2 thousand crocuses with my host rotary club in Ireland.  We joined thousands of volunteers across the British Isles as part of the "Focus on the Crocus" that Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland (RIBI) is spearheading.  The project works in two ways: first, the profits of the bulbs go toward eradicating polio; secondly, the bulbs may be planted in public parks, retirement homes, hospitals, and other locations where the community can enjoy them.  Fun fact: The purple crocuses themselves (specifically Ruby Giant crocuses) were selected to correspond with the purple dye dabbed on children's pinkie finger to indicate they have been immunized against polio.


The Children's Sunshine Home is for children from birth to age 18 who suffer from severe life-limiting conditions.  The home provides both medical and hospice care for children and support for their families.  Although it is partially funded by the government, it relies heavily on the support of benefactors and volunteers.  That's where we come in.  I can't think of anywhere I would have rather spent my afternoon working to make brighter. 

We arrived at 12:30 and worked until about 4:00.  We raked and cleared leaves, planted gardens, filled flower pots, and even washed the windows so the children could get a clear view of their flowers.  In all, there were 18 adults, and 2 little girls, (ages 4 and 2) helping.  The 4 year old was really inspired by the idea of making the outside beautiful for sick children and, armed with a brush and dust pan, dusted up every speck of dirt in their parking lot.  (I asked her father if I could take a photo of her working so diligently.)  By the end of the day, we had cleared the entire garden area and planted over 2,000 crocus bulbs, 100 daffodils, and several pots of pansies.  All the windows were cleaned, and there was not a speck of dust in the parking lot.

 

For more information about the Children's Sunshine Home, visit http://www.sunshinehome.ie/index.html or see the video below.

 

Meeting a legend

One of the most important requirements for graduating with honors from Murray State University is the honors thesis. During the fall of 2007, I combined my love of history and literature to write my thesis comparing the historical Dracula, Wallachian Voivode Vlad Tepes (the Impaler), and Bram Stoker's literary vampire, Count Dracula. Throughout my research, I used several sources written by Elizabeth Miller. Dr. Miller is considered to be the world's leading authority on Dracula and Vlad the Impaler. She is a fantastic writer who has been very influential in transcribing Bram Stoker's original notes and proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Stoker had absolutely no knowledge of Vlad Tepes, other than a nominal reference.

Since I began my research, I have kept in contact with Elizabeth Miller through occasional emails. Although she lives in Toronto, she sometimes comes to Dublin because of its connection with Bram Stoker. When I learned of my acceptance into Trinity, I emailed her to ask if she was planning to be in the area during the next year. At the time, she wasn't planning on coming over, but that changed about a week ago when she emailed and said she would be in the area filming for a documentary. She had some free time on Monday morning, and we met for coffee.

Elizabeth Miller is an absolute delight! I was a little nervous at first to be meeting the world's authority in my field, but she was so easy to talk to. We discussed various vampire legends and she told me about groundbreaking research she was doing to disprove claims in one of the most influential Vlad the Impaler texts that has been published. It was incredible. She also invited me to dine with a group of Stoker scholars this coming Thursday evening at 8 (after ensuring I wasn't a Twilight fan). I would have been thrilled to just be in the same room overhearing the discussion, but I am absolutely ecstatic at the thought of sitting at the same table with professors and researchers who are doing exactly what I hope to be doing one day. I told her I would be there.

During our conversation, I was also able to briefly meet Dacre Stoker, Bram's great great nephew, in town for the same documentary.  Dacre Stoker is working on the 2012 project to erect a statue of his great great uncle in Dublin, as surprisingly enough, one does not currently exist. 2012 will mark 100 years since Bram Stoker's death, and the unveiling of his statue will occur on July 5-6 of that year. I hope I will be living somewhere close enough to Dublin to take a quick trip over to celebrate!