Glendalough and NCAD

On Sunday we met in the lobby of the hostel at 11 and all the Industrial and Graphic Design students load up on a bus headed towards Glendalough (pronounced like Glendalock). We took the scenic route there and went by the coast and saw the beach outside of Dublin. The beach was so much longer that the beaches that I'm used to seeing in Florida and Alabama and the tour guide said that when the tide comes in it can be very dangerous because of the sandbars.

It took about an hour to get to the Wicklow Mountains where Glendalough is situated. It was absolutely beautiful there, a nice break from the city of Dublin. For those who are unfamiliar with Glendalough, it is a monastic village situates within two lakes (the name Glendalough means twin lakes in Gaelic) that was founded by Saint Kevin after the time of Saint Patrick when all of the monks retreated to the mountains to become hermits. The is supposed to be a cave there where Saint Kevin did his battles with the devil. It also used to be a place of pilgrimage in the time of indulgences however I forget what one got when they went there.

There are several hiking/walking trails around that range in difficulty. The group I was with started out on a trail around the mountain, but we were easily distracted and ended up having to change to a shorted trail because of time restrictions. It ended up being okay though because we spent more time in the monastic city that has the tower and the ruins of churches. After taking many pictures and walking around the cemetery we stopped for ice cream at Kevin's Cones, most people got vanilla dipped in chocolate, but I got the vanilla that had hot chocolate swirled into it and I think mine ended up being the best choice. After that we got back on the bus and came back to the hostel.

Monday we started a project with the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in Dublin. We arrived at school at noon and had a lecture that showed past projects done at NCAD for the Auburn students and some pictures of Auburn for the NCAD students. After that we were paired up with an Irish student to work on a rubber band powered car, and my partner's name is Stephen. We worked a little bit Monday afternoon and got some ideas sketched out and then all the students went home around 4. I tried to do some additional research and realized that there was probably something very simple that I could do to get the car to go the maximum distance but I just couldn't figure out what it was.

Today we went to school at 10 and some of us had to wait awhile for our partners to arrive. The work ethic is different over here because the students do not have to pay as much as us for school, if they pay at all. I think someone said they pay 1,600 Euro for four years at NCAD which is not a bad school at all. But this is just something I will have to get used to for collaborative projects over here. My partner arrived around noon, which is lunchtime for me and I was starving when he got there. I took a lunch break and went down the street to the Spar and got a sandwich and came back and got to work. We got a good bit of work done today. It took us one trip to the 2 Euro store and a trip to the Charity (Thrift) store for records (our wheels). We left around four and I came back to the hostel and caught up on emails, uploading pictures, etc.