COMRADES.

WEEE HAEVE ARYIVED HOMME SAYFE AND SOWND. MANYE THANCS TO ALL WHO WREAD THEES BLEOGE. SYNCE TOMAJAAAA IS NO LONGUR IN EIYRELAND WE WILL CEAST POSTINGE. UNLESSE WE GET DRUNKE TOGETHUR AND THINKE WE ARE STILLE IN IYRELANDE.

MUUCHE LOYVE.

WHY DO YOU STILL READ THIS BLOG

Tomaja comin' at you like a loco(spanish for crazy)motive from the Camden Place Hostel in Dublin. Yeahhhhh dawg, that's right; we're in transit back to the states. So here's the shit- we've been slacking on the actual updates in favor of cavorting around with locals and discovering the countryside, which was our bad. Seriously, entertaining you guys is way more important to us than any of these assholes.

P.S.Y.C.H.E.E.E.E.E.

These mother fuckers are da bomb. Let me introduce them. You know Jimmy, right? Well imagine that Jimmy is 30 years younger, a no-names-takin' museum attendant, and... oh right, THE PRINCE OF FUCKING DERRY. Ciaran Roddy, errybody:

He's essentially the nicest guy in the entire world. Sometimes we'll go to bars and he'll buy us drinks. Not for all three of us, because he doesn't drink. he'll just buy drink for us Americans. After he drives us to Ireland. What's he doing in that 1st picture, you ask? Well, over here there's this thing called a "Poker Face." That's Ciaran's, and you can't see it. Hence the hand. Ignore the face. You shouldn't be able to see that. He's sweet like sugar. Speaking of sugar:

maybe that was vague. Sugar is a night club. Yeah, like P Diddy. We went to a night club. Like P Diddy. We danced and took shots (hear Maja complain about it later!) and acted a fuckin' fool. No gun shots. Not like P Diddy.

AFTER THAT we decided we should nearly kill ourselves? Bike ride, you say? Bad directions, you say? Mmmmm, look at this picturestory:

STRUGGLES -majaa

I guess the narrative kind of falls apart at the end there, but basically our 20-mile casual bike ride turned in to TOGBRAI, or Tomaja's One-time Bike Ride Across Ireland. Jesus Christ in a chicken basket, 50 miles of hills and bad shifting mountain bikes and Tom whining and whining and whining and whining and whining. Joking. The shifting was fine.

Oh also Doug left, so we decided to competely change our research. Mural time!

One of these murals is not like the other. Well, I guess that's true for both of them if I'm only presenting two options... they're necessarily different... but one of these murals is scary as shit. I'll give you a clue- it's the one with a skeleton carrying a bloody sword. We got to talk to the artists of the peace mural (the one without an impailed person in it), as well as hear about how JK Rowling stole Harry Potter from them. No biggie.

Ummmm, what else. Maja, can you remember anything? Oh yes, we saw Harry Potter. It was both 'excellent' (Tom) and 'disappointing' (Maja). I'm sure you've seen it by now, so we'll spare the review.

AHHHHH, I forgot about our introductions! HOSTEL PEEEEPS.

Jeff and Heath, (a lil' eye candy for ladies):

No but seriously, they're really cool. Fantastic duders. Buy rounds o' carlsburg like it aint no thaaang.
We miss them already. Like woah.



So if you're ever in Derry, stay at the Independent Hostel because they'll show you a good time.
WELL TOM(AJA)ORROW WE HEAD BACK TO THE STATES.
tom: 'i just want to be back where fries are called fries and everyone is fat'
GET READY FOR US TO TELL YOU LOTS OF STORIES THAT YOU WILL NOT FIND FUNNY OR INTERESTING. AND THEN WE'LL SHOW YOU PICTURES THAT ARE ENHANCED IN IPHOTO BECAUSE THAT IS THE GREATEST THING EVER.
LOL.
(loyal orange lodge? laughing out loud? lots of love?)



we apologize for the shitty formatting. tom's fault.

two can play at this game, asshole.

It's noon here. So far we've gone on a 13 mile bike ride and gotten a free taxi ride. What have you done today?

OH AND YOU SHOULD JUST WAIT UNTIL WE HAVE A LONGER POST.

PS- Maja said she wanted my camera so she could upload some pictures to this blog. now she's asleep. I can only assume these are the pictures she wanted you to see:

YEAHHHHH MOTHERFUCKERS, WE WERE IN THE PAPER TODAY.

40 SHADES OF GREEN

THE DERBY BAR IS SO MONEY. WE MADE A FRIEND NAMED JIMMY, WHO TOLD US TO CALL HIM AND HE WOULD TAKE US AROUND TO SEE SOME SIGHTS. WE THOUGHT HE WAS BULLSHITTING US BECAUSE HE WAS SO DRUNK, BUT WE CALLED HIM ANYWAYS. THIS IS WHERE HE TOOK US.

I REALIZE THIS POST IS NOT FUNNY. I DON'T GIVE A SHIT. LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL THAT VIEW IS.

P.S. THIS IS JIMMY:

QUALITY PEOPLE. QUALITY PEOPLE HERE IN DERRY.

God damn these fries are good. That was going to be my sentence. I would buy these fries again. I think I messed up. Personally, I'll be shocked if you get any of these right.

≠

God damn these fries are good. That was going to be my sentence. I would buy these fries ahain. I think O’ve messed up. Personaly, I’ll bw ahxkws ird tou fer ant . PweaoLLT, I’LL BW AHOXKWS ID TOU FWR nt od rhwaw fifhr.

YE OLDE BLEOGE POSTE

GREEYTINGS FRYENDS, LORDES, AND HOES

THISSE WEEYKEND WE TRAVULLRES, UCCOMPENYED BIE THE INCOMPEARUBLE DOUG CAULKINS, VENCHURED TO MAGEE UNJVERSJTJE WHERE DWELLETH THE CIVILIZED AND PRETENTIOUSE PLANTATJON SCHOLARSTH.

Thaire speeeeches wur trueleye miende boggling. Honestlie, we dide not understaynde a singular worde that twas spoeken. We founde greate amusementt in masterying the olde languagee frome 1600s Iyryeland. Wee are nowe prepairing for ouer furste daie of[f] sence ouer arrivael, hwhich shall bee spennt slyeepinge.

FARE THEE WELL, YOUNG STUEWERDS
Teomajejaee

Happy Belated 4th

A more creative post will come once our brains aren't fried from attending a conference on 16th century Ulster for 21 hours this weekend.

Here is our nice American celebration from last night (get it? 4 beers. like the 4th day of July). We only drank American beer. And wished everyone a happy 4th of July. Somehow we still made friends?

This is a real update

Alright, so while all you selfish motherfuckers living in the lands of hilk and money celebrate your independence this weekend, Dixie Fritz and the viking are going to be learning all about Jacobian and Caroline architecture, the history of Ulster's Plantation literature, and how far Brian Lacey can get in to his speech before Maja is completely out of undergarments to throw at him. Real talk, this is a working weekend. Like last weekend. Probably like next weekend. Work? We talking about work? Tom, you're in Ireland, what work are you doing? You're probably spending all your time watching Lord of the Rings and eating Haagen Dazs straight from the can.

You're not unright. However, during the day we're going around to various museums and trying to understand the ways they present the history of Ulster (and Derry in particular). You see, children, Derry's history has long been one of turmoil and strife. When the Gaelic lords fled Ireland in 1607, a group of people known as the "British" decided they should go ahead and colonize the shit out of those fucks in Northern Ireland. Well that worked.





NAAAAAAHT. Shit didn't pop off like that and blah blah blah Glorious Revolution comes and James II comes to reclaim Derry which just happens to be a walled city because of all this commerce that happens around here and then the Apprentice Boys close the gates like 5 year olds playing a prank on their mother but James II actually does what your mom said she would and doesn't let them eat for like 3 months and people die and the Catholics get kicked out and now Maja wants to type something: Our interactive cd-rom told us that during the seige they ate RATS. grossss. like tom. ok tom continue: So that was 1689, of course, which means that the River Foyle has receded a bit and now there's this area right outside the walls of the city that has been conveniently named Bogside by God and all the Catholics decide that if they want to live there they'll be happy and nothing bad will ever happen to them and it never does and that's the end.

This is a lie. everyone knows its a lie tom. otherwise we wouldnt have this map called 'CONTESTED public memory' you dumbfuck. there is still strife which is why its interesting to study how they show the plantation. was it colonization? its this when the british began being way too greedy? idk, my bff jill. i guess at this point the tower museum puts boxes of clothes together... thats what we've discovered.

I hope one day Maja goes back and reads what she just wrote. Behind all the undefined pronouns and blatant grammatical errors there are a few nuggets of truth, but you have to speak some rare dialect of Stupid to truly grasp them. Also, have you seen Maja's retainer? I'll try to get a picture before we leave. It's taking up like half of our room.

Tom is a jerk no one but kari gets to see me in my retainer. that would just be a recipe for disaster because apparently having a dual boot computer and having gone to comic con already makes me a nerd magnet. but i digress.

That's not what makes you a nerd magnet- that's what makes you a nerd. Back to the story. With the 1689 rebellion all the Catholics were banished from the walls. They settled in Bogside and nothing really momentous happened for a long time. Ireland was still under the control of the British but there was a lot of resistance and blah blah blah gerrymandering other key words you learned in 8th grade social studies blah blah WORLD WAR 1.

Easter Uprising, Ireland's a free nation, Northern Ireland is declared independent, shit hits the fan, Catholics reproduce like bunnies, now more populous than the Protestants, so what does that mean? Yes, girl sitting next to me....: The one house one vote wasn't going to work with so many Catholics (subsequently needing housing), but they decided to make it work anywhoodles. Aka no more houses were built! And flats were overcrowded and they lived in squalor and the only ones making money were the women in the shirt factories. HOLLA AT MY GIRLZ.

So things were going well for precisely 0% of Derry at this point (we'll ballpark it around the mid 1960's). Catholics were being fucked economically, socially, and politically, Protestants were beginning to realize that their ties with Britain were sort of tenuous and based on what essentially amounts to a failed colonization. Their response was further discrimination and gerrymandering, which creates some beautiful architecture known as the Rossville Flats (FORESHADOWING)

Anyways Sinn Fein becomes popular, the civil rights movement gets under way, and then as the Orange Order parades around the walls celebrating the Battle of the Boyne like they do every July 12, the Catholics are all "hey dudez. plz don't come into bogside" But they did anyways, and then fighting broke out and

THANK YOU FOR BUILDING THE ROSSVILLE FLATS FOR US. I KNOW THAT YOU LIKE TO USE THEM TO KEEP THE CATHOLICS UNDER-REPRESENTED IN GOVERNMENT, BUT WE LIKE TO USE THEM TO THROW PETROL BOMBS AT YOU.

So the Battle of the Bogside lasts 3 days until the British calls in, well, pretty much their entire military. Not exactly, but the Bogside residents are certainly overwhelmed. So that ends, but the conflict doesn't (obvi). Then January 30, 1972, Bloody Sunday occurs and it's broadcasted on television around the nation (EDIT: WORLD -Tom).

The British paramilitary units that were deployed in Derry end up killing 14 protesters in and around the Bogside, leading to a not-so-happy Catholic population and a sudden surge to the ranks of the IRA. Basically this event is the poster boy for The Troubles- it brought world-wide attention to the Northern Irish Conflict (since we had just taken care of a lot of civil rights shit and 1968 was done on the Continent) and "then there was a lot of violence and then the Good Friday Agreement in 1998" (Maja Gamble 2009).

I only said that because I figured you all were getting bored by this point. I realize there were many significant events that occurred between Bloody Sunday and the GFA.

So yeah. GFA and now there's "peace" between the two communities but they both still march and they're both still angry and apparently kids still get beat up if they're in the wrong neighborhoods. Is this Brit v. Irish, Catholic v. Protestant, Unionists v. Nationalists? It's pretty interesting and heated, but very important. The biggest march of the year happens in 10 days, and tensions will be high. We're going to be there, notebooks in hand and tails between legs.

That's everything we know. If you know one more fact about Ireland than that, you're more qualified than me to have this MAP, but if you were ever wondering what we're doing, it's looking at shit like that. And pondering the usefulness of cheese slicers. Because in this crazy town, if you can bet on one thing, it's that

cheese slicers don't slice cheese, people slice cheese.
-Tomaja

the end.

If this post gets 10 comments, Doug will eat exactly one bite of anything.