In Which I Remember What This Place Was Actually Called
Anyone recall the movie I posted to youtube where I got up at 5AM and cycled around taking pictures?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq-cKMZWtko
Well, I was surfing around looking for stuff about UL and found a word that I remembered my irish friend Huw using: Ardnacrusha.
Turns out Ardnacrusha is the largest hydroelectric power station in Ireland, located on the River Shannon. I also remembered the word Headrace, which I guess is another name for the big canal leading up to to hydroelectric plant.
So I figure, hey, people know about it, why not Google it? To my surprise, I actually found things!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1379/1454752788_cb09c396e4_o.jpg
That's the fence I climbed over (and had to haul my bike over) to get to the Headrace. There's a little step on the left there, I'm assuming for that purpose. Wouldn't want cows getting through!
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/183/374652711_00cbc809df.jpg?v=0
That's a nice sunset view of the Headrace... I got a few photos similar to that one in that youtube video.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/154/407908712_6cd44789f4_o.jpg
Searched around a bit, that church is the one you can see in one of the photos, again, in that youtube. At least I'm fairly sure it is. I'll have to have another look once I'm on a computer that can do video.
Edit: That church is actually the one I saw, but it's in this video, not the other - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F23ZayQmCEo&feature=related
---------------
The point here, if there is one, is that the area around the Headrace and leading up to it were, essentially, where I went to relax. I started out exploring once just for the adventure of it, and found a few places that I really liked, and the Ardnacrusha Headrace was one of them. It was almost bizarrely peaceful, the quiet of that 5AM morning broken only by the occasional bird, or a lamb complaining noisily about something or another on the other side of the canal. I could have ridden all the way to Clonlara, the town with that church, or all the way to Ardnacrusha itself, which Huw and I later did, circling all the way around into Limerick city and then back to UL (in fact, I think we rode over this bridge: http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/scattery/IMG_0892_1.jpg ). I came back a few times, just sitting and looking at clouds for a good half hour, riding around aimlessly for another hour or two, just seeing what was there, before finally heading back to UL.
I guess I'm just really, almost overwhelmed when I think of it... I never realized it at the time of course, just like my trip to Edinburgh with my friends, but looking back on it, I really did have an amazing experience. Yeah, I am having minor inconveniences at Tufts, what with missing classes that I should have taken last semester. Yeah, I am having to deal with actually being given weekly homework again. But, as eager as I was to get back home while I was over there, I do miss it. I had a virtual countdown in my head, of sorts, reminding myself that I was going to be home in May, and that everything would go back to normal, which would be kind of reassuring. If anything, that made my experience over there almost like a dream... you can tell your friends and family about your dreams, and how amazing XYZ was, and that sort of thing, but they weren't there. They didn't experience it, and it's very frustrating to try and convey what it felt like to be there.
Seeing those pictures just now, I suppose it just really hit me like a wave, almost. I'm NOT the only person who knows about that place, there are other people out there who've seen it, who got to the end of that tree-covered street and saw that gate, who looked down that canal and thought "man, this is beautiful." And somehow, that just really brought the whole thing back, and made it ever so slightly more real. Almost like, now I KNOW I didn't dream the whole thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq-cKMZWtko
Well, I was surfing around looking for stuff about UL and found a word that I remembered my irish friend Huw using: Ardnacrusha.
Turns out Ardnacrusha is the largest hydroelectric power station in Ireland, located on the River Shannon. I also remembered the word Headrace, which I guess is another name for the big canal leading up to to hydroelectric plant.
So I figure, hey, people know about it, why not Google it? To my surprise, I actually found things!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1379/1454752788_cb09c396e4_o.jpg
That's the fence I climbed over (and had to haul my bike over) to get to the Headrace. There's a little step on the left there, I'm assuming for that purpose. Wouldn't want cows getting through!
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/183/374652711_00cbc809df.jpg?v=0
That's a nice sunset view of the Headrace... I got a few photos similar to that one in that youtube video.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/154/407908712_6cd44789f4_o.jpg
Searched around a bit, that church is the one you can see in one of the photos, again, in that youtube. At least I'm fairly sure it is. I'll have to have another look once I'm on a computer that can do video.
Edit: That church is actually the one I saw, but it's in this video, not the other - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F23ZayQmCEo&feature=related
---------------
The point here, if there is one, is that the area around the Headrace and leading up to it were, essentially, where I went to relax. I started out exploring once just for the adventure of it, and found a few places that I really liked, and the Ardnacrusha Headrace was one of them. It was almost bizarrely peaceful, the quiet of that 5AM morning broken only by the occasional bird, or a lamb complaining noisily about something or another on the other side of the canal. I could have ridden all the way to Clonlara, the town with that church, or all the way to Ardnacrusha itself, which Huw and I later did, circling all the way around into Limerick city and then back to UL (in fact, I think we rode over this bridge: http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/scattery/IMG_0892_1.jpg ). I came back a few times, just sitting and looking at clouds for a good half hour, riding around aimlessly for another hour or two, just seeing what was there, before finally heading back to UL.
I guess I'm just really, almost overwhelmed when I think of it... I never realized it at the time of course, just like my trip to Edinburgh with my friends, but looking back on it, I really did have an amazing experience. Yeah, I am having minor inconveniences at Tufts, what with missing classes that I should have taken last semester. Yeah, I am having to deal with actually being given weekly homework again. But, as eager as I was to get back home while I was over there, I do miss it. I had a virtual countdown in my head, of sorts, reminding myself that I was going to be home in May, and that everything would go back to normal, which would be kind of reassuring. If anything, that made my experience over there almost like a dream... you can tell your friends and family about your dreams, and how amazing XYZ was, and that sort of thing, but they weren't there. They didn't experience it, and it's very frustrating to try and convey what it felt like to be there.
Seeing those pictures just now, I suppose it just really hit me like a wave, almost. I'm NOT the only person who knows about that place, there are other people out there who've seen it, who got to the end of that tree-covered street and saw that gate, who looked down that canal and thought "man, this is beautiful." And somehow, that just really brought the whole thing back, and made it ever so slightly more real. Almost like, now I KNOW I didn't dream the whole thing.