Resolutions...

It's a new year - out goes 2006 with all its ups and downs, and in comes 2007 with a million plans and promises. I am sure that I'm not the only one who begins every new year with a number of resolutions* (like more sports, more pictures, more blogging, less sweets, finding true love) - that usually go out the window together with the Christmas decorations in less than two weeks.

But of course, this year it'll all be different.

This year I am going to stick with those resolutions! And to make sure that this will be the case I decided to go out and start taking some pictures and immediately put them up in my blog - that's catching two birds with one stone!

Admittedly, the first set of pictures was already taken a few weeks back when my friends Anne and Nate came over from the US and saved me from my car-less existence with a swell Avis rental car. We took a road trip up to Northern Ireland (which is a thrillingly unexciting border crossing only noticeable by gas prices suddenly being marked in Pound Sterling instead of Euros) to Belfast and the Giant’s Causeway – and I could have hardly asked for a greater introduction to the scenic Irish landscapes:

The Giant's Causeway is an area of 40,000 interlocking basalt columns resulting from a volcanic eruption. It is located about 2 miles (3 km) north of the town of Bushmills in County Antrim, Northern Ireland along the northeast coast of Ireland. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986, and a National Nature Reserve in 1987 (by the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland). In a 2005 poll of Radio Times readers, Giant's Causeway was named as the fourth greatest natural wonder in the United Kingdom. It's the centerpoint of many famous photos, notably the cover of the Led Zeppelin album Houses of the Holy. The Giant's Causeway is owned and managed by the National Trust. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Most of the columns are hexagonal, however there are some with four, five, seven and eight sides. The tallest are about 12 meters (36 ft) high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 meters thick in places (Thanks again, Wikipedia).

After spending the night in a small B&B (of which we skipped that Breakfast because Anne made us get up at the crack of dawn) we made our way back to Belfast to hop on one of the famous “Black Cab” tours in which the driver takes you to the famous and infamous landmarks right there in the heart of the Northern Ireland conflict. While the open violence has subsided and doesn’t take a prominent spot in everyday news and media anymore, the hate and mistrust still runs deep between many Protestants and Catholics. A 10m wall divides Belfast, target for many a child to cast a stone across, separating the neighborhoods of both faiths. Massive steel gates in the wall can be closed at a moments notice to prevent acts of violence or retaliation. Having grown up in the 80s and 90s and seen much of the IRA and Northern Ireland violence on TV in that time, it is an odd feeling standing in front of the head office of Sinn Fein or the murals depicting the heroes of the Ulster Freedom Fighters.

The next set of pictures that I actually DID take this year will be showing off the Republic of Ireland, namely Glendalough.

I’m sure I’ll get around posting this soon – after all, it’s one of my resolutions.



* Being a big wikipedia fan and often relying on it to satisfy my thirst for immediate answering of questions I decided to look up the history of New Year’s Resolutions. It’s an interesting bit of trivia, but it also shows the flaws of the Wikipedia concept - too many cooks do in fact dilute the precision of the answer... or something like that:

The tradition of the New Year's Resolutions goes all the way back to 153 BC. Janus, a mythical king of early Rome was placed at the head of the calendar.[citation needed]

With two faces, Janus could look back on past events and forward to the future. Janus became the ancient symbol for resolutions and many Romans looked for forgiveness from their enemies and also exchanged gifts before the beginning of each year.

The New Year has not always begun on January 1, and it doesn't begin on that date everywhere today. It begins on that date only for cultures that use a 365-day solar calendar. January 1 became the beginning of the New Year in 46 B.C., when Julius Caesar developed a calendar that would more accurately reflect the seasons than previous calendars had.

The Romans named the first month of the year after Janus, the god of beginnings and the guardian of doors and entrances. He was always depicted with two faces, one on the front of his head and one on the back. Thus he could look backward and forward at the same time. At midnight on December 31, the Romans imagined Janus looking back at the old year and forward to the new. The Romans began a tradition of exchanging gifts on New Year's Eve by giving one another branches from sacred trees for good fortune. Later, nuts or coins imprinted with the god Janus became more common New Year's gifts.

In the Middle Ages, Christians changed New Year's Day to December 25, the birth of Jesus. Then they changed it to March 25, a holiday called the Annunciation. In the sixteenth century, Pope Gregory XIII revised the Julian calendar, and the celebration of the New Year was returned to January 1.

The Julian and Gregorian calendars are solar calendars. Some cultures have lunar calendars, however. A year in a lunar calendar is less than 365 days because the months are based on the phases of the moon. The Chinese use a lunar calendar. Their new year begins at the time of the first full moon after the sun enters Aquarius--sometime between January 19 and February 21.

Although the date for New Year's Day is not the same in every culture, it is always a time for celebration and for customs to ensure good luck in the coming year.