Coffee Trek and Church

Saturday we went on a coffee trek. In other words, we were put into groups, given five euros each, and sent off to explore stops along the DART and find coffee shops. That was actually fun. In my group I had Ryan, Rachel, Kristin, and Avery. We found a coffee shop at the back of this street market at Blackrock and then we found a cute little tea room in the back of this really expensive boutique type shop called Ellen's Tea Room. It was a really cute shop. So that was fun.
Today, Sunday, I went to Greystones Presbyterian Church which is about a quarter mile or so from the YWCA. They were finishing up a series on Elijah called Why Ireland needs Prophets - Not Profit. I think some American pastor needs to do a series on it, except rename is Why America needs Prophets - Not Profit. After that we went into the back of the church for tea and coffee and me and the small group of Taylor students going to the church with me (other students went to other community churches) talked with this guy who for the past thirty years until last year was a New Age Professor and wrote articles and studied in-depth on the subject. Then one night last year he had a dream that he was being eaten by a demon for believing in New Age and that made him want to try and learn more about Christianity. He says his wife thinks that he's gone slightly insane because he's so passionate about Christ now but he hopes and prays that she will hopefully open up to Christ in the near future but he knows that it might take a while since it took him a long time.
Tomorrow we will be going to Glendalough (pronounced Glen-da-lock). It's an old monastery created in St. Kevin in the 6th Century. Basically, monasteries in Ireland were little religious communities and were great centers of learning. During Europe's Dark Ages - Ireland sorta got skipped by that. That was Ireland's Golden Age basically. Anyway, in monasteries there were individual rooms for the monks that are called cells, there's also a church building, kitchens, land and pastures so that they could cultivate the land and glean from it, the monasteries always had a library and a scriptorium where the scribes would be writing and translating. During the Dark Ages of Europe, books were sent to Ireland for them to be translated because Ireland was so well known for its scholars.
Monastery actually means Community (which I thought was cool.) Dr. Cosgrove, one of my professors, teasingly called Taylor the Taylor Monastery since community is a big thing at Taylor. Anyway, at the monastery the day went by like this: pray daily, fast daily, study daily, work daily. There was daily church and the special days were Sundays, Saint Days and Easter was the big day. The monks would fast through the 40 days of Lent - but not a total fast for they took very light meals at night so that they would survive.
We'll learn a whole lot more about the people who lived in a monastery tomorrow but that's all I have right now. I don't know if I'll be able to update a post tomorrow since the wi-fi will be off and I'll have to battle for ether-net cords but I will update as soon as possible.