Belfast

Sunday morning Joan and Owen took me for an "Ulster Fry" - Two fried eggs, rashers (bacon), sausage, soda bread, potato bread, baked beans, a fried tomato, and french fries. Then we headed downtown and took the open topped bus tour of the city. Owen and Joan insist they learned new things and enjoyed the tour. While I've been in Ireland, the leaders of the catholics and the protestants actually meet and shook hands in public, which is seen as a groundbreaking event and another step forward in the peace process. However, the wall still stands between the two most divided neighborhoods in West Belfast, and both sides recently objected to proposals to remove it. So the city council agreed they'd let the neighbors decide when (if?) it should come down. Here is a picture of some of the murals on the Catholic side of the peace wall:
Next, we visited the Giant's Ring, a megalithic monument with a dolmen in the center. It was used as a race track in the 1800s - 6 laps was 2 miles.
Here's a picture of me on the Dolmen:
We then visited Stormont, the divisive and historically important center of government for Northern Ireland built by the British and kept under extremely tight security up until a few years ago. You still can't go inside but the grounds are pretty and you can walk up to it.
We finished the afternoon with afternoon tea at the only 5 star hotel in northern Ireland, where Joan and Owen got married. It was everything a girl could have asked for in a weekend, and more. Also, America needs to get it's act together and start using more clotted cream. A picture of the hotel:
Joan gave me a ride back to the city and I was home by 8 PM.

I've been asked a lot of questions about American politics, etc in the last week. Luckily for you guys, the security guard needs to lock the office so you won't be subjected to a rant or ramble today. But the Virginia Tech story has been very big here (bigger than the tremendous toll in human lives in Iraq last week, interestingly) and I've been forced to think about American politics. Not that that's bad.

Carikk-a-reed Rope Bridge

After the Giant's Causeway, we headed on to the Carikk-a-reed rope bridge. The bridge goes from a cliff on the mainland to a small island where there used to be a salmon fishery. I think it is intentionally designed to be bouncy, but luckily it was a calm day so there wasn't much swaying added to the bouncyness. Here I am on the bridge:
Joan doesn't like edges, but she did make it across without much fuss. The water along the cliffs was very still and a wonderful color of green, which It think was impossible to capture on (digital) film. And here's another picture of the bridge:
After the bridge we drove past Dungarvin castle and went to one of Joan and Owen's favorite restaurants in Portrush. It was the best meal I've had in a long time. I decided to have the (12 oz) lamb steak on Owen's recommendation, even though just 2 weeks ago I was feeling guilty when I saw all the cute newborn lambs in pastures across the country. The lambs have gotten significantly larger and less cute in 2 weeks, so I enjoyed my dinner almost guilt free. In addition to the 12 oz of meat, we had fries, mashed potatoes, tobacco onions, creamed spinach, and Mediterranean vegetables. We didn't finish it all, needless to say. But we still had desert - Banafi - which is an Irish desert consisting of a biscuity crust, a layer of bananas and carmel sauce, and then several inches of fresh cream on top. It sounds odd, but it's pretty tasty. It was an hour and a half drive back to Belfast, so we also got two meringues and some strawberry Banafi-like desert to go. I was still too stuffed to eat mine when I got home, though. Me and Joan at dinner: (I know I look terrible, so focus on the food)

Hooray for Northern Ireland!

I had an excellent birthday weekend in Northern Ireland. Friday night Eilish and Phil and I had Chinese take away (excellent) and homemade apple pie (Phil made it) to celebrate. Saturday I rode the train up to Portadown in Northern Ireland where I was met by Joan, one of the doctors from the hospice. She grew up in Northern Ireland and her husband lives in Belfast, so she commutes on weekends. They were kind enough to invite me to come visit them for a weekend, and planned an excellent itinerary for me. Our first stop was the Giants Causeway:
The giant's causeway is an interesting geological phenomenon, a spit of rock composed of hexagonal columns of rock:
According to Irish legend, the Giant's causeway was built by an Irish giant to cross the sea and pick a fight with a Scottish Giant. He arrived in Scotland and realized his opponent (who was taking a nap) was much larger than him, so he hightailed it back to Ireland. When the other giant woke up, he crossed the causeway. The Irish giant's wife saw him coming and dressed the giant up as a baby. When the Scottish giant arrived, she told him he was welcome to wait, but please don't wake the baby. The Scottish giant thought if that was the size of the baby, he had no interest in meeting the Dad, so he returned to Scotland and destroyed the causeway behind him. The other end has been identified somewhere in Scotland. Looking back at the cliffs:
A closeup of the rocks that form the causeway:
As you can see, the weather was a bit gray. But it was the first day of rain since I arrived in Ireland, which is extremely unusual for this time of year, so I'm not complaining. Joan and Owen (her husband) were apologetic though.

Knowth

The big hill at Knowth with some satellite monuments:
Me with the big hill on the right.
The view from the top of the big hill at Knowth:

Megaliths Galore

On Saturday I visited Brun a Boynne, the megalithic monuments in the Boyne Valley. There are three major megaliths, Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth, and upwards of 30 smaller tombs many of which have not been excavated. Newgrange is the 'best' of the monuments, and is considered to be the best megalithic monument in western europe. It is a large hill (>200 tonnes of rock and dirt) that was built over 5000 years ago at a time when the inhabitants of Ireland had neither horses nor wheels, and much of the rock was brought from 40 or 80 Km away. It has one tunnel (that they know of) that leads to a cruciform chamber which was used for human remains, and probably had other ritual uses as well. The tunnel is perfectly aligned so that sunlight comes in at sunrise on the morning of the winter solstice. The chamber includes lots of megalithic art carved into the supporting stones which seems to have been done before they were put in place, and is a vaulted roof built without any mortar, so it's quite an architectural feat for any age. It was also designed with drainage so that not a drop of water has gotten in in 5000 years. (I'm not entirely sure how they know ''not a drop'', but that's what they tell tourists.) A limited number of tourists are allowed in each day, and they drive you in a little bus for one hour visits to the site that include 15 minutes inside the megalith in a group of 20 tourists. They do a simulation of the solstice for you too.

The limestone front of the monument:
The monument from down the hill:
We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the monument, and I'm not entirely sure why because last time I checked flash photography wasn't harmful to stone carvings, but I suppose maybe it's so you actually listen to the talk, and so people aren't trying to linger and get that perfect picture with no other tourists in it. Here is a picture of some of the carvings on the curb stones that support / retain the hill:
After Newgrange I went on to Knowth which is even larger, has at least 2 tunnels, and has multiple satellite monuments as well. The tunnels there had been collapsed when a fort with a moat was built on top of the hill, so while they have been opened they're not safe enough for tourists to go in. The tunnels at Knowth are aligned to the rising and setting sun on the spring and fall equinoxes. It also has some early Christan small tunnels that were used for storage and hiding from the vikings, a sort of tree circle (there was a larger one at Newgrange but it wasn't restored) that was a holy site in between the megalith builders and the Christians, and some signs of other habitation. Dowth can't be visited except the outside, and then only if you have a car, so I didn't see it. But apparently it has a tunnel aligned to the setting sun on the winter solstice and another smaller tunnel or two as well.

Once again, I am impressed and mystified at the motivation and work that went into building these monuments, which are some of the earliest man made structures in the world (built before the pyramids in Egypt or Stonehenge.)

Yesterday I slept in and then went shopping downtown and met up with Eilish and Phil. When we were all shopped out, we rode the bus back to Phil's place and she made us a lovely dinner with ham, mashed potatoes, carrots and broccoli with creamy sauce, and (best of all) homemade apple pie!

That's Grand

Eilish's Backyard:
The 29 horses coming out for the grand national:
The horses approaching the jump at the grand national:

Irish people say "that's grand" or just "grand" when Americans might say good or ok. I think it's a lovey phrase, particularly the way they say it. I also like the way they say lovely, which sounds much nicer coming from an Irish person. And my third favorite new phrase is "your man" which they often say instead of he or instead of a persons name. I do have some trouble understanding people on a fairly regular basis, and I wonder if they thing I'm slow because I'm often asking people to repeat things. But it's a lovely variety of English to listen to, so over all, it's grand.

I've been quite busy since Saturday afternoon in Galway - Saturday evening I went to a 'session' in a pub - where a group of musicians sit around and play together, with people rotating in and out as the evening goes on. It started out with what sounded like traditional Irish music to me (at least) - with the Irish pipe / flute and some impressive singing, and ended up with more modern or popular songs. Sunday I rode the bus back to Dublin and went to bed early to catch up on the sleep deficit from staying in the hostel.

Monday I went to the Irish Grand National horse race at Fairyhouse racetrack in Meath, which was a short bus ride from Dublin. All but the last race, including the Grand National, were a couple miles long with jumps - I have never seen live racing with jumps before so that was interesting. I think the track was about a mile long, so the horses went around a couple times during each race. They had cameras set up so you could see what was happening when they were far from the stands, and an announcer. Horses fell landing jumps during several races, and one pileup looked quite bad, but as far as I know no people were hurt, and the horses usually seemed to get up immediately as well. The other interesting thing about the races was the clothing - some of the women were competing for the 'best dressed lady' prize - which was a 10,000 euro diamond necklace - so I suppose worth some effort. The dresses were quite feminine and formal, but the really fun part was the head wear. I saw all manner and colors of hats, miniature hats, headdresses that looked like a segment of a hat, and little feather headpieces. I think American women could benefit from more feathered head wear. A lot of the men were dressed in suits and ties as well.

Monday night I went to a Kaylee (this is a phonetic spelling, the actual spelling is entirely different, but I don't know what it is) with Eilish and her friend Phil. A Kaylee is an Irish dancing night, and it was held at a small hotel a few blocks from Eilish's house. I was probably the only person there under 60, and they let me in free when they heard I was an American student who didn't know any of the dances. But of course everyone was quite friendly and one woman was my leader for several dances (there were more women than men so women often danced together.) She told me what to do during the more complicated parts of the dances. Most of the dances were with 4 couples in a square so I imagine it was similar to an American square dance. My hosts were very kind and said I was doing well - I doubt I was doing well, but I did manage not to mess the rest of the dancers up too much.

I took Tuesday night off. Wednesday I went to see a play, "The Cavalcaders" with Eilish and Phil at The Abbey Theatre which was established by W.B. Yates amongst others and has been around for over a hundred years. The play centered around friendships and romances in a small Irish town, many of which were not working out well, so it wasn't what you'd call a comedy, but there was also a lot of singing and it was enjoyable. Last night Dr. McQuillan took me to another play, at the New Theatre which is a small theatre you enter through an anarchist book shop. This play was called "Shadow of a Gunman"and takes place during the Irish war for independence, examining whether or not the people fighting the war were heroic and what the impact on civilians was. Dr. McQuillan said the Northern Irish accents were quite poor, but of course I didn't notice that, and I enjoyed that play as well. I've decided not to take the 4 hour train ride to Killarney this weekend, so I will probably visit Belfast and Newgrange (one of the worlds best dolmen) and may go on the musical pub tour tonight.

The Rest of the Tour

After the walking tour, we rejoined the bus and our next stop was this dolmen:There were actually much more tourists around than this picture shows - the place was crawling with us! I think there were at least 2 bus fulls, and a lot of people who had driven there as well. We only had 10 minutes - they keep you on a strict schedule - but it was cool anyway. According to the bus driver when it was built 5000-6000 years ago it would have been covered with a large mound of dirt and rocks, and there would have been more large standing stones around it. There are something like 32 people that were excavated here, buried over a 600 year time period. The current theory is that the dolmen was a place where you could go into the mound and isolate yourself from the world so as to better commune with your ancestors. I've never heard that at other dolmen, so I'm a bit sceptical, but either way it's an impressive that they were interested in building it so long ago, and that it has survived this long.

The next stop was the Cliffs of Mohr, which are one of the biggest tourist attractions in Ireland. They are quite scenic, and the weather was beautiful today. (Apparently yesterday they were covered in fog.) Here's a picture of the cliffs looking south:
And here's looking north - you can see how big the waves coming in from the Atlantic are: (These cliffs are much taller than this picture shows.)
We had lunch around 3, and then we had one last stop at this castle:
I can't remember the name of the castle because we passed at least 10 named castles or ruins of castles. I guess it's not that hard to build a castle after all. We also passed a llama farm on the way home, which everyone else on the bus seemed to think was absolutely fabulous. Having had personal experience with llamas at girl scout camp long ago, I was not as excited. (Especially since my recollection is that by the time you got the llama to do something (like carry your lunch to the top of the mountain) you would have been better off just doing it yourself.)

The comedy show last night was good, and not as mean to Americans as it could have been. There were a lot of jokes about Catholicism, most of which I think I got. Also, apparently theatre licenses allow you to serve alcohol whenever you want, so even though all the bars were closed for Good Friday and no supermarkets were allowed to sell liquor either, I was able to have a pint of Guinness.

The Burren

So today I went on my walking tour of the Burren, which also included a lot of other places as well - but I'm just going to write about the Burren in this post. The Burren is an area south of Galway that is composed of limestone hills and valleys that were shaped by glaciers during the last ice age. I and about 15-20 other tourists were dropped off at the family farm of John Connolly for the tour. He is a pleasant young man who is trying to supplement the income from farming by taking people on walking tours through his family's 1000 acre land (they own two large hills / small mountains.) Of that, less than 100 acres are usable for farming. Anyway, we went through the fields in the valley and hiked up the mountain. This photo is looking back at the valley and the sea:And this shows how rocky the area is:
We stopped at several view spots along the way and John told us about the geological origins of the Burren and about the history of human inhabitants in the area as well. His family has been there for at least 200 years. Near the top of the climb we all lay down in the heather, and then we sat around and got to know one another for a bit:
On our way back down the hill, we saw several old churches in the valley near the farm that combine christian and Celtic heritage, and a rock pile built by the British for mapping and navigating.
Here is a picture of a recently born calf and it's mom in the green fields of the valley:
One of the unique customs of farming in the Burren is that the cows are driven up to the mountain tops in the winter (the reverse of the way it's done in most of the world) - because the soil is so thin, the limestone rock just beneath it traps warmth during the summer, and the ground even on top of the hills never gets much below 6 degrees Celsius. Because there are no cows up top during the summer, the grass has lots of opportunity to grow and might be a foot and a half tall by the time winter rolls around.

So I'm glad I did a tour that included some walking - instead of just riding a bus through the Burren - because I think I got a better feel for it on foot than I would have otherwise. (Most of the tour group saw some caves instead of walking through the Burren - but I heard they weren't that spectacular, and we have lots of caves in the US.)

Galway

So I am in Galway for the weekend - I got Good Friday off, so I rode the bus here this morning. It seems like a nice little city, and tomorrow I will take a bus tour of the nearby Burren and cliffs of Mohr.

Last night, Dr. McQuillan, the head doctor at the hospice and my supervisor for this rotation took me to dinner and a play in downtown Dublin. The play was "Dublin Carol" and was written by a well known young Irish writer Colin McPhereson. It was about a middle aged Irish undertaker who is forced to look back on his (less than satisfactory) life when his estranged daughter tells him his wife (whom he also hasn't seen in years) is in the hospital dying. It was very well done and touched on themes such as family relationships, death, family reunions due to terminal illness, etc, that are quite relevant to my current rotation. (Dr. McQuillan swears she didn't know the play was so relevant, she just liked the author and lead actor.) My favorite line was "A woman's love can be terribly constant. A woman can love you for 3 or 4 years without stopping." So that was a lovely evening, and I'm very lucky to have such nice hosts.

My first week at the hospice went well. I spent time in the hospice inpatient unit, rounded with the palliative care team at nearby Beaumont Hospital, and spent time in the hospice day care unit. I am learning a lot about the Irish family structure and legal system - which is quite different from the US. There are no advanced directives in the Irish legal / health care system, and giving someone power of attorney is uncommon. Divorce was only legalized 10 or 20 years ago, and many couples are separated for years but never get legally divorced, so if they become ill, their husband or wife is still the surrogate decision maker regarding their care, and will inherit all of their property unless there is a will specifying otherwise. This, along with the generally larger family sizes in Ireland seems to lead to some complications that may be less common when caring for terminally ill patients in the US. I think most of the time things get figured out fairly easily, but it is an interesting difference between the two places.

The hospice itself is a lovely facility, which was purpose-built a few years ago. They are working on plans for another hospice on the north side of Dublin to be ready around 2010. It is amazing how much community awareness and support there is of the hospice. In general, the neighborhood around the hospice seems to be more of a real community than American neighborhoods. This may be in large part due to the shared religion - Catholicism - but my impression is that it is also due to a complicated mix of larger, closer families, a smaller country, and more of a sense of place of origin. (Like the guys in the bar Sunday night who take taxis to their old neighborhood bar rather than finding a new one in their new neighborhood.) Anyway, people know who their neighbors are more, and they all know about and respect the hospice a great deal. Every time I tell someone I'm studying there, they say "Oh, the hospice is a wonderful place!" or something similar. Not only that, but many of them seem to volunteer at the hospice in one capacity or another - most commonly as a driver or a visitor for the hospice day care, but also for things like the bereavement support groups, which require a year of training, and are chaired by volunteers. I think it's nice that the hospice seems to be such a fixture in the community, and it's certainly nice that it's so admired.

Well, I have to eat dinner and then I'm off to see "Jesus: The Guantanamo Years" at the Galway Comedy festival which is on this weekend. Hopefully it won't make me feel too bad about being an American. Tomorrow night I hope to see some live music, but the bars are all closed tonight because it's Good Friday and no one is allowed to serve alcohol.

Picture Update: Dublin

Leaving the ferry port in Holyhead, Wales - headed for Dublin:
Guinness being poured in Davy Byrnes - the pub about which there is a whole chapter in Ulysses - the final stop on the Literary Pub Crawl I took Friday night:
Ok, this one's not of Dublin, it's of Donostia, but I've seen wind surfers here as well:

Picture Update - Donostia:

The world famous beach:
The beach from the top of the funicular - you can see how it is long and nicely progtected from big waves by the island:

Looking east from the top of the funicular: Looking west from the top of the funicular:
The combs of the wind - an interesting sculpture by one of spains most famous and beloved modern sculptors:

Picture Update - Bilbao

The theatre where I saw the Bilbao Symphony:
The gugenheim, from either end:


The city and mountains beyond from the top of the funicular:

The Hospitality Continues

So I'm still amazed at how friendly people in Ireland are. I know everyone tells you that they're friendly, but I guess I wasn't mentally prepared. I've finished my second day at the hospice. Everyone I'm introduced to seems genuinely pleased to meet me, and eager to make me feel welcome and comfortable. I've never met so many nurses who were concerned about a medical student's well being in my life. The hospice itself is lovely - it's a beautiful building with lots of windows that is built around some well-kept but not discouraging gardens which are filled with tulips and daffodils right now.

I have been somewhat reluctant to Blog because I'm quite certain I'm going to fail miserably at accurately describing my experience Sunday evening. Around 7:30 I left Eilish's house (the woman I'm staying with) and walked down to the pub that is on the corner of our block. I was planning to have a beer and be home in time to watch the Jane Austen movie that was on at 9:00, have a late dinner, and be in bed by the time Eilish returned from her outing, which she thought might be after midnight. After about 10 minutes at the bar, a nice fellow named Kevin came over and started chatting with me. He was in his early 40s with a wedding ring and it was clear he was just being friendly. Eventually, we headed over to his table where all his friends were happy to meet me too. They were just back from a golfing weekend in Donegal, and were having a grand time. They don't live in the neighborhood, but nearby, and the pub at the end of my block was their ancestral stomping grounds, so to speak - they all take taxis there a couple nights a week because it's the pub they grew up in. (Except the one member of the group who's a taxi driver, I think he may have driven.) The conversation mostly involved them insulting one another. A group of younger men at the next table over (obviously well known to the group) was having quite a laugh at the expense of the taxi driver by repeatedly placing a pen behind each of his ears and then asking him if he had a pen, which was quite amusing for everyone, because he was always surprised at the presence of a pen behind either ear, much less both. They also asked me where I was from etc, and whether I could ride a horse, which I eventually figured out must be a euphemism for something, although since Colorado (which they also delighted in talking about) is known for horses and I had mentioned that I'm thinking of going to the big national race day here, it took me longer than it should have probably. Anyway, I was convinced to stay and another pint of Guinness was procured. The friendly insults of one another, the most common of which involved apologizing for the taxi driver, continued. Kevin, my initial friend apologized for the prolific cursing, although it didn't seem like more cursing than you'd hear amongst a group of American friends out at a bar. Maybe the lovely accent makes it seem like less? Anyway, I decided to go to the bathroom and head home, but when I got back there was another half pint of Guinness waiting for me (I had been drinking the pints too slowly, which leads to a less fulfilling Guinness experience according to the apparent experts.) But they also got me a ham and cheese sandwich since I was getting pretty hungry having had no dinner yet. I arrived home after 10, to a somewhat anxious Eilish who had come home early with her sister and niece for a glass of brandy, and expected me there. Of course I am invited to rejoin the group any time I'm in the pub - at least one of them is usually there Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. I should probably insist on buying a round next time though. Well, I don't think I butchered that description as much as I could have, although of course you would have to be there to really appreciate it fully. Suffice to say it was a fun night, and I'm not sure there's anywhere else in the world that would happen.

Names

Today I visited Kilmainham Gaol, a 'new jail' built in the 1790s. Over the course of Irish history, it's housed some criminals, and a lot of political prisoners and poor people . In the early years of the Irish potato famine, people who were starving would com mitt petty crimes to go to jail, because they knew they would be fed there. The British government decreased food rations to discourage this, but they also made it illegal to beg on the street, so later in the famine many people were imprisoned for begging or steeling food. Children as young as 8 years old were put in jail for crimes like stealing grass or stealing 2 loaves of bread. (Those of you who don't know much Irish history, as I didn't before planning this trip, might find it interesting that there was plenty of food in Ireland during the potato famine, it was just all being shipped internationally by the wealthy landowners, only the peasants who happened to rely on the potato as their food supply who suffered.) Anyway, while I was there I saw the cell of one of the prison's more famous occupants:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Clarke_%28Irish_Republican%29

When I mentioned to the tour guide that one of the men involved in the 1916 uprising shared a name with my dad, he told me a bit more about Tom Clarke the Irish man - how he was a revolutionary politician / fighter who was quite instrumental in leading or instigating the Easter Rising of 1916. And he pointed out the cell where he was held by the Brits until his execution days after the rebels were defeated. And the yard where the executions took place, with a black cross marking where they would have stood blindfolded and faced a 12 man firing squad:
So it was interesting to learn about a famous Irishman who share's my Dad's name. (At least first and last) and I plan to buy a book recommended by one of the museum staff who declared "Tom Clarke is one of my favorite names!"

When I was in London in 2004, no one noticed my name. Here it was remarked upon first at the immigration stand when I got off the ferry from England. The guy at the booth said "Clarke?" and I said "yes, it's a British name but my family has been in America for several generations." At least one other person has commented on it as well, in the last 24 hrs. I don't know if the Irish have more of a sense of family history being important than the Brits do, or if they're just friendlier in general, but I think it's interesting. I wonder what it must be like for people who come here for the first time with truly Irish names - do they get even more questions?

The hostel is ok. I had a hot shower last night - perhaps the water is only cold in the middle of peak showering hours? And the staff directed me to a nearby pub for dinner, where I had a really quite decent green salad (at least it had more than one kind of lettuce, and I've been craving uncooked vegetables after London and Spain.) Of course I had to try my first pint of Genuine Irish Guinness, too - I must admit I like it better here. I don't know if it's actually different or if I'm just in the right frame of mind to be drinking Guinness, but I quite enjoyed it and I've never gotten into the stuff at home. I am booked on a literary pub crawl tonight (complete with genuine actors reading passages from famous Irish literature, some in the pubs the stories take place in) so I imagine I can have another if I'm not feeling up to a whiskey, which is (of course) the other Irish national beverage.

So other than the gaol I wandered about a bit today, picked up a map from the tourist office, and visited the surprisingly unhelpful bus office, bought a sim card for my phone - I can send text messages to US phones for only 15 euro cents, but I don't know what it might cost the recipient of the text message. Buying a sim card was much easier here than in Hungary - there I needed a home address in Hungary, an ID with my US address, etc. Here I just needed 10 euros - they wouldn't have even taken my name had I not used my credit card to pay. I visited the Chester Beatty Library and had a lovely lunch which included rice (another thing I've been craving) and chicken (No pork or sausage, thank you very much Spanish cuisine!) They have an interesting display of old religious texts and objects including a lot of 'illuminated' texts, the most impressive of which were Buddhist and Hindu. I plan to return to the hostel and have a snack and then I will go on the pub tour.

Not a Myth

So that old story about Irish friendliness is not a myth as of my first several hours in Ireland. I rode the train from London to Holyhead Wales, and then a ferry to Dublin. On the bus into the city I was befriended by a nice little old lady who welcomed me to the country, apologised for the (slight) bad mood of the driver, offered me a job when she found out I would be here for a whole month, encouraged me to visit Cork, and told me about her grandchildren, one of whom is lovely and one is spoiled. After getting off the bus she could tell I wasn't sure which way to go to get to the hostel, so she flagged down a passerby and asked him. (She lives in England now and wasn't 100% sure where the street was.)

And that brings us to the hostel. . . I was lucky they had room to have me for a couple nights, since my plans to visit Wales on my way from London had to be abandoned. And it's a lot cheaper than anything else I might find in Dublin. And the check in guy was really nice. But. . . my roommates tell me there is no hot water in the showers, and they seem to be planning a late and noisy night (they are college students studying in England and traveling on their 5 week April break.) So I think I'll be happy to move on to Elish's (my Irish hostess) on Saturday. But I'm sure it will be an experience staying here, and probably mostly a fun one. I don't really have to shower until tomorrow morning, right? :) I think I'll set out to find some food that's not extremely expensive and hopefully includes some uncooked vegetables of some kind, and then I'll call it an early night as most of my decent sleep may happen before my roommates get home.

London

I arrived safely in London. I had a suitable welcome to the British homeland when I chatted with the man behind me in line at the airport cafe about how you can't get a decent cup of tea in Spain. (He's even tried to teach them, but it doesn't work. It has something to do with their not having boiling water, although I suspect there is boiling water somewhere in Spain) Anyway, I got to do laundry in a machine for the first time in 3+ weeks and the friends I'm staying with also have a dryer! It was an excellent morning in. This afternoon I bought my sail/rail ticket to Dublin on Thursday, and then I got a pasty in the train station, which I felt was appropriate. Tonight I may check out a pub quiz at a pub near my friends house. This computer has a USB port but my card reader won't fit into it because whatever is next to the slots is too big. So no pictures today either.

Hasta Luego!

Tomorrow I leave Spain for a couple days in London and then on to Ireland. If anyone has things in London they absolutely love, let me know because I´m feeling a bit uninspired about touristing there right now.

Today I went to the Syphony in Bilbao. It was an excellent symphony, and quite different from what I am accustomed to. The major difference was that there were NO violins on the stage. They seem to have replaced what would be the violin section in America with clarinets, which there were 13 of, plus some bass (tenor?, anyway bigger) clarinets, at least two of them. There were two cellos, but no string bases. Maybe I´ve never gotten over my childhood exposture at montesorri school to Suzuki violin classes, (which seem to consist of a tremendous number of very small children torturing violins) because I was quite pleased with the absence of violins, and I´ve never understood why there need to be so many of them anyway. I don´t know if it was just the pieces they were playing today, or if they always have fewer violins, but I liked it. They had 7 percussionists - one of whom was a soloist on the first 2 pieces who was in town for this concert. There were 3 tenor and 3 alto saxes, 2 bassons, and 2 base basoons. 2 small and 4 large tubas (?) four trombones, 5 trumpets and 3 french horns rounded out the brass section nicely. The music they played was relatively energetic, one might even say jaunty, and other than the longish introductions in both spanish and basque, I thoroughly enjoyed it. At the end of the percussion solos, the conductor brought out a basque beret for the soloist and put it on him. The theater was a sea of red velvet and white and gold paint, almost over the top. I wish I could post a picture of it, but this computer is so old I´m just happy I´m not having to pedal something to use it, so needless to say there is no USB. But I did take a picture at the end, so if people want to see a really fancy theater it´ll be available eventually.

After the symphony, I rode the funicular up to a lookout spot with lovely views of the city and surrounding mountains, which are quite impressive, athough you can´t really see them from most parts of the town because of the hills. I think if I lived in Bilbao I´d want to live on top of a hill so I could see the mountains.

Yesterday I went to San Sebastian / Donostia which is a famous beach town. It finally stopped raining, so I am glad I waited to go. The beach is considered one of the best public beaches in the world because it is seashell shaped and protected from the open sea by hills on either end of the horseshoe plus an island in the middle of the opening. It was quite scenic and looked like a nice beach, although it wasn´t warm enough for me to test it out. I did see people surfing and parasailing in wetsuits on the other side of the town where the waves are bigger. Although I would love to learn to surf, I´m too much of a wuss to do it somewhere I need a wetsuit to get in the water. So I walked all the way around the beach and rode the funicular to the top of the large hill on the western end, which has great views of the beach, the town, the mountains behind it which are beautiful, the coastline of the Bay of Biscay extending east and west, and of course the bay itself. I didn´t buy a basque beret in the old town because I already have a black beret, and I don´t think I´d use a red one, but it was a hard decision. On my return home last night I visited the grocery store at El Corte Ingles (the large department store in Spain) and bought some packaged arroz con leche, (rice pudding) some olive tapenade, and half a bottle of Rioja wine, all of which I enjoyed thoroughly for a picnic dinner in my hotel room. I plan to do something similar tonight when I´m done at the internet cafe. So it´s be a good last few days in Spain, and I´m looking forward to having a home of sorts for a few weeks in Ireland before I return to MN, I think I would be grumpy if I had a lot more hotel hopping on the horizon with my ton of luggage.

Bilbo

I suppose I should have known that a city who shares its name (in its native language) with a Tolkien character would be good, I suppose.

I arrived on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday I visited the tourist office and the theater box office (where I purchased 2 Euro tickets to the symphony at noon on Sunday, which is in a nice old theatre.) My last day in Sevilla, my only pair of jeans developed a hole in the butt, and I happened to run across a thrift store so I replaced them with a pair of blue-green corduroy jeans from Mango, a popular chain in Europe. And I visted the market where I bought strawberries, clementines, a red pepper, some carrots, and some manchego for snack dinners. In the afternoon I visited the museum of Basque history, which was all in Spanish and Basque, so I don´t feel I really absorbed all that much. I think I learned more from the guide book, but at least I´m supporting the local institutions, eh? The basque do have an interesting and very long history - they´ve been here so long they have no migration story which is rare even in Europe. On wednesday I visited the Museum of Fine arts, which has some nice impressionist paintings by locals, along with the requisite religious art from the 1400s-1800s. They also had a temporary exhibit of portraits of famous Spanish people throughout history, but I didn´t spend that much time in it because once again, I couldn´t really read the captions, and I don´t like portraits that much.

Yesterday I took the commuter train to Guernica, which has titled itself ¨city of peace¨although it is famous for being the Nazi´s practice run for the bombing of cities during WWII. I visited the peace museum which documents the bombings but also has a lot of stuff about peace and human rights in general, which is probably quite interesting if you can read it (once again captions in Spanish and Basque.) (I´m not trying to whine about how the whole world hasn´t yet been translated into English yet, I´m just saying I would have gotten more out of the museum if I was fluent in one of the languages the displays, quotes, etc were in.) But all in all I think the peace museum is a really cool idea and I´m glad I got to visit it. I went on to the Basque history museum, which also didn´t have much in the way of english descriptions, but had nice visuals of traditional costumes, games, dances, food etc. And then I saw the remains of the oak tree where the basques have been practicing a form of democratic government for hundreds of years (when they were alowed to by various conquering kings etc.) I thought that was pretty cool. Too bad I didn´t learn about it earlier when I spent a year in High School studying democratic forms of government - maybe ETA prevents Americans from teaching about the Basque, or maybe there just aren´t enough of them? Anyway, a visit to the tile relpica of Picasso´s ¨Guernica¨and a late lunch at a local restaruant rounded out my visit to Guernika.

On my return to Bilbao, I felt inspired to do some shoe shopping in the old town. (I want a pair of traditionally spanish looking dance shoes) But instead what I found was the Mango outlet store, where I bought another pair of corduroys for 2 euros (New!) two more pink skirts, one corduroy (2 euros) and one velvet (4 euros), a pair of capris/long dress shorts which are really popular here (4 euros) and a fake fur collar (3 euros, why not?) I think I can now say that I have a well rounded, and possibly complete, selection of pink skirts, having also bought a pink corduroy skirt in Budapest. I didn´t find the perfect shoes but I´ll keep looking.

Today I moved hotel rooms - after some confusion in booking I ended up on the 1st floor of the building in the Hostal Begonia for the first 3 nights and will be in the Pension Bilbao on the 5th floor for the last three. Then I headed to the Gugenheim museum which is one of Frank Gehry´s masterpieces. It rained off and off, often quite hard, all day, but I tried to see it from as many angles as practical despite the rain. It is a really beautiful building, from the outside particularly, but also inside. I also had a delicious lunch in the cafe which is known for basque neuvo cuisine and does a fixed price lunch. I had leek soup with some sort of fish cream concentrate the texture of tofu in it (sounds gross but it grows on you) and bulls tail cannelloni with some sort of squash puree, and delicious arroz con leche (rice pudding, which I have been craving.)

Tomorrow I´ll check out San Sebastian / Donostia. No pictures because this comute doesn´t appear to have USB capabilities.

My Faith in Humanity (Especially Spaniards) is Renewed!

So I have been kind of crabby the last couple days in Sevilla because of what I percieved as a negative attitude about and general rudeness towards tourists in Andalucia, particularly Grandad and Sevilla. I know that they probably get tired of tourists, but it´s low season and they also make a lot of money off of us, and my family tries to have a small tourism ´footprint´if you will. We try to speak spanish in restaurants, ask questions in spanish, etc. Once in a while we need something repeated but usually not more than once and we haven´t been asking everyone we meet ´habla engles?´we only try to speak english at the tourist bureau, etc.

But my arrival in Bilbao has renewed my faith in humanity. The woman who sat next to me on the plane saw me looking at the bus schedule and showed me where the stop was at the airport. Then she and another stranger decided what the best way for me to get to my hotel was (they asked where I was going) and she had me follow her on the bus and then the metro to a stop that was less than 3 blocks from the hotel. She was getting ready to walk me to the hotel but I thanked her and told her I had a map and would be OK. But it was the polar opposite of the experience in Andalucia, where no one ever stopped to ask if we needed directions, even if we were clearly trying to figure out where we were, and much of the time they didn´t even make room for us on sidewalks, etc. So hooray for Bilbao, and thank you nice lady who helped me find my hotel. I would have found it anyway, but it was really nice to have someone want to help me and be kind to tourists. My flagging vacation enthusiasm is renewed as well.

If I´m inspired and the hotel lets me have more than one free half our of internet, I´ll post some pictures later.

Sevilla

We are in Sevilla today. We tried to find a hotel by e-mailing various places listed in the lonely planet, which has worked so far on this trip, but it seemed everywhere was full. Finally our hotellier at the Hotel Gonzalez in Cordoba just called the Hotel Simone. It had gotten mixed reviews on tripadvisor.com, so we were reluctant to book there, despite her recommendation, but it seems we got one of the good rooms. Here´s a picture:The window has a balcony and the rooms are around a lovely enclosed courtyard. And I have my own separate closet room! Anyway, it was a relief to arrive with a reservation, and then even nicer to have it be a nice place, after all the stress of unsuccessfully trying to find a place over the last 2 days. I better get started on my hotel in Bilbao tomorrow!

We had dinner last night in a lovely restaurant the ¨Meson de Luna, ¨ and here is a picture of my mom and I at the bar:
We were less than completely happy with our celebration dinner thursday night, despite the restaurant being pricey and listed as one of the top three in Cordoba in both the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide, and being recommended by our hotellier. So we decided to try again last night and hit the jackpot. Despite speaking no English, the bartender (not in this photo) gave us several tastes of local cured hams and other ham-related products (delicious!) and explained where they were from and why they were the best, plus we also got some very tasty olives, all for the Euros 3.60 we paid for three glasses of wine. We headed into the restaruant for dinner, which was also very satisfying. We started with mixed veggies (marinated and cooked) some truly delicious grilled mushrooms, russian salad (a variety of potato salad that incorporates fish- not my favorite due to the mayonaise) and gazpacho blanco. Then we had ¨rabo del torro¨tail of the bull, a local cordobese specialty, ¨Supresa Ibierco¨which was a delicious iberian surprise (we´re pretty sure it was beef) and beef tips. We ended the meal with ¨Leche Frita¨which I had been wanting to try since our arrival in Cordoba when I saw it described on a menu as ´fried pudin.´ It was puddingesque and seems to have been fried significantly prior to its arrival at our table, as it was cold, but it was tasty. I have to give the spanish props for the tremendous variety of pudding avalable here - I´ve seen at least 6 or 7 distinct types, often with several pudding options at a restaruant. Another gastronomical highlight of Cordoba was the fried eggplant with special honey sauce we had on our first night. But overall, for dinner in Cordoba, I would recommend the Meson de Luna wholeheartedly.

This is a picture of a clan of stray cats my mom and I found earlier in the day yesterday. (There are 6 cats in this picture, see if you can find them all!) A couple of them were actually pretty friendly, and two were tortise shells that looked kind of like Marmalade (But skinnier) so I was pleased to make their aquantance.
Tonight we will try to see some Flamenco in Sevilla. I don´t think we need to be worried about being kept awake with St. Patricks day revelry.

Alhambra, etcetera

It seems I took 183 pictures at the Alhambra on Wednesday, so I´ll start with one of the most important ones, the cicas of the Alhambra:
These three cats, one adult and two kittens live in the Nassarid palace (the fanciest and best preserved part of the Alhambra) in one of the first rooms you enter. This courtyard is their home:

And people think I spoil Marmalade!

Here´s a picture of the Alhambra palace complex from the Generalife - the gardens and summer palace:
And here´s one of one of the gardens and me: (the gardens are very formal but beautiful)
So the Alhambra was obvioulsy very impressive - I´d upload more picture but it takes a long time, and I´m sure there are better pictures out there by professional photographers.

After a week + in andalucia, I have come to the conclusion that the Muslims were actually a really positive influcence on southern spain, at least compaired to the Christians who came after them. Their buildings are far more beautiful, and the Chrisitans often came along and destroyed part of a lovely islamic building to erect a run of the mill baroque church. (These are pretty too, but not nearly as, and there is one in every decent sized town in Europe.) The Muslims also allowed the Jews and Christians to live and work in their cities and towns (although I think they did charge them higher taxes.) When they regained power in the reqonquista, the Christians after killed or drove out all the Muslims and Jews they could identify, starting the spanish inquisition. (Although I do have to thank the Christians for the large quantity of bacon and pork served here in spain. Pork is the dominant meat on most menus, I think because historically you ate it to prove you were Chrisitan.) So while I may be tempted to think of modern day Islam as a somewhat backwards and violent religion, it seems it was not always practiced that way, and may have been better for everyone in Andalucia than Christistianity was.

Anyway, after the Alhambra, we rode the bus to Cordoba, where we are now. Yesterday we saw the Mesquita, which is beautiful, and would probably be even better if the Catholics hadn´t torn out the center of the mosque to build a large cathedral. Even Carlos the first, the spanish king who authorised the building, admitted that it had been a bad idea, because they´d destroyed something unique in the world to build something you can find anywhere (a baroque cathedral.) We also wandered around cordoba yesterday, seeing one of 3 surviving historic synagogues in Spain - it was used as a hospital for ´hydrophopes´- people with rabes - during the most anti-Jewish times in Spanish history. We saw the old city walls, some nice gardens, and a lovely display of large sculputures by a current Spanish sculptor in one of the squares. I bought myself some espadrilles, and I found the star earings I have been looking for to complete my Madonna costume in the Spanish equivalent of Claire´s. I was tempted to buy Pancake some tiny polkadotted flamenco heels, but since they were 15 euros I resisted. (And since Pancake is a boy.)

Last night I was able to check where I matched to - the Univeristy of Minnesota Internal Medicine program - my first choice. (Hooray!) So now I can start looking for new apartments in Seward or Prospect Park. If any Minnesotans reading this hear of good apartments in those areas, pass the info on to me!

Today some museums and possibly shopping in Cordoba, and on to Sevilla tomorrow!