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.