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.