Today is day 6 in Clifden in Connemara. A beautiful area in the west of Ireland. We have rented a big house with two other couples, visitors from the USA. I was here for an overnight tour earlier this summer but Alan didn't come along on that trip so it's a first for him. Its been a series of really great day trips in a car that we rented in Dublin. It's a much better way than day tours by bus, we have had a lot of freedom to explore. The first day we went to Leenane, a town I visited earlier and remembered a map of the many nearby Bronze Age antiquities on the visitors' center wall. Our guests were interested in that aspect of the area. It turned out there was a printed map that I bought. We have been using it to identify the location of our tour. Yesterday we went to Innishbofin, one of the Aran Islands, also a new experience for me. Today is the next to last day we return to Dublin on Tuesday.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Wow, I haven't been keeping up my blog! It's been a busy summer but I have to get back to the discipline I'd had earlier. This is my second post today, the other one is a summary of our first trip back to the States July 29 through August 19. One of the things I did when I was in the USA was meet with a possible publisher for a book on the experience living in Ireland. She was encouraging and asked for a proposal. I still haven't done that, but keeping the blog up, at least for the purpose of using it as a reference for that, is a renewed goal. The other thing I did while there was lay the groundwork for a lot more research work. If that goes forward, I'll be visiting the US several times in the upcoming year. Also, while we were there we made the decision to remain in Ireland for yet another year. We won't leave here until 2015 now, although we are now saying "indefinitely".
Right now I'm anticipating several really fun things. First is a trip to The Camino de Santiago, a walk on The Way of St. James, a pilgrimage path in France and Spain. The group assembled for this walk will only be doing "the last bit," a 110K walk over 7 days just in the Spain portion. Some people may remember some news about The Camino earlier in the summer when a train headed there derailed. It was a very bad accident caused by the train engineer approaching a curve at twice the recommended speed. I expect that has cast a pall on the subsequent walkers this year and in the terminus city of Campostela. Our group, 11 really great Irish women and one man (not Alan) will leave Dublin on September 12 and return September 19.
On September 22 we have friends from the US arriving. After a day here in Dublin we will all go to a house we've rented in Connemara for a week. They are interested in antiquities so I expect we will do a lot of tours of old sites in that area where there are old stone forts, monasteries, castles and prehistoric stones galore. I was in Connemara earlier this summer with another US visitor. Then we did a daylong bus tour, so I'm looking forward to exploring that area on my own. It will be great to see our friends, Linda and Bob, and Linda's brother and his wife, Charlotte and Tom (we haven't met them yet). The four of them will be coming off a week long walk in Scotland so everyone but Alan will likely either be very tired of walking, or very fit and raring to go for more!
Next, in early October, we have a cruise in the Black Sea, stopping in Intanbul, Sevastipol, Odessa, Yalta, Ephesis and Athens.. I remember my grandfather singing a song about a trip to Sevastipol and I'm looking forward to seeing it. Yalta is the site of the meeting between FDR, Churchill and Stalin during WWII, and I'm hoping for some interesting history there. The area has been one of the world's hot spots, but is now more or less peaceful, so I'm looking forward to seeing it. This is our first sea cruise and both Alan and I are looking forward to seeing lots of stars in what we hope is a very black sky during the overinght sailing.
By mid-October I'm hoping to be back to a more normal schedule and I'm looking forward to restarting set dancing and bridge. Also to getting back to more regular blogging.
Right now I'm anticipating several really fun things. First is a trip to The Camino de Santiago, a walk on The Way of St. James, a pilgrimage path in France and Spain. The group assembled for this walk will only be doing "the last bit," a 110K walk over 7 days just in the Spain portion. Some people may remember some news about The Camino earlier in the summer when a train headed there derailed. It was a very bad accident caused by the train engineer approaching a curve at twice the recommended speed. I expect that has cast a pall on the subsequent walkers this year and in the terminus city of Campostela. Our group, 11 really great Irish women and one man (not Alan) will leave Dublin on September 12 and return September 19.
On September 22 we have friends from the US arriving. After a day here in Dublin we will all go to a house we've rented in Connemara for a week. They are interested in antiquities so I expect we will do a lot of tours of old sites in that area where there are old stone forts, monasteries, castles and prehistoric stones galore. I was in Connemara earlier this summer with another US visitor. Then we did a daylong bus tour, so I'm looking forward to exploring that area on my own. It will be great to see our friends, Linda and Bob, and Linda's brother and his wife, Charlotte and Tom (we haven't met them yet). The four of them will be coming off a week long walk in Scotland so everyone but Alan will likely either be very tired of walking, or very fit and raring to go for more!
Next, in early October, we have a cruise in the Black Sea, stopping in Intanbul, Sevastipol, Odessa, Yalta, Ephesis and Athens.. I remember my grandfather singing a song about a trip to Sevastipol and I'm looking forward to seeing it. Yalta is the site of the meeting between FDR, Churchill and Stalin during WWII, and I'm hoping for some interesting history there. The area has been one of the world's hot spots, but is now more or less peaceful, so I'm looking forward to seeing it. This is our first sea cruise and both Alan and I are looking forward to seeing lots of stars in what we hope is a very black sky during the overinght sailing.
By mid-October I'm hoping to be back to a more normal schedule and I'm looking forward to restarting set dancing and bridge. Also to getting back to more regular blogging.
The trip to America was a huge success. It went like clockwork and there were only a few times in the 2900 miles that Alan and I drove together in the car that were tense. The one thing we omitted was the two days in Hot Springs, Arkansas between Atlanta and St. Louis. It was going to be out of our way and cause two 8+ hour days of additional driving. Instead, we headed direct to St. Louis from Atlanta via Nashville. The only other change like that occurred at the end as we were returning to Washington. I thought I could do a 10 hour driving day just to get back to DC from Bloomington, Indiana but I didn't count on having to cross the Appalachian Mountains throughout West Virginia and long into Virginia. I don't know what makes me so optimistic when I think about driving. The highways through these particular mountains are all fast, filled with trucks, windy and treacherous. We stopped after 6 hours and completed the final 5 the following morning. The car was the biggest issue for me going in and I'm happy to say that I believe I've found a way to get myself in a better place on these long drives. So that was a big goal achieved.
The remainder of this post is going to be just a summary of the days we spent, roughtly in order of their occurrence.
We arrived a few hours last into JFK on Monday, July 29th (my childhoold friend Linda Eisemann's birthday). It's morning flight and you gain 5 hours going east so we got to New York in mid morning. After renting the car, we headed for our hotel in Long Island City. LIC is the place where both my parents emmigrated to from Ireland and all of their early history is steeped in the area. It is still so familiar to me, although the residents have changed from mostly Irish to mostly Hispanic, although there are still many Irish in the area and they seem to get along.
After getting settled in the hotel for our one night stay, we connected with my niece Monique and her husband Jack to confirm our plan to meet them in a restaurant in Hicksville, Long Island that was about half the distance for both of us. It was called Mio Posto and I'd definitely recommend it. We had such a nice time with them, as usual. I really like to keep up with their doings and hope that they will be able to come visit us here in Dublin. We parted company around 11 and Alan and I headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep in order to face the drive to Washington as soon as rush hour in New York was over.
We left New York at about 10 on the 30th. Traffic was pretty good all the way through although Alan hit some debris in the road and following that noticed that the gas guage didn't work. We didn't know if the two were related or he didn't notice it before but it was something we definitely needed to have fixed and went to the Hertz place at National Airport to exhcange cars. We arrived at our friends Mark and Judy's house around 3. They had a nice dinner planned ad we spend our first evening catching up.
Three days in Washington, DC were spent mostly visiting our stuff in storage and buying more stuff. Judy has a membership in Costco so we went there and really stocked up on stuff you can't get here (Q-Tips, tablet aspirin, and the like). Our adventure there and elswhere is discount shopping land filled one of our extra suitcases. The other was filled by stuff we took from storage. We left those two suitcases at Mark & Judy's and headed for Atlanta on Friday after buying a new phone to use there. This was important not only for the phone itself but now we have an American phone number as well.
Our first stop in Atlanta was a visit to Dorothy. It was so, so good to see her and her parents. I was also happy to see her nephew Nye. Then we signed into the ASAE Annual Meeting convention and hotel downtown. The Annual Meeting went very well for me and I saw lots of former colleagues. Then on to Nashville, where we stayed for one night before moving on to Alan's family reunion in St. Louis. That was also great, three nights and two days of catching up. What a pleasure.
Following St. Louis we went to Bloomington, Indiana, our new home in the United States. There we signed a lease and did a few other things to establish residency there. We also saw friends there and in Indianapolis. I'm very happy with the idea of living again in Bloomington when we return, but it was there that we decided to remain in Ireland for yet another year. Earlier this year we thought we'd leave here in June, 2014 but now it looks like it will be into 2015 at least, although now we're saying indefinitely.
After Bloomington we went back to Washington, with a stop overnight outside Charleston, WV. We spend a nice three days with friends Irene & Craig. Then departed again for New York and our final leg on the trip. We stayed at the same hotel in Long Island City and had dinner with a former colleague, Haisong, at The Grill Cafe in Bryant Park. It was great to see Haisong doing so well!
Over the three weeks, we saw 50 or more friends and family and put 2900 miles on the rental car. I only had two auto meltdowns and we made the big decision to stay another year in Ireland. All in all a great trip.
The remainder of this post is going to be just a summary of the days we spent, roughtly in order of their occurrence.
We arrived a few hours last into JFK on Monday, July 29th (my childhoold friend Linda Eisemann's birthday). It's morning flight and you gain 5 hours going east so we got to New York in mid morning. After renting the car, we headed for our hotel in Long Island City. LIC is the place where both my parents emmigrated to from Ireland and all of their early history is steeped in the area. It is still so familiar to me, although the residents have changed from mostly Irish to mostly Hispanic, although there are still many Irish in the area and they seem to get along.
After getting settled in the hotel for our one night stay, we connected with my niece Monique and her husband Jack to confirm our plan to meet them in a restaurant in Hicksville, Long Island that was about half the distance for both of us. It was called Mio Posto and I'd definitely recommend it. We had such a nice time with them, as usual. I really like to keep up with their doings and hope that they will be able to come visit us here in Dublin. We parted company around 11 and Alan and I headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep in order to face the drive to Washington as soon as rush hour in New York was over.
We left New York at about 10 on the 30th. Traffic was pretty good all the way through although Alan hit some debris in the road and following that noticed that the gas guage didn't work. We didn't know if the two were related or he didn't notice it before but it was something we definitely needed to have fixed and went to the Hertz place at National Airport to exhcange cars. We arrived at our friends Mark and Judy's house around 3. They had a nice dinner planned ad we spend our first evening catching up.
Three days in Washington, DC were spent mostly visiting our stuff in storage and buying more stuff. Judy has a membership in Costco so we went there and really stocked up on stuff you can't get here (Q-Tips, tablet aspirin, and the like). Our adventure there and elswhere is discount shopping land filled one of our extra suitcases. The other was filled by stuff we took from storage. We left those two suitcases at Mark & Judy's and headed for Atlanta on Friday after buying a new phone to use there. This was important not only for the phone itself but now we have an American phone number as well.
Our first stop in Atlanta was a visit to Dorothy. It was so, so good to see her and her parents. I was also happy to see her nephew Nye. Then we signed into the ASAE Annual Meeting convention and hotel downtown. The Annual Meeting went very well for me and I saw lots of former colleagues. Then on to Nashville, where we stayed for one night before moving on to Alan's family reunion in St. Louis. That was also great, three nights and two days of catching up. What a pleasure.
Following St. Louis we went to Bloomington, Indiana, our new home in the United States. There we signed a lease and did a few other things to establish residency there. We also saw friends there and in Indianapolis. I'm very happy with the idea of living again in Bloomington when we return, but it was there that we decided to remain in Ireland for yet another year. Earlier this year we thought we'd leave here in June, 2014 but now it looks like it will be into 2015 at least, although now we're saying indefinitely.
After Bloomington we went back to Washington, with a stop overnight outside Charleston, WV. We spend a nice three days with friends Irene & Craig. Then departed again for New York and our final leg on the trip. We stayed at the same hotel in Long Island City and had dinner with a former colleague, Haisong, at The Grill Cafe in Bryant Park. It was great to see Haisong doing so well!
Over the three weeks, we saw 50 or more friends and family and put 2900 miles on the rental car. I only had two auto meltdowns and we made the big decision to stay another year in Ireland. All in all a great trip.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
I've been busy since my last post with both work and play.
On the work side, I've finished a preliminary report based on a study in the meeting and convention industry and will see that presented during my visit to Atlanta for the ASAE Annual Meeting there, the business reason for our upcoming trip to the states starting on July 29. I also completed all the preparation for a presentation I'm doing at that meeting on an earlier governance study. All in all, quite productive on that front. I feel quite ready for Atlanta.
I also feel pretty good about our other plans while we are in the USA, including seeing family in New York, lots of friends in Washington, a family reunion in St. Louis, initial reconnoitering in Bloomington, Indiana in preparation for our return and two nights in Hot Springs, AK for a mini break on our own. It will be a busy trip but I'm quite optimistic that we've planned well and even the two days of 10-hour drives will be as much fun as driving can be, or at least not torture.
In the last week, I went to the Willie Clancy Festival in Miltown Malbay, County Clare for a set dancing workshop. There were classes each morning from 10 to 1 and lectures or cellis (dances with a live band) in the afternoons. On three days, I danced a total of 6 hours with the instruction followed by a 3-hour dance at a celli, including one evening event featuring the Kilfenora Celi Band http://www.kilfenoraceiliband.ie/ They played almost straight through from 9:30 to 1 a.m., the time just sped by.
This was my first celli experience and while some of the dancers were pretty experienced, most of them were OK with a relative newbie. Sometimes they were pretty unhappy about having newcomers in their sets, but mostly it was fine. Ironically, those who were not Irish (a lot of them either Americans or Germans) were the meanest about newcomers. Coming from an Irish family in America, along with my experience working for Aer Lingus, I have frequently encountered Yanks that are more Irish than the Irish. This is a source of great amusement among the people here, but they can be really annoying. My set dance teacher in Dublin was attending one of the cellis I attended at the festival and he told me that one of them told him that he was doing a dance "wrong." I was the only American in the group he told and all the others just laughed and exchanged knowing nods.
These folks need to know how ridiculous they are, but they seem not to and worse, to expect that the Irish will be somehow grateful for their ignorant aping. Apparently the editor of Set Dance News is an American and he's quite a source of amused annoyance. "Amused annoyance" may seem like an oxymoron but this is one of the bigger cultural differences I've noticed. When they are annoyed, most Irish will not under any circumstances make it clear, except to laugh it off. I think this is why people around the world think that the Irish are a happy people. They are no more happy or sad than others, but unlike the Dutch, they very, very seldom deal with a problem directly. Anyway, back to the set dancing news guy. He has a long, full beard but in all other respects has an Ichabod Crane appearance. His dance is full of high jumps, loud battering (stamping), and in one set in which I danced with him, he actually ran into an adjoining set during an "advance-retire" movement. He's in the foreground on the link for the Kilfenora Plain Set below.
But enough of that, on to the really great aspects of the week. I learned three new dances and figured out some of the finer details of two that I'd already experienced. There are links to all of them below. I definitely did what I set out to do in Miltown Malbay as far as dancing was concerned. I'm definitely a better dancer than I was.
Moycullen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-lbIvQXQSs
Kilfenora Plain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkzTQF7CWKg
Clare Orange and Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3XQ5fQldDk&list=PLqB7F2twvaSRLuOB4xIYIxmmAsqdnZ0Ht
Antrim Square https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnO2IdqvSEc
Mazurka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEhN3q2rGbY
I was less successful making new friends, but I think I made some critical errors in my planning. First, I didn't rent a car. I thought I could just get around OK by bike. Except for being the hottest week in all the time we have been here, with a day for Ireland's first ever "orange heat alert", that worked out OK during the day but it meant that I couldn't do anything after dark. The roads were all dark, windy and narrow, it would have been madness to try. Second was that I booked a place that was billed as 3km from Miltown, but was more like 3 miles out. It was much too far from the action, meaning that I couldn't even reasonably walk to any of the events. So, for the first three days, I spent the evenings reading. The house I was in was nice, but the other problem is that I was completely alone there. Even the owner was not present, so I just rattled around a huge "tiger built" house all on my own. That was pretty depressing.
By Wednesday afternoon, I abandoned the bike and met Geraldine, who had a car and agreed to take me to and from the celli that evening. That was really the turning point and I'd wished I'd abandoned the bike after day one. During that celli, I also met Fiona (said Fe-na, not Fi-own-a) and she invited me to spend the following evening at the house she was renting for the week with two other friends. That was a really nice evening. Unfortunately I left on Friday after the last workshop class at one o'clock. Still, I learned a lot, so all in all, it was OK.
Just before I left for the Festival, Mary, Dierdre, Valerie and I did the Howth to Sutton Cliff Walk http://visitdublin.com/pdf/iWalk08.pdf which was very nice. It was only 7km but there was a lot of climbing, maybe more than any of us thought, and it took quite a long time to get through it. It was a beautiful day though, and we certainly learned a lot about what we need to do when we're walking The Camino on days where there is climbing. First and foremost is to pack light. One of our group had a heavy pack, filled with a lot more than she needed and it was tough for her. Another is to be sure to carry lots of water, in complete opposition to achieving the first learning! I did use electrolytes in my water bottle this time and that made a big, big difference. We are planning another walk this Friday and I hope to get one more long one in on the 28th, the day before we leave for the USA.
We invited my 4th cousin, Shaunna Flynn, the evening of the Howth to Sutton walk. I was late getting home because it took so much longer than we planned, but Alan saved the day and prepared a nice dinner. I'd made a cake the day before and so it turned into a nice evening too. Shaunna is just finished college and hoping for a job as a primary school teacher somewhere around Dublin, she's the grand daughter of Annie Burke, my mothers friend here in Ireland. Annie just died several months ago.
We are headed for a spa for an overnight tomorrow featuring massage and seaweed baths http://solasnamara.ie/ and then an evening in a farm B&B nearby http://www.gortnadihalodge.com/
Lots to report, I have to get back to posting more regularly.
On the work side, I've finished a preliminary report based on a study in the meeting and convention industry and will see that presented during my visit to Atlanta for the ASAE Annual Meeting there, the business reason for our upcoming trip to the states starting on July 29. I also completed all the preparation for a presentation I'm doing at that meeting on an earlier governance study. All in all, quite productive on that front. I feel quite ready for Atlanta.
I also feel pretty good about our other plans while we are in the USA, including seeing family in New York, lots of friends in Washington, a family reunion in St. Louis, initial reconnoitering in Bloomington, Indiana in preparation for our return and two nights in Hot Springs, AK for a mini break on our own. It will be a busy trip but I'm quite optimistic that we've planned well and even the two days of 10-hour drives will be as much fun as driving can be, or at least not torture.
In the last week, I went to the Willie Clancy Festival in Miltown Malbay, County Clare for a set dancing workshop. There were classes each morning from 10 to 1 and lectures or cellis (dances with a live band) in the afternoons. On three days, I danced a total of 6 hours with the instruction followed by a 3-hour dance at a celli, including one evening event featuring the Kilfenora Celi Band http://www.kilfenoraceiliband.ie/ They played almost straight through from 9:30 to 1 a.m., the time just sped by.
This was my first celli experience and while some of the dancers were pretty experienced, most of them were OK with a relative newbie. Sometimes they were pretty unhappy about having newcomers in their sets, but mostly it was fine. Ironically, those who were not Irish (a lot of them either Americans or Germans) were the meanest about newcomers. Coming from an Irish family in America, along with my experience working for Aer Lingus, I have frequently encountered Yanks that are more Irish than the Irish. This is a source of great amusement among the people here, but they can be really annoying. My set dance teacher in Dublin was attending one of the cellis I attended at the festival and he told me that one of them told him that he was doing a dance "wrong." I was the only American in the group he told and all the others just laughed and exchanged knowing nods.
These folks need to know how ridiculous they are, but they seem not to and worse, to expect that the Irish will be somehow grateful for their ignorant aping. Apparently the editor of Set Dance News is an American and he's quite a source of amused annoyance. "Amused annoyance" may seem like an oxymoron but this is one of the bigger cultural differences I've noticed. When they are annoyed, most Irish will not under any circumstances make it clear, except to laugh it off. I think this is why people around the world think that the Irish are a happy people. They are no more happy or sad than others, but unlike the Dutch, they very, very seldom deal with a problem directly. Anyway, back to the set dancing news guy. He has a long, full beard but in all other respects has an Ichabod Crane appearance. His dance is full of high jumps, loud battering (stamping), and in one set in which I danced with him, he actually ran into an adjoining set during an "advance-retire" movement. He's in the foreground on the link for the Kilfenora Plain Set below.
But enough of that, on to the really great aspects of the week. I learned three new dances and figured out some of the finer details of two that I'd already experienced. There are links to all of them below. I definitely did what I set out to do in Miltown Malbay as far as dancing was concerned. I'm definitely a better dancer than I was.
Moycullen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-lbIvQXQSs
Kilfenora Plain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkzTQF7CWKg
Clare Orange and Green https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3XQ5fQldDk&list=PLqB7F2twvaSRLuOB4xIYIxmmAsqdnZ0Ht
Antrim Square https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnO2IdqvSEc
Mazurka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEhN3q2rGbY
I was less successful making new friends, but I think I made some critical errors in my planning. First, I didn't rent a car. I thought I could just get around OK by bike. Except for being the hottest week in all the time we have been here, with a day for Ireland's first ever "orange heat alert", that worked out OK during the day but it meant that I couldn't do anything after dark. The roads were all dark, windy and narrow, it would have been madness to try. Second was that I booked a place that was billed as 3km from Miltown, but was more like 3 miles out. It was much too far from the action, meaning that I couldn't even reasonably walk to any of the events. So, for the first three days, I spent the evenings reading. The house I was in was nice, but the other problem is that I was completely alone there. Even the owner was not present, so I just rattled around a huge "tiger built" house all on my own. That was pretty depressing.
By Wednesday afternoon, I abandoned the bike and met Geraldine, who had a car and agreed to take me to and from the celli that evening. That was really the turning point and I'd wished I'd abandoned the bike after day one. During that celli, I also met Fiona (said Fe-na, not Fi-own-a) and she invited me to spend the following evening at the house she was renting for the week with two other friends. That was a really nice evening. Unfortunately I left on Friday after the last workshop class at one o'clock. Still, I learned a lot, so all in all, it was OK.
Just before I left for the Festival, Mary, Dierdre, Valerie and I did the Howth to Sutton Cliff Walk http://visitdublin.com/pdf/iWalk08.pdf which was very nice. It was only 7km but there was a lot of climbing, maybe more than any of us thought, and it took quite a long time to get through it. It was a beautiful day though, and we certainly learned a lot about what we need to do when we're walking The Camino on days where there is climbing. First and foremost is to pack light. One of our group had a heavy pack, filled with a lot more than she needed and it was tough for her. Another is to be sure to carry lots of water, in complete opposition to achieving the first learning! I did use electrolytes in my water bottle this time and that made a big, big difference. We are planning another walk this Friday and I hope to get one more long one in on the 28th, the day before we leave for the USA.
We invited my 4th cousin, Shaunna Flynn, the evening of the Howth to Sutton walk. I was late getting home because it took so much longer than we planned, but Alan saved the day and prepared a nice dinner. I'd made a cake the day before and so it turned into a nice evening too. Shaunna is just finished college and hoping for a job as a primary school teacher somewhere around Dublin, she's the grand daughter of Annie Burke, my mothers friend here in Ireland. Annie just died several months ago.
We are headed for a spa for an overnight tomorrow featuring massage and seaweed baths http://solasnamara.ie/ and then an evening in a farm B&B nearby http://www.gortnadihalodge.com/
Lots to report, I have to get back to posting more regularly.
Monday, June 24, 2013
I just reread my last post and want to start with the outcome on the weekend long buzzing of the smoke detector. It blasted continuously from Friday morning until 11 a.m. on Monday. I called the management company first thing Monday morning and was told that the unit is let by the American Embassy but there is no one residing at the moment and neither the owner nor the management company felt that they could enter because of the embassy connection. At 11 a.m. it went off and I went to our shared porch to await the person who turned it off. It was "Frank," an embassy employee in charge of facilities. He assured me that he didn't work on weekends and thus the problem, although he also assured me that it was the management company or the owner that was responsible "at the weekend," not him. This response touches on the two most maddening aspects of Ireland: first, "at the weekend" means nothing will get done, and second, if anyone can point to an unnamed entity, not associated with them, that's the culprit. Any further discussion with the person with whom you are dealing about responsibility, or how to rectify the problem in the future is futile. In short, "Frank" will deal with any problem like this if it happens during his work hours, otherwise it's not his problem.
But, on the much more pleasant things...
Mary and I met for a relatively short walk the following day and made plans for the much longer walk we took yesterday with 7 of our group of 14 that will be doing the Santiago de Compostella in September. We met in Firhouse outside Dublin (at a pub of course). To my dismay, since I took the once-an-hour bus to our meeting place, Firhouse consists only of this pub (Mortons) and it doesn't open until noon on Sunday. I got there at 10:45 expecting a quaint little village and a leisurely breakfast while I awaited the rest of the group at noon. It was a little chilly and gray so I intercepted a dog walker and found that there was a supermarket with a little cafe attached about a mile away. I legged it there and had a coffee and breakfast, so I added another two miles to the 12 miles that were planned.
After the group assembled at noon we walked along the Dodder River for almost all of those 12 miles, reaching the Grand Canal near the city center at about 4:30, including an hour long stop for lunch at about mile 7. Then I walked another mile home from there, for a total of about 15 miles. It was a glorious walk. Three of the group were new to me, including Marguerite, a good friend of Mary's and the organizer of this outing. She did a wonderful job as leader and had previously walked parts of the route over successive outings with her husband, Brendan. Brendan will be coming along on the Compostella walk but wasn't present yesterday. It was all women. We only had little spatterings of rain, otherwise a beautiful day for walking, not too hot, not too cold. The river was so thriving with wildlife, it was hard to believe that we were on the fringes of the city the whole time. The group was great and we all had about the same walking pace. For a first run of about our daily duration in Spain it couldn't have been better. I will be able to do three more walks with parts of the group before leaving for the states on July 29th for our first visit there since taking up residence in Dublin.
In other good news, Alan has had a story published in Flash Fiction, which is available in paper through Amazon in the States but only electronically here in Ireland. Here's a link to his story, it's a very sweet one about the passing of his grandmother.
But, on the much more pleasant things...
Mary and I met for a relatively short walk the following day and made plans for the much longer walk we took yesterday with 7 of our group of 14 that will be doing the Santiago de Compostella in September. We met in Firhouse outside Dublin (at a pub of course). To my dismay, since I took the once-an-hour bus to our meeting place, Firhouse consists only of this pub (Mortons) and it doesn't open until noon on Sunday. I got there at 10:45 expecting a quaint little village and a leisurely breakfast while I awaited the rest of the group at noon. It was a little chilly and gray so I intercepted a dog walker and found that there was a supermarket with a little cafe attached about a mile away. I legged it there and had a coffee and breakfast, so I added another two miles to the 12 miles that were planned.
After the group assembled at noon we walked along the Dodder River for almost all of those 12 miles, reaching the Grand Canal near the city center at about 4:30, including an hour long stop for lunch at about mile 7. Then I walked another mile home from there, for a total of about 15 miles. It was a glorious walk. Three of the group were new to me, including Marguerite, a good friend of Mary's and the organizer of this outing. She did a wonderful job as leader and had previously walked parts of the route over successive outings with her husband, Brendan. Brendan will be coming along on the Compostella walk but wasn't present yesterday. It was all women. We only had little spatterings of rain, otherwise a beautiful day for walking, not too hot, not too cold. The river was so thriving with wildlife, it was hard to believe that we were on the fringes of the city the whole time. The group was great and we all had about the same walking pace. For a first run of about our daily duration in Spain it couldn't have been better. I will be able to do three more walks with parts of the group before leaving for the states on July 29th for our first visit there since taking up residence in Dublin.
In other good news, Alan has had a story published in Flash Fiction, which is available in paper through Amazon in the States but only electronically here in Ireland. Here's a link to his story, it's a very sweet one about the passing of his grandmother.
He's about to submit a book-length of short stories to a competition here in Ireland with about 12 really good stories and the great poem he wrote about my brother, which I copied in this blog previously. He's really happy with his writer's group and I have to say I'm impressed with his productivity since joining it.
I'm preparing for my next adventure when I will travel to County Clare for a week long set dance workshop in Miltown Malbay starting on July 7: http://www.willieclancyfestival.com/ . I'm doing this one on my own but I have confidence that the Irish will come through once again in their friendly and welcoming style and after the first day, I will have made at least one new friend. The people, that's by far, the best thing about Ireland, so the little irritations about which I started this post are insignificant compared to the joys of living among them.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
I've been entertaining a relative of an American friend this week. Dyana arrived on Wednesday and we started fast because she's only here for 5 nights. I am just amazed at her pluck in coming all the way here from Washington state for such a short amount of time. I've tried to help her pack in as much as possible in this short time.
We started right away with a tour of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin scheduled for 2 p.m. on the day she arrived. After a short nap, she seemed ready to go. I was disappointed in the tour because the guide was just awful, he spoke in a very soft voice and didn't really want to go into any of the history of the cathedral. It was one that was taken from the Catholic church during the Cromwell period and given to the Church of Ireland, basically the Episcopals and a protestant satellite of the Church of England. It was like he thought that he couldn't acknowledge the well known history. It was ridiculous, several times he said "we won't go there" like it was a big secret. But, we did get up into the bell tower, which is not on the regular tour of the church so that was nice. I also learned that Strongbow was buried there. But I learned from this post now that he's not really there, a factoid the guide apparently didn't know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_de_Clare,_2nd_Earl_of_Pembroke. Anyway, it's a beautiful place, it's right in the center of town, it's got a lot of history surrounding it, including the earliest Viking village in Dublin so there was still a lot to see. I mistakenly thought that Johnathan Swift was buried there but he's at St. Patrick's Cathedral, another of the churches that was given to the Church of Ireland during the reformation.
The following day, Thursday, we went on a rail/coach tour of Galway and Connemara. After a train trip across the country we spent a nice afternoon and evening in Galway and then a bus trip the following day in Galway and Connemara. It was very warm and the bus had very poor AC, very poor repair in general because there were some loose belts and anytime we were outside while it was running we could hear that distinctive screech of loose belts. Also, the video didn't work. The guide was not the best either, it was clear he'd done this tour daily for a looong time, he repeated himself a lot. Still it was a beautiful ride and we saw a lot. I also got some good ideas for our week in Connemara in September, including a must revisit to Lenane and to Kylemore Abbey. There are lots of monoliths and stones nearby. Dyana brought beautiful weather with her and it's been in the 80's since she arrived. She's also an excellent photographer and I will post some of her pictures as soon as I receive them from her.
On our return on Saturday, we discovered that the unit next to us, now vacant, had the smoke detector activated for the previous 12 hours. It's now Sunday evening and after the battery ran out, it's now a constant signal that the battery needs replacing, so that's hard wired and won't stop until the owner arrives to replace the now dead battery. This is the second time during our sojourn in Ireland where we have learned that NO ONE pays attention to alarms and if they go off in vacant units, cars, stores, whatever. Everyone in the vicinity suffers until the owner or the management company comes to address the problem, and the WILL NOT do that on the weekend. There must have been more stringent regulation on this in the USA because if there weren't some pretty strict rules there, the place we lived in DC would have had the same problem. I called the management company "emergency" number last night and was told there wasn't much to be done because they weren't sure they had the owner's contact information "at the weekend". From the start of our tenure here "at the weekend" is the kiss of death. If anything happens "at the weekend" you are on your own till Monday and that's that. The alarm still sounds, I'm doing my best to remain calm.
We will have one more day in Dublin and then Dyana leaves on Tuesday morning. I resume my long walks with Mary on Tuesday in preparation for our walk in September on the Santiago de Campostela.
We started right away with a tour of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin scheduled for 2 p.m. on the day she arrived. After a short nap, she seemed ready to go. I was disappointed in the tour because the guide was just awful, he spoke in a very soft voice and didn't really want to go into any of the history of the cathedral. It was one that was taken from the Catholic church during the Cromwell period and given to the Church of Ireland, basically the Episcopals and a protestant satellite of the Church of England. It was like he thought that he couldn't acknowledge the well known history. It was ridiculous, several times he said "we won't go there" like it was a big secret. But, we did get up into the bell tower, which is not on the regular tour of the church so that was nice. I also learned that Strongbow was buried there. But I learned from this post now that he's not really there, a factoid the guide apparently didn't know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_de_Clare,_2nd_Earl_of_Pembroke. Anyway, it's a beautiful place, it's right in the center of town, it's got a lot of history surrounding it, including the earliest Viking village in Dublin so there was still a lot to see. I mistakenly thought that Johnathan Swift was buried there but he's at St. Patrick's Cathedral, another of the churches that was given to the Church of Ireland during the reformation.
The following day, Thursday, we went on a rail/coach tour of Galway and Connemara. After a train trip across the country we spent a nice afternoon and evening in Galway and then a bus trip the following day in Galway and Connemara. It was very warm and the bus had very poor AC, very poor repair in general because there were some loose belts and anytime we were outside while it was running we could hear that distinctive screech of loose belts. Also, the video didn't work. The guide was not the best either, it was clear he'd done this tour daily for a looong time, he repeated himself a lot. Still it was a beautiful ride and we saw a lot. I also got some good ideas for our week in Connemara in September, including a must revisit to Lenane and to Kylemore Abbey. There are lots of monoliths and stones nearby. Dyana brought beautiful weather with her and it's been in the 80's since she arrived. She's also an excellent photographer and I will post some of her pictures as soon as I receive them from her.
On our return on Saturday, we discovered that the unit next to us, now vacant, had the smoke detector activated for the previous 12 hours. It's now Sunday evening and after the battery ran out, it's now a constant signal that the battery needs replacing, so that's hard wired and won't stop until the owner arrives to replace the now dead battery. This is the second time during our sojourn in Ireland where we have learned that NO ONE pays attention to alarms and if they go off in vacant units, cars, stores, whatever. Everyone in the vicinity suffers until the owner or the management company comes to address the problem, and the WILL NOT do that on the weekend. There must have been more stringent regulation on this in the USA because if there weren't some pretty strict rules there, the place we lived in DC would have had the same problem. I called the management company "emergency" number last night and was told there wasn't much to be done because they weren't sure they had the owner's contact information "at the weekend". From the start of our tenure here "at the weekend" is the kiss of death. If anything happens "at the weekend" you are on your own till Monday and that's that. The alarm still sounds, I'm doing my best to remain calm.
We will have one more day in Dublin and then Dyana leaves on Tuesday morning. I resume my long walks with Mary on Tuesday in preparation for our walk in September on the Santiago de Campostela.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
This is the weekend of the June "bank holiday." I know I've covered bank holidays in the past, but a recap for you Yanks. In Ireland, the work days off are not in commemoration of anything, just called "bank holidays." People really take them seriously and don't do anything on these days. I know last week it was Memorial Day in the States and this kinda corresponds with that, although it's only about 50 degrees here today, so not exactly the beginning of summer.
We have had some good weather, 70's and sunny, this past week. On Thursday, I walked for over 7 miles by the sea with my friend Mary. We are "in training" for a 110 km walk we've planned in early September on the Santiago de Compostela in Spain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela . That's about 66 miles we will do over 7 days. In 2004 Alan and I walked across Holland (63 miles over 5 days), it was harder than I expected although just 10-15 miles a day, but the days got harder and harder as the time went on. This time I'm working up to it. One thing I've learned is that one day of 10 miles is not the same as 10 miles on successive days.
Tuesday will be the final performance of "Dance Across Dublin," the dance performance I've been working on with a troupe of 26 oldsters. We did one performance in the Hugh Lane Museum, another at the Axis Theatre, another at the Irish Film Institute and this final one in Meeting House Square, the only outdoor venue on the list, hopefully it won't rain. It's been fun, but a lot of work and I'll be glad when it's over.
Our new digs in Ballsbridge are working out just fine. It's much closer to the city center and I've been happy with all that we can walk to easily from here. The biking is better too, plus we have a terrace and the outdoor space is nice. We are trying to grow tomatoes and a little kitchen garden there, but the weather is really not cooperating. We've had to take the tomatoes and basil inside. We're both hoping for one tomato before we leave for the States on July 29th! If that happens, we will have spent only about 20 Euro (about $25) for it! Fortunately other investments have been doing better.
We have a visitor next week. A friend that I worked with at ASAE was supposed to come with her niece but our friend had to cancel and the niece (Dyana) is coming on her own. She and I will go to Galway the day after she arrives for a train/coach tour of Galway Bay, Connemara, The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher. It will be a whirlwind tour for Dyana but it will be a great help to me in deciding on what to focus upon when we spend our week in September with friends in a house in Connemara. Dyana is coming all the way from Oregon and only staying for 5 days! I feel really responsible for helping her to pack in as much as she possibly can during this short visit.
Set dancing classes on Tuesday have ceased for the summer hiatus, but I've signed up for the Willie Clancy Workshop week in Clare the first week in June. I'm going on my own, the first time in years that I've traveled for pleasure alone. I've arranged to stay in someone's house in Milltown Malbay, the place where the annual workshop is held. Their slogan is "the home of traditional Irish music" http://www.visitmiltownmalbay.ie/ .
This should be interesting. All I know about the host is that they are 2 miles from the town and have a room available. I got the connection from the organizer so I don't think there will be any ax murders happening, but still it will be an adventure. This is going to be a pretty intense week with instruction from 9 to 1 every day. I'm very much looking forward to it.
So, all in all, a busy time.
We have had some good weather, 70's and sunny, this past week. On Thursday, I walked for over 7 miles by the sea with my friend Mary. We are "in training" for a 110 km walk we've planned in early September on the Santiago de Compostela in Spain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santiago_de_Compostela . That's about 66 miles we will do over 7 days. In 2004 Alan and I walked across Holland (63 miles over 5 days), it was harder than I expected although just 10-15 miles a day, but the days got harder and harder as the time went on. This time I'm working up to it. One thing I've learned is that one day of 10 miles is not the same as 10 miles on successive days.
Tuesday will be the final performance of "Dance Across Dublin," the dance performance I've been working on with a troupe of 26 oldsters. We did one performance in the Hugh Lane Museum, another at the Axis Theatre, another at the Irish Film Institute and this final one in Meeting House Square, the only outdoor venue on the list, hopefully it won't rain. It's been fun, but a lot of work and I'll be glad when it's over.
Our new digs in Ballsbridge are working out just fine. It's much closer to the city center and I've been happy with all that we can walk to easily from here. The biking is better too, plus we have a terrace and the outdoor space is nice. We are trying to grow tomatoes and a little kitchen garden there, but the weather is really not cooperating. We've had to take the tomatoes and basil inside. We're both hoping for one tomato before we leave for the States on July 29th! If that happens, we will have spent only about 20 Euro (about $25) for it! Fortunately other investments have been doing better.
We have a visitor next week. A friend that I worked with at ASAE was supposed to come with her niece but our friend had to cancel and the niece (Dyana) is coming on her own. She and I will go to Galway the day after she arrives for a train/coach tour of Galway Bay, Connemara, The Burren and the Cliffs of Moher. It will be a whirlwind tour for Dyana but it will be a great help to me in deciding on what to focus upon when we spend our week in September with friends in a house in Connemara. Dyana is coming all the way from Oregon and only staying for 5 days! I feel really responsible for helping her to pack in as much as she possibly can during this short visit.
Set dancing classes on Tuesday have ceased for the summer hiatus, but I've signed up for the Willie Clancy Workshop week in Clare the first week in June. I'm going on my own, the first time in years that I've traveled for pleasure alone. I've arranged to stay in someone's house in Milltown Malbay, the place where the annual workshop is held. Their slogan is "the home of traditional Irish music" http://www.visitmiltownmalbay.ie/ .
This should be interesting. All I know about the host is that they are 2 miles from the town and have a room available. I got the connection from the organizer so I don't think there will be any ax murders happening, but still it will be an adventure. This is going to be a pretty intense week with instruction from 9 to 1 every day. I'm very much looking forward to it.
So, all in all, a busy time.
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