Trip to Kinsale

At the end of October, we decided that it was time to visit some of Ireland. We booked three nights at a B&B near Kinsale, a charming town on the South coast of Ireland. We chose it because it is claimed to be the food capital of Ireland, it is a transition town, and it had a jazz festival happening that week-end.

On our way, we stopped and visited the Rock of Cashel (an ancient castle) and Cahir Castle (pronounced "care", a modern 12th century castle). Saturday was a downpour all day long so we mostly played games. After sunset the rain stopped and we were able to visit Kinsale by night, eat, and listen to some "jazz" (actually it was genuine blues, and even some country and western -- it felt very strange to hear American music in such a traditional Irish environment). The food was great every evening, living up to the claims.

Next day, sunny and shiny, we did an abridged version of our rained-out itinerary. That is, some coastal driving, see Drombeg Stone Circle, visit some smaller towns, see Blarney castle, and then head to Cork. The small towns like Clonakilty and Brandon were very quaint and the people very warm and friendly. Cork looked austere industrial and the major jazz festival that weekend made it very busy. Too bad we didn't have time to visit more of it but I am sure the countryside was more worth visiting than the big cities.

The last day we saw Kinsale by day and visited the two forts that once defended the harbor. James Fort is much smaller and it is not open for visiting but you can have a nice stroll from Kinsale Marina to the top of the hill/peninsula from where you can see all of Kinsale. Charles Fort is a huge impressive star-shaped fort with layers of history and layers of vegetation fighting to conquer the ruins. The grass will prevail in the end!

Here are some photos from our trip:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/darxan/sets/72157608814703524/

seeing things

We've been seeing more of Ireland since Morgan and Diane moved here. They give us an extra reason to get out of the house, and later i can just point to Morgan's photo album, instead of doing a real blog entry. :) Maybe Xan will post some of her photos as well.

A few weekends ago they accompanied us to Powerscourt Gardens, in Wicklow county (about a 30 minute drive from our place). These gardens were built some 150 years ago on the estate of Lord Powerscourt (who was some sort of high muck-dee-muck with a lot of moola for building big impressive gardens). Not quite as spectacular as the reclaimed quarry of Butchart Gardens in Victoria, but still plenty beautiful. I saw many kinds of trees that i'd never seen before. Love the trees.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heraldk/sets/72157607038517428/

Afterwards we climbed Dalkey/Killeny hill, for a nice panoramic view of South Dublin. (Morgan doesn't mention it, but the castle at the base of Killeny hill (looking South) is Enya's humble abode).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heraldk/sets/72157607279465300/

Last weekend we drove to Glendalough, via Sally's Gap through the Wicklow "mountains". Glendalough is a national monument and popular tourist attraction. Its claim to fame is being *twice* as old as just about everything i see on a daily basis (that is, about 1600 years old instead of merely 800 years old). Beyond the hallowed grounds are some nice walking trails with a tremendous variety of fauna. After climbing up to the waterfall, we took the low road back, descending to the lakes and walking along a raised boardwalk through the marshes and bogs. We saw lots of glens and loughs. Hence the name.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heraldk/sets/72157607283752602/

spiders

We've got spiders. Lots of spiders. Lots of other insects and greeblies too (and lots of birds that feed on them), but Xan is kinda freaked out by the population of spiders in our yard, and occasionally in our house. The nooks and crannies outside of the house quickly get filled with webs, and de-webbing the car is standard procedure before driving somewhere.

One day she told me that she opened the bedroom window and got scared by a very large and very fast spider. She said its body was the size of an almond. Uh huh, ya ya, sure sure, no exaggeration there at all, i'm sure. She's a big fraidycat. So i opened the window to see if the big bad scary spider was still around, and AGHH!! Holy Crap! THIS THING WAS THE SIZE OF A WALNUT!! And OMFG was it fast! It freaked me right out! Fortunately it went back out the window and dropped to the ground. Given its size, it probably landed with a thud.

Yesterday we had people over for games, and Xan called me into the kitchen. On the floor near the sink was a *huge* fast spider. Not sure if it was the same kind, but maybe. The body was the size of an almond (segmented like a wasp), and its leg span was about 8 cm (3 inches). I trapped it under a translucent cover, and slid some paper and a cutting board underneath. One guest urged me to kill it, but why would i want to kill such an awesome creature? I walked to the grassy field across the street and let it go, sprinting back to the house before it could chase me down. :)

Today i looked it up. There are thousands of varieties of spiders, and looking at the Wikipedia article on spider taxonomy made it clear that this wasn't going to be an easy task. So i took a different tact, googling "big fast spider", and in one of those "gotta love the internet" moments, the top hit was a youtube video of our spider:

Spider ... it's Big it's fast.. but what is it???

Now, youtube comments are generally among the most utterly retarded tripe on the intertubes, but lo and behold, some non-idiots answered the question, leading me to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_house_spider

This is the fastest "true" spider in the world, clocking speeds of over half a meter per second (20 inches/sec). With it's sleek body, this truly is the Lamborgini of spiders. I was glad to read that they are entirely harmless to humans, so i can sleep a little easier.

photos of dublin and bray

In lieu of an actual post, i offer 101,000 words in the form of photographs:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heraldk/sets/72157604577994423/

These are from Morgan's interview back in April. (If you've seen our wedding photos, you already know that Morgan is an excellent photographer).

It's a pretty good sample of some of the things we've seen in Dublin (including our 10-day stay at The Beacon when we first moved here). Xan and Diane toured the nearby town of Bray and the charming Dalkey area of town. Then we all did a tour through the downtown area.

Cleaning the spider webs...

Well, it's been a while since the last post. It's just that things are happening and before they get transformed into a blog entry, other things happen. I am going to catch up with some pictures.

We had an interesting trip to visit a tower on a nearby hill. After visiting all the ruins from the map (or not -- some were on private property), we discovered that the tower is actually a chimney from an old lead mine. It looks cool though, and the real adventure was driving through tunnels of vegetation not much bigger than the car. Luckily the only traffic was a lady on a horse. From the top of the hill we could see all of Dublin, but there is not much to see because Dublin is quite flat. There are some proposals to build higher structures, but they don't receive approval from the municipality.

Hoping we are the only ones on this road

Up, up, through yellow bushes

Majestic trees Finally, the chimney
Defying gravity ;-) Dublin from above

Beautiful Sunday

Our regular visitors feeling at home

Bray esplanade and sea walk

I'm an alien... I'm a Canadian alien

Bray seen from the sea walk
The cliffs of Bray Head

Trying to catch the train

More sea from above

thotsam and jetsam

I was very leery about getting a cell phone. I've resisted becoming a gadget guy, like so many of my friends, because i treasure simplicity (i deal with extraordinarily complex systems every day -- i don't think more complexity is really something i need right now). But now i'm becoming just another degenerate addict to my Crackberry.

What this means to you, dear reader, is that i can now capture random thoughts for later blogging, with only 22 times more effort than scribbling a note on a piece of paper with my Fisher Bullet Space Pen. Tidbits that would normally pass like the wind (and rightfully so) can now be captured electronically, and added to the detritus and debris of virtual e-flotsam and e-jetsam, for the rest of eternity.

Let's think about that for a moment. Nothing is ever lost on the internet. Whatever lame-brained idea or stupid metaphor i come up with will still exist, in perfect condition, a thousand years after i'm gone. There will be a huge cache of information about my life, without the slightest hint of degradation -- an archeologist's *dream*. And what's more, absolutely _no one_ will care!

Anyway, on with the timbits. Er, i mean tidbits. Mmmm... timbits. Oh how i miss Tim Horton's coffee. I actually saw a woman carrying a Tim Horton's coffee cup, and immediately got terribly excited -- "Huh? What? Wait, whazat?". It seems the franchise has made it's way across the pond. We can, in fact, buy TH doughnuts at the local grocery store in the village. However, my informants tell me that the hard-to-find coffee places don't actually have genuine TH coffee, just the usual local rotgut in a TH paper cup. Sigh.

Where wuz i? Oh ya, i was talking about cars. So, we went to a couple of car dealerships yesterday in the Motown district of Dublin. That was an interesting experience. I've never seen so many men in dresses. [If you're lost and bewildered, that's exactly how i felt.]

It seems the Nation's Cup of rugby is in town, with the day's marquee match-up between Ireland and Scotland bringing loads of excitement and thousands of people into the downtown core, many of whom were wearing Scottish kilts. We learned about this later, by overhearing a conversation between two middle-aged women discussing the finer points of the game (which is interesting, because the smash-mouth sport only has crude points). 40-ish moms here don't talk about knitting. They talk about what formations our boys can use to try to stop France's monster, Didier, from breaking through the line. It was of the utmost urgency for these ladies to get to a pub to catch the remainder of the game.

The pubs here are awesomely great, by the way (to continue the stream of semi-consciousness). They are cavernous and warm, and full of ornate woodwork and fiddly bits. Pubs are the counterpoint to the cold and imposing concrete churches, and they are equally pervasive and central to communal life here. They are also landmarks -- at least one will be referred to in any detailed set of directions for getting somewhere. There is no grid system, so directions are of the form "Well, you go down the N to Ballycrotch, pass the Red Lion [pub] to Crinkbreaughlenlaough Lane, and it's three hoofs from the Stighgowainliangein". Uhh, right, got it, thanks. Everything makes perfect sense, provided that you and your ancestors have lived here for a minimum of 720 years, and you have an encyclopedic knowledge of every pub in the city -- which is taken as a given, naturally.

So far, the only thing we've really needed a car for is to go looking for a car. It was an hour and half journey, first by bus North to city center, then by Luas LRT West and way South again. The direct distance would be about a quarter of that. But the trip was enlightening, because we had never taken the Red Line of the Luas before. We got to see a bunch of new areas of Dublin, including some poorer run-down areas, which are a much better facsimile of the way things have been here for millenia, before the Celtic Tiger economic boom of ten years ago. We must have passed a dozen different unfathomably complex environments, each unlike anything i'd ever seen before. But i was able to shrug it off with my highly developed North American apathy and nonchalance.

One of the things i love about the Luas is listening to the bilingual announcements of station destinations. Irish Gaelic is a truly bizarre (and yet strangely beautiful) language. It sounds like a song (perhaps a traditional folk song), but it looks like some sort of strong encryption system. I've designed an algorithm for generation of pseudo-Gaelic. You take normal English words, rearrange and mutate a few letters, and then randomly insert extra vowels with roughly a one-third probably after each letter (with a particular bias toward i, a and u). Then you liberally sprinkle in some circumflexes, dots, accents, and whathaveyou, the way a chef would add herbs and seasonings to her latest creation. Voila, serve with a language soup, a syllable salad, and a nice Chablis.

I think i'm starting to get a handle on the lingo, though. One of the destinations announced by the Luas lady sounded something like "blaah-course", with a thick Irish lilt. That was the English version, mind you -- the Gaelic version was incomprehensible gibberish that went on for about thirty seconds, but it was very pretty sounding, like an onomatopoeic poem. Now, with my newfound experience in Irish word formation, i deduced that the actual destination was probably closer to "Blaughoarse" (with the usual almost Arabic haughing/hacking sound). When we arrived at the next station, the sign read... "Blackhorse". It was next to a big yellow pub with a big black horse imprinted on the side.

So, we test-drove a car (no big deal this time) and looked at a few others. Before embarking on the long journey home, we ate at a Subway. The North American corporations are moving in big time here, but i have to confess that i'm somewhat ambivalent about it. It's tragic to see the loss of yet another ancient culture, along with so many possibilities for truly edifying experiences. At same time, that familiar submarine sandwich from home was unquestionably the highlight of my very eventful day. Sad, isn't it?

Okay, silliest blog entry evaar, but it will have to hold you for an indeterminate period of time.

swedish meatballs (lack thereof)

Okay, i have been totally delinquent in blogging. I'll bet i'm the first one ever.

I tend to get busy on things, and when i focus on something, other things fade away completely and utterly. That's why you, dear reader, will have to endure long absences. I did jot down some notes along the way for future blog entries though. Maybe i'll write them up at some point.

I've still been working 10 and 12 hour days. I'm making progress, but i'm not very organized yet. You could say that i'm getting things done but not Getting Things Done, if you were clever with words, and knew the backstory.

This morning we have to go to the bank. Yawn, no big deal, you're thinking. Wrong. In this country, getting a bank account is a Very Big Deal. It's been five weeks since we applied for one, and it still isn't operational. That's why we're going to try another bank. Wish us luck.

We were also without broadband internet service for a month. Poor Xan called that useless company a dozen times, trying to get some resolution to the problem. We would have punted them if they weren't the only game in town (unfortunately, they know that, and abuse it).

These aren't the only examples of things not working. Far from it. I was warned about the poor service here, but wow. After living in a country like Canada, nothing prepares you for this kind of neglect.

While trying to understand the reason for our annoying split taps, Xan stumbled on a blog entry from a Swedish couple living in Ireland (Sweden parallels Canada in many ways, apparently). It has so many insightful observations on the differences in cultures that i'd like to recycle it for today's blog entry. Kindly read their article, replacing "mincemeat" with "fruit-bottomed fromage cottage". Thanks, Sven and Kari!

Impressions of Ireland (http://www.rosvall.ie/Intryck_eng.html)

adventures in mundania

Moving to Ireland is not one major change -- it's a million little changes.

I could list a few, or a few dozen, and it wouldn't seem like much of a big deal. I mean, does it really matter if the yogurt here has less than 5% protein and is made with whipping cream? Not so much. But when it's *every little thing*, it keeps you perpetually off balance. It's hard to get into a flow state, because flow requires ignoring everything except the one thing you're immersed in. I miss having the real world fade away for hours at a time...

Even things that are the same are different. For example, Xan bought the exact same brand and type of hair colouring she always buys, but discovered that the chemicals and the instructions were completely different. I walk down the aisles of the grocery store, and not even 5% of the brands are familiar. Sometimes it feels like i'm living in a totally foreign country!

We miss a lot of things, it's true. Especially in regard to the extremely healthy diet we had in Canada. Oh what i'd give for a big bowl of 3-colour coleslaw with diced dill pickle and creamy cucumber dressing. I had that almost every single day at home, but *none* of those things exist over here! But then, there are just as many new things that provide ample compensation. Nevertheless, the constant need for learning and adjusting and improving solutions gets to be a bit of a drag after a while. (Listen to the whine of a comfort junkie).

Xan neglected to mention who our first dinner guests were -- the finest of the fine, Aaron and Christine. Our transition would have been thrice as hard without them having already figured out the hardest things.

winter winds

Wow, what a howl. The winter winds were howling like some scene from a cheesy horror flick, and they went on and on all night long. Low howls from the wind curling around the walls, high-pitched whistles as it blows past the window sill cracks, whorls blowing over the chimney playing it like a beer bottle, and more. I'd never heard anything like it before moving here, but it's becoming fairly routine now. This time it persisted for about four days. It keeps Xan awake at night, but i just feel even more secure, all snuggled and protected from the elements. It can huff and puff all it wants, it isn't going to blow my house down, being made of brick and stone.

The occasional patches of rain sounded like sand hitting the windows. I haven't tried walking in that yet, but i'm pretty sure it won't crack my top ten list of favourite types of rain...

I have, however, had to walk against the wind on some mornings. It isn't too bad, really, provided you have solid footing, and put your shoulder into it. Of course, that makes it trickier to dodge the flying debris from construction sites. [You might think i'm exaggerating -- unless you're from here, in which case you might think i'm using understatement just to be funny.]

driving in a parallel universe

Yesterday and today i drove on the left side of the road. That was both not as bad and far worse than i ever imagined.

It isn't that everything is backwards. No no, nothing as simple as that. It's that exactly *half* of everything is backwards. For example, at an uncontrolled intersection you still yield to the guy on the right, not the left. The gas pedal is on the right of the brake pedal, but the signal light is on the right side of the steering column instead of the left. If i told you how many times i turned on the windshield wipers by mistake, you'd giggle.

Today we drove to the near-by town of Bray to do some grocery shopping. I soon realized that i'd made a huge mistake. Two days before Xmas is not the best time to be learning how to drive on overly-congested narrow streets.

So i'm trying to deal with all of these flipped variables, but on top of it there are all the brand new events -- things i've _never_ seen before in my life! Like, i'm already getting totally stressed out coping with 62 randomly jumbled variables, when a guy coming the other way veers across the road to grab an empty parking spot on my side. [Somehow, i had failed to grok the significance of the fact that 52% of all parked cars are facing in the wrong direction. I guess i naively assumed they were doing that when the road was clear!] He proceeds to do some hybrid front-in ass-rotate parallel parking maneuver right in front of me, forcing me to brake to avoid a head-on collision, while hoping the guy behind me is one the 17% of drivers who are actually paying attention to the road. The doofus merrily shimmies and shammies into his spot, not caring a whit how long i have to wait. And i can't go around him, because oncoming traffic has instinctively read this as a premium opportunity to *go much faster*.

Little did i know how much worse it was going to get... I could write several pages on this hair-raising experience, if only i had hair. Suffice it to say that we aborted our plan, and i was thrilled and relieved to get back home with my feet back onto good 'ole terra firma.

While walking to the local grocery store, still a bit frazzled, i had to be wary of more crazy drivers flinging themselves around the round-a-bouts with completely indiscernible angles of exit. Xan mentioned the signalling rules that i'd learned the day before, but i just laughed -- as if *anyone* here would actually follow those conventions.

One thing is certain, however: if you see a car coming your way with its windshield wipers on, duck for cover!

green

Winter? Not so much.

It's really more like cool autumn weather, at worst, and some days are still in the mid-teens. Having spent every winter of my life in Alberta, it looks like this will be my first year of winterlessness.

Everything is still lush and green, burgeoning with life and health. Kinda like Vancouver in the summer, or Alberta roughly never. Maybe 30% of the trees and bushes are leafless, but the grass is still greener than the lawns in my experience have ever been.

Ireland is green -- that is not a myth.

songbirds

When i leave the house in the morning, i'm usually greeted by a passel of songbirds.

These little balls of fluff are no bigger than a walnut, but they have an amazing array of songs. In the space of a dozen paces, i hear a dozen melodious phrases. Since there are many types of birds, which elude my rhino eyes, it sounds like the trees are singing all around me. The overlapping trills sound like something Aphex Twin might have created, if his genius extends that far.

I'm not cynical about songbirds.