Niall's Journal

9:03am: Ireland (part 8/8)
Previous part

( June 7 ) - ( June 8 ) - ( June 9: Mizen Head )


Mizen Head itself! The fog station on the left, where they used to detonate an explosive every 45 seconds to warn ships about the dangerous coastline; the crew cabins; and the bridge over the chasm leading to the Head.

( Scary bridge! ) - ( June 10 )

So there you have it, my Big Ireland Trip! I hope you enjoyed my photos and descriptions!

2:28am: Ireland (part 7/8)
Previous part

( June 5: Beach and Dingle )

I finally made it to a nice viewpoint, and found I was still a little in advance of the actual sunset...


...but still worth it for shots like this!

I then whimpered as clouds started spreading all over the horizon line.

- VIDEO: Six minutes of Atlantic Sunset, with Irish countryside. Note the colours of the clouds every now and then - gorgeous!

( Getting lost, and Sessions with videos ) - ( June 6 )

Finished here!

11:04pm: Ireland (part 6/8)
Previous part

( June 4: The Burren ) - ( June 5: Carrigafoyle )


And now The Find of the Trip: Carrigafoyle Castle, built at the end of the 15th century!

( Lots more photos, and a full video )

Continued here!

4:07pm: Ireland (part 5/8)
Previous part

( June 3: Aran Islands )

I stopped by the world-famous Aran Sweater Museum (and shop), since Aran sweaters are reputed to be very warm, comfy and stylish. What they don't say, though, is that they also stink of sheep to high heaven since it's traditionally mostly untreated wool. (Best way to keep dry at sea!) And the treated wool sweaters were nearly double the price at over 100 euros ($160). No. But I didn't want to come back completely empty-handed, so I looked around.


Not too bad-looking, I think. :)

( Galway )

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Continued here!

6:19pm: Ireland (part 4/8)
Previous part

( June 2: Croagh Patrick )


SHEEP!

( Connemara )

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Continued here!

12:07pm: Revolutions
One more, and I'll attain The Answer. You know the one. And it'll even be on a Saturday. I smell a possible party. With chocolates. :) (Though if AC is the same weekend, I'll have fewer friends to draw from...)

Edit: Actually, my first thought was to combine it with a sort of "Memories of C-ACE" daylong party/sketchpad lounge/Bury the Dead Dog to China/Chocolate social. Seeing a bunch of old friends and having fun? Hell yeah, and I'll foot the bill! As long as the DJ doesn't play all the songs I'm famous for dancing one after the other... :D

4:38pm: Ireland (part 3/8)
Previous part

( June 1: Clonmacnoise, Kilbeggan ) - ( June 2: Ballintober Castle )

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Continued here - all of the next entry is just the rest of that day!

10:06pm: Ireland (part 2/8)
Previous part

( May 28: Cork University, Bandon, Clonakilty, Kinsale ) - ( May 29 ) - ( May 30: Mountshannon ) - ( May 31: Birr )


While looking for a place to eat supper, I found these two stores providing 1) the best shoe store name ever, and 2) the influence of old english words (coming from old french), in this instance "victualler". Victuals (French "victuaille") means basically food and provisions. Not something seen often in North America.

( Dancing videos under cut )

Continued here!

1:32am: Ireland (part 1/8)
Previous part

This will be done chronologically; I'm not the type who can easily do trip reports by subject matter, my brain doesn't work that way.

( May 21, Boston ) - ( May 22, arrival ) - ( May 23, Ennis ) - ( May 24, Ennis ) - ( May 25, Cork )


Grammar is important. You can't just tack on something at the end when the second generation helps you manage the shop. It might change the meaning. :)

( May 26, Cork ) - ( May 27, Midleton & Cobh )

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Continued here

9:41pm: Ireland (part 0/8)
Start here

This is just to show the itinerary I took...



RED means I was driven around by my aunt or my uncle.

BLUE means I drove myself. Each break in the line is where I stayed for the night.

Went through Boston, then start at the X, Shannon airport. Went down to the southwest bit, my aunt's place, for a day. Back up the same way, then a bit more north of the airport to Ennis for a couple of days. Then my uncle came and picked me up and drove me down to Cork. I stayed for a few days; one day he got me east to the Midleton distillery and to Cobh harbour; the next we made a little ring south of Cork then back up. Then he got me to Cork airport where I picked up my car rental.

Up, west and down, with stops in: Mountshannon, Birr, Roscommon, Clifden, Galway, Kilrush, Dingle and Killarney.

Picked up by my aunt back do the corner for a few days of rest; then on my last day with both aunt and uncle, we go to the most southwestern tip and back. Then I'm driven back to the X, Shannon airport, to Boston and home.

Whew!

Continued here!

10:06pm: Ireland - prologue
I've narrowed down from 750 pics to 160. Hey, it's an improvement. :)

I'll do many posts, mostly in chronological order. They may or may not begin with a photo, but the rest will be under cut tags.

Also, not all photos will be shown - a fair number will be under description links, and only the best will be up.

But as a start, I'll show this: the loot!

( Looooot! )

Continued here!

7:57am: Home again, home again
...I've already done lots of jiggety jigs over there. :)

I've also strained my vocal cords and have to rest and talk as little as possible. Those who know me RL know how difficult that is for me... I'm also woozy from the throat problems and coughing a lot, so I've taken the day off.

I'll mainly be working on my FNC trib for this weekend, but I might take breaks to process some photos and make a post. Maybe. I also need to do groceries, but that's if I feel well enough.

12:11am: Family
I just found out my grandfather has had entries in both Gray's Anatomy (35th edition, 1973) and the Encyclopaedia Brittanica (entry for "Joint").

!!

He also wrote a sonnet to the editors of Gray's, in thanks for their support. Seems that's where I have my love of playing with old rhyming forms in new ways. :)

Done with the driving now, relaxing at my aunt's for a few days. Doing NOTHING for once. My legs are thanking me already.

10:51am: Idiot Tourist
That'd be me talking to myself:

When taking a shortcut from the ocean back to Dingle across a pass in the mountains, do make sure next time that you look for a real paved road and not a path that starts gravelly and disappears into brush, with the light quickly fading, a fence on one side and a steep drop on the other so that you can't turn around and must do the quickest, most delicate and most accurate backing-up of your life - because your life does depend on it, okay?

We'll both sleep better at night. (The Connemara whiskey helped, though. Oh did it ever help!)

3:23pm: So tired
Day 7 of driving (took the car Friday last), two more to go. 980km travelled. My legs are definitely complaining, and I'm not doing anything these days other than walk and drive.

Today I went barefeet in the Atlantic ocean on a long beach. COLD water, but so nice!

Now in Tralee, going to the Dingle, and tomorrow the Ring of Kerry, possibly, unless my legs give out and refuse to work anymore...

9:18pm: Croagh Patrick
...is Ireland's highest mountain, at 762m high. I climbed it. In 1h5m. I stayed up trying to catch my breath (oxygen concentration is remarkably different) for 20 minutes, and cursing that my batteries had just died. (Though thinking about it now, maybe it was the altitude. I should recheck them.) I went down in 50 minutes.

The last bit is literally at least at 35 degrees, if not outright 45.

It was insane. Yet somehow fun.

I am never doing anything like this again in my life.

(At the top, my first words were akin to "I have never been happier about the notion of 'flat' in my life!")

I'm going to hurt tomorrow...

Oh yes, and the whole of the Connemara region (in the midnorthwest) is fantastically beautiful beyond compare and breathtaking.

Oh, and that's where you can find sheep on the main National road, resting, and you have to go slowly around them. Flocks aren't bound by stone walls like in the south. Yes, Spunky, I have pictures. :)

5:34am: Driving in Ireland
...is fraught with peril. You can't relax your attention for two seconds. I've managed to turn around today and naturally, unconsciously get in the right-hand lane. In a hilly neighbourhood. What saved me was both low city speed and that I wasn't at the top of a hill when another car approached in the same lane. I actually thought "what is he doing in my la--*" and changed quickly. Usually I've been good though.

Also, going at 80kph in twisty winding regional roads is... almost starting to be fun. :) I took a video of me driving through them. Roads in Ireland are of one of four different types:

- National roads (numbered Nx or Nxx), either two-lane per side divided highways near big towns, reverting to one-lane highways, but with wide lanes, for trucks and the like, between towns. Max speed 100 km/h.

- Regional roads (numbered Nxxx), where there's just enough space for two cars to pass each other on the pavement. Entrances to roads or private parkings (often long and wide to accomodate friends parking over) are often godsends. Going off the road is often not an option as it might be a brick/stone wall, a fence, a hedge (often hiding a stone wall or a fence), trees, or the like. Max speed 80 km/h.

- Local roads (numbered Lxxxx), like above but with narrower lanes. Two cars may pass if they go slowly enough to better judge distance. Max speed still 80 km/h.

- neighbourhood roads, unnumbered, wide enough for one car. No, they are not one way. Yes, lorries and farm equipment often use them. If two meet, one has to back up to the nearest entrance/parking/road encountered to let the other pass. Max speed insanely still 80 km/h.

It's day 4 of driving by myself; I went from Cork up to Athlone and now west to Westport on the west coast. Today I explore the Connemara, and tomorrow it's the Aran Islands, ending in Galway.

I was not feeling well yesterday, liquid nose (not just runny) and feeling cold and sweating a lot despite being in a knit shirt and it being over 20 degrees C and sunny. After two evenings of heavy dancing and holding a ton of people's hands, it's no surprise, really. I stopped at a B&B earlier than planned, right on the road I was on. I am a little leery of the place, though: the guy answering wasn't sure if there was space for a single person, said he had to check with the other person who was out. I had seen her get back in, though, so he came back immediately saying it was okay. I heard people come in many times, including after midnight, and the car park at the back was always full with 3 cars - but none of the other rooms were ever occupied that night... and the guy was attentive, but the least loquacious Irish person I've met so far, and for a B&B operator, that's rather weird. At least I rested enough, and sweated out my cold thanks to the hottest comforters I've ever encountered. I needed that a lot.

And now, off to climb Croagh Patrick, 712 metres! :)

3:10pm: Or maybe I should just ask outright.. is anyone actually interested in a photo report of Ireland from me?

If so, would you prefer just photos, with minimal text? (I already know not to flood with photos.)

5:35pm: Having a great time. Ennis is a neat little town, the music and dancing was fantastic. Scenery is breathtaking. Currently outside Cork. Will see the University (where my grandfather has a grant in his name in biology), then the Midleton whiskey distillery (ahem). Then I drive around for a week on my own. THAT'll be interesting!

I'm finding out my family history is more convoluted and weird than I possibly could have imagined. My grandfather was quite the character. And family branches by marriage and such reach rather interesting people and places - I can now have a link with Winston Churchill (we may have had a spy in the family) or the Titanic (which had a bottle of whiskey from my family's bottling operation recovered not too long ago).

Taking lots of photos and videos. I'll only post a select few when I get back.

4:02pm: More travelling
I think I forgot to say on here that next month I'll finally realise a years-long dream: I'm going to Ireland. For three weeks. *giggling babbling grin* My first time outside of Canada or the US.

Staying with uncle (near Cork) and aunt (near the ocean) half of the time, and driving around the south, centre and west of the island by myself for a week. Plus a couple of days at a big music/dance/cultural festival, taking the train after.

Expensive... but actually less than I've spent each time on c-ace in the last few years. :)

Before I leave, I want to finish all the photo reports of other travel I've done lately.

10:21am: And people wonder why I hate hockey. And football. And most major organised sports.

A darn good part of it are the fans.

Yay! The team arbitrarily put in my hometown by someone with insane amounts of money charging exorbitant rates who could pull it out and relocate it whenever they please (hello QUebec Nordiques, hello Montreal Expos) and composed of no one from my home town and barely anyone from my own country, has won a major game against a supposedly much weaker opponent taking the whole series of games it needed to win! Let's destroy my very own home town to celebrate! (Oh, and let's assault, break noses, kick and hey, get lucky we don't outright kill anyone who supported the other team also composed of people not from that guy's home town, too!)

...not even being drunk excuses or explains this. There has to be something deeply wrong elsewhere.

Curling fans never behave like this. I like curling.

9:58pm: All is revealed
Back in November, I made a cryptic entry about my work on the same album as Alan Moore.

Last night, the Dirtbombs were on their Ottawa stop for the tour. Not only did I get in on the Guest List, but I had my first-ever Contributor Copy of a CD. :)



It may be a little weird to have something on an album by a Detroit-based band that defies all attempts to classify it, other than "punishingly loud" as Mick Collins, bandleader, described last night. I've known Mick for 15 years or so when we were both in the same APA together, where he was writing stories. He kept asking me online and on the phone about precise expressions in French for this or that story he was writing, which I was always happy to research, even at 1am. When someone decides to go for that level of research for real atmosphere and not just verisimilitude, I'm always glad to help.

( So last year he phones me up about a song he was writing, all in French. (full image inside) )

So how did the fans react to the song, among those tho mentioned it in reviews? (The album itself is rated as "some great stuff, but not their best", as it's rather experimental.)

( It ranges from the slightly baffled to the wildly enthusiastic... )

No, I haven't listened to it yet. My ears need to heal first.

7:50pm: Public Service Announcement
If you are stuck in an airport and absolutely need to make a phone call... and you see the nice phone placed here and there... think twice about how exceedingly necessary that phone call has to be.

I called work and home on my delay of a day to get home from California at the end of January. I now have the charges on the bill.

The rate of $1.18/minute is within the realm of the acceptable for such an "emergency need" service.

The hidden $8.20 connection charge on the other hand is pure highway runway robbery.

($10.56 for a 2 minute call, $24.71 for a 14 minute call. Ouch. And this was with Bell's Calling Card, so at least it was automated - I wouldn't want to see the charges if the operator had to handle it!)

This concludes this public service announcement.

5:56pm: Blast (pow zoom) from the past
After FC I stayed a few days in California. Future posts will show my San Fancisco, Santa Cruz and San Mateo pics, but I wanted to get this one out now.

In downtown Santa Cruz, next to the beach, there is the Boardwalk, an old-style amusement park. In the middle building, there is an arcade. In that arcade, ( there was my youth. )

10:25pm: Dancin'
Hey, on time and on topic! :)

From last Saturday's St Patrick's Ceilí for the Ottawa Comhaltas Céiltoirí Éireann branch.

Softshoe dancing - to the Chieftains' "Brian Boru's March". I am not the guy who's good. :)

Hardshoe dancing - to Shooglenifty's "Delighted". (I love the band.) Once again, I'm the one starting in the dance, not the one doing the good stuff. :)

As expected, I'm too sick to go out with the students above (and our teacher, the solo woman who's really good) tonight in search of a good pub with live musicians to dance to. I hope they're having fun.