Long time no see

Hey blog, how have you been?  Lonely?  Sorry, my fault.  You see, we have been pretty busy doing our own thing, and you know, I haven’t thought much of what we’ve been doing has been exciting enough to write about, so no entries recently.

Summer is here but you wouldn’t be able to tell because we’re still wearing our winter coats some days.  However we have transitioned more often to the lighter windbreakers, so maybe it’s here…  The plants in the front garden are looking happier, and the fields of bluebells (and white and pink bells [?]) are just gorgeous.  PJ the groundskeeper has been running the lawn mowers.  I purchased a pot of shamrocks in early March which had been doing pretty well but is now living outdoors in the hopes that it perks up and starts growing again.  And here I thought I had overcome my black-thumb tendencies.

We had a few days of very disrupted weather, with lashing rain and tremendous winds.  The bay was green with all the stuff dredged up by the roiling waters.  I like the days where the sun just peeps out occasionally and the rain threatens because the Prom is practically empty of people and it makes for a nice, relaxing walk.

The farmer’s market is gearing up with more people and more vendors.  Summer fruits season is nearing.  I am looking forward to some lovely salads!  Claude and I are on a diet, of sorts, cutting out breads, white potatoes and (sob, sniffle) desserts.  While he has not returned to his bike riding since starting his new job, we do try to get out and do some walking as often as possible.  I miss baking, it’s one of my favorite activities and produces such delicious results.  Maybe after we drop a few pounds…

I have started a new volunteer job on Monday nights participating in facilitating English conversation skills with a group called Fáilte Isteach (it means incoming welcome).  My two ‘students’ are a woman from Pakistan and a woman from China.  It’s an interesting and unusual task.  I’m not sure I’m very effective at it but the woman who facilitates the volunteers is very encouraging.  It happens on Monday evenings so we go out for dinner prior to class.

I have also started going to exercise classes conducted by a very energetic and talkative young physiotherapist with MS Ireland.  Their office is way over on the other side of Galway so getting there is quite the trek, but I think eventually it will be worth it.  He has a special vibrating machine that is supposed to help MS people with motor function and strength issues that I’m looking forward to using on a regular basis.

Can’t go to class today though.  The buses are on strike!  I never realized how dependent we are on them until they became no longer available!  Claude sure can’t cab to work every day!  Bus Éireann is administered by the government and has been instructed by the Labor Court to cut €5 million from the budget.  They want to take that from the drivers in the form of holidays and sick pay.  The drivers are not pleased.  Thus, no bus service.  I sure hope they get this ironed out soon.  I need my lifeline into the city.

The abortion debate is still going strong, which in my opinion is a good thing.  Irish women aren’t going to let the government sweep this issue under the rug.  There’s a tremendous amount of support for a significant change in the law, and possibly even the constitution.  I sit on the outside looking in and hope for the best and only rational outcome of legal abortion for all women in Ireland.

This summer is going to be very special because we have so much of our family coming to visit.  We are very much looking forward to hosting them all and showing them our lovely hometown and beautiful Ireland.

I have gotten used to being pegged for American as soon as I open my mouth.  Fortunately most Irish folks don’t mind Americans, they have a certain affinity because so many of their friends and family emigrated to the US.  The Boston bombing was very close to many people’s hearts.  Galway was, in a lot of cases, the last vestige of Ireland that emigrees saw before sailing east across the Atlantic to the new country.  I also get away with murdering the Irish language; people shake their heads good-naturedly and gently correct me.  I am absolutely convinced that I will never speak or understand Irish but I can at least kind of read it and pick out certain vocabulary words.

So that’s about it for now.  I’m sure Claude would have some observations to offer but that will have to wait for another day.  Cheers!

– Cindy

 

Dublin in March

Earlier this week we found ourselves with the opportunity to spend a bit of an extended weekend in Dublin.  On Thursday we hopped the express bus for the city with smiles on our faces and arrived to a storm of freezing temps, blasting rain and whipping wind!  The hotel I had booked is behind the O2 stadium but the bus dropped us at least 4 blocks too far west, so there we were stuck walking through the storm to the hotel.  The wind took Claude’s hat and plopped it right into the middle of the street so we had to wait for traffic to clear in order for him to bolt out into the road and recover it.  By that time it was soaking wet – good thing I had an extra stocking cap on hand!  From there the weekend could only get better.

For this stay I chose the Gibson Hotel, themed after the guitar.  It’s ultra-modern with all the amenities I wanted including being situated at the terminus of the Luas tram line for ease of travel into the city.  While I’m not very impressed with their bar and food service – I had to deliberately make my presence known each time I went in – I did get a delicious and reasonably priced cosmo.  Otherwise it was a comfortable and fairly clean place with very helpful staff.

Friday’s weather was not much better, as a matter of fact it was colder than the evening before and still raining profusely.  I tried to purchase a Luas ticket from the machine at the stop but it broke in the middle of the process and gave my money back.  At that moment the rain got much harder and began to become hail.  I thought something I can’t repeat here and walked right over to the taxi waiting outside the hotel, jumped in and asked the driver to take me to the National Museum of Ireland: Decorative Arts and History.  He didn’t know which museum I was referring to so I had to use the typical Irish method of road direction and tell him what it was near.  As we drove we had conversation about the job situation in Ireland and I found out that he had a master’s degree in public administration from a university in Poland but driving cabs in Ireland was a better paying job!  He got me as close as he could to the front of the museum and apologized for me having to walk through the rain, but I told him it was no big deal because, “I’m from Galway!”

The museum is housed in an old army barracks and is built in the shape of a large rectangle with a big courtyard in the middle.  The public part of the museum is housed on 4 floors with many different galleries holding all types of items; the exhibitions include Irish silver, coins, curator’s choice, fashion, furniture, soldiers, jewelry.  The variety of items and rooms is quite fascinating!  I took a ton of pictures and ran the camera battery down.  I put them all together in a Flickr set for your perusal.

I was going to go visit the Leprechaun Museum too but I had walked all over the first museum and the weather was so miserable that I really didn’t feel like slogging through it to stand around for much longer.  Finally managed to purchase a Luas ticket from the machine and went back to the hotel where I ordered a sandwich and a soda in the bar and finished the book I was reading (The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry), then looked up restaurants for the evening meal, went up to our room, relaxed in front of the tube and had a small nap.

Being in the capital I decided that we had to take advantage of the variety of restaurants.  Since Claude rarely gets vegetarian choices beyond the standard veggie burger, curry or pasta dish, I chose to look up the vegetarian restaurants in the city center and found three – Cornucopia, Govinda’s and Delhi O’Deli.  I just thought the name was so clever that I chose Delhi O’Deli.  We took the tram into the heart of the city and wandered around until we found the restaurant.  It’s a little hole-in-the-wall diner with a very friendly owner and absolutely delicious Indian food.  Claude’s keen eye had spotted a Parisian bakery as we passed by on the way to the restaurant so we doubled back after the meal and stopped by for a lovely dessert.  We are definitely going to visit both places again.

On Saturday Claude asked me what I wanted to do so I said I wanted to see the Old Library at Trinity College.  We managed to purchase all day tickets for the tram from those infernal machines and headed over to the college.  We walked around Parliament Square for a bit, took a few pictures.  There’s a cool spinning sculpture outside the Berkeley Library, a large golden ball with cutouts (I got a couple pictures of it) that I tried to catch on video but my camera battery gave up the ghost.  We went inside the old library building, then realized that in order to see the library itself we would have to pay the admission price of €9 each because the Book of Kells is housed in this building.   Between the place being jammed with tourists and discussion of the fact that we will be visiting the building with Claude’s parents later this year, we decided to save the money and go somewhere else.  But not before buying a cool book on forgotten Irish words.

And since we were in the area, I chose to take Claude to Cornucopia for lunch.  The food was beautiful and so delicious.  They have a fantastic selection of dishes and a queue practically out the door at lunchtime.  This place will also be on our re-visit list.

In order to explore the city further we got on the red tram line and just rode it to the end.  Dublin takes up a lot of space and the little suburbs vary widely, some scruffy looking, overrun with graffiti, some pristine and beautiful.  Along the way we noticed a young man and his friend walking along a path — I saw a boy wearing a down vest with no sleeves and naked arms; Claude saw that the young man was walking a goat!  Later on, after the tram had stopped at the terminus and the driver came out to switch to the other end of the train, he asked us, “Did ye see the lad walking the goat?”  I laughed so hard.  The menfolk saw the strange creature, the mother in me saw the boy risking exposure illness!

When we got back to the city we hopped on the other tram, the green line, and rode it out to the terminus and back.  Again we saw a wide variety of suburbs.  At one point a woman got on the tram with a baby in a gigantic pram and a little one of about 2 dragging his tiny bicycle.  The kid kept making adorable observations all the way in to the city.

By the time we finished with all our walking and riding we were pretty much set to head home.  We went back to the hotel and retrieved our bag, I grabbed a snack and a cosmo at the bar, and we managed to catch our bus home.  During the ride we swore we smelled the skunky odor of some fine weed but couldn’t figure out how someone was managing to get high on the bus without the smoke or getting busted by the driver.  It was wild.  Got home and stopped at a bar we had not yet visited which was located right by our bus stop, had some yummy burgers and watched a little rugby – Leinster beat Glasgow! – and caught the bus home.  After freezing our butts off in Dublin for 2 days Galway was practically balmy.  A nice walk by the sea before getting home was simply lovely.

Dublin is a great place to visit, for sure, but Galway is most definitely home.

– Cindy

Drinking culture

Lots of people think there’s not much to do in Ireland but go to the pubs, and in a way they’re right.  But it’s not fair to break an entire culture down to just one activity or even to relegate pubs to nothing but the simple pursuit of the next pint.  Many pubs serve as a central gathering point for everyone in the community; in many rural areas it’s the only place for folks to gather to talk about matter that concern everyone.  Plus get a pint.  Many more pubs serve up a nice meal along with some great trad music, or offer big screen televisions for everyone to enjoy the rugby, football or hurling match.  When you find the pub that fits with you, it’s like a second home.

My problem with most pubs is that they only offer pints and beers and maybe the occasional glass of wine or rum & coke, when I’m really a cocktail kinda gal.  The larger hotels and fine restaurants offer cocktails, but if you order something too far out of their comfort zone you usually get a scowl and an opportunity to order something else.  I was bowled over the other evening when Claude & I went into the Skeff to while away a bit of time waiting for the bus, and there was a cocktail menu offered.  On it I saw Mai Tai and I have no idea what came over me…but I ordered one from the barman, who said he’d try to make it.  Imagine my surprise when it arrived and was as good as any I’ve had in Hawaii!  I guess it helped that they’re used to serving foreigners at the Skeff, so weird Americans like me can order off-the-wall cocktails and still get good service.

Of course, if you don’t drink at all, pub culture can be a bit trying.  Drunks are no fun at all, loud crowds of sports fans yelling at the match can be trying on the nerves, and the cock-eyed looks you get from the servers and barmen can be annoying.

Recently the Kerry County Council considered a proposal to loosen the drink-driving laws for people in extremely rural areas who have no other social outlet but an evening at the pub.  This created quite a bit of havoc and hilarity with people both reviling the idea and embracing it.  The proposal did not pass.

So while a great deal of Irish culture does revolve around the local pub it isn’t the only thing to do while here.  However it’s definitely something not to miss when visiting!

– Cindy

Post script

That’s not to say that we’re not thrilled to our very toes that we’re staying in Ireland for the duration!  Claude got a new job and with it a new green card good for two years.  I just hope we get to do more traveling over the next few months to see more of the island!

– Cindy

Slowly emerging from the dark ages

So far most, if not all, of our blog posts have been about happy things, or light-hearted observations of our experiences in the last year plus of living in Galway, Ireland.  And for the most part, it has been an overwhelmingly positive and uplifting experience.  But there are deeper observations to be made – I’m going to go out on a limb and make them.

As some of you readers may know, in late October of this year a young woman of Indian descent died needlessly at University Hospital Galway while miscarrying her pregnancy.  She and her husband wanted that baby, had planned for it.  Even through the extreme pain she was suffering she knew that she was not going to be able to carry to term.  With a heart that was breaking in two she begged the doctors and nurses to help her by inducing labor.  She was told “this is a Catholic country.”  In other words, the church has so hamstrung the laws of this nation that they were not legally allowed to terminate the pregnancy as long as there was a fetal heartbeat.  She suffered the pain and humiliation of this miscarriage for 5 days before the fetus’ heart stopped.  By then she was septicemic.  Before she passed away from the infection that ravaged her system, she did point out to the staff that she was neither Irish nor Catholic.

Ireland has been taken to task on many occasions by European Union rights groups for their draconian laws and generally Catholic stance on human rights, particularly in the cases of gay rights and of abortion.  (Same-sex sexual activity has only been decriminalised since 1993.)  The Irish Constitution was amended in 1983 to ban abortion constitutionally, backed strongly by Catholic influence.  This fact amazes and stuns me.  In 1984 a 15-year-old girl named Anne Lovett and her newborn son died alone and freezing after Anne gave birth in a church yard precisely because of the stifling attitude of her religious upbringing.  In 1992 the Irish Supreme Court ruled in the X Case, which allowed for abortion in the case of risk to the mother’s life including risk of suicide.  The problem with the ruling is it is in direct opposition to the Eighth Amendment, and worse, to the Offences Against the Persons Act of 1861 – yes, you read that right, a law written in the 19th Century which is still in effect today – which makes it illegal to use drugs or instruments to cause an abortion.  The Irish Parliament has REFUSED to legislate on these issues for over 30 years now.

The Catholic church would have women believe that their lives are never at risk from pregnancy.  The government sees no problem if women choose to travel to another country to obtain abortion services.  Most private physicians will perform follow-up treatment for women who have done so.  So no one seems to understand why Irish women are so angry about Savita’s death.  The church has no intention of assisting women who can’t afford to travel, so they’re resorting to purchasing abortifacients over the internet – the import of which is also illegal.  The utter hypocrisy of not allowing babies who are still-born or die upon birth without being baptised to be buried in consecrated graveyards doesn’t seem to faze the church at all.

I’m not a religious person, neither Claude nor I are, really.  We have our individual views about it.  He tends toward the Buddhist way of thinking, I tend toward the agnostic.  No matter how you define it, we are definitely not advocates of the Catholic vision of the world.

At this point a number of EU rights groups are calling for sweeping change to these ancient laws.  Ireland is out of step with all of Europe in this regard and does not, in my opinion, deserve to hold the EU Presidency next year until its laws come in line with the rest of the Union.  The anti-choice groups are pulling out all the stops, pressuring their local politicians to not allow women the right to a safe, clean abortion in Ireland.  Women are once again being held hostage to their gender by the Catholics.

The Irish people have some fairly archaic attitudes when it comes to being open with one another, talking about sexuality and differences, speaking of uncomfortable subjects and history.  They use euphemisms to describe horrors of their history.  They have a similar stiff-upper-lip style to the British.  They call periods of anarchy in their history “the Troubles,”  like it’s a touch of the flu or sluggish bowels.  People die and they’re labeled as “the tragic.”  It’s all so … very.

– Cindy

The Library

We love libraries.  Every place we move we get ourselves registered with the library and obtain our cards.  Claude is very proud of his library card collection.  So naturally we obtained our borrowing privileges almost immediately upon arriving in Galway, when our address was so new that we didn’t even have a piece of mail to prove our residency.  The librarian was kind enough to go ahead and give us our cards – although I noted at the time that she seemed a bit surly.

Well, that has not changed.  It has come to the point where I dread having to interact with the librarians at the City branch because they are all so damned .. surly!  I’ve never met crankier librarians than these people.  Mind you, the children’s library librarians are nice ladies and always pleasant.  The librarians at the Westside branch are all happy and helpful.  But those City branch folks are something else.

Other frustrations about the Galway library system include the fact that their online catalogue is notoriously incorrect; their shelving system is barely alphabetical – no, seriously, if the author’s name starts with W (for example) then you have to scan through every single book on the W shelf to find your book – and they don’t even match up duplicate titles by the same author; most of the time even when the catalogue says it’s in the fiction section it ends up being in another section altogether; and the sections are so poorly labeled that it’s almost impossible to find what you’re looking for.

Of course, the easiest branch for me to get to is the City branch.  I could ride the bus to Westside but it only shows up every 45 minutes and it’s been pretty darn cold out these last couple of weeks, too cold to stand around waiting for the bus while trying to do the time calculation in my head.

Today’s adventure had me trying to find “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde.  I’ve recently read a biography of the entire Wilde family and have wanted to read this novel for quite some time.  After scanning the W shelf twice and not finding it, I screwed my courage to the sticking place and ventured to the front desk to ask.  The cranky lady behind the desk starts tippy-tapping her keyboard and concludes that I’ll probably need to request the book.  (Note: Previous experience has shown that any requests made through the library system go completely unheeded and are not acted upon.)  I told her I had found it in the online catalogue this morning under “Dorian Gray” and that it was listed as being on the W shelf in fiction.  At this point the other librarian pipes up and says, “Maybe it’s in Classics.”  He scoots off and the librarian I’m working with continues her tippy-tapping at the keyboard.  Seconds later the other librarian comes back with a copy of the book in his hand – at which point I fight desperately the instinct to berate them about their online catalogue and control of their inventory.  Instead I thanked them, she checked me out, I left at least enriched with what I had come for.

These experiences have done nothing to put me off libraries.  But there is something inherently wrong about crabby librarians!

– Cindy

Irish calendar

A while ago Claude made the observation that seasons in Ireland begin and end on a different calendar than the seasons we are used to in North America.  In the states the seasons begin on the equinox or solstice, depending on which season you’re addressing.  But in Ireland they begin and end according to the Gaelic Calendar, which states that the seasons encompass these cycles: November, December, January are winter; February, March, April are spring; May, June, July are summer; August, September, October are autumn.

Strangely enough – well, to me, at least – the seasons do seem to follow this schedule.  Granted my observations are purely empirical, and then based on just one year’s worth of experience, but still…   Amazing how those ancient Celts knew their stuff way back when.

Additionally, per the Gaelic Calendar, today is the first day of the new Celtic year.  Happy Celtic New Year!

– Cindy

Anniversary

One year ago two lunatic Americans landed in Galway with stars in their eyes and an ideal of ex-patriotism that proved to be so far off the mark that from this perspective it is utterly laughable. Yet the dream lives on and the happiness multiplies exponentially. There are far more good days than bad. Friendships are developing slowly but their worth is invaluable. We suffer a few aches and pains but overall we feel so much better here than anywhere else we have lived. Our routines have become very Irish, as have our attitudes about time and place. When the sun shines it matters not what the temperature is, only that we must get out and get that sunshine on our heads. The rain is inconsequential, an umbrella is useless here by the sea. We have chosen our sports loyalties and enjoy being informed enough to watch a match with the natives while being comforted by actually knowing what the hell they’re talking about.  Our ears have become attuned to the lilt, the accent, the colloquialisms, the cadence and rhythms of the language.  We’re even learning some Irish by ourselves.  It helps that Irish people like Americans, genuinely like America and its people.

Still miss the family tremendously. We try at every opportunity to tempt them into coming to visit us. Next year Ireland is participating in The Gathering 2013 – what a fantastic excuse to get everyone to come see us!

A blessing:

Lucky stars above you,
Sunshine on your way,
Many friends to love you,
Joy in work and play-
Laughter to outweigh each care,
In your heart a song-
And gladness waiting everywhere
All your whole life long!

 
And some random photos:

Galway street art

Galway street art

Rising moon over Galway Bay

Fourth of July

Better not mess with this!

Galway graffiti

Mushrooms

View of Dun na Carraige from the diving board

Today’s lunch – Irish lamb casserole with bread and a good read

– Cindy

So Who Are You?

The other day, as I sat at lunch, I met a fellow American.  (OK, so I am trying to become Irish but my passport still says USA.)  He said that his advice to people who can recognize the North American accent but want to ascertain which country someone is from is to ask if the person in question is Canadian.  From this question there are 3 possible responses which will very quickly pigeonhole the person.

1. They will be Canadian and ever so grateful that they were identified as such.  A brilliant friendship may be in the offing here.
2. They will be American but not insulted, and in fact may find it humorous to be identified as a Canadian.  A good humor laugh may ensue.
3. They will be the prototypical ugly American and go “postal”, hurling epithets and generally ruining any chance of reasoned conversation.

Using this technique our enquiring person can quickly determine where the person in question is from and whether or not they might wish to pursue a friendship.  Simple really.

– Claude

Renewed

Went to the Garda immigration office today to renew our visas.  It’s in a business park called Liosban (lizsh-bawn), on the Tuam (twum or too-wum, depending on who you’re speaking to) Road.  Takes 2 buses to get there from our house.

There was one couple ahead of us when we got there and one person being waited on.  Another 2 or three people came in while we were waiting.  But it only took about 40 minutes before we were sitting in front of a Garda officer.

As people who know me will already be aware, I have little regard or respect for police officers.  American cops are the worst – pushy, authoritarian, full of delusions of grandeur, prone to lying – so it is with high praise that I tell you that Gardaí are the nicest cops I’ve ever met.  They are polite, respectful, helpful and friendly.  Of course, I’m not an outlaw, or even a scofflaw, so my experience has been pleasant so far.

This officer started with my paperwork.  He began typing in the info and engaged me while we were waiting for him to process us.  He asked me, ‘How ye keepin’ yerself while yer here?’  Says I, ‘I volunteer my time with Age Action, teaching older folks how to use the computer.’  ‘Fair play to ye,’ says he.  ‘I have the mother-in-law from hell,’ he says, ‘and I’ve been teaching her the computer.  She’s really taken to it.. but…’  ‘Oh,’ says I, ‘you should just pony up the €20 and pay me to teach her.’  ‘Where ye at?’  ‘Small Crane,’ I say.  ‘Oh, I’ll have to think about that,’ he says.  And then he took my photo and told me that, as we Americans say, there’s “no free lunch,” so I hand over the credit card, he runs it, and we’re done.  But not before he says again, “Fair play to ye.”  Then it was Claude’s turn.

Once we were finished, and €300 poorer, this lovely man tells us that once 2 years of sponsorship have passed, Claude no longer has to be hosted or have a work permit.  Claude can get a “Stamp 4″ visa from the Republic, meaning that he can just work without special permission.  This is very exciting to us because we thought we had to stay 5 years in order to stay permanently.  Claude has already spoken to a couple of employers who said that if he has his Stamp 4 he can get hired right away.  Time to marshal the fates and hope for an extension to the current contract!

So now we’re good to go until the end of June next year.  We’ll do what it takes to stay, but for now we can breathe a sigh of relief.  We celebrated with a nice lunch and a big piece of chocolate fudge cake.

Woohoo!

– Cindy