Ireland part 4

Well I guess it's time to put up another part of the the Irish trip... The last week I've been here in Gatineau and have been mostly riding my bike. The Ottawa/Gatineau region is marvelous for that. There are bike paths all over the Capital Region. I can leave from the apartment near the Parc de la Gatineau and ride all the way to Ottawa, cross the Ottawa river (all the bridges across the Ottawa river have dedicated bike paths...are you listening Montreal?) and never have to get off the bike paths. they are not on the roads with the car traffic, but through parks, forest and river side. I've done 50 km a day for the last week, great...but today it is raining and since it tends to be somewhat hilly at times, and wet wheels to not make for great brakes, I'll take a break today. ;o)

So here are some pictures from the trip thse pictures are from the Burrens. This region of Ireland has the same kind of terrain as the Aran Islands. The bedrock is limestone and the arable earth has been stripped off by the glaciers which has lead to weird weathering and what they call pavement that are seperated by grikes and clints. It is hard to describe and even harder to walk in since you always have to look at where you place your feet.


Going around Black Point was rather interesting because of the road but also because of the obstacles. ;o)
The region also contains some really awesome cliffs. The Cliffs of Moher are spectacular and you can walk along the path on the cliff edge for kilometers, which I did of course. The path is at your own risk and some parts of it are within a foot or two of the edge which drops down 200 meters to the sea below. (I checked the height in Wikipedia because it seemed way higher.) I loved the walk and the feeling of being so close a great void. I love high places where I can see forever... especialy if my toes are dangling over the edge. Mrs. BB, having vertigo, does not find my love of high empty places funny at all. ;o) The last picture gives you an idea of scale...The Burrens is also one of the places where we can find the most prehistoric sites, from ring forts to burial sites, they spot the landscape. One of the most famous is the Poulnabrone portal tomb a burial site from the neolithic.




Since the Burrens are limestone there were bound to be caves. This is one of the largest caves in Ireland Ailwee Caves. They also have a sanctuary for birds of prey where they give a home to birds of prey that are injured before releasing them back into nature.



And where would we be in Ireland if we didn't find a high cross. The high cross of Dysart O'Dey is on of the best preserved in Ireland. It was once part of an abbey, but is now sitting in the middle of a cow pasture. The ruins are still used for burials, as are most ruins of churches and monasteries. The reason we were given is that when Henry VIII founded the church of England the population, which largely stayed catholic, were no longer allowed to bury their dead in the protestant churchyards. Since the ruins were still consecrated ground, they continued to bury their dead in the ruins.

The way we were.

I got this by Email and since I can remember most of it, it made me smile. So for all of you who can remember the way we were way back when, here is a trip down memory lane.

Do you remember when -

• All the girls had ugly gym uniforms and the boys had blue shorts and a white T-shirt with the school name?
• Public schools (here in Québec) still had school uniforms?
  
• It took five minutes for the TV warm up and it was black and white?
• Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
• Nobody owned a purebred dog?
• When a quarter was a decent allowance?
• You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
• Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?
• All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?
• You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time? And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?
• Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box?
• It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?
• They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . and they did?
• When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady?
• No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?
• Lying on your back in the grass with your friends? and saying things like,: 'That cloud looks like a... '?
• Playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?
• Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?
• And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace? Share it with the children of today.
• When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?
• Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.
• Can you still remember Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery, the LoneRanger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk?
• . . .as well as summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.
• Candy cigarettes
• Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside.
• Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles.
• Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes.
• Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum.
• Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers.
• Newsreels before the movie.
• P.F. Fliers.
• Telephone numbers with a word prefix...(Raymond 4-601). Party lines.
• Peashooters.
• Howdy Dowdy.
• Hi-Fi's & 45 RPM records.
• Black vinyle records, with a nice cardboard sleeve.
• Green Stamp.
• Mimeograph paper. Always smelled of alcohol and would fade if left in sunlight.
• The Fort Apache Play Set.
• Do you remember a time when...Decisions were made by going 'eeny-meeny-miney-moe'?
• Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, 'Do Over!'?
• 'Race issue' meant arguing about who ran the fastest?
• Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?
• It wasn't odd to have two or three 'Best Friends'?
• The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was 'cooties'?
• Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?
• Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?
• Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?
• The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
• War was a card game?
• Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?
• Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?
• Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!!

Ireland again part 3

Once we had left the Aran islands, after two wonderful days, we were off to the Connemara. The Connemara is one of Ireland's most rugged parts. It consists of high, rocky peaks, bogs and a rugged coast line. It is really very beautiful but not very rich. Instead of taking the main road to get to where we were going we cut across the mountains using a secondary road that cuts through a pass in the mountains. Connemara was one of the hardest hit regions in Ireland during the Great Famine, and the population dropped drastically and it is now only starting to recover its prosperity.

The Connemara is also the place where you can find Connemara marble. Usually we picture marble as being white, maybe pinkish or more rarely black. Connemara marble is however green and that is very rare indeed. In fact you can buy jewelry made from this marble and it is magnificent. Mrs. BB bought a necklace and earrings and people ask her where she got the stones.

Panoramic view of the Twelve Bens

One of the numerous lakes in the pass that cuts through the Twelve Bens and the Maamturk Mountains. The mountains in the background are one of the Twelve Bens.

A view of the pass and the road through the mountains.

These small boats are coracles. They are made from a wooden framework covered in tarred canvas. Originally they would have been covered with oiled skins, much like the Inuit umiaks or kayaks.

The coast of Connemara, mountains and bays.

A Connemara pony. These half-wild horses are said to descend from the horses that escaped from the wrecks of t he Spanish Armada.


A view from the Sky road. A very narrow twisting road with breathtaking scenery.

A small bay with the Twelve Bens in the background.

During the famine many farms were abandoned, either because the people had died of hunger or had fled to North America, so there are ruins of cottages in many places. Not all the ruins are because of the famine some of them, near other houses, were abandoned for more modern housing.

The donkey kept following me around, I was finally able to take his picture because every time I tried he would push his nose towards my camera lens looking for handouts.

This is the Dan O'Hara's homestead. It was renovated to show what the small farms would have looked like in the 1800's. The tenant was kicked off his land when the landlord hiked his rent because O'Hara put windows in the house. His wife and most of his children died on the boat and he and the two remaining children settled in New York, where he also died brokenhearted so it's said. There is a song about him that is still sung.

One of the windows that caused so much trouble.

Another cottage with a thatched roof. This one is lived in.

Ireland again

Well since I have a few minutes I'll upload some of the pictures from the trip onto my blog. They are pictures from the Aran Islands off the western coast of Ireland, about nine miles from the Irish coast. The really nice thing about the islands is that they have a sort of micro climate, so even when it is raining and nasty on the mainland, there it is sunny and mild. We spent two days there on Inismore, the biggest of the three islands, and both days it was more sunny than not. We also saw a show of local music put on by the islanders that was fun to watch, even though we could see that they were not professionals. But they seemed to be really enjoying themselves and we could do nothing else but tap along to the music.
Here are a couple of interesting factoids. There are motor vehicules on the island but they are all diesel, the reason being that diesel fuel is less explosive than gasoline and since everything must be brought by boat to the island the insurance would be just too expensive for the boats because of the danger of a gasoline fire. On the islands all the farmland is "made". The foundation of the islands is bare limestone, like the Burrens and pretty much nothing grows, so using sand and seaweed as well as plant debris found inthe cracks and fissures of the limestone the islanders have been "land-making" for millenia. All the fields you see on the island, such as the ones in the picture below are man-made. If you look at the picture of the cliffs you can see what the ground looked like before it was remade.
Also the Aran islands are renowned for their beef cattle, but when the cattle are brought to the mainland they must be provided with a salt lick since they are used to salt in their fodder and will not eat if it is not there.

The roads of the islands


The cliffs on the western side of the island beside Dùn Aonghasa




Dùn Aonghasa is s semi-circular ring fort right on the edge of the cliffs.


The eastern part of the island is lower and less rocky than the western part which faces the Atlantic


The shore line on the other side of the island


Dùn Duchathair (Black Fort) is another ring fort on the edge of the cliffs. This one is off the beaten path so when I hiked up to it from the hotel I was completely alone, only the sea, the cliffs, the wind and the ghosts of the Dùn kept me company. I found it more awe inspiring than the more well preserved Dùn Aonghasa where there were too many tourists.


The cliffs as seen from Dùn Duchathair



A window


The hotel where we stayed. Our room was the second window from the right just below the chimney.


Goodbye to the islands

Home again

Well we've been back for a week now and my body is finally back to Eastern daylight Saving Time... the spirit is willing but the body is weak. Everything is pretty well back to normal now, baggage put away, things cleaned up, mail sorted and bills paid (a trip like that makes for plenty of bills, but worth every penny. LOL) I've also been working on my photos but with 600+ it makes for a lot of time to sort them out and correct them.

So here are some of the pictures, there are many more and I'll put some up as I go along.

High cross of Clomacnoise


Clomacnoise, one of the oldest monastic sites in Ireland


The town of Rosscrea


A butcher of Rosscrea


A bridge on Birr Castle Estates


Galway


Gargoyle on Townhall


Galway


Quay Street Galway

In the next post I'll continue with the trip. ;o)

In limbo again, home from Ireland

Well we're on the way home and I am writing this sitting in limbo (again) at Halifax Airport...(free WiFi... we brought out 12" Mac G4 with us, small but adequate.) We have been travelling for more than 12 hours and it isn't over yet. Dublin to Heathrow, Heathrow to Halifax and finally Halifax to Montreal. The layovers are long so it makes for long delays between flights but at least we didn't have to run between terminals at Heathrow. That is one huge airport, when we got our boarding passes at Dublin, there was a warning that it would take us 1/2 hour to get to our connecting flight. The gates are always advertised with the amount of time it takes you to get there, 10min, 20 min, etc.
The last couple of days we have been packing our baggage, bringing back the rental car (They upgraded us to a Ford Mondeo, a car that is way too big for Irish backroads. It had the turning radius of a tank and it was often a very tight fit ;o( ) We also took two days to visit Dublin town, we would take the bus in the morning and take the bus back late afternoon. (We sure weren't going to risk the tank on Dublin's streets. )
Dublin is not a huge city, but it is a very pretty one, with it's Georgian Squares, its Georgian doors, its pubs, songs, museums, the River Liffey, with its multiple bridges and parks; Stephen's Green, Phoenix park (biggest city park in the world 2,5 times Central park). We saw the statue of Molly Mallone, famed fishmonger and supposedly part time harlot, immortalized in song. The Dubliners, having a good sense of humour, have baptised the statue "the Tart with the Cart". We visited the Irish National Museum of History, a really well done museum that houses the treasures of Ireland. The museum covers Irish history from pre-history to modern times. Since much of Ireland is bogland and bogs preserve all kinds of things both organic and non-organic, they have a huge collection. There is an exhibition of "the hoards" discovered, the gold work is stunning, especially when you realise that it dates from between, 3500 and 2000 years ago. The torcs, braclets, pectorals and chains are truly magnificent and the delicacy of the work is mind boggling. Almost as awe inspiring are the organic things that have been preserved in the bogs. There is a 23 foot dugout canoe, made from a single log of oak that dates from the late neolithique over 4500 years ago. There is clothing, food, shoes, weapons and finally human remains that are perfectly preserved. The "bog men" are so well preserved that you can easily make out their faces, and how they died. One has so well preserved hands and arms that you can see his nails and the lines on his palms. He is also wearing a leather armband that would not be out of place today. On another, you can make out his hairstyle, short on the sides and back with longer hair on the top of his head tied in a topnot. They were probably sacrifices, and they were probably nobility (no callouses on their hands and well manicured nails, good clothing and not suffering from malnutrition.)
What is even better, is that like the British Museum this museum is completely free. Yes, in Dublin, the state museums are all free of charge. The Irish are proud of their heritage, and are not afraid of showing it.
So that's about it, I'll try to download my photos as soon as possible. So from Halifax Airport, "slán a fhágáil ag duine"

Hello from Ireland

Well I've finally found time to write a bit from Ireland. We've been travelling around the country for the last 2 weeks and we've seen some beautiful sites. We started the trip at Roscrea, where we visited a castle, an 8th century abbey, Clonmacnoise, a the largest 19th centurey telescope in Birr castle (6 ft mirror). The next step was the Connemara, a beautifully wild section of western Irreland. Beautiful mountains, great cliffs and mountain ringed bays. Spectuacular.
Then we went on to Galway, then the Aran islands with the cliffs and Dùn Aonhasa and the Black Dun (a prehistoric ring fort on the edge of the cliffs) as well as many other sights.
Going around Galway bay we were in the Burrens. The Burrens is a really special limestone landscape. During the last iceage, the glaciers scaped off the soil leaving only the limestone bedrock. This bedrock has eroded giving a landscape with grykes, hole and pavements. It makes walking rather interesting since you must always watch where you are putting your feet. In the Burrens we also visited Poulnabrone Dolmen, one of the most famous prehistoric burial site in the world. We also walked across the top of the Cliffs of Moher, the highest cliffs in Europe. Definately not for the faint of heart. (This isn't my picture, but it'll give you and idea of the size of the Cliffs of Moher)
Finally we have been visiting the south-east of Ireland. Waterford, a medieval viking town, Wexford and Rosslare. In Waterford we visited a great museum and in Wexford a Hertitage site that explained human habitation in Ireland from the prehistoric to the Anglo-Normand invasion.
Today we moved up the coast and visited Jerpoint abbey with beautiful sculptures and Dunmore cave, one of the biggest caves in Ireland and the site of the massacre of 1000 Irish by a Viking army in the 10th century.
As for the weather, well let's say that we now know why Ireland is so green. The first week it rained, and rained, and rained with no let up. In the 2,5 weeks, we have only had 2 full days of nice weather. The rest of the time it was cloudy, cold, humid and rainy. We were planning on camping for the three weeks bu we finally gave up because we were tired of being always rained on... Everyone here says that it has been an really extraordinarily bad summer and when we where here 4 years ago the weather was way better.
Anyhow I'll try to find the time to write, if not I'll write next week and then I'll post the best of my pictures (500 and counting, Vive the digital camera)...

From Dublin town

Did you ever notice that when you are flying somewhere, you seem to be in a kind of limbo. You eat, sleep, read but your life is on hold. Even when you are in the airport waiting you are in a world apart. Anyhow, after 15 hours of airports and planes, (Montréal-Ottawa, Ottawa-Heathrow, Heathrow-Dublin) we finally arrived, completely zonked, but we have landed, have our rented car and are at the hotel (that's why I'm writing, they have free WIFI, check out the site free-hotspot.com if ever you travel and have a laptop). Tonight, a very simple plan... sleep, sleep, sleep. Tomorrow we are off with all of our gear, a detailed road map and no worries. Goodnight all

A travelling we will go...

School is finally out and to tell the truth it was about time. The year has been one of change, a reform of all the programs with people not exactly sure of where they were going, and a change of administration who needed to get up to speed. All of this contributed to more work and stress. But now it is over and Mrs. BB and I are off to the Emerald Isle. Yep, we are off to Ireland for three weeks which should be just the remedy for what ails us.

We'll be travelling around the the south and west of Ireland, the Burrens, Connemara, the Cliffs of Mohar, Kerry, and visiting the islands we didn't have time to see the last time, such as the Arans. We'll also visit the the South east, visiting Waterford with its crystal industry, and go hiking in the Wicklow mountains. It should be a well filled three weeks. I'll try to write a couple of blogs but I won't promise anything.
Here are some pictures from the last time we went. Enjoy, click here if you want to other photos.

End of year blues and word games

The end of the school year is upon us and it is that poor excuse has kept me from my keyboard these last weeks. It is amazing how much work there is to do before the end, exams to correct (a big box full to be exact), paper work to fill out, meetings to attend, special events to supervise. This all means that there is not much free time and when there is the ol' brain is burnt out. For example, in the next week, I have to finish correcting 130 exams, consign my marks to the computer register, go with the kids to their end of year excursion (leaving a 8:30am and coming back around 7pm) going to the graduation ceremonies on Friday night for my kids who have gotten through five years of high school, and the week after all the mind numbing meetings and committees. (Did you know that a camel is a horse designed by a committee?)

So in place of having to actually think long enough to write an insightful blog, here are a bunch of puns to keep you groaning.

• A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says: "I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger."
• Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says "Dam!"
• Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Not surprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.
• Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says:" I've lost my electron." The other says: "Are you sure?" The first replies: "Yes, I'm positive."
• Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.
• A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?", they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess-nuts boasting in an open foyer."
• A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named Ahmal. The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him Juan.Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds: "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."
• A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair . He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the rival florist hired Hugh Mac Taggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town to 'persuade' them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.
• Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.
• An electrician was working on the wiring of an old house when he touched the wrong wire. He really found it a shocking experience but after it he was sure that the wiring was not up to the current building codes.