/travel/ireland/"Port Lairge"
I just arrived in Waterford (which Google Maps has wrongly marked with its Irish name, Port Lairge.) I cycled ~190km yesterday, making it my second longest day ever. Then today it was 15km from the B&B that I stayed in. I figured most B&Bs would be open for the season, but I ended up wasting ~10km chasing down phantoms late last night -- not fun. I was pretty tired at the end of yesterday, and I had started to get a headache, so I was a bit anxious to find somewhere. (Not anxious enough to pay 60EUR like the first place wanted, though.)
When I got here, I found the tourist office -- Clare is driving down today, and I figured we should meet there. I sat on a bench on the pedestrian street, and within about 5 minutes, an older Irish man came up to me and said "Welcome, welcome, welcome." We had a chat about where we had come from, then he said "Will I tell you a joke?" "Sure," I said. "Do you know the island of Nantucket?" Uh-oh..."I've heard of it." "Well, there once was a man from Nantucket." And a pause, for effect. "He kept all his money in a bucket; his daughter Nan ran away with a man, and as for the bucket, Nan took it!" He finished with a grin, "It's a good one, isn't it?" "Yes, but that's a limerick, I'd expect to hear them in Limerick not in Waterford!" "Well, I was born in Limerick, you see."
So I guess there is some kind of connection. I also learned that not all limericks involving Nantucket have dirty endings.
The cycling was great...I had a tailwind (very unlikely for the direction I was going), the traffic was calm and abiding, and I even got a sunburn (also unlikely!). It's a gooder, quite sore to the touch. I was riding on my smaller road bike, with almost no gear -- Clare is bringing down a couple changes of clothes for me -- so it was quite different from distance touring.
I've learned that nobody in Ireland knows the numbers assigned to roads, though in general they're marked quite well. You have to look on your map, and guess which place they're most likely to know the way to. And even that only works if there's no chance they'll direct you by the busy roads.
This internet cafe is killer expensive, so that's all for now. And I didn't bring my camera, so no photos.
New Albums from the Gallery
/travel/ireland/A Bit Of A Follow-up
(You should read the one below first.)
I'm in a Quiznos now. It's otherwise empty. The store's only employee is from Poland, probably, though it could a Czech accent, or others near there. He seemed very keen about his job. A "large" sub here is a paltry eight inches, and he forgot my guac. It was probably for the better, though -- the irish concept of guacamole involves more cream and sundry additives than avacado.
This is the first Quiznos I've seen in Europe. I suspect, for some reason, Ireland makes a good test market for expansion, possibly because they're more American-friendly than most EU countries. Starbucks is here in force now, with a growing number of central locations. A year ago there were two: on the Microsoft campus well south of the city, and at one of the universities. Ireland's coffee-shop culture is alread weak, due to the dominance of its pub culture, so it will be interesting to see what effect Starbucks has. But that's not why we're here, is it? Not to talk about multinational restaurant chains (though I watched McLibel last night -- it had a fascinating surreptitious recording of a meeting between the two defendants, and the McDonald's Inc. board of directors, but was otherwise pretty much what you'd expect it to be), but for a bit of an update.
I've been taking piano lessons again, which is nice. It's at 6:45 on Thursdays, so it gives me an good retort when PSTers try to book meetings at 10AM PST (= 6PM GMT) thinking they're making a sacrifice by being in early.
I've moved from Rathmines, obviously. The situ there wasn't working all that well -- it was small, and not very sociable, lacking in outdoor space, and there was moderate tension with the landlord. I like my new place a lot, and it's much more amenable to having visitors (*hint, hint*).
My uncle on my mother's side passed away a few days ago. I agonized about whether to attend the funeral, but in the end I decided not to. I hope it was the right decision.
There was a military parade in Dublin on Easter Sunday, to commemorate the deaths of those who fought for Irish independence in the 1916 "Easter Rising". These parades used to be held annually, but were cancelled 30 years ago as the "troubles" with the North got worse. It was a very controversial, and very interesting issue. There are some Sinn Fein parades throughout Ireland, so by having an official parade, the government mitigated the possibility that Sinn Fein would hold one in Dublin. And the IRA has disarmed (by all accounts, for real), and so it's quite a different political context. On the other hand, the recent riots in Dublin were the worst troubles it had seen directly in a long time, and that seems to be a fire better left unstoked. And a military parade just isn't something most Western Democracies have. (I believe, though I've not seen photos, that it involved tanks rolling along the streets of Dublin.)
I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the environmental impact of flying. It's totally dominant in my environmental footprint -- last year it was probably nearly all but the toes. The impact is huge, hard to mitigate, hard to avoid, and an intrinsic part of my professional and personal lives. It presents one of the largest moral conflicts I've ever faced. The easiest pay-my-way-out buy-my-indulgence-and-run solution, namely buying Carbon Credits on the retail market, looks dubious to me. I haven't dug as deep as I need to, but one of the first things I read about what they actually mean in practice was targeted at Iowa farmers (bless ye, Google). If they changed their farming practices so more carbon stayed in the soil, they might qualify as carbon sequesterers, and be able to sell carbon credits. However, it's hard to imagine that if they then reversed their new-found green practices, they'd be forced to buy back those same carbon credits. If this sort of imperfection is inherent in the system, it will become a question of pragmatism vs. principle -- should one tolerate a flawed system to try to help it develop?
I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but I have applied to go back to school -- law, economics, or maybe policy studies. I haven't heard back much, though University of Victoria found my marks to be lacking, and rejected my application. We'll see how the rest falls out.
This weekend, I'm hoping to cycle to Waterford (yes, famous for its crystal), possibly on my "red bike", the road bike I bought a while ago, with the least of gear. We'll see what the weather's like, though.
As for the question that burns at the back of this writer's mind, as it does yours, dear reader, I don't know if this is the beginning of more writing to come, or merely a brief rest from the arduous life of fishing.
/travel/ireland/A Bit Of A Catch-up
It's the Tuesday after Easter Monday. I was on call all last weekend, including Monday and Friday which are both stat holidays here. I get my four day weekend in a few days, though, and today is a "comp" day. While we are generally offered a day off after a weekend on call, European employment law essentially requires it, through limits on hours-per-week, consecutive days, etc.
I'm in a little park, by the vine-ensconsed ruins of a chapel. There's a tree growing in the crook of its cross shape, with two birds eking it out for chirpiest chirp. A couple and their two children were here when I arrived, but they just perambulated their way back out the only gate. The gate faces a tiny lane -- one-way in parts -- that is the quickest route from my new place into the center of Dublin. It's quiet here, and I've been silently long enough that the birds have started poking their way around again. There's tulips and daffodils, both well past their prime; they pop up too early here for my tastes.
I've moved to a bigger, two bedroom flat with a "random roommate". She's a Spanish-born Irish gal, who works in a bank. We haven't actually seen much of each other, since I moved in, a week and a lifetime ago. For a week or so before that, I was staying on friends' couches and spare beds. I know a lot more of Dublin now than I did, from house-hunting and couch-crashing.
Dublin has a very large ("Europe's largest enclosed urban park, unless you count those crazy new Euro countries," in all its glory) urban park, on the northwest edge of city center. One of my co-workers lives just beyond it. The cycle to and from work was about 13km, along the quays of the Liffey. In the mornings, they were the most tightly packed traffic I have ever seen. Even on a bike, the cracks between the cars were often too small.
The threat of rain has manifested itself, so I'd best finish this another time.
