Saying farewell to Ireland

Some of you have asked why we have stopped blogging. I think it's because we have discovered what all expats discover - that eventually all the things that seemed different and quaint when you first arrived become commonplace and actually not so weird after all. And that at some point you actually stop noticing them, and can no longer remember why they seemed funny and worth blogging about in the first place. So we decided we needed to wait until we had something of interest to say, and one month became two months and two months became four months. And then, just when we had settled in so deeply that even a full Irish breakfast with black and white pudding and baked beans no longer made us lose our appetites (OK, we are lying about that, it still looks awful), we got the call.

It's time to come home.

Tis true: after a brief 18 months we will soon be returning to the States. We have had a wonderful, once in a lifetime experience, and there's so much we could say about it. But we've been warned that when you come back from something like this, you risk boring to death every friend you have once you start musing about your life abroad. So we'll make this brief. First, a shout-out to all of you who had a chance to visit us: To MTTF friends Byron and Jennifer; Heather and Toby; Bethany and Jordan; Tim, Gwenn, Ian and Chris; an unexpected reunion with Adriane and her friend Emily; Sandy's flight attendant cousin Beth; Kyle Nickel and photographer friend Trevor; Kay and Dennis; the completely unexpected three months with our favorite engineering student Marin; Dad; Rosemary; Diane; Tom and Coni; Greg and Jenifer; Chad, who took us on a wonderful tour of his Burgundy wine producers; and Jim and Cindy's cancer-free celebration.

And now we will say farewell with one more list, and, with a tear in our eye, bring an end to Steve & Sandy's great Irish adventure.


18 things we will miss about Ireland, and 2 things we won't:


Things we won't miss


1) Driving in Dublin. Even after owning a car for 16 months here, we need a GPS if we are driving more than one mile from our apartment.

2) Dog owners who don't clean up the sidewalk.


Things we WILL miss, a lot


1) The most gregarious people we have met anywhere in the world.

2) The fellowship and warmth of Grosvenor Road Baptist Church.

3) Sheep

4) Driving from the east coast to the west coast in three hours.

5) The stunningly beautiful Irish countryside. We never get tired of it.

6) Hearing the "T" sound in place of "TH" in every word, except one. 

• Would you like a cup of tea?  Sure, tanks. 
• What number comes after 32?  Turty-tree. 
• What day comes after Wednesday?  Tursday.
• What's the name of that spice from the Scarborough Fair song? You know, "parsley, sage, rosemary and..."  Thime.

Wait, what???

7) Finding the end of a rainbow just down the path.

8) When people find lost items on the sidewalk, they pick them up and place them on a nearby fence, so that if the person that lost it comes back to look they might find it. 

9) You can drive in any direction, stop in any village you come to, walk into the first pub or cafe you see, and order delicious veg soup and brown bread. Perfect on a chilly Irish Saturday after a hike. 

10) Did we mention sheep?

11) A perfectly pulled pint of Guinness.

12) The Irish House Party at the Landsdowne Hotel.

13) Walking to the grocery, the post office, to dinner, to work, the cinema, the park, the recycling bins, the Nespresso store, to buy some brown bread, to....pretty much everywhere.

14) The Blackbird singing night and day outside our apartment.

15) Walking in brilliant sunshine and suddenly realizing it is raining on you. Sandy calls them sun showers.

16) After-dinner strolls in Herbert Park.

17) Unexpected delights, like witnessing a sing-off in our favorite pub between a group of Irish pensioners and some Scots in kilts who had just wandered in. 

18) And lastly, sad Irish songs, so many of which are about leaving. Like this one, called "Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore":

So fare thee well, my own true love, I'll think of you night and day
And a place in mind you surely will find, though I am so far away
Though I'll be alone, far from my home, I'll think of the good times once more
Until the day I can make my way back, to Paddy's green shamrock shore

Slán go fóille!

Christmastime in Dublin

It's Christmastime in Dublin and in conversations leading up the holidays we had several people tell us Christmas is really "big" in Ireland. What does that mean, we wondered? Could it possibly be "bigger" than it is in the U.S.? Are they referring to the shopping, or the decorations, or something else? 

So we went searching for the answer. Here is what we found.

• The "12 Pubs of Christmas."

There are something like 700 pubs in Dublin, and there's a particularly Irish tradition called "The 12 pubs of Christmas." You can probably guess where this is heading. The idea is to gather a dozen or so friends, dress up in garish Christmas sweaters ("jumpers"), and visit 12 different pubs over the course of an evening. The pubs are mapped out, and one person serves as the time keeper. The group enters a pub, everyone orders a drink, and 30 or so minutes later the time keeper signals and everyone gets up and walks to the next place. On a recent Saturday night, returning home from shopping, we walked by several of these groups. One of the groups was walking backwards up the street to their next stop. Not sure which number pub they were on, but I'm thinking it was still early.

• Christmas pudding. Sometimes called Plum Pudding, although it has no plums, it involves dried fruit and spices and suet and molasses and lots of alcohol, and is aged for at least a month. It reminds us of fruit cake, but people take it seriously, have their own family recipes, look forward to it, and actually eat it. 


• The Late, Late Toy Show. Every year in early December children stay up late to watch a show with a popular late night TV host showing all the latest toys. Children often make their Christmas lists based on what they see. The host also wears jumpers during the show that are knitted for him and sent in throughout the year by viewers. This is annually the highest rated television show in Ireland.


• The "40 foot." There is a rocky promontory on Dublin Bay and on Christmas day hundreds of Dubliners come out to this spot and jump into the water. If you do an internet search you can find photos and videos of people dressed in Santa outfits and silly hats leaping into the frigid bay. No one knows why it is called the 40 foot. We don't quite know what to think about this activity, but we have to say there is something quintessentially Irish about it.

• Grafton Street. 

This is the most famous shopping area in the city, always crowded and always filled with street entertainers. It feels much like a typical big city U.S. shopping area. One special Christmas tradition that has developed here over the past few years is a Christmas Eve busking session conducted by one of Dublin's favorite sons, Bono. He appears regularly, along with Irish musician friends like Glen Hansard, Sinead O'Connor and Damien Rice, to perform and lead a Christmas sing-along for the Grafton Street patrons. (Do an internet search for "Bono on Grafton street on Christmas Eve.") 

But as we think about it, the answer to the question of what is "big" about Christmas here is that it's big because it's the most loved holiday of the year. There is a lightness about it; a warm, good-natured, genuine happiness, as opposed to the stress-filled holiday we seem to have created in the States. It might be our imagination, but we don't think so. People seem genuinely happy, reveling in the season. We never hear people complain about to-do lists. Instead people seem to do what they genuinely enjoy doing to make the holiday meaningful. 

And thankfully, much about the season is very familiar. It has been a joy for Steve to participate in a seasonal choir at our church. The choir is populated by a group of people who have been singing together for decades, including a man who has served as the church organist for 50 years. Early in the rehearsals a retired fellow tenor showed Steve his copy of The Messiah, an old, somewhat tattered leather-bound book, and pointed out an inscription on the inside cover. Turns out the book had been handed down from his grandfather to his father and now to him, and all of them had sung in this church. 

Sandy is grateful for the little things, like finding all the Christmas cards for sale are sponsored by charities; no mass produced Hallmark or American Greetings in sight. And decorating our small apartment with a three-foot Christmas tree and a simple nativity set. She's still working on finding all the ingredients for her Christmas cookies (shockingly they don't seem to do Christmas cookies here), but she has found quite a nice recipe for mulled wine.

And all Irish teasing aside, it's good for us to remember that Jesus was known on this island a thousand years before He was made known in North America. As the angels proclaimed to the shepherds:

"Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord."

So to all our family and friends, wherever you are spending this precious holiday....
HAPPY CHRISTMAS from Ireland!!!

Donegal, Northern Ireland and some new Irish slang

Before we tell you about our trip to the beautiful northern part of this island, here's a short quiz on some Irish terminology we have learned in recent months. Answers are at the bottom.

1. How would a local pronounce "Donegal"?
2. If you were invited to a "Hen Party", what would you be celebrating?
3. If someone said "stall the digger" to you, what would they mean?
4. What is a "flatlander"?
5. If someone told you they were going to a "Stag Do", where would they be going?
6. Use "You're very welcome" in a sentence (hint: it's not a response to "thank you".)
7. Use "yourself" in a sentence.
8. What is the common pronunciation of "three, thanks, and thing"?
9. What is the common pronunciation of "thyme" (the herb)?
10. If someone told you, as a waitress who had recently moved to Dublin from Cork told us, that she liked it here but missed the "crack", what on earth would she mean???

Now, a brief geo/political primer. County Donegal is in the northwestern-most corner of Ireland. It is one of the 26 counties that make up the Republic of Ireland, which is where we live. Northern Ireland is a different country, made up of 6 counties, and is part of the United Kingdom (with England, Wales and Scotland). In the Republic the currency is Euros; in Northern Ireland it is Pounds Sterling. In the Republic the highway signs show kilometers; in Northern Ireland it is miles. The capital of the Republic is Dublin; the capital of Northern Ireland is Belfast. And Northern Ireland is where "the Troubles" occurred in the later part of the last century - the conflict between Protestants and Catholics that us older folks remember being in the news throughout our teen and young adult years. Interestingly, when you cross from one country to the other on the highway, there is not only no gate or border guard, there is not even a sign telling you you have entered a new country.

Donegal is a sparsely populated, rugged and lovely area, like much of the rest of Ireland. Here's a couple photos of one of its best-known landmarks, the cliffs of Slieve League:

Northern Ireland was similar in many respects, but visiting Belfast was a different kind of experience. We spent one night there before traveling up to the northern tip of the island, to an area called the Antrim Coast. It was quite a contrast. In Belfast we took a Black Cab Tour of the conflict areas and heard a detailed history of the "troubles" from a former taxi driver who grew up on the Catholic side. The most striking aspect of the tour was learning how people were honored in one neighborhood who were involved in the murder of people in a different neighborhood just a couple miles away. While there is a formal truce, and no active violence still occurring, there is obvious tension and regular reports of protest marches and confrontations each summer during something called Marching Season. Here are some of the sights that particularly struck us:

A mural in a Protestant neighborhood of Belfast, honoring the local militia, the Ulster Defence Union.

The "Peace Wall" along Falls Road in Belfast, separating the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods.

A mural in a Catholic neighborhood in Belfast honoring Bobby Sands, IRA member who died in prison in 1981 during the famous hunger strike.


Moving on to the north coast, we visited some of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. They were a bit crowded this time of year, but beautiful nonetheless.

The Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. Yes, we walked across.

The Giant's Causeway, famous for its hexagonal basalt columns, formed by volcanic activity. (Please ignore the woman in blue who photo-bombed our selfie.)

More Giant's Causeway.

Dunluce Castle, near the town of Portrush.


It has been a very busy summer, and we have had the opportunity to see quite a bit of Ireland. County Kerry is next on the list, but we're not sure if we will get there this fall. In any case, we continue to try to squeeze every drop out of this experience. Hope to be able to show some of you around over the next year.


Quiz answers:

1. Dun-ee-GAL (and say the first two syllables fast).
2. A girlfriend's wedding; it's a bachelorette party.
3. Hold your horses/slow down, let me finish.
4. Someone who lives alone (since people who live alone usually live in a "flat")
5. To a bachelor party.
6. "Good morning. You are very welcome to our service this morning."
7. "I sent an email to yourself with those files attached."
8. Tree, Tanks, and Ting.
9. Thime (thyme is the only "th" word that we've consistently heard pronounced with the American "th" sound. Go figure.)
10. Actually it's spelled "craic", and there is no exact English equivalent. It's an Irish word meaning "fun, good times, laughter, hanging out with friends." English really needs a word like this.

Summertime in Ireland

We've had a wonderful summer, with visits from our daughters Bethany and Heather and their husbands Jordan and Toby, our dear friends Kay and Dennis, and Sandy's flight attendant cousin Beth. We've also had excellent weather, with an especially warm and sunny July. We've had a few adventures, including getting locked out of our apartment one more time, but all were successfully resolved. More on that later.

And we've continued to explore this beautiful country and the surrounding region. Here are some snapshots from the photo album.

The cliffs near the village of Howth, north of Dublin.

Bethany and Jordan in the town of Trim.

Trim Castle.

Jordan teeing off on Kingsbarns Golf Links outside of St. Andrews, Scotland.

The University of St. Andrews, the oldest university in Scotland, and, more importantly,  where the future king of England met Kate Middleton. 

Jordan, Bethany and Sandy in the middle of the 18th fairway of the Old Course.

St. Andrews.

The Irish countryside between Galway and Clifden.

Outside Ballynahinch Castle.

Along the Bog Road near Roundstone, Ireland.

And now one quick story from our most recent trip. We were on our way to Ballynahinch on the far west side of Ireland, driving along very narrow, rough country roads. Shying away from an oncoming car, I (Steve) drifted off the left side of the road. This caused the inside of the left front tire to rub against the edge of the asphalt, damaging the sidewall and causing a flat. Fortunately we were only a mile from the hotel and we were able to limp in through the entrance gate. It was still a half mile to the hotel itself, so we called the front desk and they sent out a maintenance man to help. He very kindly jacked up the car in the gravel, took off the tire and put on the spare. When we told him where the flat had occurred he said, "Yeah, I know jest the spot; happens all ta time." He then told us there was a place in the nearby town of Clifden where we could get the tire replaced.

So the next morning we drove to Clifden, following the instructions from the hotel staff. I was worried about how long it would take; whether we would have to spend the whole day there, disrupting our sightseeing plans. But we had no choice, and sure enough, we found the place - the Clifden Tyre Center.

I pulled up to the garage and parked. It was clearly a one-man operation, and the owner was out front talking to someone. After a couple minutes he came over, looked at my tire, grunted a couple times, and went back into the shop. He walked back out with a hand-operated jack, and 15 minutes later we were on the road again. It was fantastic. In the course of this transaction I also noticed for the first time that I have four different tires on my 3 year-old car. Two are brands I have never heard of. I'm getting the idea that Ireland is a bit rough on tires. I mean tyres.

One more quick story. After surviving the tire escapade we were in the town of Clifden doing some shopping. Sandy found a purse she liked, and emptied out the contents of her current one to see if they would fit in the new one. She spent a few minutes stuffing items in the purse in different arrangements, but in the end decided the new purse wasn't large enough for what she needed. We left the store and wandered around a bit more. We stopped at a cafe for lunch, made another loop around the small downtown, and headed for the car. As we approached, Sandy began rummaging around her purse for the keys. They weren't there. She dug around some more and then stopped on the sidewalk with alarm on her face. She took everything out of her purse - no keys. She searched her coat - no keys. We checked our pockets - nothing. And then she turned, wide-eyed, and said: "The purse in the store!" And took off running like Usain Bolt. She disappeared around a corner, and when I got there a minute later, expecting to see her down the block, she was nowhere in sight. I paused with Dennis and Kay at the car, and then continued down the street. When I got around the next corner, there she was coming back toward me, waving her keys triumphantly in the air. Sure enough, they had been in the purse she had been looking at in the gift shop. And one more traveling disaster was averted.

Bits and bobs

Some anecdotes and observations that aren't quite interesting enough to be blog topics all by themselves...

• On June 16th Steve wore shorts for the first time this year. After three months of virtually the same weather week after week ("temps in the 50s, chance of rain"), we finally got some warmth. The temperature has reached 70 several times in the past two weeks and everyone is rushing outside to soak up every drop of sunshine. Not that we're complaining; we well remember the last winter in Ohio...

• While the Irish love to complain about the weather, the climate does have its advantages. One of them is the lush beauty of the countryside and gardens. Sandy really misses the flowers we used to have in our yard, and this spring we visited the garden of a woman from church who was hosting a fund-raiser for Ireland's version of Samaritan's Purse. I think the visit scratched Sandy's flower itch for a while.

• Every time we meet someone new they ask us where in the States we are from. They seem to be able to tell within our first few words that we are Americans. They often ask if we're from Florida, since that's the one place all Irish seem to have visited. If they have been to the States, they will proceed to tell us all about their visit and how much they loved it. Sandy and I wonder what our accents sound like to them. We've discussed how certain accents sound more pleasant to our ears than others (e.g., English, Irish, and French versus German, Dutch and Russian). We wonder if the Irish think of our accent as nice or harsh. For some reason we suspect the latter. But they do seem to be quite fond of us Yanks.

• I (Steve) was getting my hair cut recently and the female stylist asked me where I was from. I said from the U.S. and she said, "Yeah, but where?" I said, "Cleveland Ohio. Do you know where that is?" She said, "Nah, boot I've hayrd of it." Made me smile.

• We've been getting a kick out of some of the signs we see. Here's one we particularly liked. It was at the end of a 4 mile hike. I mean, shouldn't every fish and chips shop have one?

• Here's another sign. It highlights a particular problem we have encountered in our neighborhood park. Personally, I think all dog poop signs are better in verse.

• Lastly, regarding the title of this post. We mentioned previously that "bobs and bits" was an Irish saying we really like. In talking about it, we realized we weren't sure if bobs came before bits, or the other way around. So we were in an elevator at a department store a few nights ago with a store saleswoman. And as the doors closed Sandy asked her, "Is it 'bobs and bits', or 'bits and bobs'?" The young woman giggled at us and said, "Bits and bobs, DAYfinitely." I guess that settles that. 

A locked door, a key, and the beautiful Irish countryside

A few weeks ago our daughter Heather and son-in-law Toby came to visit, and we took our first cross-Ireland trip. We headed to the west coast and saw the Cliffs of Moher, the city of Galway, and an area called the Connemara. We drove winding, narrow country roads, dodged sheep, saw beautiful vistas, mountains, lakes, castles, ancient ruins and everything green, green, green. Sandy drove the car while Steve navigated, an arrangement we have mutually agreed is best for our marriage. Actually she has become quite a good driver over here, and she handled the twisty, tight, stone-wall-lined country roads with grace and courage. 

Here are some of the highlights:

The Cliffs of Moher.

Heather and Toby.

Traffic jam.

Kylemore Abbey.

Doolough pass.

Our next album cover.

More Doolough Pass.

Narnia?


We arrived back home to our apartment on Friday evening, the first night of a three day holiday weekend (Monday was to be a public "Bank Holiday"; something the Irish celebrate fairly regularly). As Sandy bent to unlock the door, she suddenly stood up wide-eyed and said,"Oh my gosh, she locked the other lock! We're locked out!!!"

An explanation is in order. Our apartment door has two locks. One is opened with this key:

And one is opened with this key:

The building is around 150 years old and we think that the brass key is nearly that old. We had decided not to use the brass keys because they were so clunky to carry around. And so in our wisdom had safely stored them away inside our apartment. Unfortunately, while we were on vacation our landlord, the owner of the apartment, had come over to let some maintenance man into the apartment and proceeded to lock up the apartment when she was done. So now it is Friday night, the beginning of the holiday weekend, we are locked out and our landlord lives about two hours away.

We managed to find one neighbor home who had the phone number of the apartment management company. We called thinking of course they would have an extra set of keys.  But of course, they informed us only the landlord has the brass key. We called a locksmith who informed us that such locks could only be opened by drilling them out. We couldn't quite see doing that to a historical building. So we called our landlord hoping against hope they hadn't left for a vacation themselves. They answered, and were appropriately aghast and apologetic (and probably a little incredulous that we stupid Americans weren't using the brass lock). But the question was, how do we get the brass key from their home to ours, late on a Friday night, with them living so far away? Well it turns out there is a tour bus that runs from their town to Dublin, and they happen to know the bus driver. And that's how we found ourselves a couple of hours later trudging two miles into the center of Dublin, to stand in front of a hotel in an area we didn't know, and wait for a big white tour bus, carrying a man, who was carrying our brass key. And who, without exchanging a word, based only on eye contact, a smile, and Sandy mouthing the word "key", tossed us an envelope from the top step of the bus. Brilliant!

Only in Ireland.

Speaking Irish

We've been struck by the beauty of the Irish language, which Americans, including us before we arrived, incorrectly call "Gaelic." From what we can tell, Gaelic is mainly spoken in Scotland, and the native language here is simply called "Irish." In Dublin all signs are written in both English and Irish, and Irish is taught as a second language in the schools. There is a national movement to preserve it, and in some parts of the west and north it is spoken as the primary language.

Where we notice it most is in names, both of people and places. What makes it difficult is that phonetically it bears no relation to English. So looking at an Irish word gives you little sense of how to actually pronounce it. Here are the names of some people we have met, and one town. See if you can guess the correct pronunciation of each (answers at the bottom):

1. Orlaith
2. Eoin
3. Aoife
4. Diarmaid
5. Dun Laoghaire




On a different subject, we know there is a very small minority of you who like it when friends call you over and say, "Hey, take a look at my vacation photos!" For the rest, you can skip this part. In any case, we got to spend a few days in Switzerland in the Lake Geneva area recently. Here are a few shots.

Looking across Lake Geneva at the French Alps.

Sandy in the tasting room at the Nestle chocolate factory in Broc.

Stacks of cheese at a factory in Gruyere.

Flowers lining the promenade along Lake Geneva in Lausanne.

The promenade in Montreux.

An interesting item for sale in a market in Lausanne.

Vineyards above Lake Geneva near the village of Lutry.

And the requisite selfie, outside the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.

Cheers for now!




[Answers: 1. Orla, 2. Owen, 3. Ee-fa, 4. Dear-med, 5. Dun-Leary]