Earth Day message

My sustainability thought for the day.

To the 1st world:
You can continue to
live in de Nile
for awhile
But sooner or later
you're going to have to learn to
walk like an Egyptian.

Happy Earth day.
-robertw

Discussion of Maritime (military) Strategy

This is likely to get interesting. Tell the military what we think is
important for them to protect in the world's oceans.

From my POV, the biggest threats are environmental - corporate dumping
of toxics, mismanagement of arable land, water and other critical
resources, our continued denial of global climate change, etc. These
are the the things a properly responsive arm of a government for the
people should strive to protect us from.

-robertw

http://calendar.oregonstate.edu/event/17532/

Discussion of Maritime Strategy
A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower

Wednesday, February 20, 2008 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM
Vice Admiral John Morgan, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for
Information, Plans and Strategy, presents a video on the topic of a
cooperative maritime strategy in the 21st century. Discussion will
follow. (this is a free, public lecture) "A Cooperative Strategy for
21st Century Seapower" was presented by the Chief of Naval Operations
and the Commandants of the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard at
the International Seapower Symposium in Newport, R.I. on Oct 17, 2007.
The result of over a year's work, this new enduring strategy will apply
maritime power to the crucial responsibility of protecting U.S. vital
interests in an increasingly interconnected and uncertain world. Signed
for the first time by the service chiefs of all three sea services, the
strategy draws the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard even closer
together in working to protect and sustain the American Way of Life.
"The strategy focuses on opportunities - not threats; on optimism - not
fear; and on confidence - not doubt. It recognizes the challenges
imposed by the uncertain conditions in a time of rapid change and makes
the case for the necessity of U.S. seapower in the 21st Century." see
http://www.navy.mil/maritime
Campus Location:
LaSells Stewart Center (campus map)
Room:
Construction & Engineering Auditorium
Address:
875 SW 26th Street
City:
Corvallis
State:
OR
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Katherine Brenner
Contact Phone:
1 541 737 6247
Contact Email:
Katherine.Brenner at oregonstate.edu
Contact Department:
Political Science Dept
This event appears on the following calendars:

* College of Science
* OSU Events: Lectures / Seminars*
* OSU Events: other

Events Calendar, Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331-4501

New Year's Greetings

  New Year Greetings from
Robert, Francie, Connor, Josie
 The O'Shea &Williams Family

These are the things
We warmly wish for you:
Someone to Love
Some work to do,
A bit o' sun
A bit o' cheer,
And a guardian spirit
Always near.

Celtic Blessing

Home at last!

Just a quick note to let you all know we're back in Corvallis. It's been a long strange trip, as they say. Actually it was really amazing and a great experience for all of us.

Our friend Judi met us at the airport at 1AM (!), and drove us home. When we got here Joanna and Casandra were waiting up for us, having fixed up the house like a Class 5 hotel - flowers, chocolates on the pillow and all. We have the SWEETEST neighbors.

I'll get some home pics on here soon, but otherwise I think this is about the last post for this blog. Thank you all for listening and for you comments.

Mosegaarden, Denmark

I'm sitting in a chair in the side lawn at Mosegaarden, Ole and Vibeke's country place outside of Odense. It's 23 deg (Centigrade of course, this isn't backwards USA). My wife is sitting next to me in panties and a t-shirt, looking lovely as ever after these 25 years of marriage. Dozens of birds are singing in the trees around the yard, there are hordes of bicycle riders going by in pelatons and singly. I can hear the high speed eletric commuter train rolling by in the background. It makes only a steel on steel swish sound. The occasional car goes by, small, efficient, and relatively quiet. In the distance there are a dozen wind turbines turning lazily in the morning breezes.

The horses are fed and Connor finished scrubbing out the watering troughs this morning. I also finished scything the brush from the east fence, a task I've enjoyed greatly.

The scythe is a magnificent example of agricultural intelligence. When swung smoothly, close to the ground it floats through thistle and nettle stems making little "ching ching" noises as it clips off the larger stems. I carry a small stone to maintain that edge as I work. You really can feel it when it needs a touch up. I occupied several mornings using it to clear the back horse fences of nettle and thistle while waiting for Marco Polo to finish his feed.

To get there, I spent a day tuning up the neglected scythe. It's a fine tool, Austrian made, light and well formed to the task. Having worked it over with an improvised anvil and hammer, the edge of the blade is just thicker than a piece of paper, bending slightly under pressure from a thumb nail. The final edge should be put on with a rounded hard stone swept across both sides of the blade with a gloved hand. Be careful, that blade is very sharp.

Anybody who's read Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia books will immediately recognize the scene described here. Denmark is as close to Ecotopia as anyplace I've been. There seems to be a genuine concern for and appreciation of the fragility of the environment we need to survive on this planet. The social systems, especially health care and child support, while not perfect, appear to me to be the best anywhere on the planet. People really do use bicycle and mass transit in favor of the car. Consequently there is noticeably less traffic on the roads than anywhere, except maybe outback Australia.

After 9 months of travel involving a large variety of situations, this feels the most like home. We've been left to care for a small farm with 4 horses and assorted small furry critters. There's work to be done, friendly neighbors, bikes to ride, a marvelous kitchen to cook in, and wireless internet - Just like home. This situation is helping to get our head and hearts around the concept of being at home again.

A little rant

In line with a book I read recently, Don't Think of an Elephant, I'm working on a new concept/name; "corporates". It's all the organizations and induhviduals who act without conscience or ethics. It's the agribusiness that grows crops but looses top soil. It's the automobile industry that destroyed public transit to create a market. It's the drug companies that market products that don't work or actively cause harm. It's also individuals who do things that deprive others of freedom or peace. This would include both those who act in the guise or under cover of actual corporations (see theft by corporates is protected by law) for instance, or several books by Thom Hartmann, and those who act under cover of public apathy in the face of unkind or illegal acts by others, such as
street theft.

Granted, not all these examples are directly perpetrated by actual multinational corporations. But in most cases I can think of, the (lack of) ethical standards required to commit such acts have been taught to or forced on us by corporates or their supporters (can you say John Dewey's training for the insdustrial revolution?)

What is needed is new lexicon to frame the questions of our time that allow us to think of them as they realistically affect people, rather than as they affect the corporates, and the governments they install. The corporates have spend billions of dollars and much very focused attention on building frames that allow only their way of thought. Real people need to take similar measures if we are to take back our commons and our government.

Rudkobing, Denmark II

We're taking it easy, spending a lot of time swimming, using the sauna, the kids on the dock catching crabs, shrimp, several different fish. Last night we had a whopper of a thunderstorm, lightening, big thunder, wind and lots of rain. It was a real treat for us displaced mid-westerner's.

Finn came down twice this week to go sailing, once with his daughters friend and again with Hannah, I think expecting to take the whole gang out, as it was the day Vibeke was here too. Turned out I was the only one who really wanted to go, and there was some issue with life jackets for the kids, so Finn, Hannah and I went out. Aqain I had a great time, and got to show them a few of the finer points of sailing and boat handling. They seem to have a pretty good handle on it already. I think they'll have fun with their new boat. Yes, I'm a little jealous.

Vibeke came down from Odense and took us up to her folks in Lohal for dinner. Lohal is the cutest little town that has no attractions other than a harbor that you ever did see. Her folks are very sweet, served us a wonderful dinner of fish and new potatoes. Also showed us all their boats and gardens.

We took a couple short trips, one up to Traneker, but somehow missed the Tickon art display, one of the finest outdoor art settings in Europe. The other, down the island to Skovsgaard, a mini castle with most of it's outbuilding infrastructure intact. It was donated to a conservation group who use it for growing and teaching about organic agriculture. There are extensive nature walks, demonstrations and classes for kids. Also the castle itself is a museum including the basement area where the hired help lived and worked, circa 1800.

Internet isn't easy, occasionally get a poor signal in the condo, usually have to go sit by the restaurant where there's power and a clear view to the harbor's 802.11 antenna. A booster antenna would be nice for the laptop's but as they have inbuilt wireless there's no obvious way to hack an external antenna.

The Thieves of Denmark

Well. How do you like the new look of the blog? No more pictures. My camera, the little square waterproof one, which faithfully took almost 10,000 pictures around the world is now in some stupid sub-human's possession.

Yesterday we had lunch at an outside (the only outside) table at the Kabob Place in downtown Svendborg Denmark (The one on Lundevej, I think). Unfortunately I took my shoulder bag off and hung it on the back of the chair. During the ordering shuffle Connor got that chair and when we picked up to leave, I forgot the bag. 10 minutes later, driving away, I noticed. We went back immediately but it was gone. The shop keeper hadn't seen it and none of the hundreds of people walking by had noticed or stopped a suspicious act like picking up a shoulder bag from a table and walking off.

I didn't loose all that much, the bag and camera being the vital items. But I've had that bag for nigh on 20 years, not to mention (almost) all the way around the world. It meant something to me. The bag was handmade by a nice person I met in Eugene Oregon. It had artwork on it handpainted by a Thai artist. I'm sure the stupid jerk that stole it will just toss it in a trash bin and attempt to sell the camera (which has a broken latch - ha!). So if somebody offers you a Pentax Optio 43WR with a broken battery door latch, please break his arm or cut off his hand for me.

Actually it was an altogether unpleasant visit to the once fine city of Svendborg. After having my bag and camera stolen, we discovered we had left our car parked 5 minutes too long in the EuroPark Car park. It seems the car parks are run by the local mafia. 5 minutes over and you get a bill for 510 Kronar (~$87). Now how am I supposed to deal with a bill for 510 Kronar? I mean, an even 500K, and I could just slip a 500K bill into an envelope with "EuroPark is a Ripoff" written on it and mail it off to the conveniently provided address on the bill (It's not a ticket, it's a bill, since it's issued by a private agency rather than the police.) But no, it's got to be 510K, which means I either have to mail a 10K coin (bad idea) or get a bank draft or something. Another fleecing opportunity for the local mafia.

And there's no way out of it for a tourist. If I just walk away from it, EuroPark goes to the car rental company and gets the money from my credit card. Then the car rental company gets to charge an additional hefty "handling fee" for taking the unauthorized money out of my credit card. EuroPark has a phone number (+45-7914-2117) but it doesn't seem to work. I've been told by two people (one in the tourist info office!) that EuroPark is known for ruthless pursuit of tourists.

Next, The Kabab place, where we had falafals turned out to be not so good either. Today we all have upset tummies and um, digestive distress.

This leaves me sadly disillusioned about the otherwise very civilized Denmark. I guess there are stupid people without ethics everywhere. Really can't say I recommend this city of Svendborg, Denmark.

A small computer disaster (or two)

Had a couple minor mishaps with the old workplace (aka the IBM laptop).

First disaster: I ordered a new battery on ebay, since the standard battery is getting tired. The one that finally came was for a different computer. (It also took almost a month; the seller claimed 10-12 days world-wide. Guess he didn't mean Ireland.) Anyway, so he shipped another one to Ireland, after I told him I wouldn't be there and to ship it to Denmark. It arrived after I left. I'm not going to bother Tom with figuring out if it's the right kind or not. So the seller shipped a third(!) battery to Denmark. It was here when we arrived. It's the right shape anyway.

Second disaster: I seem to have left the big battery somewhere. Or it got lifted by the airline, like Hawaiin Air lifted my GPS. The only other place it could be is at The Old House, but Tom looked for it to no avail. Rats. Down to one very tired standard size battery, good for an hour at best.

Third disaster: I accidentally left our european plug converter in the bathroom light at Tom's house in Ireland. So we had a shortage of plugins when we arrived in Odense. There was a little race car set power supply sitting there with the right voltage, DC, and the right plug. So I plugged it into the computer. I mean, just because it had 13 amps instead of the measly 4.5 amps the computer charger had shouldn't make any difference, right? Well, a little while later I noticed the battery isn't charging anymore. Oh oh. Better plug in the real charger and see. Nope - no charge to the battery. Try the old battery. No, that isn't charging either. The computer runs on the charger, but the battery isn't getting any juice. Probably there's some circuitry that controls power to the battery that the 13A charger fried. Probably a mother board change. Shit.

Checking the IBM website, I find Monk IT A/S in Odense is listed as the IBM repair station authorized to handle warranty service on their laptops. And the computer is still under warranty. Oh goody. I call them and they say they won't work on it, Monk gives me some other IBM number (which I'd already got off ibm.com) That number has a phone tree that ends in a dial tone no matter which button you push, but another number I got off IBM's site gets a real person. After some push and shove they confirm that Monk can't/won't work on it (so why are they listed?), I have to send the computer to a place outside Copenhagen. There's a 5 day turn around (Yeah right!). I could take it there, but there's a bridge between here and Copenhagen that costs $35 each way. Just not worth it.

Back to disaster 1. The new battery shows an error in the battery monitor. It won't indicate voltage, current or any of the other parameters the real IBM battery does. What with frying the power supply and all (see disaster 3), I can't tell if it doesn't have the voltage/current sensors the real IBM batteries have or it's the problem with the power supply. I wrote the supplier complaining about the lack of feedback from the battery. He said ship it back, he'll send me a new one. But I'm not sure at this point. Maybe it just needs a good charge.

So I guess I'll live with the old workplace tied to a line plug for the remainder of the trip. And I'll have to buy another big battery, and get the laptop fixed when I get back to the states. And we had to buy another line converter here. Of course they only had a gigantic universal unit that cost $10 (for a plug!), but hey, that's life on the continent.

Denmark

Another week, another country - Denmark. We took the usual collection of taxis, trains, planes and a rent-a-car over a 7 hour period to get from Findhorn Park to Odense.

Denmark is a land of islands, water, sailboats, and wind turbines. Lots of wind turbines. So many in fact, that the government has stopped subsidizing their placement, for now.

Arrived at Ole and Vibeke's outside of Odense in good form - just in time for dinner. We'll be taking care of their farm, (horses, dogs and a cat) for a week or so while they are in Spain.

But first, a couple weeks in a condo on the harbor in Rudkobing. (Danish has lots of strokes, umlauts, diaeresis and stuff that I won't try to reproduce here.) Even better, the owners of the condo just bought a sailboat, which they wouldn't mind having a little help sailing! Whoopee!

Rudkobing is a pleasant little villa with most of the requirements met - small enough to walk around, lots of bike trails, beach, both rock and sand, charity shops, a computer store, several phone stores, a grocery or two. Danes take their cycling seriously. There are bike lanes everywhere, and lots of separate bike/walking paths leading to interesting places, like the beaches. They also take their water seriously. Every beach has access and is well used. The water is surprisingly warm for this far north (55 deg North).

Even I went swimming (sorry no pics of my white body in a swimming suit.) The water is also very clear. It doesn't appear to have the nutrient load our Oregon waters have. I suspect that's because it's almost all very thin water around here. I got to look at a navigation chart, and noticed that the majority of the water is on the order of a couple meters deep, very little over 10 meters. Which brings to mind another thing they take seriously here: I've seen more sailboats out on water with their sails up than I've seen since Auckland, way back in NZed (remember NZed?). This looks to be a pretty cool place.

Did I mention several days of sunshine and temps in the high 20's (Centigrade, that is)?

Findhorn Foundation

Almost a week at Findhorn, and still feel like we're targets of a "fleece the eco-tourists" campaign. Everything here costs, most of it twice the going rate. The damn bus to Forres (20 minutes) is 9Poids for the four of us. The taxi is cheaper! And don't get me started on our accomodations.

We moved into a B&B run by one of the old timers here, thinking we'd get to spend some quality time with a knowledgable Findhorn person. Not a chance. She seems to actively avoid us when we meet on the many walkways, and we hardly ever see her at the house. Can't say I recommend that B&B experience here.



On the other hand we've met a number of really nice people who would gladly share their last piece of crust with us, and have many interesting insights on the famous Findhorn settlement. In the interest of preserving my sources, and because I'm really an outsider, and don't understand all that's going on, I won't go farther than to say it's going to be an interesting decade for Findhorn.

There's a part day "work experience" program where you do something active with the group here, like garden or kitchen work. It goes very nicely, and the people doing it are wonderful. Francie did a turn in the kitchen, and they asked her to come back and help on Friday. However, since they charge 14Poid for the experience of working with them I elected to pass this time around. Besides, I don't feel like pulling weeds.

I will mention one interesting development: There is now a Findhorn Foundation and a "larger community" called the New Findhorn Association . The Association is now larger than the original foundation. It consists of all the spinoff companies and individuals that live or work in some degree of association with the foundation, but are not foundation "members". It's actually quite a good arrangement, an extended community around an idea that helps to perpetuate and extend that idea.

One of the very finest people we've met here, Hans Bracker, is the organizer of the Association website, and also has his own site, Soft Flow . where he discusses the tools he uses to develop wiki webs. Hans took us under his wing the day we arrived, and has given us the grand tour of the area and generally been the shining light of our time here. Many thanks Hans, we love you. Oh yes, today was his birthday.

IRELAND TO SCOTLAND

Here I sit in Findhorn, Scotland at the Foundation of New Age thinking
and doing long known as those who speak to the garden Devas and grow
magically huge cabbages!  We arrived yesterday and before I go out to
discover the world of Findhorn- I thought I'd fill you in on what we've
been doing these last few months.

I really meant to write earlier but was so cozily at home in Ireland
that I just didn't make it happen. We spent the last almost 4 months in
Bandon, West Cork, Ireland staying at a marvelous old farmhouse
belonging to a friend of my cousins. The Old House it's called and it
is an old farmhouse right in the middle of some of the prime dairy
country in Ireland. We were surrounded by green fields with black and
white cows dotting the hillsides, with neighbors who brought us brown
bread and fresh eggs and shared with us how how the farming families in
Ireland still live like they have for 100's of years with the eldest
son running the farm and his parents still living there with them. We
saw how in the new affluent Ireland these farming families now have
plenty of money and have fixed up the farms, painted their big
farmhouse beautiful bright colors, have state of the art farming
equipment and although they work ALOT but still manage to go out and
have fun and be aware of what others need and take care of each other.
We were lucky to land where we did!

Our house had a big fireplace that we had turf (peat)  fires in almost
every night. The weather was not the best, lots of rain and storms and
it was pretty chilly but the fires made us so cozy. The house had 5
bedrooms/3 baths, living room, sun porch and a very nice large kitchen
(it was fun to really cook again!) so we had plenty of room and
comfort. We look long walks on the tiny winding roads through the hilly
farmlands always with 3 dogs who joined us from their various
farmhouses. We called them Mutt -a Jack Russell, Jeff 1 and Jeff 2-
both Golden Retrievers, since at first we thought the Jeff's were the
same dog.  They were friendly guys and made the kids miss their own
pets a bit less. We explored all the ancient Celtic ruins, stone
circles, castles, holy wells and Ogham stones in the area finding some
of them by trudging through muddy fields and across streams in our
wellies. We spent hours on the nearby strands (beaches), climbing
rocks, finding pretty rocks and shells, taking loads of photos and
watching the kids hunt for hermit crabs and go swimming in the freezing
Atlantic Ocean. We'd stop off at a pub and have a pint or 2  of
Murphy's Stout while the kids had Finches lemonade and then head home
to our fireplace. We were quite literally in our personal Paradise!

The kids went to school at a little country school close by in a
village called Clogagh. They were really nice to us even though we told
them that we were no longer practicing Catholics but didn't mind it
they taught the kids religion while they were there. It did seem to
make a difference that they were baptized :). They were really quite
nice to us and the kids enjoyed school and made friends to go over to
their houses and play. We found out that our kids are further along
study-wise then their Irish friends so we felt good about their studies
for next year. We have been doing quite a bit of homeschooling on the
road and could see the results.

During our Ireland stay we took a 10 days and went to Spain. We spent 6
days in Barcelona and 4 days on the north coast. We loved it! Barcelona
is a stunningly beautiful city and we spent many hours just walking
around with our mouths open in awe. Gaudi is everywhere! Fantastic
mosaic towers, twisted wrought iron, beautiful organic shapes.
Breathtaking!  The food was delicious, the wine was cheap- even in the
expensive places. You'd order red wine and they'd bring a bottle and
you'd drink what you wanted, take the rest home and they'd charge you
about $7 for it. Food was cheap too especially compared to Ireland and
what we've seen so far of Scotland. We stayed in a old marble apartment
house 3rd floor walk-up room with enough beds and a huge bathtub. It
overlooked the backyards of every apartment on the block and we were
treated to balconies of gorgeous plants and hanging laundry, people
doing their daily things, children and cats playing- just so fabulous
to watch everyone so intimately from afar. After Barcelona we went to a
white-tile seaside village and hiked the coast trail through many
beautiful little towns. We soaked in the sun which was missing from
Ireland, and even though it was still a little chilly there, we felt
warm.

Amazingly our 4 months passed already and now it's time to move on.  So
yesterday we got on the plane in Cork, flew to Dublin, flew to
Aberdeen, Scotland, and took a train to Forres and then a taxi to
Findhorn and I am lying in bed in a very nice caravan (mobile home)
overlooking the 4 gigantic windmills that the Foundation uses to
generate 90% of their own energy. We walked into the village last night
and had a little dinner and watched the sunset at about 11pm. Robert
went to the Organic Grocery and bought food and this afternoon we go to
the Foundation and do a little work and find out what is going on here.
We'll stay in our caravan for 4 nights and then we go and stay with one
of the village elders called Kay Kay in her Eco-Cottage. While were in
the area we'll also go to Loch Ness, Inverness and hopefully take a
train north to the Orkney Islands. When we leave here we go to Denmark
to see Vibeke, who was my manager and friend at he Cafe, Kille Enna
whom I cheffed with at Ballymaloe and Bodil and Dave who we met on our
first stop in Hawaii and now we will see on our last stop in Denmark.
Completing the circle!

So if you've gotten this far you will find that even though we have had
just an incredibly wonderful time on this trip we are all ready, even
aching some days for home and friends in Corvallis, Oregon!  We've made
our reservations for home and are due to arrive July 6th at 12.05 AM.
Judi will pick us up at PDX. Cannot wait to see everyone and everything
in Corvallis!!!!

Inverness and Lock Ness

Inverness and Loch Ness are near Findhorn (or vica versa), so we decided to take a little trip to see if we could find the critter in the depths. We booked a trip with a Jacobite tour that took us to the 4000 year old Corrimony burial cairn, the Urquhart Castle, and a boat trip down the lake and into the canal. It took all day and we loved it. Sometimes it's easier to just relax and be a tourist.

The Nessie expose was fairly honest about the whole thing being a hoax, but you might as well look, because you never know...


Corrimony cairn appeared very primitive, just a pile of rocks, except the center held a room with a dry laid wall and a tunnel door. Also there was a stone circle around the outside. I'll wager it was originally more ordered.

The Urquhart Castle was a ruin, destroyed by the last British occupant as he left to keep the Gaelic's from the western Islands from using it. Typical British slash and burn administration.

The trip down the lake was uneventful, that is we didn't have any Nessie sightings.

The canal was pretty, much larger and better maintained than the Irish canals. There was quite a bit of traffic.

Findhorn Scotland

Off to a new adventure - Findhorn, near Inverness Scotland. A good solid day of travel commencing with a 7AM departure from our happy home in Knockbrown, with the offer of a ride to Cork airport from our kind and generous neighbor, Pauline.

Then Ryanair didn't bat an eyelash at our 4 (!) oversize, overweight duffels, 4 rollarounds, 4 backpacks, 3 purses and assorted shopping bags. On we went to Dublin. In Molly Malone's fair city (well the airport, which isn't really the city at all) we changed planes for Aberdeen. Now Ryanair is a point-to-point airline (a method they make a point of noting), so changing planes involves collecting your luggage (those 4 overweight duffels) and schlepping them up to the departure floor and checking them in again - another chance to charge us for overage on our luggage that they didn't take.

Landing in Dyce (somewhere near Aberdeen they tell us), we partook of some Scottish cuisine at the airport (about as you'd expect) and found an oversize cab to deliver us to the train station - which turned out to be just a platform with some uninformative signs.

Fortunately we didn't have to carry the baggage over the bridge to the other platform, and pretty soon we were rolling along on steel wheels in decidedly better style than most of the trains we've been on. A helpful conductor and several friendly locals get us on and off going the right direction and at the right station.

But arriving at Forres we find a closed station, no taxi's and almost nobody around - except a privatish looking small bus. As I walked over to see if the driver could help us, he starts to pull away! I managed to tap on the window, which got his attention (since he only had two passengers, one of them canine). He says, "Well no, the taxis are all in town, but I'm going that way and I can call you a taxi. And I'll drive around the circle and pick up your luggage." What a guy! Turns out Helmut lived at Findhorn for some time, asked us to say hi to KayKay for him, which is who we're staying with later in the week. He proceeded to call a largish taxi for us "Big enough for luggage for Africa", which was waiting at the bus stop downtown when we got there. With some juggling, pushing and squeezing we manaqed to get all of us and the horrendous baggage into a Citroen Berlinga.

After checking into the trailor (locally, caravan) we set off to explore Findhorn and hopefully find some grub for the kids. Tired and hungary, we stumbled into the community center which was in the process of serving pizza and salad to a group of some sort. But they turned us out; we weren't the right sort, or didn't pay enough or something. Informed that there was food available in Findhorn town we set off to walk the mile to town. On the way we noticed a center for healing and compassion, obviously associated with the Findhorn center. The hypocracy of that juxtaposition was a little much. I'm afraid, whatever other postive attributes the Findhorn foundation may have, the follow-the-rules particularness of the kitchen personnel put us off Findhorn quite a bit. Maybe tomorrow will better.

O'Shea's go to Dublin

Then back home for a little more catching up on time zones, and off to Dublin, via the Nicholas Mosse pottery factory outside of Kilkenny. Well, old "asleep at the wheel" almost missed that one, forgetting we had to turn off the highway shortly north of Cork, but we managed a little roundabout and got there in good form. Too bad it was a bit of a disappointment. The pottery is pretty much the same stuff he's been making for decades, except twice as expensive, the little cafe should stick to making pottery 'cuz that's what ther scones were like, and there wasn't much else.

But the Eaglais Mhuire abbey at Gowran was a hit, including finding my own gravestone. Francie want's to know who Rebecca was. I maintain it was another life and to never mind.

I want you to know, rumours of my demise...


Are greatly exaggerated.

After a little missed turn in Carlow wherein Francie (who was followning in the 2nd car and relying on my navigation) lost me and decided to continue on her own without telling me, we arrived at the

AvonLea B&B (kinanev@indigo.ie) in Naas. A finer place to stay would be hard to find. Our ten souls filled the place, so it felt like we owned it. A nice big back yard, completely equiped with dead soccer balls and a cute little Westie named Holly, a separate room for the kids, muffins in the TV room and all is well. Also the express(?) bus to Dublin stops at the end of the drive.

Did I mention traffic in Dublin? It's so wretched it takes the bus an hour to go the last 15 miles into the city center. Also parking a car there is about like parking in NYC, fugetabudit. Glad to leave the driving to the guys with the Irish setter mascot, we get to ride in the top of a double decker. Pretty exciting on roads that aren't quite as wide as the bus is, branches scrape down both sides in places.

Dublin is a marvel of an old european city.

It has the widest main street (as opposed to Avenue), the oldest hospital, the tallest obelisk, the most churches, the most pubs (now THERE's a justaposition for you), the biggest brewery, the biggest park, and a host of other features. Not least of which is tour but drivers with a very Irish sense of humour. The Dublin city tour is definitely worth the 14E, you get to see the city from the top of the bus, get off where you like

(the Guinness brewery for instance) and hear quite a bit more about the city than you'll find in Frommer's or Lonely Planet.

Doing the tourist thing

A quick day trip to Blarney castle goes well. Blarney town is a major tourist trap, but the castle and grounds themselves are truly worth a visit. The castle is, of course, in ruins, but what remains is documented (but not as well as Aughnanure] or even Kanturk]) and of course there's the stone to be kissed (No I didn't!). But the the walk around the rock keep is the truly magical part.






One of the features is the largest dolman] I've seen, at least 15 feet high and incredibly balanced.

There are also some amazing old yew trees growing right out of the bedrock, and what looks like it used to be a formal garden with the river running through it.

The O'Shea's come to Eire

The Cleveland and Minnesota contingents of the O'Shea clan arrived this week. Now we have a full house, with Kathy, her two young'ens Erin, Devin an older one, Kate and HER Significant Other Matt (better known and Mattata), and Maureen from MinneHopeless.

While I can't say they fit right in, we've spent enough time together that we get along pretty smoothly. Connor and Josie in particular are delighted to have familiar playmates and pick up where they left off last summer. Now we get back into tourist mode, only more as hosts than being the tourists ourselves. It's kinda fun feeling like we're locals, showing off all the little trivia we've picked up in our 3 months in County Cork.

Traveling in W Ireland

OK, we've laid around Knockbrown long enough. Time to go see the rest of Ireland. So we planned a 7 or 8 day driving tour of west and north country. Francie was particularly excited about the north country since we'd never been there before.

Drove up to Clare, Ennis today, stopping at the Kanturk castle and Lough Gur.

Kanturk I think, was for a time, the home of the infamous O'Malley clan, about which you can read more in

Grania, She-King of the Irish Sea

by Morgan Llywelyn

The Lough Gur area has a number of interesting sites, including several 13th century castles and

The Grange, the largest stone circle in Ireland, a magnificent artifact some 50m in diameter. While it's marked and has interpretive signs, it's in a farmers field in which he runs cattle, and asks for a donation too! Incidentally, if you're interested in this sort of thing there's lots on the web, for instance Megalithic Ireland

Planned on staying at the wonderfully homey AvonLea B&B (phone: 353-063-6821632), as we have before, but it was full. Julie took care of us though, getting us into the Greendale B&B just around the corner. It was just fine.

The main reason for Ennis (besides Julie) was Josie O'Shea. He had a sport shop in Ennis that we walked into on a previous visit. Turns out he's probably Francie's 2nd cousin. She has exchanged email with him over the years since our visit, and we were looking forward to a reunion. Surprise! His shop isn't there anymore. He sold out to a pub, reputedly for a goodly sum. Nobody seemed to know for sure where he is, but perhaps in Spain, where's he's been known to be investing in property. Oh rats.

4/20

County Galway and Oughterard
On to Oughterard today, with stops in Galway for some shopping and boat gawking.

Galway was very busy with both tourists and locals walking, shopping and pubbing along a central promanade.

Oughterard is famous for the Fough East B&B, featuring Justin, who is Connor's age and liked toy guns the last time they met, 6 years ago. At least that's why its famous in our family. It has other charms too, such as Krista, Justin's mom, who in addition to running the very finest B8B, runs a preschool daycare, rents out the back lot building, helps her husband run his very fine butcher business,

and hosts a legion of kids who show up to play in their soccer field. Did I mention Francie thinks she's Wonder Woman?

Other features of Oughterard that should not be missed include several walking trails, on the lake and along the stream near town. Also the Pizza and internet cafe on the same street as the B&B. It was so nice in Oughterard we stayed and extra day. The kids got in a lot of soccer time.

Brigit's garden, a few km south, deserves special mention. It's a garden, artwork and historic site, all managed by a non-profit. Really exceptional interpretative landscape and art.

4/23

It was hard leaving Oughterard, so hard that we had to stop and tour a shaft mine on our way out of town. Well, I mean, the way Josie goes for gems, how could we not? Turned out to be a galena mine sunk in white marble and dolermite.

A whole cave of white rock makes of an unexpected visual. It was interesting, and Josie loved all the rocks in the gift shop and the mine itself. Galena is the ore lead and silver come from. It's shiny black with a regular cubic crystal structure - very distinctive. It comes in chunks near veins of copper something in the contrasting white marble and calcite. Made it pretty easy for the guide to show us what they had to do to keep on the vein.

By the time we finished at the mine it was raining and blowing like crazy. So we just motored on through some spectacular mountain country and coastline near Louisburgh and Westport. Eventually landed in Ballina, where we stayed in the totally nondescript Down the Hill motel. This place didn't even have a sitting room, other than the bar, which was dominated by one of those one man bar bands that play Clancy Brothers Irish, and the occasional Van Morrison. But Francie liked it for some reason.

Sunday


Drove up through Joyce's country into Yeat's country. Stopped at an interesting church. Turned out to be W.B. Yeats' final resting place. Also an abbey with a circular tower that was hit by lightening in the 14th century. That must have given them pause!

Mon Apr 24 22:21:22 GDT 2006

Stayed in the Independent Hostel, a very nice place in Donegal. Couldn't decide where to go, so went to town and had a nice breakfast without the kids (they preferred to stay at the hostel and "play with the dog". Of course what they really did was turn on the TV as soon as we left. You can lead a horse to water... Anyway we eventually settled on going out the penninsuly where the overhanging cliffs are, and a big Gaeltech area with lots of churches and some pre-Christian ruins.

It was pretty cool, especially the museum in Gleann Cholm Cille.

Then across the middle of the penninsula to Artura and on to Letterkenny. This was one of the more awesome scenery drives I've seen - all high bog country and steep glaciated valleys. Hardly a soul lives up here. Just you, the turf and the wind. Oh yes, the wind. A front blew in again - it rained part of the afternoon, and blew the whole afternoon into evening. Wild spring weather.

Tue Apr 25 22:51:24 GDT 2006

Stayed in the Port Hostel in Kilkenny. Not too well maintained, but has potential. Next morning wandered the length of the "longest main street in Ireland", mostly Francie hitting the charity shops, but also me oogling the baked goods in a bakery, Josie checking out the jewelry shops and Connor the music and computer game shops. By the time we got to the end of the street Connor was tired of something and wandered off. We headed back to the car expecting to find him there, but he wasn't. There's only one street he'd be on, so we went back up main. Didn't find him. Dropped Francie off to walk back and went around to check at the hostel. No Connor. Meanwhile Francie called the Garda, and I came back to the central square. On a hunch I said, "Check that game shop over there." Sure enough, he'd been in there for an hour or more playing some stupid game, not even thinking we might be wondering where he was.

This latest bit of arrogance comes after a week of obnoxious, rude misbehavior on his part. Francie decided she wasn't going to have any more of this and we should just go back to Bandon. I was pretty tired of the warfare too, so went along with her. 6 hours later we were back in Bandon. It doesn't feel good to have done this. We basically gave in to Connor's dislike of road sightseeing. He's really hurting our family and I don't know what to do about it.

End of road trip.

Barcelona

Apr 5-9

Having had enough of cold and rain in Ireland for the moment, and knowing we wanted to at least get a glimpse of "The Continent", I got on Ryanair's website and looked for where we could go for cheap. Although Corghaigh remains a backwater, with flights limited to Dublin and London, Ryanair has recently expanded offerings from Shannon. We could go to Barcelona (Girona, actually) for E29. Hurrah, although that doesn't count the 1 hour bus ride to Barcelona for another E11.

So without a thought to planning, off we go. Well, actually a day or so before we left I finally found a hostal (that's the correct spelling) that had room (the week before Easter is the start of vaction in Spain).

Hostal Eden is right off Carrer de Gracia and Ramblas Cataluyna, pretty much the center of Barcelona (which BTW is pronounced Barthelona).

There are Gaudi designed buildings all around, and Ramblas Cataluyna has a large central plaza used for markets and just going for walks.


Speaking of walkies, we noticed that in Barcelona everybody cleans up after their dogs, unlike Ireland or Istanbul. The city is very clean, and despite all the warnings about pickpockets we never felt threatened or in danger in any way.

Preparations for Palm Sunday were well underway. There were vendors selling palm fronds and frond creations in the central plaza all week.

On Sunday there was a large crowd gathered before the Christ symbol singing and pounding the palm creations on the pavement. They take Catholiscm seriously here.

Not knowing much about Barcelona, and lacking return calls from our friends who had lived here, we got 2 day tickets for a tourist bus. This allowed us to ride around with the other tourists in a topless double decker, see the sights, getting on and off when we wanted. It's a good introduction to a big city I guess, at least to the tourist parts.

The most spectacular building in Barcelona, possibly the most amazing in the world is Sagrada Familia. This temple, designed by Gaudi, was started in the late 1800's and is still under active construction. It's not expected to be completed before 2020. Part of the reason for the long construction time is the founders decreed it would be built only with donated funds. The other part is that some of the structures envisioned by Gaudi simply couldn't be built before the middle of the 20th century. There are elements that have been deleted from the plan as too difficult (at least for now). He designed many of the structures using a inverted load model, hanging weights from strings to see in a very visual way where the lines of force are. From there it's a simple matter to invert the model and put compression columns where the tension strings were, yielding a minimum material design.

The result is an open, organic structure with graceful flowing lines. Much of the design work he did was at odds with current practice and many believed it would not stand. However, modern computer analysis has confirmed the validity of his work.

We also spent most of an afternoon at Tibidabo amusement park on top of ??, which it shared with a church. I didn't think much of the amusement park, but the ride up on a 100 year old tram and a "funicular" was fun. Oddly, the tram wasn't running any more when we came back down so we had to hoof it the rest of the way down.


The popular food in Barcelona is tapas, basically starters or finger food. Pork, salmon, stinky cheese, aubergine and roasted pepper on crispy bread, or chicken croquets and fries. But squid, cuttle fish and octopus seemed to be the most popular, and certainly the cheapest.


People here live to a different rhythm than the rest of Europe. Many shops close from 2-4PM, which is when lunch is served. Many restuarants don't start serving dinner until 8:30 or so, and serve dinner into the wee hours. There is talk of changing this to conform to the rest of the EU, but I think it ought to go the other way. A midday nap seems a most civilized way to get through the day.


There were other parts of the city, including the Olympic park and waterfront that I would like to have seen, but it was time to move on.

West Cork Rally

In Ireland they use the little paved butter roads for something more useful than tractor movements - road rallys. These aren't the tame little rallies that obey the speed limit and stuff like in the US. No way! These are screaming little mini-cars with way too much horsepower and no fetters on velocity or sound control.

Apparently Ireland is the only place they rally like this on paved roads. Similar contests are held in Europe, Africa and the like, but it's almost all dirt roads.

The courses are laid out on the back roads in the country around here, with signs put up warning people the roads will be closed several weeks ahead. Then on the day of the event, crews block off the road, and the start of a stage is hearlded by a pace car running the course at (somewhat) reduced speed to make sure all the tractors and cows are off the road. Then they let'er rip.

Thousands off people turn out to watch, standing on the hedgerow fences and tromping across pastures to get to the choice corners. The media is there too with helicopters and big cameras. It's quite the deal.

Cork for St Patrick's weekend

It was brilliant. Marvelous parade in the swirling driving sleet and rain. Everybody from the Chernobyl children's project to the Royal somebody pipers band was there.

Finally got to St Finbar's church (He was a Catholic, no? The current church is Anglican!) Cork Butter museum is quaint, but not really worth it unless you want to learn some advanced business tactics. The elevation of Ireland's dairy industry to world class was a remarkable achievement on the part of the Cork butter trade association.

The Old Oak is probably the coolest pub in Cork. Live music downstairs, everbody dancing, Cailghee dancing upstairs. They wouldn't let the kids in near 21:00, and by 22:00 the line to get upstairs was down the block and around the corner.

Lost puppy!

Has anybody seen this puppy? His name is Steve, and Josie misses him very much. So does his best friend Bubby. He seems to have fallen off the bus somewhere in Ireland. So he could be in Cork, or Baltimore or Church Cross. Or he could have wandered off to some far off land with better dog food or catching a get-a-away bus out of Portland. Anyway, if you see him, let us know and we'll make arrangements for his return.

The Old House

We're in "The Old House" in Knockbrown, near Bandon, Co Cork for a time (till end of May), catching our breath and enjoying living in a house for a change. The house is on the road to Timoleague, about 3 miles from the bay, 6 from Bandon. It looks over a large ravine with pasture and riparian area, and the ocean off in the distance. There are 5 bedrooms, with room for 9-10. Y'all come visit, OK?

We're currently enjoying winter weather in Bandon Ireland. It's on the south coast, but still 51deg N. (51d 41m 5s N, 8d 45m 50s W to be precise.) It snowed a little yesterday but didn't stick.

It's amazing the antiquity of things here. We had beer in a pub down the street that was there (and under the same name) before the 13 states told the Brits to feck off (that's Irish spelling).

Trying to get the local school board to let our kids go to school

here. Connor is dying to play some footie (soccer) with the locals, and Josie just likes to have friends. They could use a little schooling too, as we've been a little lax in that department. They sound funny with Irish accents, which they get about 10 minutes after talking with Irish kids.

Buying a car in Eire

Since we're staying in Ireland for several months in a rural
setting it seemed most sensible to buy a car rather than renting or
relying on public transit. There's two buses a day past the
Knockbrown house. Plus, it would cost E15 to get all 4 of us
to town and back.

Hmm. My keyboard doesn't have a euro character. How
crass of them to go off inventing a new character to represent their
money. Hasn't the EU heard of ASCII? I'll use 'E'
to represent the € until a better solution occurs to me.

A copy of the local Buy and Sell yielded quite a number of suitable
cars for reasonable (<E4000) prices. After weeding out
the ones that were already sold or too far away etc, I settled on a '93
MB 200TE owned by a very nice goldsmith from Midleton. He was
very helpful and patient while I struggled with the legal aspects of
vehicle ownership. That was the easy part. Be sure
to check out Muckley's Jewelery in Midleton next time you're
there. Very nice family business.

Most of the insurance companies will not insure anybody who doesn't
hold at least an Irish learners permit. Supposedly, under
permit you can only drive cars of less than 1.6L displacement with a
large red 'L' in the window, must have a fully licensed person
accompany you, and the insurance companies charge you a small
fortune. It takes weeks to get a date to take the test, and
weeks more to receive the permit. Oh, and you need a PSN
before you can take the test.

Now the PSN is like the US Social Security number, you get it to
identify yourself as a working member of the country, and collect
social security moneys from working. Needless to say, the
bureau of social services is reluctant to give a PSN to a person
holding a "No Working Here" visa.

To get a reasonable insurance rate, you need to hold a full license (2
months to get a drivers test appointment), and have something called a
"Zero Claims Bonus". You get this bonus certificate from your
previous insurance company by dropping your policy with them.

Into this morass of bureaucracy and corporate greed I stepped, having
kissed the Blarney stone for some much needed silver-tongued persuasion.

After working through several completely useless brokers (McCarthy's
and another I forget), and several companies, both in person on Cork's
South Mall, and by phone to those bloody anonymous call centers located
who knows where, I finally found my way round to Hibernian, where if I
could show a zero claims bonus, would insure me on my US license as if
I held a full Irish license, ie. with a somewhat less usurious
rate. Since US insurance co's don't provide a ZCB,
we engaged in a bit of subterfuge to provide a letter from my agent
indicating that I was worthy of same. This also involved
dropping Francie from the policy, as she was not, for several reasons,
worthy.

At long last, 3 weeks, 10 US phone calls (Yeah Skype!), a couple dozen
local calls, half a dozen faxes, another visit to the car to get vital
numbers and certificates, and E800, I had a receipt for insurance and
could take possession of my sweet (not so) little Mercedes.

Church Cross and Baltimore

Failing for the moment to secure insurance so I can drive my new MB, we opt for a rental for a week or so and hit the road (sort of). Actually Francie decided a little isolation in a West Cork cabin would be good for us, so our destination is Jason's cottage, just down the road between Skibbereen and Schull. This turned out not to be the best. The little Ferringi owner, in addition to charging us way too much for a house in the middle of nowhere, also wanted us to pay ALL the utilities. There was no mention of this during the reservation conversation or on the website. When we told him we weren't staying because of this unannounced expense he was quite put out and withheld part of our money. Can't say we recommend this particular cottage.

On the other hand, it had a peek-a-boo view of the infamous Fastnet light between Heir Island and Cape Clear. That was pretty cool for an old sailing romantic such as meself.

So, once again fancy free and foot on throttle, we set out for parts unknown. Baltimore looked interesting, we could see it across the water from Jason's. It appeared to have a waterfront and somebody told us there was a ferry we could take from there to several islands. Well, none of the B&B's right in town were open, but

Rolf's, up the hill was. Turned out to be OK, once we got through the issue of not being able to rent the "cottage" for less than a week.

The ferry to Cape Clear, and across Roaring Water bay is pretty iffy this time of year, but we were able to take the short ride out to Sherkin Island, home of the O'Driscoll's.

There's an abbey right at the ferry landing that provides some history of the area and lots of grave sites. This is one of the wierd things you see in Ireland - all the abandoned christian religous sites have grave stones everywhere, inside, outside, on the remaining walls - everywhere. Many of the stones are quite recent, 2000, 2001. It must be considered a very good thing to be buried in this hallowed ground.

There were a couple pubs and a little general store and that's about it. One of the pubs was closed, the other larger one served dry sandwiches for too much dinero, but they had good beer. We hiked around much of the habited part of the island, visiting a remote beach and a small country school. Caught the last ferry off the island, the one that waits for the school teacher. Lucky for us she was a little late (the teacher that is).

Corcaigh

At last we reach what has been Francie's goal all along, Ireland. I was sort of looking forward to it too. But 50 deg N in February? It's freakin' COLD here. And about 3 hours of feeble twilight that calls itself a grand sunny day. We shoulda gone to Africa. Or stayed in Thailand! It was pretty darn nice there.

Anyway, we're in Cork at the Kinlay guest house. Appears to be one of the larger ones here, everybody seems to know about it, even the cab driver. Despite my whining about the latitude, the attitude is a whole different thing. The people in Ireland, even in this decade of boom and immigration, are the nicest you'll find anywhere. They like to talk, they have interesting things to say. There's a genuine feeling of welcome and human-ness. Even the dogs are friendly. All of them. I figure that must be because the people they meet are nice to them, so why shouldn't they be friendly?

Kinlay house is a rambling old structure that's been around since 1700 or so, home to the destitute, old folks, soldiers, and now young immigrant wannabe's from all over the EU. Mostly Frankish this week. Man, the girls are cute. Sorry lads, no pics.

It's right under the famous Shannon Bell tower, part of the St Anne's church, which has been here since the late 18th century. The clock faces, known as the "Four Liars" are among the biggest in Europe. They're called that because the hands are so big they're affected by weather and don't all show the same time. They never have.

I fixed a couple of their badly managed computers and earned free internet, as long as I use my laptop (which I would prefer to do anyway), so things are good here for figuring out what we're going to do. Which is a problem, because we weren't supposed to get to Ireland until April or something and the house isn't available yet. Francie did talk with Tom and the house will be available on the 21st of Feb, but that leaves 3 weeks up in the air.

So we hang at Kinlay in Cork for a week or so to sort things out, like buying a car, trying to get insurance, getting warmer clothes, figuring out where we might want to go for the next 5 months etc.

INTO THE WEST- ROARINGWATER BAY

We've been in Ireland for over a week now- and it feels normal to be here- like we live here or something! One of the things about all this travel that bothers me is that it starts feeling commonplace to be in some of the most exotic places. Not that Cork is exotic exactly- but it's always felt especially exciting to be here. It still feels fantastic- just more like home. So to spice things up were going to the wild west coast for 10 days before we move into our house in Bandon on the 21st. We're going to a little cottage called Jason's Cottage (google if interested) outside of Skibbereen- on Roaringwater Bay , a ferry's ride from Heir Island where I've spent time before at John Desmond's Island Cottage restaurant. We will be 7km from any town, but there is a source of Guinness closeby. Always in Ireland.
In Cork city I've been hitting the Charity shops pretty hard and have amassed a small fortune in Irish sweaters! Also a new elegant black Irish wool coat for me, a wool pea coat for Connor, a black leather jacket for Robert and a wooly fleece-lined coat for Josie. This is important as it is cold here. Like winter in Oregon. Not freezing but cold enough to need coats- which we haven't needed until Turkey where we had to wear layers upon layers to keep warm. We really should have stayed about a month longer in Thailand!! But Ireland is good regardless of the weather- and warm cheap (gorgeous) clothes are plentiful! Best Thrift shops in the world!
We've all been content here- Robert has found a Mercedes station wagon to buy and if he can figure out how to get insurance we'll be able to buy it. Kind of frustrating but hopefully it will come together before we spend thousands on car rentals. Connor has found a shop that specializes in Warhammer figures that he love to paint and create armies with. Josie is getting to know EVERYONE in the Kinlay House hostel which is full of people from all over, but mostly French. So she is an progressive American diplomat these days and plays a mean hand of Hearts. They all love her!

WERE HOME IN IRELAND!

We are in Cork City, Ireland at the moment, staying in a nice hostel Kinlay House by the Shandan Bells up the hill from town. We got here a few days ago- with both Robert and I coughing our heads off (almost literally) with this cold that we just couldn't shake. Getting better now after going for acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine. We get to cook up this pot of very interesting looking dried herbs, twigs, berries and leaves and make a tea which we both drink morning and night. Tastes awful but it's doing the trick and we are already feeling better.

The cold started in Istanbul where we spent the previous 2 weeks. I'd like to say that we had a wonderful time in Istanbul- since that's what everyone tells us about their visit -BUT- we didn't have a wonderful time. The best part about it was our stay with our friend Laurie and kids from Corvallis. That was nice and we were made to feel so at home with her. But she lived a little too far away from the city- like 2 bus rides and a ferry each way- so we decided to move into the old part of Istanbul- Eminonu- for the 2nd week we were there. Eminonu is important as it has the oldest, largest Mosgues and the Ayamaria which is a gigantic Catholic Cathedral turned Mosque turned Museum. So we went and stayed in a quest house right between the Blue Mosque and Ayamaria. In retrospect that was our mistake, as that is THE tourist area and we were among the few tourist around during this week in the dead of winter- and the Turkish men selling RUGS and anything else- you name it- pounced upon us and harassed us no end. We felt like we did on French Island Australia trying to keep from getting eaten by the mosquitoes!! It was really that bad. We left very disappointed with Turkey in general and Istanbul in particular and have no plans to ever set foot there again! And it was cold- really cold- there was this Siberian blizzard which dumped over a foot of snow and blew like crazy for the first 3 days we were there. That was actually the best part! We had wonderful fun in the snow at Laurie's!

But -ahh- Ireland feel so good!! The contrast between here and Istanbul is amazing. People are friendly, for one thing. I was walking down the hill to town Saturday morning and watched an old man all the way down, greeting his friends and humming as he walked. We met a woman on the plane from Turkey who lives here and were going to visit her tomorrow. We were going to try to WWOOF at a farm here for the first 2 weeks while we wait for our home to be ready. Unfortunately no one needs anyone at this time but several people responded and have invited us to visit them if we like. We'll move into our house on the 21st. The address is THE OLD HOUSE, KNOCKBROWN, BANDON, COUNTY CORK, IRELAND. Until then we will probably rent a cottage over by Youghal in East Cork by my favorite beach Knockadoon. We re in the process of buying a car. Robert found an old Mercedes Station Wagon- the car of his dreams! It will cost less than the price of renting a car for the time were here and we can sell it before we leave. We are trying to figure out how to get the cash here to buy it. A funny dilemma. A transfer needs an account to transfer to. We can't take that much out of our ATM. Hmmmm.

Turkey, in both senses of the word

The name of this file is Turkey. That about sums it up. Istanbul is a turkey of a destination. The weather sucked, the people (with a couple major exceptions) were rude and obnoxious, and it was very polluted. But the bus and ferry system worked well, provided you had a map of the city in your head, because there were no usable maps of either system to be found anywhere.

Istanbul is the only major city spanning two continents; they have cute little signs saying "Welcome to Europe/Asia" on the the two bridges that span the Bosphorus Strait. Our friends live on the Asia side of the city, which is the newer side. Not too much in the way of old buildings or historical sites. But we got to take the ferry to get across to the other side which was kinda fun.

The first several days there, while we were getting over our jet lag, it was pretty nice, although 10C seemed really cold after Thailand. We got to tour the main shopping area. Then it snowed. And blew. The weather man said warmer and sunny the next day. He was wrong. For 4 days it snowed and blew. We did go out and play in the snow a little, but actually going touristing was pretty much out of the question. Finally, it cleared and warmed up a little, so we moved into Eminonu, the old city. This is where we were introduced to the extreme "entrepreneral spirit" of the turkish people. Every man on the street (and they were always male, even the children), wanted to sell us something, usually "turkish" carpets. They would not leave us alone, following us up the street shouting lower and lower prices as we walked away. They even would pretend to be "volunteer tour guides" around the big mosques, just to get a chance to say, "Won't you come into my shop and buy a carpet?" The national motto is "How may I help you spend your money?" I suppose if we were from New York City or hadn't just come from sweet genteel Thailand it might not have felt so assaultive, but we aren't and we did, so we didn't like it.

On the other hand, once you get past the assault of the Mongols (look up the history of this area for an idea of where the aggressive attitude comes from), there are some amazing historical features here. Things like the arm, hand and part of the skull of John the Baptist, weapons and other booty from half a dozen civilizations over the eons. One of the more interesting ones was (part of) an obelisk from Egypt. It was dated ~5000 BC, yet was obviously of far better material and craftsmanship than far more recent artifacts seen here.
Since we had so much fun here, we plotted an early departure. Problem is, it's still frozen in Spannocchia. Also, it turns out there are no ferries from Turkey to Greece (Doh! Read a little world history already. These guys have been skirmishing since time began.) So I don't get to take the ferry across the Aegean. Then there's the luggage problem. Flying on the major airlines is possible but expensive. But in Europe (and the UK and Ireland) one can fly on Ryan Air, EasyJet or the like for practically nothing. But you don't get to take much luggage. So, it's straight off to Ireland where a house awaits us. Or so we thought...

PS: It probably wasn't as bad as this makes it sound. After all, we managed to take 500 pictures. Perhaps I'll come back and write some more about Istanbul. But not right now.

TURKEY, I THINK? OR MAYBE SIBERIA!

We arrived in Turkey a few days ago and have been at friends Laurie and Cetin Koc in Istanbul. Beautiful house up in the hills above the Bosphorus River where the continents of Europe and Asia meet. We have been made to feel very much at home, doing lots of cooking, reading and writing. We have been looking forward to exploring Istanbul and have a long list of things to do and see. One problem tho- WE'RE SNOWED IN!! We have been pretty much house bound for the last 3 days with a Siberian blizzard bearing down on us- lots of snow and high gusty winds. The kids love it and it is quite exciting, I guess. And at least with the wi-fi here- we can get caught up on everything. It's supposed to clear by the weekend so we should get a chance to explore.

One whine though- We left Thailand and 85F sunny warm weather- to come here. It's a great change, experiencing another strong culture. BUT what a shock- it's really really cold!

Onward to Ireland next week where we will be staying in Tom Prendergests' place in Bandon- The Old House at Knockbrown. We will be there off and on for almost 4 months. We plan on travelling via ryanair (cheap flights- sometimes less than a euro!) to places we want to see in Europe. If you want to visit us in Ireland email me. We'd love to see some friends!