Monday, December 26, 2005

December 26 - St. Stephen's Boxing Day

December 26 is not a holiday in France, so I'm working. It IS, however, a holiday in Ireland. We were told that everything shuts down for 3 days after Christmas. I know for a fact that at least today everything is closed. I had to take a taxi to work and even the man's car wouldn't start.

St. Stephen's Day in Ireland
St. Stephen's Day honors the first Christian martyr, stoned to death shortly after the Crucifixion. St. Stephen's Day is a national holiday in Ireland, but the celebrations have little connection to the Saint.

In Ireland, St. Stephen's Day is the day for "Hunting the Wren" or "Going on the Wren." Originally, groups of small boys would hunt for a wren, and then chase the bird until they either caught it or it died from exhaustion. The dead bird was tied to the top of a pole or holly bush, which was decorated with ribbons or colored paper.

There are different legends about the origin of this custom. One is that St. Stephen, hiding from his enemies in a bush, was betrayed by a chattering wren. The wren, like St. Stephen, should be hunted down and stoned to death. The pursuit and capture of the wren is also related to the pagan custom of sacrificing a sacred symbol at year's end.

The custom of going on the wren fell into disfavor around the turn of the century, and died out completely in most parts of Ireland, but has been revived throughout much of the country. Wrens are no longer killed-- an artificial wren may be used, or a real wren may be carried about in a cage.The "Wren Boys" now include girls, and adults often accompany the young people. Folk costumes and traditional music and dancing are often part of going on the wren, and the money collected is often used for community or school projects.

Boxing Day

Despite the lively images suggested by the name, it does not gain its name from the overpowering need to rid the house of an excess of wrappings and mountains of now useless cardboard boxes the day after St. Nick arrived to turn a perfectly charming and orderly home into a maelstrom of discarded tissue paper.

The name also has nothing to do with returning unwanted gifts to the stores they came from, hence its common association with hauling about boxes on the day after Christmas.

The holiday's roots can be traced to Britain, where Boxing Day is also known as St. Stephen's Day. Reduced to the simplest essence, its origins are found in a long-ago practice of giving cash or durable goods to those of the lower classes. Gifts among equals were exchanged on or before Christmas Day, but beneficences to those less fortunate were bestowed the day after.

And that's about as much as anyone can definitively say about its origin because once you step beyond that point, it's straight into the quagmire of debated claims and dueling folklorists. Which, by the way, is what we're about to muddy our boots with.

Although there is general agreement that the holiday is of British origin and it has to do with giving presents to the less fortunate, there is still dispute as to how the name came about or precisely what unequal relationship is being recognized.

At various times, the following "origins" have been loudly asserted as the correct one:
• Centuries ago, ordinary members of the merchant class gave boxes of food and fruit to tradespeople and servants the day after Christmas in an ancient form of Yuletide tip. Those long-ago gifts were done up in boxes, hence the day coming to be known as "Boxing Day."
• Christmas celebrations in the old days entailed bringing everyone together from all over a large estate, thus creating one of the rare instances when everyone could be found in one place at one time. This gathering of his extended family, so to speak, presented the lord of the manor with a ready-made opportunity to easily hand out that year's stipend of necessities. Thus, the day after Christmas, after all the partying was over and it was almost time to go back to far-flung homesteads, serfs were presented with their annual allotment of practical goods. Who got what was determined by the status of the worker and his relative family size, with spun cloth, leather goods, durable food supplies, tools, and whatnot being handed out. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obligated to supply these goods. The items were chucked into boxes, one box for each family, to make carrying away the results of this annual restocking easier; thus, the day came to be known as "Boxing Day."
• Many years ago, on the day after Christmas, servants in Britain carried boxes to their masters when they arrived for the day's work. It was a tradition that on this day all employers would put coins in the boxes as a special end-of-the-year gift. In a closely-related version of this explanation, apprentices and servants would on that day get to smash open small earthenware boxes left for them by their masters. These boxes would house small sums of money specifically left for them.

Whichever theory one chooses to back, the one thread common to all is the theme of one-way provision to those not inhabiting the same social level. As mentioned previously, equals exchanged gifts on Christmas Day or before, but lessers (be they tradespeople, employees, servants, serfs, or the generic "poor") received their "boxes" on the day after. It is to be noted that the social superiors did not receive anything back from those they played Lord Bountiful to: a gift in return would have been seen as a presumptuous act of laying claim to equality, the very thing Boxing Day was an entrenched bastion against. Boxing Day was, after all, about preserving class lines.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

The week before Thanksgiving

On Thursday, Carol and I celebrated our 15th anniversary by eating out at the restaurant in Dun Laoghaire known as 40 foot. You can see the menu here (Word format). I had the monkfish and we shared a bottle of 2001 Chateauneuf du Pape

On Saturday, we took Sierra to a live taping of the Irish fashion show RTE Off the Rails - I don’t know what episode it will be, but other than the charity fashion show Dell put on in October, this was only the second show we’ve been to. And this show was surprisingly sedate by comparison, despite the fact the “fashion” shown was much more fashionable. On the way back, we stopped for scones and hot chocolate at Harry's café. Harry’s is a nice place around the corner from our house. Sierra passes it every day on the way to school. They recently made the Zagat’s list – one of only 3 cafes in Ireland to actually make the list.

Sunday we went, as usual, to the produce market at People’s Park, then walked along the harbour with Sierra’s friends, twins Eva and Susan.
Finally, we went to see the Harry Potter film, disappointing in most respects except the length. I’m really starting to appreciate the alternative writer Michael Gerber ...

Well, I had held off publishing this because I wanted to be able to post a picture of the Christmas lights along George's Street in Dun Laoghaire. Maybe I'll get one tonight.

Monday, November 07, 2005

A Week in France

Our trip to France coincided with the mounting unrest in various suburbs of Paris. We saw it on the news like most of the rest of France. And, like most of France, we didn't see any violence at all. Our trip was just fine. The weather was nice and we got to see some sights I had never been to before.

I've posted some photos on my online photo album - http://mangum.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php. The rest of this post is the story Sierra wrote about the trip. I only edited some spelling and punctuation:

Hi,
I'm Sierra and I want to tell you about my trip. Well at first we were on a train and Dad went to get Mom a Diet Coke at a stop and then we heard a beeping sound and the doors shut and Dad was trapped! But fortunately a man was outside and he signalled to the driver to open the doors.

Then when we got to Rosslare, they informed us that we have to wait 4 hours. So we went to the beach. The waves were going very high. Then our boat got there and when we got on it I was in heaven - almost. The carpet was beautiful. It goes up to eleven stories. And there was a game station with video games and a play pit, a cinema, a shopping centre, three resaurants and a bar with a lot of stairs and a man singing.

Or dorm wasn't so good. It was tiny - all there was was two bunks, a toilet, a shower, a shelf with very little space. First we got unpacked, then we went to the cinema and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was peaceful with the ship swaying side to side. Then we went to the resaurant and that was not good at all. I didn't take my motion sickness and I felt weird. Then Mom gave it to me - that's when it started. My stomach growled. It went mad. Some ugly little germ pushed the button - up and out. Dad got me the paper bag.

Then we got back to our dorm I had a lovely dream. It was about me and a famous gymnast called Monique. When I woke up I had breakfast. Then I got on the top deck and saw France. Then we took a train to Caen and it was late at night. Then we got a taxi and went to our hotel called Ibis. Then I was really in heaven. It was even more beautiful than a clean house, our boat, our train, People's Park, and the picture of the Mona Lisa. There was also a restaurant connected to it. First we got unpacked. The we went to La Storia and I had a wonderful Diavolo, which is a pizza with sausages, and an egg on it.

The next morning we went to the Peace Memorial. And I found out about the World War II. World War II is about a terrible man named Hitler who wanted to take over the world. But general Eisenhower wanted to stop war. And he kept his promise. After that he became President. Then he got elected again.

Then we got home. The next day we went to Tours and we went to castle tours. There was one in Caen, Chinon, Amboise, and I found out that I want to be like Leonardo Davinci, who was a famous man and made inventions and art and loved to do mathematics. He also made the Mona Lisa. Then we got on our boat and left France. We watched Herbie Fully Loaded.

And this was a really cool journey. I enjoyed it a lot.

Thanks

P.S. - I'm glad I'm home.

Friday, October 28, 2005

Halloween

We're leaving on Sunday to take the ferry from Wexford to Cherbourg, France (in Normandy). We plan to spend All Souls' Day at the Peace Memorial in Caen, and then travel by train to Tours (west of Paris) to tour some chateaux, wineries, gardens, and possibly see the spot where Joan of Arc met King Richard.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures I took of Sierra this morning. Going to school in the costume her mother made her.


Sunday, October 09, 2005

Online photo album

I was going to publish some photos to this blog site, but decided to try out an online photo album.

http://mangum.myphotoalbum.com/albums.php has a few pictures of our trip to the Dublin Zoo and to the Howth peninsula.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

A few pics

I finally managed to get these pictures downloaded from my camera.

Carol and Sierra on the double-decker bus.



Carol at St. Stephen's Green in Dublin



On the trail up Bray's Head.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Monday, August 29

Well, our household shipment arrived on Saturday. Imagine cramming the contents of a 3/2 house with garage into a 2/1 apartment with a small kitchen and what used to be a coal storage room for a garage. That's our life now. The furniture we bought over the years is oversized for this place and the boxes are creating a maze to navigate every morning. If the sparseness seemed improvrished before (I had saved a couple of boxes from my first shipment to use as "furniture" and we had a couple of lawn chairs), it now seems like a warehouse with floor to ceiling content.

The motherboard on my desktop blew, and the power supply on my laptop now pulses like a heart monitor. That partially explains the fact that I haven't posted in weeks. It at least explains why my camera's memory is still full. I blame the low quality of power here. Am researching a UPS and/or power scrubber.

Before our stuff arrived, Sierra had been really looking forward to getting started with her sewing projects. He has been dreaming up fashions for weeks, but lately her drawing has shifted to cartoons and portraits. Her style has taken on a very mature edge to it. She's experimenting with almost impressionistic exaggerations of features. I'll try to scan one and add it here.

This weekend was Dun Laoghaire's Festival of World Cultures We went to the crafts show and the outdoor concert of Ojo de Brujo. Carol was overwhelmed by the variety of nationalities here. On Sunday, Sierra got her face painted at People's Park.



Today was Sierra's first day at school - Domican Convent Primary School She had a great day and is really looking forward to the school year. She said she was the only non-Irish kid in her class.

Because her school is a Catholic school, she has to get baptised soon. We had to schedule an appointment to meet with Father Mangan, who is also the priest and on the board of directors of the school.

The night we visited him, he kept offering to refill our (his and my) glasses with brandy. In the end, I got drunk drinking brandy on a week night with the Irish priest who's going to baptise my daughter. For the record, Dan, it was Hennessey, because he had just come back from France. And for the record, I'll take Irish Catholic brandy-drinking priests over your hatred spewing Kool-Aid drinking Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News any day.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

The Irish Intellect (one point of view)

Carol and Sierra arrived on Saturday. I went to the airport on Saturday, but their flight was delayed 3 hours, so I ended up finishing Marcel Pagnol’s Manon des Sources at the airport waiting for them.

The trouble with Ireland is that it's a country full of genius, with absolutely no talent. -Hugh Leonard

" Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not: Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not: Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not: The world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. What we do in life echoes in eternity " - Calvin Coolidge



Kids I’ve seen here have an almost voracious curiosity, their eyes flash almost despite inquisitiveness (mixed with embarrassment for their bad haircuts). That curiosity seems to leave after a certain point, if only to revive in later life. The practice of continuing education (either professional or personal) is uncommon. There are far more bookmakers (betting parlors) than bookstores. There are more bars than cafes, and I swear the fact that I can’t get a decent cup of coffee here is a direct reflection of the level of intellectualism here. In terms of technology, few of us at work have yet to see a “computer store”, although there is a €900.00 Compaq at Tesco (on the shelf next to hair dryers). Cell phone stores are everywhere; CD and DVD stores are almost as common. “Software” consists almost entirely of video games. To get internet access at home, I had to complete an application and have it witnessed by a notary or a member of the police or clergy, who also has to be a customer of the same phone company.

Perhaps the best way to describe the educational system is from a booklet “Hint For Living In Ireland”:
School may pose the single most difficult adjustment for American families in Ireland. The standard of education is generally high, but it is not always parallel or transferable to the American system. One long-time American resident describes the Irish school system as a marriage of convenience between church and state; the distinction between private and public schools often seems fuzzy to outsiders. Both primary and secondary education are organized primarily on a denominational basis. Catholic or Church of Ireland authorities often own the grounds on which Catholic or Protestant schools are built. The church involved owns a percentage of the buildings but teachers’ salaries are paid from a government contribution made on a per student basis. In most primary schools the local clergyman or priest is the chairman of the Board of Management. Religion is taught as a subject in all schools. All Irish schools follow a national curriculum.
Children are rarely ability grouped; rather, the class tends to work together as a unit on most subjects. There is a very strong emphasis on English, Irish and arithmetic with very little time allocated to other subjects.
Results obtained on the Leaving Certificate Exam determine what Irish university a student can enter and what program of study he/she can pursue. University applicants are evaluated solely on the basis of points obtained on the exam; Irish universities do not see any transcript of their term-to-term performance in secondary school. In an Irish school, a C grade and numerical exam grades of 50-6-% are considered good grades. A grade of B is hard to earn and an A is rare indeed.

Personally, I think it is this co-mingling of religion and education that has the biggest effect on the intellectual life here. People mentally reject the religion because it was mandatory study, but accept the anti-intellectual bias of religion. In an effort to reclaim their Irish “roots”, Gallic was made mandatory in public schools. Adults will say they spent 8-10 years studying the language but can’t remember more than a few phrases. They didn’t choose to learn it, the study of it was forced on them, and so they mentally reject it.


But none if this explains why I can’t get a good coffee here. This was at Bewley's Cafe on Grafton street. Nice presentation, but the same disappointment.

Sunday, July 10, 2005

The Irish in Ireland (one point of view)

I had thought to spend some time describing the Irish people. I will have to split this up into several sections, and I've decided to do so along the lines of my own philosophy - body, mind, and soul, and will talk about each section in turn.

Physically, people are are a lot less homogeneous than you might think. Of course there are red-heads with freckles, but they are striking because of their rarity. Most folks are pale complected with dark hair. Tanning salons and especially the spray on tans are fairly common here; the color looks pretty good, but the uniforrmity and perfection of the effect reveals its artificiality.

Old folks here look about the same as anywhere, if somewhat more cheerful. I wouldn't say there is a reverence for elders here, but I do think they're more able to age gracefully and with great dignity. And the social system is set up so that almost no one is left destitute.

This being Europe, I expected the populace to be in better shape than they are. While outright obesity is rare, the majority are actually a bit overweight. It's easy to tell that if they didn't have to walk as much as they do that many of them would be outright obese. Even so, the fitness center is not planning any expansion in the near future; I've never seen more than 10 people on the field of aerobic machines that occupies the ground floor.

The fashion for girls right now seems to be those oddly faded, ill-fitting, hip constricting, low-riding jeans that look time consuming to put on and painful to wear. Very few of the bodies should be so encased, as the tight, low waistline simply causes the flab to reveal itself more in the overflow. They do some interesting things with layers of clothing - colors, fabrics, sleeve and hem length. Hair styles tends to be natural - those with curly hair leave it curly and usually long, those with straight hair leave it straight and hack it up for the most part. I saw some manequins in a store window whose hair looked like a Barbie doll after a couple of weeks of rough play. I think the weather prevents anyone from making too much of a fuss about their hair.

The fashion for guys, such as it ever is, consists of the shirt collar half pulled up - not James Dean rebellion, but rather rumpled nonchalance. They wear a lot of fashionable sweats (which they call track suits) or soccer shirts with jeans. Most guys have short hair that shows they don't pay much for haircuts. Most of the yound kids have painfully bad haircuts - the kind you get as punishment or that look like your dad was drunk when he cut your hair, and their eyes show their embarassment. Luckily, most of the other kids have really bad haircuts, too, so it works out. Very little facial hair; men of all ages shave regularly. There is a guy at the internet cafe who looks just like Ben Affleck's little brother, but with a bad hair cut.

The faces of the people are hard to describe without sounding like a budding writer. The good-looking women I would have to call handsome. There is a hardness of the brow and jawline, and a darkness in their eyes that defies cuteness, and some of them have a sly look, like they're trying to keep from laughing at some joke you didn't hear. I found this excerpt from an Irish folk tale: “He could not say the face was beautiful; it was too strong, too austere for beauty,… gold-brown eyes stared back at him from under thick straight brows. The lips were full but firmly held, the chin strong under cheeks that were slightly hollowed by high cheekbones. “
The not so good looking ones, well, do you remember when you were a kid and the grown-ups would tell you not to make those faces because your face would get stuck that way? Guess what, they may have been right. Some have a look of bewilderment or confusion or slight disgust. Others have faces that are pulled down, not in sadness, but in that contortion you get right before a good hard sneeze. (think Vincent Schiavelli in Ghost) When I'm out on the street, they always remind me to smile. Not everyone takes great care of their skin, and many have aged beyond their years. Note to self: always use lotion or suncreen in the morning, even if it's not going to be hot; it's the kind of thing you can't go back and do later. Also, I've basically quit drinking since I got here. Ironic, isn't it? It's not some sort of morality play - I've just seen what it does physically to the people who drink a lot (and there are a lot of people who drink a lot). In their faces, their bodies, their skin tone, their musculature. Besides, I'm experimenting with meditation techniques and lucid dreaming, both of which alcohol interferes with.

So, there it is. Remember to smile. Go easy on the drink. But whatever you take away from this, take my advice about the sunscreen.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

So, what’s the weather like in Ireland?

Today was cool in the morning, then rainy, then sunny, then sunny and windy, then rainy and windy, then partly sunny with light showers. From what I’ve seen, the clouds tend to stay pretty low, so the rain comes and goes fairly quickly. We’re on an island and on the coast of the Irish Sea west of England, so the temperature is going to remain fairly constant throughout the year – not too hot in the summer, cold but not terribly so in the winter. I’ve learned to have with me at all times a jacket, an umbrella, and sun screen.

http://www.ireland.com/weather/cam.htm
http://www.visitdublin.com/weather/

I remember the year I spent in Monterey, CA where we called it “perpetual autumn”. One day I biked 30 miles to Salinas for a rodeo. Coming back it was so hot and even the top of my head got sunburned. But over the last three miles to the Presidio at the top of Monterey Peninsula, the temperature dropped 30 degrees and by the time I got there I was cold.

The temperature here has been consistently around 17-20° C (65-70°F). They say it seldom gets above 25, but also that it hardly ever freezes in the winter. I had to turn the heater on in the apartment the other day – not because it was cold, but because I had just done a load of laundry and it wouldn’t dry otherwise.

I finished Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man yesterday. My second shipment of personal goods arrived today, which included the copy of Finegan’s Wake I bought with the Barnes & Nobles gift certificate Tania and Matt gave me. I also visited the local library just down the street from Sierra’s school. They have a good selection and even have a surprisingly good collection of foreign language literature. When I came out, the sun was shining from the west, but gray clouds were coming from the north and a light rain chased me home.

Saturday, July 02, 2005

Moved to Dun Laoghaire

I moved out of the apartment in south Dublin and into the one in Dun Laoghaire. Everything is very convenient from this location. The Crunch Fitness Center is around the corner, right across from the Dart station. Two streets over is the Dominican Convent Primary School where Sierra will go to school. And right down the road from that is the public library build by Dale Carnegie in 1912.

Dun Laoghaire is really a suburb of Dublin, and is still in Dublin country. You can see from this map the geographic location in relation to Dublin.

I took a taxi to work on Friday and my driver, who turned out to be a neighbour, told me the basic history of this once small fishing village.
Dún Laoghaire gets its name from the Irish Translation, Fort (Dún) of Laoghaire. King Laoghaire was the ancient High King of Ireland before the Vikings arrived. When the English came they renamed the town Dunlary (Dunleary) to suit the English tongue. In 1821 it was renamed Kingstown by King George IV of England to honour his visit to the town that year. It remained Kingstown through Victorian times until in 1921, one year before independence, the town council voted to change the name back to the ancient Irish name Dún Laoghaire.

The apartment is the garden level section of a 3 story townhouse built in the 1850’s for the British admiralty. My landlord is none other than the “Dun Laoghaire Borough Old Folks Association”. They split the townshouse in two and rent out the top floor of both sides as well as our side of the ground level. The middle level was left intact and serves as the Old Folks Association’s meeting area. It’s a 2/1 with a porch leading out to the garden. The rooms were larger than I was mentally bracing for and the location is absolutely perfect.


The first thing I did upon moving to Dun Laoghaire was to join the Crunch Fitness Center – easily the nicest “gym” I’ve been in. I bought a copy of James (Seamus) Joyce’s A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, having finished A Brief History of Ireland in French.

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Musical Night Life

Apparently, June 21 is Le Jour de Musique in France. This year it was on a Tuesday, so I ended up at the Café en Seine in Dublin . None of the sites I’ve found really do this place justice. It’s the kind of place I would never have thought to go into if the French people I work with hadn’t invited me. Really very nice. I hope to take Carol there someday for lunch; it’s a café during the day and a bar at night.

On Friday, Dell paid for a night out for all the server teams at Johnny Fox’s Pub – the highest pub in Ireland. Technically, geographically, it was the most altitudinous pub on the island. The décor was a bit over the top, but it worked for this place. They managed to pack so many people in by putting the tables in long rows and close together. Forced congeniality at its best. You can see from their web site that they specialize in seafood. I’d have to say their real speciality was entertainment.

The “headliners” were a 4 member band consisting of two young guys playing guitar and banjo, an older man on bass, and an old skinny Irishman in a beret on violin – all playing traditional Irish folk music. The intermission entertainment was a group of dancers – 2 guys and 3 girls doing what I suppose was traditional Irish folk dancing. If you can let go of the cliché for a second, it resembled somewhat the River Dance – a combination of ballet, tap, and clogging. The girls kept running off to change costume, which I found a bit excessive. The 2 guys were pretty good and didn’t seem terribly self-absorbed. It’s not until you see them up close and watch the feet that you realize how complex that style of dance really is.

Anyway, the band came back and played again. To describe the most striking song of the night requires that I set the scene. I’m sitting with the French techs; at the end of our table are the Spanish. Past the Spanish in the corner are the Italians, and behind us all, against the wall are the Germans. The rest of the place is filled with either Irish locals or British tourists. I’m sitting next to a really cool bald-headed Algerian named Kalid. Having set the scene, I’ll now tell that the song played by the afore-described band is none other than Four Non-Blondes’ “What’s Going On?” Not only everyone around me, but even the middle-aged British tourists across the room are all singing the lyrics at the top of their lungs.

Getting back to Dublin was going to be tricky. At that hour, the trains and buses had all stopped running, and there was some question of whether or not the taxis were going into Dublin – not because of the time, but because of the massive traffic jams from people coming to Dublin for U2’s concerts. I shared a taxi with two French techs who are staying in the same apartment complex as me.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Transportation & Accomodations

People have been asking me about my living accomodations over here. Dell has provided me with an apartment in east Dublin, across from the greyhound race tracks. See this map from http://www.softguides.com/dublin/maps/centre.html To get to work, I walk to the Dart station at Landsdown and take the train into Dun Laoghaire. Dun Laoghaire is the small town (pop. 200,000) where I’m moving next week. I walk up the road half a block to the bus stop and take the either the 7 or the 111 to Cherrywood on the south end of Dun Laoghaire. Most of the buses are double-decker and if you pay by coin you have to tell the driver how far you want to go. I buy a week pass at the SPAR (Ireland’s 7-11).

It’s in waiting for either the train or the bus that I waste the most time. Each trip (bus or train) only takes 20 minutes, but if I don’t time it right, I end up waiting 10-20 minutes for each. That combined with the walking means I spend easily 1:30 one way. Needless to say, I have a lot of time to read.

Cars here are small. That 2 door GEO Metro I drove for a few years would be on the large side or average over here. I’m not kidding. Ford makes a newer 2 door Ka that kind of slopes forward over the back wheels. There is an older Nissan model (Micra) that is really small, but the winner has to be the Daewoo Matiz ; it’s probably 70% the size of the GEO Metro. I’ve only seen one Smart Car, but it seemed large compared to the DaeWoo.

Oh yeah, they drive on the left hand side of the road. It’s not the driving that throws you off (not that I can speak from experience) – it’s walking around. You’re always looking out for cars in the wrong direction.

Books I’ve read since arriving:

Marc Bloch l’Etrange Défaite

Gregg Easterbrook The Progress Paradox

Morgan Spurlock Don’t Eat This Book

Merrill Chapman In Search of Stupidity

John Kay The Truth About Markets

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Dublin - International City

My temporary apartment is on the east side of Dublin, just across a canal from the greyhound race tracks. Dell is letting me stay there for a month while my rental in Dun Laoghaire is finalized. (By the way, if you want to know how tight the real estate market is in Ireland, check out www.daft.ie. A majority of the other users of the Internet cafe I frequent are playing tag team on the phone and using daft.ie to locate a place to live before it gets rented out from underneath them. Unfurnished places are a lot harder to find than furnished). I took the bus into the city today. As I was coming in, it struck me how international this place is. There are always lots of people walking on the sidewalks, but today a couple of groups caught my eye. Heading one direction was a group of pre-adolescents from South America, all wearing matching yellow backpacks. In the other direction was a group of mixed age women wearing matching black t-shirts personalized for each of them. The two groups didn't pass each other so much as blended together for a moment before emerging from the other side.

The internet cafe I like to go to is run by a group of Africans. I often hear French and Italian there, some Russian, but mostly Slavic languages I can't understand. Some of the stations have video cameras, and some people teleconference there.

On the streets, you hear all sorts of languages. Because of the proximity to water, there are a lot of Philipinos here - merchant marines and their families. It's summertime, so a lot of the people I'm seeing are on vacation - especially the French.

Dublin is home to Trinity College but is too big to be influenced by the students into becoming a college town. Still, when school is in, I'm sure there are a lot of foreign students there, too.

The weather today is nice. I might try to get a sandwich and hang out at St. Stephen's Green. I still haven't found a really good coffee shop here, yet.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

A Place For Thoughts

Well, I'm in Ireland. So, of course, the template for this blog site would have to be green.

I hope to use this site to post notes and pictures of our sojourn in Ireland. Right now, I just want to get something posted.

As far as internet access goes, it's not as direct as we're used to in the states. Even getting a phone line is not necessarily automatic. The apartment I found in Dun Laoghaire still had a box for the ISDN line the previous tenant used. So, I'll probably be typing my stuff on a laptop at home (which has the French version of Windows XP and a different keyboard layout), save to a USB drive, and then post them at an internet café.

Anyway, that's the idea. That and the reduction of spam.

Enjoy