An adventure to the West - Ireland Day 2

After our very full day in Dublin, my friend and I took a bus tour out toward the West of Ireland.

The day started off on an odd note.  Our first rest break was at a place called the Obama centre.  Originally both my friend and I assumed that it was an Irish town or thing that happened to have the same sounding name as the current US President.  Turns out we were wrong.  We were legitimately stopping at the Barack Obama centre in Monygall Ireland.  When we entered the building there were pictures of his face all over the building.  You could buy souvenir pencils with his name on them, souvenir key chains of his face.  We found out the reason there was a Barack Obama centre, is because Obama has Irish heritage from that part of Ireland and in 2011 he came to visit.  So naturally to honour him, they built him a truck stop.

But then in the Obama centre things got even weirder.  We walked in and the first shop we saw was Tim Horton's!  In my year and a half being in Scotland/Europe I have never seen a Tim Horton's.  So being the two good Canadians that we are, it was pretty obvious we had to buy food from Tim's.  Unfortunately Roll Up the Rim hasn't made it to Ireland yet.

Hot Chocolate and a Boston Cream

After our adventure at the Obama centre, we continued our journey toward the Cliffs of Moher.  The Cliffs are Moher are spectacular cliffs that stretch for 8km along the Atlantic Ocean and at their highest point are 702 feet.  As we got closer and closer to the cliffs it started to get really foggy.  Finally we stopped and it was so foggy we didn't even realize we were in the parking lot.  The tour guide told us that we wouldn't be able to see the cliffs and gave us a ticket for the interactive cliffs experience in the visitor centre.  But my friend and I decided to try our luck and see if we might be able to catch a glimpse of some of the cliffs.  Well our tour guide was right.  We saw essentially nothing.

You can almost see a cliff

Apparently there are cliffs there

Since we didn't get to see the cliffs, the tour took us to lower ground to try and see their bases.  We could almost see them, but definitely not what we had hoped for.  But realistically its Irish weather, could we really expect it to be nice and sunny?  My friend and I now have a joke that we can say we have been to the Cliffs of Moher but we can't say we have seen the Cliffs of Moher.

The outline of the Cliffs in the distance

After the cliffs our next stop was the Burren.  The Burren is 250 square km of rolling limestone hills and flatlands. It was incredibly stark but also incredibly beautiful.  Opposite the Burren we were also able to get a view of the Atlantic Ocean.  The waves were huge, with nothing between Newfoundland and Ireland to stop them.

We continued on from the Burren toward Galway along a road called the Wild Atlantic Way.  Our tour guide suggested not attempting to read while on this road because it is so twisty and hilly that people often get car sick.  The road goes along the Atlantic coast resulting in some spectacular views.  The road is also quite narrow, with a pretty impressive drop on the one side into the ocean.  We were going along quite happily until we met another tour bus in a fairly narrow section.  The two busses couldn't get passed each other.  So our bus driver started backing up the Wild Atlantic Way.  I would like to point out that at this point in the road, we were on the ocean side, with a road shoulder of maybe a foot and a half, followed by probably a 50 foot drop into the ocean.  So it was quite tense on the bus.  After backing up for 5-10 minutes they finally found a spot where the two buses could pass. Our bus driver deserved a ton of credit.  I wouldn't have wanted to back up a car around the corners and hills that he had to, let alone a full sized bus.

We made it to Galway without any further adventures.  Our tour guide gave us a walking tour of Galway and then we had a bit of time to ourselves to explore.  We had dinner at a really cute little restaurant which had phenomenal fish and chips.  After that, we headed back to Dublin.

We flew back to Edinbugh Monday morning at 6:30 so my friend could go to work and I could make it to my lectures.  I will admit that wasn't the most alert I have ever been for lectures.

4:30am Dublin

Although the weather was definitely not in our favour we had a really fun time in Ireland.

Dublin - Ireland Day 1

After a very difficult exam Friday, a friend and I flew to Dublin, Ireland Friday night for a weekend away.

We arrived in Dublin around 10pm, checked into our hostel and then decided to go out for a walk.  We walked about the Temple Bar area.  It is essentially a few blocks of wall to wall bars and pubs.  When we walked through it around 10:30 there were people everywhere and the streets were packed. Clearly the place to be on a Friday night.

View from my hostel bed

The next day we got up quite early and started touring around Dublin.  Our first stop was the Samuel Beckett Bridge.  It was designed to look like a harp, the national symbol of Ireland.

Our next stop was Trinity College.  We walked around the outside of the campus for a while.  We then decided to pay to enter the Book of Kells exhibit and look at the Old College Library.  The Book of Kells is from the 9th century and is an intricately decorated copy of the four Gospels of Jesus.  Random fact: It took 185 calf skins to make the Book of Kells.  The detail that went into making the book was incredible.  And the library was stunning.  It may have been my favourite stop of the whole trip.

Trinity College 

Trinity College Courtyard

The Old Library

The Old Library

The Old Library

The weather on Saturday was very rainy.  So after Trinity College we decided to grab some food and head back to the hostel to try and dry up a bit.  Once we finished we headed back out with the plans of going to look at two different churches.  That's when things got interesting.  As we were walking from our hostel toward the turn off that headed in the direction of the church, we noticed a ton of police followed by a huge number of people.  It turns out we managed to end up in the middle of a protest!  Throughout history, Irish citizens haven't had to pay for water, but now they do.  So this was a protest against the water charge ahead of their upcoming election next week.  My friend and I watched for a bit with the assumption that the line of people would come to an end fairly quickly.  But boy were we wrong!  After a while we gave up and ended up having to cut through the protesters to get where we wanted to go.  Good thing we didn't try and wait them out because they estimate there were 20 000 people marching!

Following the police ahead of the protestors

Here they come!

St Patrick's Cathedral

After our church exploration we headed to Dublin castle to look around.

Dublin Castle

Dublin Castle Gardens

After looking around the outside of the castle we headed towards the main shopping street.  That's when we ran into the protest again.  But this time, it was the final meeting place where they were listening to speeches so we ended up having to walk the long way around them because there was no way through.  We then strolled through St Stephen's green, stumbled across the famous Doors of Dublin and finished our touring with an impromptu stop at the Irish Natural History Museum.  

All the doors along the street had unique plaster work and
were painted many different colours

After our long day of walking we were very tired.  According to my friend's phone we walked almost 18km over the course of the day.  So for dinner we found a nice pub that seemed to be pretty popular with the locals and a little less touristy.  We both did the proper Irish thing and had a pint of Guinness with our irish meals, Lamb Stew and Shepherd's Pie.  It was a nice finish to a very full day.

I will post about our Sunday Ireland adventures in another post!

The Halfway(ish) Ball

Well, I am four and a half weeks into the new semester.  We have already completed our muscles and bones unit, our gastrointestinal system unit, our urinary unit, half of soft tissue surgery, hematology and we start ophthalmology tomorrow.

We have also had a couple practicals including bandaging and wrapping a horse leg.  It involves multiple layers of four different types of bandaging material.  I got complimented that my bandage looked like it would stay on and that you could actually see the shape of the horse leg through the bandage, meaning I applied pressure evenly throughout.  Considering my serious lack of equine experience compared to a lot of my classmates I was petty pleased!

We had a small animal practical which involved skills you might need in an emergency.  We did things like CPR on a dummy dog and cat, put an IV catheter in a fake vein, put an endotracheal tube in a dummy dog, and put in a urinary catheter in a male dog, using a hole punched in a hot dog as a model.

A few weekends ago was the Halfway Ball.  For the people in the four year program like myself, our halfway point of vet school will be the end of this semester.  But since most of our class is in the five year program, the Christmas break was their official halfway point.  The night was about getting all dressed up and celebrating surviving vet school so far.  The night was comprised of a nice three course dinner (complimented by half a bottle of wine per person, they certainly love their drink here!) and a traditional ceilidh.  A ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) is a type of group Scottish dancing led by a live band.  Before each dance they give you a super brief instruction on the dance and then send you on your way!  It was an all around fantastic night.

Two weekends ago a friend and I went for a hike in the Pentlands.  The Pentland Hills are 10 hills just outside Edinburgh.  The vet campus is actually nestled into the hills.  My friend and I chose to hike the hill closest to the city so we could have a view of the city and the Firth of Forth.  The view from the hill was spectacular, albeit very very windy!  On the way down we came across a herd of Highland cattle.  So, being the vet student and animal lover that I am and my friend who is also a huge animal fan, we probably spent more time with the cows than on the hills.

View of the city

Made it to the top!

You can see Arthur's Seat in the background 

My new favourite cow picture.  So glad I took my new camera with me!

Lastly, unfortunately last week my cat who was 19 years old passed away.  When my parents phoned to say our cat was sick, it never occurred to me it would be Tache.  I just assumed it was our other cat Kitty who has been looking his age for quite some time now.  Just this Christmas, Tache was ripping ribbons off the presents, stealing food off plates and showing the dogs who was in charge.  But I guess her old age finally caught up with her.  When I decided to go to Scotland for university I knew that there was a chance that I would miss important family and life events at home.  Now I am not saying I regret my decision one bit to come here, I just wish I could have been at home to properly say goodbye.  So in tribute to Tache, here are a few pictures of the cat that ruled the house.

Best Friends

Telling Mars who was in charge from an early age

Getting some extra greens!

Reminding Jenny, she decides when Jenny can go in and out of the house