Life in Ireland

Summer,Stephen and Paris in Galway







The Sunday Irish Times is great. It reminds me of the Sunday NY Times, in that it is large and full of many well authored in depth articles on Irish life, at all angles. It is like reading a book, so I literally enjoy it all week. The viewpoints are of a European perspective. They have their conservative and liberal perspectives. There is minimal if any discussion about what is going on in the states. The last coverage of the US, to any extent, was of that southern priest that was threatening to burn the Koran.


Interestingly, the newspaper is physically larger, with wider pages, than say the USA Today. I kind of like a giant newspaper, it beats the Kindle. Everything else over here is smaller than in the US. The paper towels are about 8 inches high. The TP is smaller with a giant wide cardboard tube, so you get less. Food is packaged smaller, so I am loosing weight (that is good). An exception are the Kleenexes. They are huge. They could hold a cows sneeze. I recently caught my 1st cold in a year, after seeing 5-10 URI's a day for 2 weeks, as school started, all in my 1 exam room. Some Euro virus I was not immune to. I love these giant Kleenexes. In the US, if you use one, you can blow a hole in it. Here they are thicker and bigger. One does it all.


I recently had a mother talking about her toddler's nappy. I had no idea what this was, until she explained that it was a diaper. They are even labeled such, and there is nappy cream, for diaper rashes. Another term for a productive cough which is a cough with phlegm, is a "chesty cough".
Recycling here is taken for granted. Our waste volume is down about 75%. You always provide your own bag at the store, otherwise you are doing a juggling act carrying everything to the car.
The ear speculum's are cleaned and reused at my clinic.


There are environmental issues surrounding the famous Irish bogs and their turf. The turf is thousands of years old. It compresses into a thick dark substance containing a lot of carbon, many feet thick. It can be dug up, and burned. This has been a common practice, as I have not seen a lot of trees on this rocky island. This turf can be commercially scraped up, and sold. People burn it to warm their houses. They otherwise use oil for heat. There is concern about the effects of taking this land covering. I read about an early Christianity book that was recently discovered, well preserved, in the bog, about 1,500 years old.


The kids still like their schools. I hear about them indirectly from their classmates who come into the clinic, as well as from their parents, and sometimes even their teachers, that I run into here and around town. That is what life is like here, everybody knows about everybody. We recently had dinner out, and the other Dr. already knew about it at the clinic the next morning. Our children remark how they are treated well by the other school kids, which was not always the case in the US. The schools are a lot smaller here, which could be some of the reason for this.


The hardest part is that the classes are mainly taught in Irish. There is some explanation in English too, but not as much. Justine spends time helping them at night, making sure the concepts are understood. We always thought the academics will not be as important as the other tangibles this year. They are immersed in another culture for this year, an invaluable life experience.


European TV is quite more relaxed than in the US. The everyday program language can burn your ears. Justine and I have felt like sending the kids out of the room a few times. The first day of school, all our children commented on how the kids used the "F" word in their everyday language. That would come from their parents. However, it is not used in front of the teachers, or here in the clinic. It is well versed in the pubs, as imagined. I talk to one of the local store owners almost daily, on milk, etc runs, and he says this vocabulary change was not evident during his school years. Things are changing.

We got our first mail recently. The mailman drove up, opened the front door said hi to a startled Justine, dropped the mail on the couch, closed the door and took off.