The Sanders Family Travels Abroad for a Year

Good to have you along for our year long adventures in Ireland and other countries. We are working, playing, and schooling amongst our neighbors in Carna, Ireland.

Please use control + to enlarge the blog, the photos look much better this way. As of March 2011, google has improved the presentation of the blog, the photos show much better now.

Carna is along the west coast on Ireland, a little over an hour's drive from Gallway. It is a pretty rural area, and it is rugged and beautiful, physically and culturally.

We will keep you updated with our life, as we settle into a coastal home and integrate into the community. Greg is working in a Family Practice clinic, mentored by Gerard Hooke, whom Greg worked with a few years ago, for many years, in Arlington, Washington state. Gerard and his wife Amanda have settled into this area a few years ago, and are beloved by the community. The clinic was started by Michael Casey, who worked here solo for many years. He now has 3 clinics in Galway county, where he shares his time.

Our 3 children are in the local schools,where the classes are taught in the Irish language, with some English as well. We are exploring Ireland, on weekend drives. Also, periodically we are hopping over to the mainland Europe, for longer adventures.



Tuesday, October 5, 2010

A Trip to Westport











Photos, top to bottom:
1,2- Connemara Mountains
3- Kilarny Fjord
4- Road sign
5- Westport, St Patrick statue, town centre
6- Westport
7- Guiness ad
8- Stephen Summer and Paris, in Westport
9- Stephen hiking above our house, coastline and islands
This past weekend, we drove thru some of the prettiest Irish countryside, in Connemara. Our destination was Westport. This town is located an hour north. It is larger than Clifden, which is our most common destination for stocking up, when we do not want to drive 1.5 hours to Galway. We say a beautiful rainbow (no gold), and stunning views of mountains and lakes. There was the Kilarny fjord, which is the only fjord in Ireland. Just a reminder, a fjord is a glacially made valley, now a salt water inlet. During WWII, a British and a German sub both sought safe harbor from an Alantic storm, going into the fjord. They agreed not to fight ech other while they were there, and they even dined together! The fjord is between the Mweelrea mountains, and the Twelve Bens, which are peaks in Connemera. Oscar Wilde described Connemara as "a place of savage beauty." We also saw a local hotel offering seaweed baths, for 25 euros.
We find that we all tend to get a little carsick, due to the bouncy winding roads, so we take a lot of breaks along the way. The terrain differs from Carna, it is much less rocky. I had begun to think that Ireland was only a lot of rocks. Prominent components of the rocks are limestone and granite. I don't know how they get them cleared out for farmland, I suspect they just leave the boulders.
Westport had plenty of shops to keep everyone happy. We enjoyed some fish and chips for lunch. Excellent local fish, and the chips are potato slices. The town's patron saint is St. Patrick, and one of the Twelve Bens is named after this Saint. Croagh Patrick is where pilgrims come from around the world to climb this mountain, many barefoot or on their knees. It is believed that the saint fasted here 40 days and 40 nights, and the mountain was crucial to his campaign to convert the Celtic people to Christianity. We saw Halloween costumes in the stores, firing the kid's imaginations. They were happy to hear that Halloween is celebrated in Ireland!
The prior day, Steve and I finally went hiking behind our house in Carna. There are miles of trails, and big hills to explore. We saw some lakes, which we will explore in the future. I included a photo of Steve, in front of the panoramic coastal view, from just above our house.
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