Bank Holiday Weekend

So turns out this was a long weekend! No work on Monday meant it was completely necessary for me to rent a car again to do some exploring! This time I went straight west across the country to Galway, with a stop along the way at the Rock Of Cashel, a ferry ride to one of the Aran Islands, and New Grange on the way back! I'll explain more about each place with the pics. Overall it was an amazing weekend. Galway is really nice. I would recommend it as a main travel site to anyone going to Ireland. It is really beautiful and is pretty close to a lot of the most popular tourist sites. One fallback was since it was a holiday weekend and Galway is a popular destination, EVERYWHERE I attempted to stay on Saturday night was booked! I ended up sleeping in my car at the end of a culdesac near downtown. Now, this would have been fine and dandy if I hadn't suffered a heart attack when some random guy leaned up against the car at about 3 in the morning and started shouting to one of his friends. I had visions of them choosing my car with me in it for vandelizing or stealing. Turns out he was just drunk and after *ahem* relieving himself....he took off! Ah, good times! So Sunday I wanted to make sure I did something really amazing to make my sleeping in the car worth the hassle. I ended up booking a ticket on a ferry to the Aran Island of Inishmore. It is the largest of the Aran Islands off the West coast of the country. The island is ten miles long, three miles across, and has over 10,000 miles worth of stone fences! I think from the air it must look like an intricate puzzle of grass surrounded by jagged fences. The best part was visiting a fort that is literally at the edge of a cliff. It was breathtaking and made the whole trip worthwhile to see these cliffs! I haven't seen the cliffs of Mohr yet, but think these might be hard to beat in the "wow" department! After riding the ferry back Sunday evening I decided not to risk it again in the car and drove back to Dublin for the night (its only 2.5 hours away). It was definitely nice to sleep in a bed! What? I'm a princess you know! Anyway, I took my flatmate Sam's advice on Monday and visited New Grange. It is a site which dates back to the stone ages, 500 years older than the pyramids and 1000 years older than Stonehenge! Anyway, it is basically a mound they built with ancient tunnels and tombs within. There is a light window above the entry way that lights up the central chamber for a little over 15 minutes at sunrise on the winter solstice. Pretty amazing! I couldn't take pictures inside, but it was really cool. This site was discovered in 1699 and has had visitors since then... and there are names and dates from back that far! But the monument itself is also decorated from when it was originally made, and the drawings make up 1/3 of all the artwork in the world from this time known as of now! Nobody knows what they represent. The whole place was very mysterious, with little answers given to anything....kinda interesting to let your mind wander!

This is New Grange...its literally a rock mound with tomb passages and whatnot within.

Check out the designs on the rocks. They completely surround all the structures and nobody knows what they represent.

This is a wood henge...it was assembled much later than the intricate tombs, but is thought to represent the earth, moon, and sun based on the shapes of square, crescent, and circle which the logs form.

This is actually Howth, which is another tomb like New Grange. They are all over the Boylan Valley north of Dublin. Some haven't even been explored yet even though they know they're there. Its crazy to me to hear that.

This little cottage is where I had some soup to warm up on Inishmore. Cute little thatched roof!

Amazing cliffs to my left....

Hey its me!

There's a person in this one...which should give a reference to how incredibly high the cliffs were!

Here is one of the rock walls that are literally everywhere on the island!

This is one of the "seven sisters" churches from the 1500s or so on Inishmore

On to some pics of Galway. I liked these colorful buildings

Church in Galway

The streets are empty b/c I was up so early after having spent the night in the car!

Pics of Rock of Cashel now...its actually an assembly of four different buildings in one area. The tower was the first, then the cathedral (directly to its left in the pic) then there was an additional church built on the other side of that, and finally a palace to the rear. It was a good location b/c it is on a hill and you can see far in all directions.

On the drive to the Rock of Cashel. You can see the castle in the distance. Amazing!

Inside part of the castle...there are little heads all around the doorway. Each has a different look to represent the different cultures around the world (37 total)

This is the side of the castle which is the palace. It collapsed a few years ago in a storm. You can see stairways in the walls for secret passageways!

the church (fourth building on the rock). It is apparently famous for its architecture...advanced for the time (early roman)

The Rock of Cashel

internship emotional rollercoaster

So today was a mixed day on the healthcare front...bad news first...we lost one of our patients last night. I don't know if I wrote about his situation yet, but originally he had a cerebellar stroke about two weeks ago. From that he had difficulties walking and with depth perception in judging distances, but still was discharged from the hospital to the rehab unit (he had a very good chance of living independently again.) Then, he suffered another stroke last weekend, more massive, and never really woke up. He was transferred back to our acute area of the hospital, and he passed away last night. Sad stuff. The worst part was seeing his family all come in and say their goodbyes. My thought was that he was soooo focused on being able to live alone after the first one that maybe when he had the second one a part of him knew he would never fully recover to living the life he was so used to.
So the up part of the day was two of my patients had amazing breakthroughs! One is a man who had a CVA last December and has been on a wait list for a nursing home ever since (one of the the down parts of socialized medicine...EVERYONE is on a waiting list for something!) He has had absolutely no return of his L arm until today! He suddenly had a small amount of finger movement, and could move his wrist and elbow in gravity eliminated planes! It was amazing, and also strange b/c you would expect the shoulder to come first and recovery to happen proximally to distally not the other way around. He didn't even realize it was so great because to him its still not good enough (he thinks he will drive again if he gets his hand use back!) So hopefully that breakthrough will give him motivation to keep working hard while he's at the hospital. The other good news was one of my patients in the ICU got moved out to a normal ward and is able to have conversations with people! He went from barely being conscious to acting like a new person overnight. That's pretty cool to see.
I don't know if I'm emotionally stable enough to work in an acute setting! So many highs and lows to cope with while having to help others cope as well...but this is definitely a great experience for me to get to be a part of and I think I'm doing a pretty good job (guess we'll see in a few weeks at midterm to be certain!)

Oktoberfest & Dublin Castle tour

I caught wind that there was an Oktoberfest going on near the docklands, so I figured I needed to go check it out! Bridget from work came with me too. It was pretty interesting...tons of food, music, and people who I could tell had been drinking awhile already when we got there shortly after noon. We just had lunch, but if you wanted a place to waste a day getting wasted...this was it! After that we walked around some shops and whatnot, and then took a tour of the Dublin Castle. That was pretty much it for my tourism this weekend! It was nice though!




Had to do it!

The grill hung over the fire and swung around! Brilliant! Good food too!

check out that smile...thanks for the bun that fit :)

In the Dublin Castle, our tourguide pointed out the symbol of the harp...its the hospitality symbol of Ireland.

The back of the castle yards. This was where the original 'black pool' was when I think it was the Vikings were here...anyway, its where the name Dublin came from.

The King's Throne. You can't really tell in this pic, but it is HUGE! At least three people could sit in it no problem.

The chandelier in the throne room is decorated with roses to represent Britain, thistles to represent Scotland, and Shamrocks to represent Ireland.

This was the dining room when the palace was used for dinner parties. There would have been a table that fit the length of the entire room!

I thought this was clever...this is the other wall of the dining room. From where he sat the King could look in those mirrors and see everyone at the table.

Bridget also showed me some of her favorite places in Dublin, including St. Stephen's Park, which this is the entrance gate to. Funny thing is Bridget is from South Africa and after coming here often for a year she found out this gate was dedicated to all the Irish who lost their lives fighting in South Africa!

In St. Stephen's Park

This table was in the Dublin Castle, and it was made by one of the prisoners as a gift to Queen Victoria in hopes of getting set free. She kept the table but still executed the prisoner b/c of the demonic carvings in the corners of the table.

This room was where all the ladies would sit and wait to be asked to dance during the balls. Wallflower room if you will...

Humor in Cultural Differences....

Its pretty amusing to me when I have absolutely no idea what therapists are talking about b/c of their different ways of calling things. Here's a story for ya: we've been seeing this guy in the ICU for a few days because his hands have been really swollen for no apparent reason. Anyway, I go in to work the other day and asked how "Colin" fared over the weekend. She goes "well, actually he took a turn for the worse so they had to take him to the theater!" I gave her a confused look and go..."the theater is supposed to make him better?" and she goes "oh yeah, depending on what went wrong with him." I was still not getting it. Here I was thinking what theater did they take him to? the auditorium to listen to a lecture or something? how strange! Anywho, turns out the "theater" is an operating room. Now it all made perfect sense! Theres things like that sometimes that really crack me up. Another time, one of the therapists couldn't remember my name when she was introducing me to someone, and she guessed Carmel! Carmel?! WHAT?! I thought that was a hilarious mishap, but turns out its actually a name here so they didn't think it was as funny as I did! Ok, thats all for now!

The Rest of the Road Trip

Here's my trusty steed. I call her Blue Belle and she is my friend! Driving wasn't acually that hard...just had to constantly remind myself to stay on the left side of the road. I pretty much just followed other cars. I stalled a handful of times, but it was a success overall!

On a little island south of Cork. I drove around the whole thing trying to find the highway...woops! It was pretty though so its ok!

A castle I encountered from a sign posted by the road. It was after visiting hours so I stole this pic from the road.

A town near Dublin called Enniscorthy.

This is a sweet lookout over a golf course in Wicklow, which is directly south of Dublin.

My room in the B&B!





This was actually taken from the roof of the Blarney castle.
These are some pics of the countryside on my drive down the coast...

After seeing Blarney Castle, kissing the stone, and walking the grounds I decided I was going to need to spend the night somewhere because I wouldn't have time to do all my sightseeing I wanted to do on the way back to Dublin...not enough daylight! So I drove toward the coast until the sun went down and stayed in a fabulous little bed and breakfast. It was a beautiful house from the 1800s with authentic furniture and everything!

Then this morning I woke up bright and early to get a jump start on my day of driving and stopping as I saw fit. Too bad for me it was really foggy so it made my seaside drive not quite what I was hoping for. It was still breathtaking with the green covered cliffs and hills though! I drove through quite a few little villages, which were amazing because they each had pretty ornate churches or castles and were picturesque themselves...little shops and narrow streets perfect for shopping or just walking around. I also visited the Irish Heritage Park where they had displays from all the different eras of Irish history. Interesting stuff for nerds like me! All in all I loved my weekend. Again, more pics on facebook and Myspace...its pretty annoying to load them here! I'm thinking next weekend I may stick around Dublin and do some museums or something. Who knows? Oh yeah, have to work all week too. I have to keep reminding myself that's what I'm here to do first and be a tourist second :)

Blarney Castle

Yeah. Castles! This was so amazing to see! First off, I rented my little car and drove three hours to Cork to see the Blarney Castle, because it is one of those things you just have to do. The amazing thing was realizing on the drive there that there are literally castles EVERYWHERE! There were signs on the freeway for castles at an exit just the same as there being gas stations there! The drive was beautiful by the way. So green it looks like everyone is using some sort of fertilizer or something! On the way there I decided to just take the direct route, and planned on doing some stopping and more sightseeing by taking the scenic route by the water on the way back...kinda a loop if you will! But Blarney was amazing. You get to go in and explore, and the Blarney Stone is at the very top. Yes I kissed it...but the guys there had a sanitizing spray to use so the legends of locals peeing on it didn't really bother me anymore :) To kiss it you have to lay on your back and be suspended over a gap in the wall, all the way at the top of the castle! Scary!

Isn't this a cute bench? Just had to show it here...

Someone had signed the window ledge inside the castle in 1827! I saw one from 1822 but the pic was blurry. Pretty cool the castle has been so popular for so long.

There is a garden area next to the castle with a walking trail with interesting facts. There is a cave to the bottom right of the tree where scholars believe some of the oldest cave dwellers in Ireland lived! There is also a witch's kitchen in a nearby cave which supposedly has embers burning in the mornings....spooky! She is the witch who gave the Blarney Stone its powers....also, along the walk there is a staircase called the wishing steps. If you close your eyes and walk up and down the steps while thinking of only one wish it will come true. Too bad I hit my head on the top rock and suffered a brain injury during the process. :(

This is a pic of the Blarney Stone...its between the yellow tape. See how far down the fall would be?! You lay down on your back and lean backward to kiss it while someone holds your legs.

First impressions on the internship

Sheesh! One week down 11 to go! It feels like it's already been about a month. Just not used to actually being up and moving all day. In school we sit on our arses all day. (he he he...arse! I'm irish already!) Anyway, when I was signed up for the internship my supervisor was a lady named Linda Penny, which was amazing cuz Linda is Kurt's mom's name and Penny is my mom's name! She specializes in Emergency Room OT and outpatient hand therapy. Well, when I got here I find out she is out with a back injury for at least two weeks...and the other therapists say they doubt she'll be back even then. So I was assigned a temporary supervisor. Well, actually I got to choose between two. One was acute neuro and the other was care of the elderly, aka nursing home. Anyone who knows my therapy preferences knows I hands down chose the acute neuro! So my supervisor is now Bridget. She is from South Africa and is really laid back. Laizze Fair type of leader. I'm really not to keen on acute care either to be honest, but I do like neuro. Acute is just frusterating b/c I feel like I can't do anything with the patients due to their present status of having just recently had strokes or brain injuries. Its pretty much passive range of motion exercises, assessing cognition, and making sure they have proper seating programs throughout the day. Right now my favorite patient is J, who recently suffered paralysis of his legs and also has Down's Syndrome. Our basic goal in therapy is to help increase his coping because he is severedly depressed about being in the hospital and being paralyzed. All this means that I get to help him do crafts, which he loves to do! Fun fun fun! Some time I'll do a little write up about the socialized medicine they have here, but don't want to bore you at the moment with too much healthcare mumbo jumbo!

Anyway, I think I'm doing pretty well fitting in with the staff...feel a little like envy sometimes when they're talking about something I have no clue about and feel left out. But the staff is pretty much all young, except maybe two, and are really friendly and easy to work with. They have all offered to help me if I need it and also will tell me when they're doing something exciting or might be interested in. Today I went on a home visit with Michelle from the stroke rehab unit (where I might transfer to in a couple of weeks if Linda doesn't come back...would LOVE to. I really like rehab hospital setting), and then went with her to a meeting with other OTs who treat stroke patients from Dublin and the surrounding areas. They're starting a sort of support group amongst themselves, which I think is brilliant! Its kinda funny cuz they are going to start a journal club to keep current on the latest research. Made me appreciate Dr. Decker b/c a few of them said they would need help understanding how to read an article! Good ol research!

Now I'm home and am probably not gonna do much this evening because a) I have no friends or plans and b) I am going to get up early tomorrow, rent a car and go exploring around the country!! Picture me rollin in a tiny car, driver seat on the right side of the car, driving on the right side of the road around a round about!! Yikes! Hopefully I live to update you with some pictures of what I find out there :)

Dub Tour

Part of Grafton Street. big shopping area

I liked these doors! Probablly need all the help they can get to ID their house since they're all identical!

had to set the timer for this one...oh the perils of being solo traveler!

This is the Christ Church Cathedral

muddy waters and bridge...there was a story bout the bridge but can't remember it. Weird!

Guiness! The lady's head has a crown of barley for the mixins!






Did you know you can get blisters on the bottom of your heels? Not the back, but the bottom from walking all day! It was a great day though! It actually started off pretty funny considering when I tried to leave my house this morning I was locked in! I wasn't given a key, the door was locked to get outside, and my only roomate who had a key was sleeping. So I hung out for two hours being bitter because it was SOOOO beautiful outside and i just wanted to get going already! So finally I walked to the shopping center, walked around a little bit there and then caught a bus into downtown. Even the ride on that bus was beautiful! The houses are all so cute. It seems most are duplexes. Once I got downtown I walked around aimlessly for awhile, through the Dublin Castle and the Christ Church Cathedral (awesome!) Then I decided to be the big touristy loser I am and got on the narrated tour of the city. I also grabbed a billion brochures of things to see so I can start planning my next excursion next weekend. I decided I need to do something awesome each weekend since my weeks are dedicated to my internship! Anyway, the tour was pretty interesting, especially since when they weren't talking they played Irish folk music! Made me want to do a little jig! One thing you may not know that I learned today was the zoo in Dublin is one of the oldest in the world... and Guiness Stout was made by mistake and sold to porters half price, hence the name "porter." The tour took us all around town, past the St. Patrick Cathedral, Trinity College, Guiness Storehouse and factory, the zoo, Oscar Wilde's childhood home, and tons of amazing buildings which I had no idea what they were! Took pics anyway naturally! I pretty much just did the tour though, saving museum goings for when Kurt is here ;) cuz he is such a dork too! Although there is an exhibit at one of the art museums I might try to get to on impressionalism (is that even what its called?) that looked pretty neat. I didn't have time today cuz I had to get back and figure out how I'm getting to the hospital tomorrow. So after the city tour I walked around for at least an hour taking in the sights...ok I couldn't find my bus stop! Finally I found it, bused it back to the shopping center by my house and walked to the hospital. I think it'll take me about 40 min to walk there. I'm gonna try to do it...even if just one way b/c the bus fares would add up quickly, and we all know I need the exercise! So yeah, I'm gonna put up some pics, but will have more on facebook and/or myspace! I wish I had a companion here with me! Its so much more fun to share these sorts of things with someone else!!