thanks to the excellent wordpress mobile pack wordpress plugin i’m
pleased to announce that d2h.net is now mobile enabled: if you visit
it on your android or iDon’t, err, iPhone you’ll get a mobile
browser-friendly version of our web site. also, http://m.d2h.net/ will
take you to the mobile version directly as well.
oh, and you might have noticed, i’ve re-organized the site structure slightly, the blog is now directly at the root of the site.
easy salad:
cut or shred the salmon into little pieces. wash the rucola leaves in a colander and shake off the excessive water. mix the rucola, and the salmon pieces in a bowl. add the oil and the mustard along with a couple of squirts of the lemon juice. mix well. season well with salt.
add croûtons if you like.
the last day of our irish pilgrimage! after another good breakfast at the newgrange hotel we pack once more and enter our pilgrims bus — which this morning has grown in size: morris, our excellent driver, swapped our smaller bus yesterday evening for a bigger one as he’s going to pick up a group of 50 at dublin airport right after dropping us off.
the final “building blocks” of our pilgrimage are kells and the hill of tara.
after a short ride we get to the little town of kells and disembark. first stop: the large celtic cross that used to stand in the middle of a busy crossroads but has now been relocated a little outside the town center. it’s been damaged — whether that damage originates with that unlucky encounter with that “cumbersome schoolbus” or has been inflicted earlier is hard to tell — but still interesting nevertheless.
from the cross we make our way up to the site of what used to be the monastery of kells and is now a normal church — a church with four high crosses and a replica of the book of kells, though!
next and last pilgrimage stop: the hill of tara — another site close to the river boyne. legend has it that tara was the seat of the high king of ireland, the árd rí na héireann. was is known as fact is that the hill of tara was the site of iron age hilltop enclosure as well as the site of a neolithic passage grave. the hill itself offers a nice view across county meath (including slane which we visited yesterday). its other prominent features are a tea room and two (2) souvenir shops…
the visit to tara concludes our pilgrimage, our next and final stop is dublin airport with most of our co-pilgrims flying back to frankfurt and düsseldorf in the afternoon, and with mrs d and i taking the aircoach bus into dublin as our flight back to zurich will not leave until tomorrow.
dublin airport is busy, and we just have moments to grab our luggage, say our “goodbyes” and then we are all of a sudden by ourselves again. after some initial trouble we manage to find the aircoach bus stop, buy a return ticket and are soon on our way into dublin city center. the ride takes about 40min (longer than the first time when we used that tunnel which the aircoach buses don’t).
our hotel, the o’callaghan davenport hotel is right around the corner of the marrion square north aircoach bus stop. the room is OK and we just drop our luggage off and make our way to trinity college to visit the book of kells exhibition.
we are, not surprisingly, not alone in our quest, lots of tourists
(american but also german) along with bus loads of school kids. we
manage to squeeze in and slowly make our way through the very
interesting exhibition explaining the background of the book of kells
but also how it probably was created. fascinating and well worth the
money. also, a very nice closure of our pilgrimage
the library’s long room is nice but nothing to get really excited about: it’s a typical old library. i had hoped for more trinity college or even ireland related material to be on display but instead get treated to an exhibition about napoleon bonaparte. hmph.
after the cultural part we are in dire need of a tea and something to eat. following the recommendation of ms p we follow the signs in grafton street for the powerscourt shopping center where we have a very nice “high tea” in the old courtyard — any thoughts on returning for dinner are kind of squashed when around 17:15 the staff of the café start collecting the menu cards and closing down. on leaving we find out that 18:00 is closing time — worse than germany in the bad old days of the ladenschlußgesetz! and this is the capital or ireland!
our walk back to the hotel is interrupted and severely cut short by the onset of very heavy rain. luckily we do have our umbrellas with us, but by the time we reach our hotel we are still a bit wet.
being tired all of a sudden (anti-climax?) we decide to stay at the hotel for the evening and conclude our ireland adventure with a couple of pints of cidre and guinness in the hotel bar.
breakfast today (we are still at the ballygarry house hotel) works
out a bit better than yesterday: more coffee and tea available, no
being told off for sitting at the wrong table.
today’s program: by bus to the starting point of the pass up to the gap of dunloe, walk from there over the gap of dunloe and down to brandon’s cottage for a cup of tea, followed by a boat trip across the lakes of killarney to the town of killarney.
we are off at 9:00 on the dot and get to our starting point by 9:50. the pass road is restricted to horse-drawn coaches, walkers and business and commercial access. horse-drawn coaches are about €30 per coach each and apparently in high-demand at times as there are quite a few of them along with the required horses around. as we start on our walk we witness two coaches (gigs, really) taking off with the drivers flogging the horses quite severely several times. guess they lost any potential customers in our group.
the walk up to the gap of dunloe is what turner and company would call pittoresque — wild landscape rising up to each side, a succession of little lakes, a winding road up to the pass. again, mrs d and i bring up the rear of the pilgrim’s train and are joined today by mrs c. the higher we get the stronger the wind blows up towards the pass — fantastic! we are occasionally overtaken by a horse-drawn gig, sometimes by cars and once or twice by folks on bikes, some more, some less skilled in the art of cycling. the weather puts on a dramatic show, but stays dry until we have passed the highest point, the gap of dunloe. the pass down into the valley on the eastern side reminds me of the eastern snowdown pass topology: the same north–south valley formation almost.
after a lunch break just beyond the pass summit we are on our way down to brandon’s cottage, a self-serve “restaurant” operated on behalf of the national park. the scenery is still breathtakingly beautiful.
after a coke (me) and a cup of tea (mrs d) along with two slices of apple pie with cream we enjoy the view until our boats across the lakes of killarney depart.
the boats turn out to be, err, boats, wooden ones with a little outboard motor. each boat seating up to 12 people. after a bit of engine trouble we depart from brandon’s cottage and are on our way across the three lakes and two rivers.
tranquil is the word that describes the first part of our ride —
tranquil is not the word that i’d choose for the second part. where
the first part was just gliding along on the calm surface of the upper
lake and the connecting river leaving it, once we reach the
three-river-meeting point we first need to pass across a bit of
white-water (necessitating a re-balancing of the boat by having us all
shift forward). from the three-river-meeting point onwards we enjoy a
bit of smooth “sailing” which turns out to lull us into a false sense of
security: once we leave the third lake and enter the last one, the
largest of the three, we literally hit rough sea. the wind is blowing
and has been blowing long enough today to really cause quite a bit of
wave action. after a re-reshuffle (all move towards the back of the
boat) we tackle it stern-on. splash, splash, splash summarises the next
15min as we crash through one wave crest after the other. fun
unfortunately, about half-way down the lake we need to cross the lake to get to ross castle — meaning we are now moving in parallel to the waves, also meaning our little boat is rotating back and forth along its longitudinal axis, fun…
we do make it to shore, and get together, with a cup of tea, to have one more story told by our resident master story teller: this time it’s about a blind bagpipe player, and the castle in the lake of killarney. again, i’m fascinated by her story telling talent and enjoy the story tremendously.
then it’s back to the hotel again — one photo-op stop to have one final view across the lakes of killarney — to take a shower, change into fresh clothes, and dinner at 18:30 today as we are going to visit the siamsa tíre theater here in tralee! looking forward to that one!
around 2:00 in the morning: a group of hotel guests from that anniversary party very kindly let us in into their conversations they are having in the parking lot outside the hotel entrance — for about half an hour we get to share each and every attempt at jokularity… much appreciated.
at breakfast mrs d and i commit the faux pas of seating ourselves at one of the free tables as the large group table seems to be fully occupied. we quickly get told off by an apparently unmotivated, round-ish waitress who informs us that that table is needed for “other guests” — not quite the “irish hospitality”. coffee and tea are just that, but also seemingly rationed: we only manage to get 2 cups of each each.
today’s part of the pilgrimage takes us to brandon’s well which is a bit outside tralee. the actual well itself, the water hole in the earth, is a bit on the quiet side but otherwise a nice little area enclosed by a dense hedge. we read a psalm, listen to some thoughts of mr tambour on john 5:1–15 (the story of the healing at lake bethesda), and conclude with a prayer and song.
the next part takes us through an daingean (aka dingle) — replenishing our proviant at the local supervalu [sic] (i use the opportunity to frequent the pharmacy next to the the aforementioned supervalu to acquire some midge repellent and antihistamin: those little buggers have really taken a fancy of me, i must have about 30 midge bites on my arms, neck and head) — along the dingle peninsula. about 2.5 hours walk from slea head we are released from our pilgrimage transporter and get a chance to walk to slea head. the weather is at its best: in contrast to the forecast of the irish met office we have pure, unadulterated sunshine! over the ring of kerry we can see cumulus congestus clouds piling up, some looking like they are severly tempted to turn into cumulus nimbus clouds — we only have rather innocent looking straits of cumulus humilis clouds coming our way. perfect.
while on tuesday, on kevin’s way, mrs d and i sped ahead, quickly leaving the bulk of the group behind, we decide today to stay at the end and “bring up the rear”, so to speak. mr tambour seems strangely relieved by that — i can’t figure out whether he’s relieved to have experienced walkers at the rear of the group or whether he is relieved that we are not chasing ahead again. in any case we stay back and have a couple of quite interesting chats on the way.
the scenery is fantastic: in front of us the wide open sea, framed on both sides by mountain ranges and outlying little isles and rocks, dark clouds on the other side of the bay piling up in-lands, the sun casting interesting cloud shadows across the almost smooth surface of the sea. the path to slea head winds past dry-stone walls (lots of sheep), first up then down again. about 2 hours into the walk we break for a snack-lunch and enjoy the quiet and the views!
at slea head we have about an hour to ourselves which most of us spend at the café having a crumble and a pot of tea.
the way back to tralee is interrupted by a story telling session at the beach: one of our co-pilgrims is a practised story teller and really spins an enticing piece of yarn about a bloke called mccormack, an enchanted branch, and how he lost his wife, daughter, and son — and regained them later. i really enjoy that bit.
no “madame–baby” wake-up call this morning (i guess mr charming realized that madame was already taking a shower when he called) but a bit of re-packing before breakfast as today we are relocating to tralee in county kerry. having learnt from yesterday’s breakfast i appear on the scene 15min early and order coffee (for me) and tea (for mrs d) along with my cooked breakfast — ms rough charme tries to force me to use the german breakfast menu but i stubbornly insists on using the original. i while away the time until coffee and tea arrive by reading the irish independent. at around 8:00 coffee, tea, and toast arrive, 5min later mrs d and we are all set to start breakfast…
…well, almost. when mrs d pours her cup of tea we are both a bit surprised at how strong it turns out to be. that surprise is nothing, though, compared to the surprise of mrs d when taking the first sip: she pulls a face, looks quite a bit startled, then takes a peek at the contents of her tea pot — and laughs: apparently the breakfast crew is under quite a bit of stress and mistakenly filled her tea pot with coffee and threw in a tea bag. our breakfast waitress is as surprised as we and quickly remedies the situation.
at 9:00 we are all packed and ready to go. first stop today is brigid’s well in kildare. the weather has improved (it’s no longer raining) and we take this first spell of dry weather not only to learn about brigid but also to learn about each other: introductions! brigid’s well is in the middle of fields just outside kildare and consists of an enclosed well at one end being “fed” by the original well at the other end of the garden. the front part is connected to the back part by a sequence of five stones (mini menhirs) each standing for a certain characteristic of st brigid. one sentence strikes a chord with me: “live in the here and now and all will be well”
kildare cathedral is next on the program and impresses me with its rather clean design and construction. not pompous at all.
a visit with sister mary of the centre for celtic spirituality concludes the morning: sister mary explains about the briget order, its history and, again, about celtic spirituality. rather interesting. and also located in an interesting loation: right in the middle of a residential area in kildare — which is, if you think about it, rather in-line with the credo of celtic spirituality: god around us, within us, above us, below us, in front of us, and behind us.
after a rather spiritually engaging morning we leave kildare and are on our way to the rock of cashel in tipperary. the trip from kildare to tipperary is not as long as it used to be (”it’s a long road to tipperary…”) due a new highway having just been opened. the weather has improved dramatically: the sun’s out and about, the rain of yesterday a faint memory.
at rock of cashel we have a late little lunch in granny’s kitchen then visit the castle.
it’s almost 19:00 when we reach our hotel for the next four nights, the ballygarry hotel in tralee — decidedly an improvement over the last one: very nice rooms, and dinner service actually delivers what’s written on the outside.
plus, it’s got working WLAN service
ring, ring — mrs d picks up the phone, it’s the 7:15 wake-up call and, as expected, nobody answers back. time to get up. ring, ring — mrs d picks up the phone yet again, this time round it’s the bloke from reception asking whether “madame is ok?”, madame affirms and receives a rather charming “ok, baby”. this somewhat incongruous start into our first day as pilgrims in ireland kind of forms the fabric of the day: it stays incongruous, constantly changing between dry and rather wet.
breakfast at the stand house hotel is, compared to dinner, a bit of a let down: the orange and cranberry juice suffers from a rather high concentration of water and introduces the gnawing suspicion that the breakfast staff have not yet grasped the concept that orange juice concentrate should not be used to dilute water but rather the other way round. the cooked breakfast is on the ok side of cooked breakfasts (we’ve had worse, but we’ve also had better), the waitress a charm that would work quite well inside a wood workshop, taking rough edges off…
while the sun is still shining we leave by bus for the first part of our pilgrimage: the eurospar at kilcullen (food always played an important role on pilgrimages through the ages).
next, through narrow, winding roads we aim for hollywood — and miss on the first attempt. after some tapping of local knowledge we make it with take 2 and, a few miles outside of hollywood, start our walking part: we are following part of kevin’s way in the direction of glendalough.
the weather has turned sour on us, and alternatively treats us to dry and wet spells while we are still on the hard road part of the walk. once we reach the footpath along the river, however, it’s found its stride and just pours it out all the way to pass road for wicklow pass. d’oh.
the landscape is rather nice though and it’s kind of fun walking through the drenched scenery regardless of the rain. after about 2.5 hours we reach the pass road to wicklow pass and are rescued by our bus. next stop: glendalough.
at glendalough are the rather interesting remains of the old monasteric city. it was originally founded by kevin who intended to lead a solitary life as a hermit — that plan didn’t work out too well and kevin had to scupper it quite quickly as other folks like that idea of leading a solitary life in that spot of ireland, and…joined him. a thriving community evolved around the monasteric buildings and quickly turned from a mere dwelling into a town.
what is interesting about glendalough is the way they lived a life that did not differentiate between worldly matters and spiritual matters but instead practised a holistic spirituality, the celtic spirituality: god is among us, around us, above us and below us and with us in everything we do and live — in contrast to the continental european theology which is mostly a kind of dualistic theology (god above in heaven, we down below on earth). there are parallels to dietrich bonhoeffer’s view that god is not a god of the boundaries or gaps but instead a god in our midst (and only makes sense as such) — a view that i’ve made my own ever since i encountered it and, thus, am pleasantly surprised to encounter it here again and also to learn that there is a long tradition supporting that view.
after we had made our way through the (heavily visited) ruins of the monasteric city we spent about an hour with dominican sister genevieve who explained to us the history behind and nature of celtic spirituality — a very fascinating hour!
dinner was a bit less organized than yesterday (the notion of drinks along with food was a novelty to the two waitresses this evening, but they quickly realized that it might indeed be a good idea), the quality of the food was good.
the next 10 days we are taking part in a spiritual journey through ireland. really kind of a pilgrimage, a christian pilgrimage to be precise, by bus (not a lot of walking involved, unfortunately) to the places of the old, celtic irish church. the whole trip has been organized by the akademie st. paul — and it’s the first group trip of this kind that i’ve ever participated in and i’m not too sure whether it’s going to be to my liking. let’s see.
starting point is dublin airport which we reach by way of —- yes,
unfortunately — plane
to catch the
9:20 swiss flight from zurich to dublin, we take the 6:59 train from
einsiedeln, necessitating getting up at 5:00, sigh. we make it in time
and get to zurich airport, manage to get our failed web-check-in
sorted, even manage to get two seats next to one another — and
have a punctual and fairly calm flight (big relief on my part).
we are the first part of the group to arrive in dublin. once we’ve had a coffee (me) and smoothie (mrs d) we position ourselves directly opposite the arrivals area and hold up our sign and wait…
and wait…
and wait. finally at around 12:30 the first few folks of the remainder of our group trickle in and by 13:30 we are almost complete. it’s an, err, interesting mixture. our bus driver for the next 10 days collects us and after a small problem with luggage (luckily quickly resolved) we are on our way into dublin city center.
our pilgrimage’s guide, mr tambour from akademie st paul, evidently has done his homework and gives us a rather well-informed running commentary of the stuff we see already from the bus, and, once we are ground-bourne again, a tour of the temple bar district and, the highlight of the afternoon: christ church.
i’m not sure whether i’m cut out for this group travel stuff — i find that i need time for myself and, also, that i actually enjoy the immersive part of travelling alone (that is, either really alone or together with mrs d) and being forced to interact with the “natives” (so to speak) and take part (at least to some extent) in the culture that surrounds us. travelling in a group of germans takes that part away, it’s like travelling in a shell, in a bubble, a bit isolated from the country you want to experience.
we get to our hotel, the stand house hotel by a 18:20 and have a bit
of time to settle in (we are going to stay two nights here), then it’s
a rather nice dinner followed by some blogging
let’s see how this all works out
looking through drscofield’s twitter messages of the past couple of days i noticed [cite/t:@pixelq]’s twitter about “watching the world” and i had to head over to youtube to watch this 3D internet masterpiece once more. IMHO it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of art (and it’s a pity it wasn’t on display in basel recently) — have a look yourself:
almost makes you cry…
content.
if you thought my post about felsenputzing was a joke, think again. courtesy of avid tagesanzeiger reader, mrs d, the link for all of you who want to become expert felsenputzer: register here.