19/11/05
Hey Top o’ da morning to yah Super Furry Friends
Well, we are currently in a costal town called Goleen near Schull in County Cork in the far southwest of Ireland and we are currently in week 6 of me doing locum doctor work in Ireland.
Now, for those of you who don’t know, basically I have had a different job in a different town every week filling in for GP doctors that go away on holidays, so it has actually been really cool since it has been a great way to see the country.
So far, we have worked in Donegal in the far north of Ireland, and then Carlow and Arklow in the east, and also a crazy little town called Kilmallock which is in between Limerick City and Tipperary in the west of Ireland.
But where we are currently in the southwest of Ireland, is DEFINITELY the most beautiful part of Ireland that we have been to, since it is surrounded by rugged peninsulas and charming little coves with crystal clear water… and we’ve been lucky to have perfect weather…
In fact, we have just returned from a beautiful walk to Three Castle Head, which was a lovely trek over desolate winter brown ridges to a castle ruin on a lake, perched high on a cliff overlooking the ocean.
It was very cool and spooky, but we only managed to catch the first bit of the sunset here since Avril was keen to get back before dark since she was seriously worried about zombies running over the hills at dusk like on that movie “28 days later…”
…Seriously… I shit you not… she ACTUALLY said that!!!! I, of course gave her heaps of shit about it, since how can she be afraid of zombies and NOT Colombian Guerillas…
…Man… she can be so stupid at times especially since EVERYONE knows that it is werewolves and NOT zombies that you have to look out for on Irish moors… ???…!!! d-d-d errrr… !!!???…
Now, I’d love to write that it has all been fun and zombies, but when we first arrived here we really had a love hate relationship going with Ireland since getting set up here has been a much bigger hassle than we were expecting… And getting up and going to work every day really sucks when you are living out of a car and 2 suitcases with no place of your own to unwind at the end of the day.
Not to mention that some of the things we have encountered in Ireland are so backward and just plain stupid that every day something always crops up to make us say “…What the fuck…???”
Things like the road map being in English, but the street signs being in Gaelic Irish???!!! …Or being able to get a credit card (after a bitch fight with the bank), but not a cirrus card, and not being able to pay to use the gym for insurance reasons, and yet being able to have a free introductory workout… OK… it all sounds really pedantic on paper, but at the time, it shat us off completely!!!
In anycase, we were going to write about some of the beautiful coastal scenery and amazing castles that we have seen, but really… having a good whinge and bitch makes for a much more interesting and humorous travel log so here it is…
“What the fuck…???” Number 1 would have to be the medical system. Holy Crap… I’m NEVER going to complain about the medical system in Australia ever again after working here.
I’ll write another travel log about it another time, but basically, considering that Ireland is now considered the richest nation in the European Union, its medical system is way behind with no screening programs, crappy bureaucracy and lame computer programs, and people that are hugely over medicated to account for a fatty alcoholic lifestyle.
Basically getting blood tests and radiology done is like getting blood out of a stone, so it really limits what the GPs actually do, and heaps of GP type stuff like simple fractures, excisions of skin lesions and anything that needs CT scans etc ends up being referred and then clogging up the hospital system.
Needless to say, then of course, waiting lists for things are huge, and every day there is something in the news about someone who died waiting to get into a hospital or how people just lie in trolleys in the aisles…
I actually had to threaten a hospital here to take in a patient when they refused her admission despite having a life threatening problem!!!
“What the fuck…???” Number 2 is definitely the roads. Again the shitty road situation is in the news all the time with heaps of fatal accidents. Most of the roads we have been driving through are barely wide enough for an anorexic donkey and have hedges right up to the roadside, so there have been heaps of times when we have shat ourselves senseless coming around a corner and almost running into big trucks.
Not only that, the streets of Ireland are a maze of one way streets and street signs that are so badly maintained that most of them point the opposite way to where they are supposed to point.
In fact we have had more fights over trying to navigate the streets in the last 4 weeks than we have in our entire 11 years together. We’ve decided that if we ever come across the transport department minister, we are definitely going to just punch him in the face and tell him to do his fucking job properly!!!
They also don’t believe in street signs or addresses so getting directions for house calls in rural Ireland was literally like…
“…You know the hill next to the blue bin… well just go straight up the road next to hedge and then turn left at the 3 sheep and keep going until you see a puddle next to a goat and the house is the one with the flowers…” …WHAT THE FUCK??????!!!!!!!! …AAAAAAAAAAARRGGHHH!!!
“What the fuck…??? Number 3″ is definitely the language. Although I was seriously worried about walking into a waiting room and calling out wierdarse names like Caoimhe, Niamh, Proinnsias, Diarmaid, and Paidraig, I was quite surprised that most people we met and even in the far north, had sensibly spelt names and mild accents.
However, when we eventually headed west it was …Holy crap city!!! …Working in County Cork and Limerick was TOTALLY a foreign language. Some of the patients I had, I simply couldn’t understand, and I had to get them to spell things out all the time…
And then, it’s even funnier to have them turn around and tell me that I have a funny accent when they sound just like the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show… And unfortunately, every time I try and fake an Irish accent, I end up sounding like a gay pirate…
Anyways despite the whinging, we really feel like we’ve settled in now and are beginning to really enjoy it.
…so we’ll stay in Ireland a bit longer, especially when my favourite reply to all the patients asking me why I have come here is “…so that I can find my Irish roots…” …which may be hard since I don’t think I’ve ever scored an Irish root…
We are off to France for 2 weeks on Sunday with our 2 cent return flights with Ryanair… Yay!!! Ryanair ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!! …So hopefully our next travel log will be covered with fromage and croissants if the riots settle down…
Lots of Leprechaun Love with Guinness
Ceddy O’Chu
Aomhrighl O’Bowie
PS We are planning to go to India for 4 weeks in January followed by a little spell in Qatar near Saudi Arabia and then snowboarding in Quebec in February, so if anyone has any tips for India or will be over there, let us know…
PPS For all the single guys out there, a survey we read in the paper reckons that there are 3 girls to every guy in Dublin… That’s even better odds than the Beach Boys song…
PPPS For all the Leo’s and Med guys, we caught up with Brad Jones in Dublin, which was very cool and we went to see the Aussie indie band “Architecture In Helsinki” who were strangely cool… a very different music and show but worth seeing…
PPPPS We had a fantastic time in San Francisco at my cousin Lisa’s wedding to Steve, so thanks to my Uncle David and Irene, Kevin and Rochelle, and Lisa and Steve who put us up and fed us… For family and wedding nosey bods here are Lisa & Steve’s wedding pics. They are such a spunky photogenic couple… it’s sickening! Thanks for the cool wedding and bay cruise with fireworks off the Golden Gate, guys!