6/11/06

Bom Dia to all you Portugeese and Portuganders

Well we are currently sitting in a cafe in Lagos on the Algarve coast in southern Portugal, and last week we made a very eye opening pilgrimage to Fatima in central Portugal.

Now, for all you non-Catholics out there, Fatima is considered as probably the most sacred Catholic pilgrimage site in the world outside of the Vatican since a floating apparition of Mary “that glowed brighter than the sun” apparently appeared here in 1917 to 3 sheppard children and predicted that Russia would collapse and the Pope would get shot… to which the Pope later thanked Our Lady Of Fatima for saving his life and then had the bullet moulded into the crown of a statue here in Fatima.

Not only that, but later in 1917 after the apparition promised a miracle, 70,000 people turned up in the field and witnessed a so called “miracle of the sun” where the sun twirled around, became “unhooked” from the sky, and then danced around the sky, even though it was a torrential rainstorm at the time!!!

HOLY COW DUDES… now I like a good miracle just like any other person, but the sun moving around is downright impossible, and the description of a brightly glowing orb that people can look at without going blind AND dancing around the sky in the middle of a thunder storm sounds TOTALLY like UFO phenomena to me!!! Continue reading →

28/10/06

Cead Mile Failte Rowhat to all you funky monkeys & peppercorn leprechauns… which means 100 thousand welcomes in Irish…

Well, we are still in Ireland on the Ring Of Kerry but we are coming up to the end of my 10 week term working here and tomorrow we will be heading out to Portugal, so we thought we’d better catch up on another travel blog before we leave.

But first of all, here is another gory medical story just to make this blog read a bit more interesting…

Firstly and thankfully there have been no more FREAKY medical cases like the guy who slit his throat, but I did get this one call a few weeks back which was pretty weird and went something like this:

Phone Rings with Ced’s funky “Run DMC-Walk This Way” ringtone

Ced: Hello
Call Centre: Hi, we have an urgent call for you to go to a remote beach 45 minutes out of town since the Garda (Irish Police) have just found a body.

Ced: …um… What??? Excuse me…? I’m sorry, could you say that again???
Call Centre: The Garda have just found a body on the beach and they need you to go out and certify the body as deceased.

Ced: …um… is the body dead?
Call Centre: Yes… apparently it is a dead body.

Ced: …um… well… if the body is dead, then what’s the urgency?
Call Centre: …um… well apparently the tide is coming in and they need you out there to certify the body dead before the tide comes in and washes it away…

Long pause

Ced: …oh… ok… that makes sense… ( but actually thinking …WHAT THE FECK???!!!)
Continue reading →

8/10/06

Hey there friends, family and other furry animals

Well, after our last blog about the guy that slit his throat, we got so many emails full of nice words and pats on the back that we were quite overwhelmed by it all, so I thought I’d better start this blog off by firstly thanking all you dudes and dudettes for the nice words and support…

…And also to set things straight since I really don’t deserve them because I really didn’t do anything special that night, as the dude had mostly stopped bleeding on his own, so my resuscitation effort was actually quite minimal!

I actually didn’t mean for the last blog to be a “poor me” story, so I am a bit embarrassed by that… I actually wasn’t that traumatised by it at all.

However, as you can tell, I was pretty pissed off at the inefficiency of the emergency response team afterwards, and I think most of it was due to me converting my adrenalin induced stress response into anger… which was TOTALLY not very Jedi-like of me to give into my anger like that… I totally could have turned to the dark side…

In anycase, just to balance things out since the last blog was so negative, I thought I’d do a more positive blog on one of the COOLEST experiences of my career. Continue reading →

2/9/06

Hey there dudes and dudettes

This isn’t really one of our normal funny travel blogs, but more a story that I wanted to share mainly for a bit of therapy and debriefing for myself…
It’s a bit long and a little gory so don’t read any further if you have a weak stomach…

Well, we are back working in Ireland and all I can say is that work really sucks!!!

We were initially looking forward to getting back to some stability after backpacking for 4 months, but after the being here for a week, I realised just how much I HATE doing nightshift on-call work, especially since I barely get 1-2 hours sleep and then have to work again the next day.

Not only that, but most nights we spend more time driving around the country side to housecalls than actually seeing patients, and most of those calls are generally typical alcohol induced problems or crap things that really don’t need to be seen!

However, a couple of nights ago, we got a call, which ended up being ABSOLUTELY horrible!!! Continue reading →

17/8/06

Bonjour and Dag to all you Brussels Sprouts and buxom Luxemburgers

Well, we are currently at Charleroi Airport in Belgium about to head back to Ireland and since this is now officially the last day of our 4 month European holiday, we thought we’d finalise it with a travel blog.

But first of all, after our last travel blog with our nudie photos from Croatia, we got a few emails from people who were happy that those photos weren’t too explicit, and a few emails from people wishing they had been MORE explicit…

Well all we can say is that we did you ALL a favour since some of the nudey photos were actually very VERY scary!!!

…In fact… some of the photos were actually SO scary, that if a Japanese horror film maker actually made a movie from some of those photos, then it would DEFINITELY be remade for American audiences with Sarah Michelle Gellar starring as my left testicle!!!

In anycase, this time things are MUCH more tamer since we have now currently been touring around Belgium and Luxembourg which are well known to be boring countries since they are both countries highly involved in the running of the European Union and hence full of pompous business culture and diplomats… Continue reading →

29/7/06

Bog to all you nude crude dudes and Balkan beauties

Well we are currently in Dubrovnik in Croatia, and I am currently sitting in the garden patio of The Bokun Guesthouse, which is an amazing little family home guesthouse with the most beautiful garden that I have ever seen!

There are actually huge sunflowers all around us, and over my head are vines full of lush grapes and kiwi fruits, which would be VERY cool if I weren’t actually freaked out by all the bees buzzing around too!!!

Anyhows… we just got back onto the mainland yesterday after 7 days sailing around the Dalmation Islands, so we figured it’s time again for another travelblog update.

A week ago, we met up with Michael, Michelle and Aoife who are some friends from home, and along with Darlene and Allan who we have been travelling with the last 6 weeks, we rented a 39 foot Beneteau yacht from Split, and island hopped down the Dalmatian Coast all the way to Dubrovnik in the south of Croatia.

Now, the Dalmatian coast is lined with hundreds of little rugged islands with a multitude of postcard perfect villages, which are often surrounded by fortress walls and famous for winding cobble-stoned streets… so it is absolutely GORGEOUS and very reminiscent of southern Italy, but a lot cleaner and with MUCH less dogshit… despite the odd spotted dalmatian running around…

Not only that, but the weather is SO perfect that hotels will often give a 50% discount if it rains during your stay during the summer months. And although this was fantastic since the whole Adriatic Sea was as calm as a lake and as flat as a mirror, unfortunately for sailing it su’cked bigtime as we really didn’t have any winds and ended up motoring everywhere. Continue reading →