Gratitude

Twoscore and six years ago, my mother drove herself to a small clinic in Umtata and brought me forth into this world; for that, and for many other things, I am grateful.

I'm grateful to the government of Qatar, who decided yesterday afternoon to call a school holiday for my birthday (it was actually for the local elections, but I'll take it).

I'm grateful to International School Manila, who will be welcoming us to our new job and home in July. We're excited for a new adventure in Southeast Asia, and hope to visit many new islands, beaches, and dive spots. We'll be living in Bonifacio Global City, which sounds like a bubble of western urbanity in the middle of the craziness of Manila. We're looking forward to walking to and from work, and to working with our good friends from our days in China, Kim and Jay, who started there this year. We're also very grateful to Kim for helping us through the application process, talking us up with the administration, and answering all of our questions about the school and life in Manila.

I'm grateful to the math team in Doha. It's taken six years, but we've finally built a group that respects each other and likes to have fun together. I am grateful for the diversity of this group: 5 different nationalities represented in this picture, and 7 in the complete department. All of these different kinds of experiences coming together is a big part of why I love this lifestyle.

[I keep misspelling grateful as greatful; I'm going to just let that slide from now on, as I'm not sure that the word shouldn't be spelled that way anyway.]

I'm greatful to Wendy and Jesse and Laneka and Tyce and Ross and Julie and Libby and Nate and Alice for an excellent Kenyan safari trip this past month. Up close with big cats, beautiful new birds, and Rani's seething hatred of hippos... It was nice to share the experience with family.

Learning about the transition to Manila so early in the recruiting season has left me feeling a little adrift, as transitions often do. The unexpected blessing of a day off in the middle of the week opened me up to these feelings of great-full-ness, so I'll sign off by hoping that the US elections go the way any rational person would expect them to, and that I'm greatful to any of you who are still reading this! 

Peace and love, 

Jon

Col Ceathracha!

Picked up Rani's cousin Heather and her son Graham in Dublin, did not let them rest, and immediately took them to the oldest thing we could find: the Brownshill Portal Tomb, just around 5000 years old.

It was a little off-centered, so I had to adjust the 150 ton capstone (largest of any in Europe) before we took the photo.

Old shit!

Lots of other old things to see: abbeys, priories, castles, ancient stone circles, and chalets.

16th century Irish warriors went barefoot and bare-legged!

Cute, colorful seaside town of Kinsale.

The courtyard of our hotel in Cork, featuring a natural waterfall!

Ancient bog elk from Kilkenny Castle, with antlers spanning over 3 meters.

Ridiculously large toilet, made for a royal visit before they really knew what to do with toilets.

Boats, jaunts, cable cars!

Some of the many alternative forms of transportation we sampled. Cruised by the Cliffs of Moher, around Lough Leane in Killarney, sea safari around the Blasket Islands. Also took a jaunt, which is a horse-drawn cart (they do not have a good reason for calling it a jaunt, according to our teenaged driver) around Killarney national park. The Ballaghboy Cable Car, Ireland's only cable car, connects the mainland to Dursey Island, and it's one of the only cable cars in the world that connects two landmasses over the ocean. Seems like a great idea, but the cable car only carries 6 people at a time, and takes about 20 minutes for a round trip. We got right on and out to the island, only to be greeted by a long line of people waiting to get back. We had to wait there for about two hours (and most of us forgot to bring jackets)!

Wildlife!

Dolphins!

Seal colony on Blasket Island

Whiskey!

Super fun visit to the Jameson distillery in Midleton. Huge water mill, giant copper stills, the angel's share, and a really interesting tour. We also did the premium tasting, which was informative and engaging. I love the smell of whiskey barrels in the afternoon...

Pubs!

Good food, good drink, good music, and good craic! Taught the youngster to play hearts, and visited Sean's bar, the oldest bar in Ireland, and maybe the whole world after they finish the archaeology. 

Epic Battles!

Paid a visit to Linen Mill Studios, where Game of Thrones was filmed. Got to see real sets and costumes from the show, Rani was entered into the hall of faces, and I even turned into the Night King for a second. This was a lot of fun.

White walker attack! I held him off for a bit...

Then milady came in to finish him off.

And we claimed the Iron Throne for our very own!

Miscellaneous! 

We really thought we found my dad at in the backyard of this hostel...

Climbed to the top of the Guinness Storehouse. Not as cool as the whiskey tour, but fun.

Yeah, we did this, too...

Told you it was hobbits! One thing that stuck out to us from the moment we set foot on this island, and that I will always remember about the Irish people, is how polite and helpful everyone was. I think that fits.

Epilogue

The cousins took off, and we moved to a sort of dingy (but huge) suite and lived it up for our last few days of summer. By lived it up, I mean we got some massages; spent some time in the spa's "thermal suite", which had themed showers and water jets I won't soon forget; got some room service; moseyed around Dublin a bit; Rani got a new tattoo... 

Then, travel-weary and yearning for their own beds, showers, and toilets, your intrepid adventurers boarded the morning plane back to the land of toil, dust, and heat. We're ready for what is probably our last year here, and excited to start writing the next chapter. 

Peace and love,

Jon

The King in the North!

 

An early morning flight to Dublin, and we were on the road: TO THE NORTH!

The trip was a blur, but we made it to Portstewart, and one of the nicest AirBnbs in which we've ever stayed.

PS has a pretty spectacular beach, and they tried to warn me.

but I didn't listen

Oops, I did it again!

My first beach horse-and-cart!

We visited Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge: a dicey hike and walk across a 1-person rope bridge, with lots of sea-birds to view.

I found this big old rock jutting out into the sea, and called lightning to break it up into these cool geometric shapes

And was proclaimed "The King of the Causeway"!

But seriously, the Giant's Causeway was really cool, enhanced by the legend of the giant Finn McCool, who rode a camel (?), messed with a Scottish giant, and was saved by the wits of his wife, Sadhbh.

Ireland doesn't have nearly as many courses as Norway did, but there was a pretty nice one nearby on the Ulster University campus.

I liked it so much that I called forth a Monkey Puzzle tree to help them diversify their arboretum. 

OMG pub food! Got my fill of ham (for the moment), and we are definitely getting tired of potatoes.

Quick visit to Derry and the Derry Girls mural.

Roads are fun here, too!

Grianan of Aileach, a cool round fort.

This place is full of Game of Thrones sites, including the Dark Hedges, shown here with the scene from the show.

A storm in 2016 took out a couple of trees in the Dark Hedges,  and the producers used them to produce a set of 10 carved doors, then sprinkled them throughout Northern Ireland. We saw a couple in pubs, and they were impressive. 

Loughareema, the disappearing lake, had disappeared when we went by.

Johann the goat, commemorating the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001.

Cushendun caves, another GOT filming site, where the Lady Melisandre gave birth to the shadow.

Fun mural with poem outside Mary McBride's, where I had my favorite burger of the whole trip.

The Ballygally Polar bear (don't ask, cause I don't know).

And in to Belfast! Shipyards, the Titanic experience, political murals. Our bus stop had a cool name, and we almost got run down by a fleet of Amazon vans.

Glass of thrones! A collaboration between the producers of the show and Belfast tourism. Stained glass showing scenes from the show, crowdsourced from fans, arranged mostly by house. Pretty good, and a good reason for a walk up and down the river.

Fun warning signs! 

Our time in the North was short but full. We moved on to an appropriately named suburb of Dublin to await the arrival of Rani's cousins,  and the penultimate stage of our epic adventure. 

Peace, Jon

Lom, Oslo, and good day, Norway!

 

From the west coast, we made our way back through the center of Norway, through the Trollheimen mountain range. We stopped to meet some of the eponymous trolls (nicer than they look), and to ride a cable car up a mountain in Romsdal. 

We made it to our last house in Norway in Lom on the shores of Lake Vagavatnet, part of the river Otta.

On our quest to see some megafauna, we spent some time in the nearby Dovrefjell–Sunndalsfjella National Park on the trail of the elusive musk ox. It was a decent hike through scrubby forest which turned into tundra, with lots of interesting lichen and views of mountains. While we saw a good amount of ox shit, we didn't run into any creatures.

But fear not, dear reader. I used the time wisely to develop my astral magic and bring forth my first spark!

At this point we were getting kind of Norway-ed out, but we had one more stop. We left Lom for our last Nordic city, Oslo.

We spent a rainy afternoon sauna-ing in an old aquavit barrel at SALT. Did you know that aquavit is matured on ships at sea? Something about the rolling waves and the changes in temp and humidity helps it develop, apparently.

For me, the most interesting spot in Oslo is Vigeland Sculpture Park, which contains over 200 sculptures of naked people engaged in all kinds of shenanigans. They're not all this weird, but pictured are a few of the standouts: man fighting babies, angry baby, and a couple of different poses of man wrestling woman. That monolith in the center has 121 human figures entwined on it, and is not phallic at all! 

All of these sculptures, and the layout of the park itself, are by the same artist! This ray of sunshine, who definitely had no issues to work through, did it all! Pretty neat!

Norway's been good to us: fresh air, cool water, amazing scenery. Now we've moved on from the land of the elves (tall, beautiful, maybe a little aloof) to Ireland (friendly, talkative hobbits, perhaps?). Let the adventures continue!

Peace, Jon