Connemara - the old and true Ireland

    On the 11'th of March we took another road trip in the Connemara region. That is in the west of Galway.



    Our objectives: the corral beaches, Clifden and Westport.
    So after packing some sandwiches and beverages we got into the car and set for Connemara.
    One interesting think about Connemara: is a a gaelish region. That means that in this region people speak Irish and the road marks are in gaelish. Because Irish is nothing like English you feel like you're in another country .If you don't have a English to gaelish dictionary is quite possible that you get lost.

    Our first stop were come corral beaches. Think of our beaches on the coast of the Black Sea, and now replace the white sand with fine pieces of dead corral. Now you have a preatty good picture of the corral beaches. I just hope that I'll be able to get there during summer days :)

    To get to Clifden we went through the heart of Connemara. In the center of the region there are some mountains (well because they are so old they are more like big hills) called: The Twelve Pins.
    A really interesting site were the "pit" excavation sites. Pit is an inferior coal that people here used for heating (right now there is very little pit left in Ireland and most likely you're only gonna see pit heating only in some pubs in the west side of Ireland). When it burns it relishes a very powerful smell - which is actually not that nice to the nose :)
    Pit is found very near to the earth's surface, so people just come, scratch the ground and take out the pit.

    Clifden - a small city on the west coast. Although it's small it has many pubs and motels - you can tell tourism is a big source of revenue :).
    We got into this pub and had a very interesting "snack" : hot brownies with chocolate ice cream (on the same plate) and coffee. If you ever come to Ireland you should try it :)
    In the west of Clifden there is the "sky road". It's a road that goes over some hills and although you don't get anywhere if you take this road, you get this great view of the ocean. The view is that good that people built vacation houses in the middle of nowhere just so that they could wake up in the morning and see the ocean.

    On the way to Westport there some other nice places to visit like the Connemara National park and the Kylemore Abbey. Unfortunately for us we arrived at them rather late so we couldn't get it :( . Well ...maybe next time :).

    Cold and tired we stopped in Westport to warm us up. Me and Diana decided to go for the "Irish coffee". It's coffee with whiskey. Actually it has more whiskey than coffee (just like the Irish like they're coffee :) ). It was good but way to strong for my taste :) .
    And it had an undesired side effect: it completely messed up our stomaches and soon both of us were really sick :)

    All in all it was a great trip mainly because Connemara is one of the few remaining "Irish regions". Actually if you really want to see the "real Ireland" you have to see the west coast.

Flickr Slideshow

The Cliffs of Moher

    This Sunday (4'th of March) I had the chance to see one of the sights of the western Ireland: Moher's Cliff
    It all started with going for a coffee with Andrew, Cosmin, Raluca and Diana of the ocean side of Galway.
    After walking on the beach (beach is an overstatement...because there are mostly rocks there) for about 1 hour we got in this cosy pub for some drinks and snacks.
    Then Andrew asked us what do we want to see next, we had 2 options: the Burren & Moher's Cliff and Connemara & Corral beach.
    We all though that all this sites were in a reasonable travelling distance so we got into Andrew's car and set of for the cliff of Moher.
    On the way Andrew mentioned that we had to drive for about one hour and a half to get there. All of a sudden this turned out to be a road trip, something I didn't expect when leaving home that morning.

    The road was great: to get to the cliff you pass through The Burren, an area where all you can find are rocks, rocks and rocks. The most impressive part was the effort the Irish put in making this area inhabitable. There are fields from where they collected all the stones in order to be able to use the ground for raising animals. And with the stones they built stone walls, lots of stone walls :).
    The cliffs of Moher are truly a sight. Here's an extract from an tourist site: "Situated in County Clare and bordering the Burren Area, the Cliffs of Moher are one of Ireland's most spectacular sights. Standing 230 metres above the ground at their highest point and 8km long, the Cliffs boast one of the most amazing views in Ireland. On a clear day, the Aran Islands are visible in Galway Bay as well as the valleys and hills of Connemara"

    The only bad thing there was that due to increasing number of suicides/deaths on the cliffs the most spectacular part of the cliff was close to tourists. Seeing the strong winds there I could totally understand why there have been so many "accidental" deaths there.

    Great view, lousy weather :) Freezing we set of for the nearest city/ the nearest pub to get some drinks to warm us up. I had a guinness (my first in Ireland) and I have to tell you it's a great beer: strong beer taste, low alcohol; no wonder guinness is sometimes used as a medicine here :)

    I attached some pictures we took that day. Enjoy!

Flickr Slideshow

The expert mind

    Although I still owe you a lot of posts regarding my Irish XP I will take some time to talk to you about an article I recently read entitled : The Expert Mind

    It is a great article tackling one great subject: Inborn talent or hard-work &training?

    I will let you draw your own conclusions, but here are some key quotes from the articles:
    "...a psychological law of his own, the 10-year rule, which states that it takes approximately a decade of heavy labor to master any field. Even child prodigies, such as Gauss in mathematics, Mozart in music and Bobby Fischer in chess, must have made an equivalent effort, perhaps by starting earlier and working harder than others"
    "Even the novice engages in effortful study at first, which is why beginners so often improve rapidly in playing golf, say, or in driving a car. But having reached an acceptable performance--for instance, keeping up with one's golf buddies or passing a driver's exam--most people relax. Their performance then becomes automatic and therefore impervious to further improvement. In contrast, experts-in-training keep the lid of their mind's box open all the time, so that they can inspect, criticize and augment its contents and thereby approach the standard set by leaders in their fields."...

    "Although nobody has yet been able to predict who will become a great expert in any field, a notable experiment has shown the possibility of deliberately creating one. László Polgár, an educator in Hungary, homeschooled his three daughters in chess, assigning as much as six hours of work a day, producing one international master and two grandmasters--the strongest chess-playing siblings in history. The youngest Polgár, 30-year-old Judit, is now ranked 14th in the world"....
    "Thus, motivation appears to be a more important factor than innate ability in the development of expertise. It is no accident that in music, chess and sports--all domains in which expertise is defined by competitive performance rather than academic credentialing--professionalism has been emerging at ever younger ages, under the ministrations of increasingly dedicated parents and even extended families
    Furthermore, success builds on success, because each accomplishment can strengthen a child's motivation."...

    "The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts are made, not born. What is more, the demonstrated ability to turn a child quickly into an expert--in chess, music and a host of other subjects--sets a clear challenge before the schools" ...
    "The early results have been promising. Instead of perpetually pondering the question, "Why can't Johnny read?" perhaps educators should ask, "Why should there be anything in the world he can't learn to do?""..

    I strongly encourage you to read the full article and to think about: "How much did I study/train/practiced today to become the best in my field?"

Differences: part 1

From what I've seen until now:

1. The cars drive on the left and implicitly the driver's seat is on the right. This can be really frustrating especially in the first days/weeks when you see a car driving on the left and think it's going to have an accident.
Also crossing the street can be really tricky when no semaphores are present because you have to think really hard to figure out when it is save to cross

2. Their power outlet system is different: three pins instead of 2. So you have to buy an adaptor to charge you phone and laptop.




3. It rains! And it rains a lot! Did I say it rains a lot? I meant to say it rains a LOT! The interesting part is that people here have adapted and don't seem to care about it anymore. It is quite common to see people jogging in the rain.
And another think: umbrellas are usually useless because of the strong winds so people go for raincoats

But although all this rain there is very little mud. Almost every road is paved and there is grass everywhere. That's very, very good.

4. The sinks (except the kitchen sinks) are really strange:
(I took this picture of the Internet; the real sinks here are much cleaner :))

One tap is for hot water and the other is for cold water so one burns your hands and the other freezes them.

The only way you can get decent water is to put the plug and fill the sink with water -calibrating the hot and cold water, and only after that you may wash.

That's all for now...stay tuned for differences part 2

The story

      The first question that comes into your mind in probably: what is Ando doing in Ireland?

      Well here's the story:
      At the end of October 2006 the diploma professor announced me of the existence of a scholarship for completing the bachelor paper in Ireland at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute belonging to the National University of Ireland in Galway.
       Doing my bachelor paper in another country, and getting payed for it had a nice ring to it so I forwarded my CV and intention letter to them. I started talking to them via email and send them additional documents as time progressed.
      At the beginning to January 2007 ,more precisely on the 10'th they announced me that in 2 days time I will have an telephonic interview via Skype with Tudor (he is also from Cluj and he graduated 3 years before me from UTCN) and with Siggi (actually Dr Siegfried Handschuh) the coordinator of the Nepomuk project in Galway.
      The interview went pretty smoothly and by the end of the day I was told that they expected me in Galway for 6 months from the beginning of March :)

      That about sums it up.
      The good part is that this is a great opportunity for me, from which I am sure to learn a lot about myself.
      The bad part is that all the plans I had for this year are no longer valid and I have no idea what I will do when I'll return in September.
      But one problem at a time, and I have enough worries right now regarding my trip and my first weeks in Ireland to be thinking of September.