Busy Around...

Been now one week since I got back from Ireland, and I do miss it a lot. It feels so hard to get back to the old routine and stress that you used to be in before, and sometimes you think even "I used to be living in such pace?"
However, I went on a cruise yesterday to Failaka island but without going to Miskan island after that, as we spent 1 hour almost going around with my friend and looking for some restaurant to have lunch there. As soon as we finished, the time was almost up to go back on the cruise to head to the main lands. On the cruise, we went silent for a moment and before the cruise starts to move, to find out Mr Dangerous was in front of us and peeking at us behind his nose... he was Mr Attitude (or Mr Personality, or whatever you might call a person with ego...). This thing was... this:


Well, thankfully he did not jump over our car.
As we sat sail from Failaka, the current and tides were larger and thus, and after such lunch, there was a chance for some sea sickness. I didn't feel it much but after one hour outside, I decided to head back to the car and stay in the cold air of my AC with my friend. As the coastline appeared from afar, I had my zigzag walk on board trying to reach the edge of the cruiser with my camera. I snapped some shots, but of course as we were shaking, not much of them were good;



I had some break now working on photos from Ireland all the time, and did the images above (and working now on a third image but I can't get it right still with the noise, and might just abandon it). On the other hand, my work with images from Ireland is now blocked and clogged with one image that gives my pc a problem with memory. It was taken on several parts, and each angle was taken in 3 shots with different exposures, which were made later into separate HDRs combined and saved in EXR format. EXR format, as I read in some article, it saves the exposure rate and values for the 32-bit image. I used to save such files in PSD format, but seems PSD does not contain all the values of the 32-bit as well! I'm not sure about this item of information yet. The work with EXR was not successful though after all because of the memory problem and photomerge command in photoshop always hangs after some time or just give an error. My next approach then was to give up with some of the resolution and converted the files into 32-bit TIFF images with smaller (relatively) sizes. TIFF images in smaller sizes were relatively faster in processing (faster in terms of minutes and hours, it is still a long time for a regular person I suppose!), and yet, the problem still occurs. I gave up with it now and I'm going to try later on, trying to find out another way to go around this problem.

I printed out 2 images currently to be framed and sent back to my host in Ireland in the Waterfront. Hope she'd like them. I found out that they were dark and not as I view them on the monitor, or, it could be because they might have been converted into CMYK (they are originally in RGB format).



The above image is one of the images but the second one (which was larger) was not made into a smaller on to be in photobucket. I was lazy!
Beside these images, and the other image that causes me some sleepless nights right now, I worked on other images that I kept to stitch them out here,

The first image (the Ashford Castle), was fixed with some extra stuff and I sent it to some email address related to the staff of the hotel there, as a little gift. Well, I don't know if they saw it or not, but I hope they'll like it.

I finished reading the Graveyard Book, and seems, from the acknowledgement that I read at the end, that there is a trial indeed to make it into a movie. Well, it was a nice and weird story that would indulge you in the world of graveyards and the night life... I mean the quiet night life, mostly! Left for now, I need to go on reading MY own story again to connect my thoughts back and try to complete this and finish it. I hate this feeling to leave it unfinished. And as for my translation work, I don't think I will start with it any sooner for the time being. I have to think as well how to build my Ayvarith website again... and this boils me blood!
Well, I will see if I can go to Miskan on my own this Sunday or Monday, IF I was able to wake up in the morning...

Back Home...

Here we are again... home. I arrived at Kuwait almost at 1:30AM Friday. Ironically the next day I had to at night time and in the middle of the heavy traffic around the airport to get my sister who arrived back from Iran. All what you need is few moments to get your pressure built up again as it was before your vacation, but to grease my engine and get me out of the vacation mood I need a bit more time. I'm doing things slowly at the current time... my room is a mess as I left it before leaving to Ireland.

I got myself an external harddisk to help me with storing the images from the laptop and work on them with the PC and my sweet ol' Photoshop CS4! I got really sick with the laptop and its speed and the old software too. The panoramic capabilities and HDR composition is just "SUPER" with CS4!

20GB of RAW images were transferred to my new external hard disk... some of them are shaky though, but I might get around that later on. I'm working right now on some panoramic views that I want to fix and get ready to print them out and frame them, and send them to the owner of The Waterfront, as a "little" gift for such beautiful place and vacation.

I won't go on telling other stuff that happened when I arrived here, but not everything was pleasant. Continuing my activities, I want to visit Failaka island (hopefully on next Thursday) and might check for Miskan island later on or in the same day IF I could. I need to grease up myself again and get to work on stopped project now... the translation of Alexander's story... the Blackened Image story (which I have to read again to build the chain of events in my mind back again)... also there are books waiting for me to be read! I think there is no time for heart affairs right now... as I am just... exhausted...

Slán Agat

Well, this might be my last post before leaving Ireland 2 days ahead. I'm packing my stuff, and checking my stuff, and by tomorrow I will head to Galway railway station to head back to Dublin. I will stay one night in Dublin and by the next morning I shall head to the airport to fly away.

Hopefully, I will be back to fill in this blog when I get back to Kuwait and with the old routine, and the Ayvarith and Alexander's story!

Slán agaibh, slán ó hÉirinn...

Inchagoill (Inis an Ghaill)

Today, I went by boat to the marvelous and "mysterious" island of Inchagoill. I was supposed to go yesterday but, although the weather came out nice later in day, it was cloudy in the morning, and later on my host told me that it was good that I didn't go yesterday because despite the fact the weather came out good later on, but the air was active and there was some current in the lake.

However, I went on today in almost one hour journey to the island which was thick with trees and bushes, thus from afar you'd see only a green spot on the surface of the water. I got some pictures on the boat and there were other small islands and some of them contained houses as well! It was just beautiful. I had to catch most of the photos using Tv (shutter-speed mood), because of the shake along the way, and seems the Photoshop CS2 is not as good as CS4 with aligning the images together, thus I will keep this hard work for later. Lot of photos are waiting to be processed back home.

We reached the island, and according to my guide, he said the island is now mainly not inhabited, but it was mainly populated by the Sullivans, and another family I can't remember its name (but it stards with C and got V in the middle and Y at the end!!). We walked in narrow slippery pathways and reached the church or the monastery first. It was cool and peaceful, and you would still meditate in that old hard-rocky building. You can still see the avatar and the place where the font was kept. There, I couldn't resist to run a 180 degrees shoot (with no tripod) to the hall. But there is a question that always kept me puzzled: why the entrances of such old places were narrow and sometimes even small so that you have to lower your head down to get in?!

Some steps away into a little fine height out of the monastery there was the grave yard. It was a small yard and few gravestones were showing, and some of them were dating back to 1988. Some of the stones were legible but most of them were washed out, and the weird thing is that according to my guide who is a frequent visitor to the place (and I think he works to the government to check the island and its habitat), he said that in his 21 years life time he never heard of someone buried in this island, despite the fact that one of the gravestones read clearly that this lady who was 37 years old when she died, was dead on the 27th of May, 1988. She was a Sullivan as well. On the back of this row of grave stones, my eyes captured a weird type of gravestone and obviously it was ancient but I can't really say how old is it. According to brochures, this island should have a grave stone for St Patrick nephew, so I wonder if this grave stone is for him;

There was a chamber made of hard stones few steps away from the grave yard but I couldn't really tell what so special about it and why is it there. It could be a chamber for the graveyard keeper maybe? Who knows!

During my observations for the gravestones, my guide left me for some minutes to go somewhere, where he heard some sounds of chainsaw as we came into the dock of the island. However, after his arrival and we started to leave the place heading to a place called "The Coffee House" or "The Café House" (could not hear my guide clearly when he said the name several times!), we passed through some timber that was cut and organized in the shape of a pillar! My guide laughed and said to me that he made it that way when the two men who were cutting them moved away from the location, and they would get back and see this and think there is a ghost in the island! We couldn't stop laughing at the trick!

After some long slippery way and raising on some hill, we reached the Coffee House. It was a small place, but because the gate was so close to the trees, I couldn't get back enough to take a full image of it, thus I had to resort to the old trick; Panoramic shot. There were some stuff inside, like a coat maybe or a jacket and trousers forgotten by some people! The graffiti was all over the walls inside. At the back there was a stairway that lead to the top of the building (and of course everything was made of hard rock) and from the top I got a spectacular view of the lake and the trees, and here I went on catching a panoramic shot as well. The most significant tree that you can see almost every where in the island was the scotch fir as my guide called it. It is straight and high tree and almost bears no branches with the greeny part being on the top of the tree, just like one big broccoli!

When we got down there, my guide showed me also a small door that lead to the chimney and it was so small and dark that I could barely see anything inside. Finishing from that we had a long walk on a hill and some slopes down to reach the dock again. I took some pictures along the way for some trees and my guide showed me a fir tree that was, according to him, the oldest in the island and the hugest. You cannot wrap your arms around its trunk. From the looks of it, I do believe that it is something like a thousand years old!

Still the surprises were not over yet, on the way to the dock, my guide got deep into the forest at some point and called me to join him, and he showed me a house that is forgotten and not attended. It is also built by rocks and the plants grew every where on it that you can hardly notice its walls. Of course the roof was long gone. My guide said that he would notice the government about this house, who might be forgotten maybe mainly because it has nothing special about it except that it would be a good example of how people lived in this island in the 1800s or 1700s even, as some chambers were obvious and the structure for the chimney was obvious, where a special room to keep the cattle was visible as well. My guide said it is most probably was inhabited by the Sullivans, who were farmers and most of the island were like farm lands (and his own father worked on potatoes harvest on this island long time before) before the government decided to make it a tourism attraction and planted the trees and made the forests we see now.

Just before we leave the island, there was a little spot of clear land among the trees which was a place for BBQ parties as my guide said. The traces of burnt tree trunks and the benches were like they had been used no more than 3 days I would say. My guide said that there is no danger for fires here since the soil is damp and full of green mostly!

We left the island on a long way back home, and I was so exhausted that I slept for 30 minutes on my bed while I was typing this entry of the blog and the laptop was on my lap (duh!) while I was lying down. 1 day is left for me here, and on the 14th I have a long way back to Dublin. Tomorrow will be a busy day for me sort of. I will be packing and checking that everything is fine. I have my fears with my luggage weight though...

Cong, Co. Mayo.

Today, after breakfast, I traveled along within a taxi to another county: Mayo. I headed (with the taxi of course) in a long journey that almost took one hour of driving to a village called Cong, on the north of the Loch Coirib. This long way was supposedly to be shortened (with lesser expenses) by a ferry, but since the ferry stops at the end of the September with the end of tourism season, I had to take the hard way. Not only that, but a ferry would take you into the lake to an island in the Corrib, named Inchagoill, where a grave stone of St. Patrick nephew is supposedly to be there with a church that dates back to the 5th century, and also a 12th century's Romanesque church. However, today I went to Cong, and tomorrow, if the weather was nice I shall be heading to Inchagoill by boat.

There are three main sites to see in Cong, but I saw only two of them since I didn't really care much about the third! They are: 1. Ashford Castle which has been turned into a luxurious hotel, 2. St. Feichin Monastery which dates back to the 6th century, 3. A museum, which was the house where a movie was shot, named "The Quiet Man."

1. In Ashford castle, tourism was much still alive and people were going in and out, either for picnics or to play golf in the wide green fields around the castle. I took many shots around the place and I had a long walk in the forest behind the hotel (the castle). We were thinking that the monastery is somewhere around the castle but we got it wrong. Anyway, I really loved the trees there, and some of them were giants and obviously hundreds if not at least one thousand years old. On the way out of the place, we asked a valet about the monastery, and he guided us to it. It is in the village itself and not near the hotel.

2. We got back to the village and found the monastery. Frankly, I don't know if it is St. Feichin monastery, but it was Cong Abbey, or "Ministreach Chonga." It was a national monument as the signs in the place denoted and from the design and the hard rocks it was obvious that it was a medieval building. The graves were every where and I was trying hard not to stop on them. The dead deserve their respect. The graves were marked by a grave stones sometimes but lot of times they were marked by a Celtic crosses. The abbey had a second floor which was exposed like a roof, and I tried to take a panoramic shot up there. The building was magnificent, and after the castle of Aughnanure, this is the second time I see a real medieval building with religious significance. The castle itself was not completely medieval as it was obvious that it had been renovated to be in shape of the hotel that it is seen today. The abbey was unique with its ruins. Upon my way out, I snapped the gate of the abbey as well;

3. On the way back from Cong, I had a nap in the taxi, as the long drive to Cong actually made my stomach a bit disturbed. On the way though, I couldn't help to stop my camera from snapping but this I had to make fast shots with no HDR intention (3 shots with different exposures and blah blah blah). There were many spectacular views for Connemara hills and the Corrib lake with the road being up and down all the way, but I had few shots that were good enough, specially with the problem with the light source and the speed of the shutter;

Tomorrow, Hopefully, I'll be heading to Inchagoill, and only 4 days left to get back to Dublin, and on the 5th day then, I shall fly away back home!

Muddy Day

Today, it was a bit rainy outside. Light rain for some hours (roughly 3 hours), so my plan to go to some other village called Cong in Co. Mayo was not done. Maybe I will by tomorrow. However, the wind was strong when the rain stopped, thus I couldn't resist to go out and walk around. There is a boat that I took a picture of and found out that this picture was a bit not focused, so I went to make a try with it again.

Finishing from the boat, I decided to walk on the hard piece of land extending into the water and formed like a small cape or an isthmus, and headed toward and island that I always liked to step on its soil. After the rain, the hard igenous ground is all slippery and dangerous and the rocks are filled with holes because of the rain and got sharp edges. You don't really want to fall on those! However, I was stepping into the dense grass trying to reach that land, I accidentally stepped on a non-stable area of grass, the next thing I found was my leg going deep into the mud and me falling down. Hours passed now and I still laugh at myself for what happened. I was really walking around with high confidence and the next thing was ZOT!

After this amazing experiment (ah yeah), I went on walking to the end of the land and just in front of the island. Since I was wet already down there, with mud all over my pants, I didn't mind putting my leg into the water this time and stepping on further stones that were dipped in water but not so deep, and finally I reached the closest distance I could ever be in. Tried to go further on some stones that formed a sort of pathway to the island but were dipped a bit in water, but as I went on and on, the pathway was cut and to continue I have to dip myself to the knees or a bit lower than that into the cold water in this harsh cold wind. So I just stopped at that moment, and took a snap;

I don't know if it has a name already, but I think I will call it "Oileán Fliuch," or "The Wet Island." I wonder what or how it would be if I want to Anglecize the Gaelic phrase? Could it be "Oulanflough"? or "Ilanfloo"? Who knows!

On the way back from that spot, and dipping my feet further in water (which actually helped to wash out some mud from my shoe), I stepped on a big rock which cought my eyes for its destinctive spots. It got all those pinky or reddish spots filled with water, seems it is the oxidization of iron in the rock that left such traces;

I was about to fall down many times though. It was embarassing when I got back to the Waterfront. I had to take off the shoes outside and get in with bare feet. The owner helped me out to wash the shoes... it was so embarassing, but I still can't stop laughing at myself!

Brigit's Gardens

Today, I went to the Brigit's Garden which was some kilometers away from my place. It was so natural to not go on foot!!!

It was in fact a museum and a park in the same time, and it has its own little forest which I was almost going to get lost in it!

I took some photos around the place. In the beginning, there were 4 little gardens symbolizing the 4 seasons of the year connected to the celtic festivals of Samhain, Lughnasa, Imbolc, and Bealtaine. Then there were several scenes and places to go around. The main theme of the park is to show the irish habitat as it is originally, putting together original irish trees and plants. The aroma of the gardens was amazing!

Then There was the Crannóg; A house that is said to be built usually by people who live on islands over the lakes in Ireland;

But the most significant view was that of the "Calendar Sundial" which is a sundial, but so huge and it measures the date as well as the time, all by the shadow of the "gnomon" or the dial of the sundial.

Well, I'm working on more tours now, which means more money for the taxis and such. After getting out of the Gardens, I headed to the village to get some biscuits (and I got LOT of them), since I can't work on my laptop or PC without a snack to chew on. All of the day's trip, costed me around €30.00 or more a bit. But more expenses are coming...

Oughterard (again)

Today, I've walked to the village again since the taxi was not free and I wanted to finish things as fast as possible to have all the day to rest and write and think. This time, I didn't take any camera or tripod, so relatively I was light when I went there. But the way back was harder because I was carrying all the souvenirs and gifts that I got. I spent around €400.00 on gifts! That's around 168KD. Well, back in Kuwait I think the amount is not much to be mentioned, unless if you say for someone "gifts," I believe everyone will yell at you and say "are you crazy!" Also, I got myself the thing that I always wished to own... a pipe! I got me bodhrán and some books as well. My main concern now is the extra weight, thus I have to check for more information from the Turkish Airways site. I'm planning after 1 or 2 days to go on the boats near the Waterfront for a little voyage, if the weather helps out.

I didn't catch any pictures today but yesterday, I got one picture which inspired me for something. I called it, "The Lonely Barley."

I couldn't gather the words yet for the poem, but it shall be a dedication for a beloved one...

Correction: I took lot of photos!

Caisleán Achadh na nIubhar (again)

Today, I went walking back to the castle of Aughnanure after breakfast, because I had some ideas for some photos that I wanted to apply and see. For my surprise I discovered that there are some things that I didn't see before in the last visit. There is a tower in the corner and seems the inner structure has gone, and the niches in the hard rock wall were filled with some plants.

I had to get out of narrow tower though in a hurry because the wasps seem to have a nest there, and the weather was nice and shiny which made all sort of activities for all these insects!

Also in the castle, I discovered a passage that I did not go into before and it leads to the back of the window that made a shot of before, and I found out that it had ornamentations at the back with an arc. Since I couldn't catch the whole scene with my lens, I decided to go on and make separate several shots for every corner in that window, to stitch them together later on.

On the way back, I was barked at by a dog near one of the houses and I tried to stay calm as much as possible. Combine this with flying wasps all around you, and you will have a very nice feeling!

Tomorrow, hopefully, I'm thinking of some shopping... if the time allowed me to!

Oughterard

Today, I had breakfast in the Waterfront as usual and went on a long long walk to the nearest village to get some cash and buy some stuff as well for my stay. The way took me one hour of walking to there or more a bit and one hour to get back or so... in total I think I spent 3 hours of continuous walking, so much that even now, 3 hours after my return to the Waterfront, I still feel my feet burning and aching. Trying to fight though not to sleep now or else, I'll be awake by night time with not much to do and so on.

On my way, although I didn't want to take much pictures and stared down most of the time, but still, I couldn't resist snapping some pictures. Anyway, they were not as much as yesterday though. One of the funniest thing that I've found on my way, is some sign that was planted on the earth, upside down!

Maybe this is how Gaelic is supposed to be? Who knows!

After checking the maps that I got from the hotel some days ago, I think I need to go back to the main city (Galway) to go around and get some gifts for the family... and myself as well if possible although I don't have much to buy for myself! Well, maybe a memorial for myself of this stay. Yet, I collected some pinecones from the ground the day before yesterday and intending to keep them for a memorial. Hope the airport check won't think it is a bomb or something!

Fáilte go hÉireann - The Beginning...

Here I am after a tiresome traveling from one country to the other and with "somehow" troublesome time, I got finally to my final destination... The Waterfront - Oughterard, Galway Co. in Ireland.

I took off from Kuwait Airport around 2:20 a.m. at the 29th of September. The destination was Istanbul, Turkey. The flight took around 4 hours or more a bit, and generally it was a nice one since I didn't have anyone sitting beside me at all (there was on guy who left to some other seat as it seems). I didn't expect the number of people though. In the plane I was trying hard to sleep a bit by flipping my head left and right or leaning my head against the window and so on, till I reached Istanbul. In in Istanbul, all I had to do is go on with the rush wherever it goes and follow the signs and ta-da I was in the transit zone. I had to wait for 4 hours there for my next flight to Dublin. It was a great waste of my time really. I was coping to keep my eyes open all the time, and I found some people sleeping there already but no place for me... thus I decided to take some Espresso from the Starbucks café in the transit zone. I guess that café was the only thing that I wouldn't really miss from Kuwait at all! However, the expresso effect wasn't effective enough. Finally the time was up and I had to go on to my plane. I was surprised to see the number of people traveling with me in the same plane! I thought tourism time is over and people don't travel at this time of the year, but most of the travelers with me were actually Irish people returning home! Thus, it was a crowded place and I was stuffed like a sardine in my seat.

My seat was another story. In this flight, the curse of children started to follow me like if I was at home. Children crying and children kicking my legs... why don't these guys use glue? However, I was seated, and 2 old people sat beside me then suddenly (as it seems) they discovered that they made a mistake and they must sit at the back and not in my row. That was a relief for some time till the stewardess came to me to ask nicely if I can change my seat to give a chance for a lady with her 2 children (african, and her kid was kicking and crying all the time) because they got separated in seats. Thus, I had to go to some other seat, with 2 people sitting there and I had to stuff myself... at that moment only I was thinking of a diet indeed.

After reaching Dublin, I ran around looking for a taxi and I got one to pick me to Heuston Station where I have to collect my ticket. Unfortunately, I missed the train and the lady on the information desk told me I can get on the train of 10 O'clock, which meant that I have to wait for more than 8 hours!

After all, I got sick of waiting and then after asking again some other lady, she told me I can go on the next train to Galway. I had only 15 minutes to catch it and I did. We moved at 7:20 p.m. and the train kept on stopping on several stations until we reached Galway station at 10 p.m. . The train though was a bit miserable inside and stuffed, and with my heavy luggage and backpack it was tideous. I found a place later with 3 other people who accepted me. The funny thing was that later on the way to Galway (but before stopping in some station before Galway) , we heard some cracking and it was a scary sound indeed, and the train was shook a bit. We stopped for 10 minutes almost and then moved again, and they informed us that it was a sheep that lost its way! Few minutes later we heard the same sound, and I said to the lady in front of me "hope it's not a cow this time, this sound looks stronger!"

After reaching Galway finally, with tiresome body, I got a taxi and asked him to pick me to the nearest hotel. He delivered me to Carlton Hotel. I remained there till the next day for breakfast and then made a confirmation for one extra day in the Waterfront, the place where I'm going to stay most of the vacation.

The owner of the place, a very nice lady, didn't expect me because they did not tell her about the update (i.e. the agency did not tell her), but everything went smoothly. The road from Galway to the place in a taxi was like 45 minutes.

I spent my first day in the Waterfront in phototaking first (until the owner prepares the place for my arrival) and then once I got into my room... I fell asleep one time after the other.

Today, my second day at the Waterfront, I went to the side of the lake, which is called Lough Corrib (Gaelic: Loch Coirib), I wonder about the meaning though. After that I had some rest and headed to the Aughnanure Castle (Caisleán Achadh na nIúr) which belonged to the Flaherty's in medieval times. I got dozens and dozens of images all the way to there and from the castle itself. It was like a dream. However, I will work on the photos later to put on here. I'm just so tired to type this entry even!