The Ring of Kerry

On our third day of our Ireland tour, we headed west towards the Ring of Kerry. Three summers ago, we cycled from Killarney to Kenmare with our good friend Greyson. Sean and I agreed that day was the most memorable (and painful) experience that we've had in Ireland to date, so we decided to re-live some of those memories. Since we had the car, we were able to drive around the entire ring!

Ardmore

On the second day of our Ireland tour, we took a short drive to the coastal town of Ardmore. It was a cute little town with a fun arts & crafts store which highlighted the local talents. We also took a cliff walk which sat on the perimeter of the town. The weather also cooperated with us - it was mostly sunny until the end of our walk.

Aherne's Guesthouse - Youghal

After several months of lecture, exams, deadlines, and lab work, we decided that we needed a vacation! Sean's last day of classes was on Dec 14th, so after our trip to Dublin, we decided to rent a car and explore the country for a few days. Our first stop was at the coastal town of Youghal (pronounced Yall), which is on the southeastern coast. In Youghal, we stayed at Aherne's Guesthouse. Not only is it a very cozy place to stay, but they also have an award winning seafood restaurant which we could not resist!

Hiking in Glendalough

During our visit with Henning and Kristine, we drove out to the Wicklow Mountains for a Sunday hike at Glendalough (Glen-da-lock).

Dublin with Henning and Kristine

Last weekend we headed up to Dublin to visit our dear friends Henning and Kristine. Henning was in Sean's medical school class at UCC, but was able to tranfer north to University College Dublin (UCD) this year. His wife, Kristine, is a final year vet student at UCD, and for the past three years they were commuting between Cork and Dublin to see each other on the weekends. We miss Henning in Cork, but we are so happy that Henning and Kristine can finally live in the same city!

We had a great time in Dublin! Since we've done all of the sightseeing, we decided to just hang out and catch up. On Saturday night, we went to dinner at H&K's favorite restaurant, Roly's Bistro. It was wonderful!!

Congratulations Dr. Ahmad Ahmeda and Dr. Rowan Flynn!!

We have two new doctors in the Dept of Physiology! Ahmad successfully defended his PhD thesis (known in the UK & Ireland as the 'viva')in August and walked in his conferring ceremony on Dec 12th. He's decided to work as a post doc in Prof Johns' lab and we are very happy that he is staying!

Rowan defended his thesis last Tuesday (Dec 18) and is currently working as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle. Rowan was my former officemate - we had some great times together and it was sad to see him leave! I really miss him, but luckily he and his wife Ciera are only three hours away from Portland, so I'm sure we will be able to see them both this summer.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since we had to work on Thanksgiving (don't worry...we'll be talking to the Irish government to try to get this changed)...we celebrated Thanksgiving on the Saturday after the true Thanksgiving Day. We had a great party, with five irish guests (Brendan, Marguritte, Micheal, Ciaran, Padraig) and three Canadians (Neera, Terry and Hilary). Our Canadian friends also invited us to their Thanksgiving celebration, which took place at the Flannery's pub 6 weeks prior.

The dinner was definitely a mixture of cultures! Sean and I took care of the turkey and pumpkin pie (with the pumpkin mix directly imported from the US!), and our friends each added their own personal twist to the dinner. Marguritte and Micheal made a delicious dish called bubble and squeak (potatoes, cabbage, and sausages), Ciaran brought roasted parsnips which were instantly devoured. Padraig wowed all of us with his Baked Alaska - a true culinary work of art. Thanks to everyone for sharing this special holiday with us!

The Minsons Visit Ireland!

In November, my former advisor Chris Minson and his family (wife Julie, and kids Maia and Tyler) came to Cork for a visit! Chris is currently on sabbatical in Liverpool, England and was lucky enough to take a few days off from work to cross the channel and spend some time with us! We had a great time - we toured Cork City and took the bus to the coastal town of Kinsale. The Minsons also took a mini-trip on their own to the Ring of Kerry.

Chris also gave a guest talk to the Department of Physiology at UCC on his current work in womens vascular health (thanks Britta and Jessica for all of the data - it looks great!!) Our department was extremely impressed with Chris and very thankful that he was willing to put in the time and energy to give a very interesting talk!