Trippin' to Sunnier Places

First up I must apologise for the lack of photos in the next sequence, due to an incident in Largos all photos were lost. I shall embelish on this later. Anyway on the wee little hours of the morn on the 16th of October we decided to embark on our first trekk. Cello as usual was 10 minutes late and was carrying the smallest torn backpack with about 100 things hanging off it, including the roll up mattress which he wanted to dump but then, me being the unable to throw anything away kinda person that I am decided to carry it for the entire trip. Unfortunately Galway's airport is so tiny that not much leaves from here, so we had to board a bus to Shannon, a town existing purely for the airport. And yes as usual, it was raining cat & dogs, so much so I was concerned that our budget ryan air flight might not be able to safely take off. Carcassone, in the south of France was our destination. Our land was somewhat funny, because the runway was too short our plane actaully had the brakes on before landing.... probably the most wobbly landing ever. Finally we saw some sun, glorious sun! We were greeted by someone doing a wheelie in a scooter across traffic, trekked through this fantastic medieval city and ended up staying in a Hostel that was located in a castle that had a moat. Ate some crepes ( Say : I Love crepes!!!!) We met a guy called Habi who just got a job and the engineer for a wind farm! He had no one to celebrate with so we took him out for a drink. Had the most awesome dinner in a stable, drank nice wine and ate duck a l'orange, had a great photo, but anyway...

So we boarded a train, and as, I was destined to find, now that transport is now cheap and widely available to pretty much anybody, there is always always a psycho onboard. And this time it was a middle aged lady, who on the odd day like to board a random train to a random destination whilst spreading her beloved putrid chest infection and singing nonsense to herself. On the trip we saw the amazing Lourdes where a 14y.o peasant girl had 18 visions of the virgin mary (secondary to them mushroom she just ate) and hence this town of 15,000 gets 5 million visitors of the Sanctuaires Notre Dame de Lourdes. It is a most amazing site. We also found an extraordinary amount of hot girls getting off at Bayonne (mental note to go there next time). Changing trains is always an interesting experience, especially when the transit time was 5 minutes and we had no idea of the platform and Rodriguez behind the counter took us our tickets, gave us a refund and pointed in a general western direction. I thought FUCK, we're stuck here tonight. We had NO idea what he was saying, boarded a random train which closed just as we hopped on, I don't know how we did it, but it was the right one, and instantly everyone on board was speaking spanish.... i'm sorry, i'm sorry.... i don't speak spanish.

Toiling the Hospitals

We were fairly lucky when it came to working, initially scared that there would be no work we pretty much accepted everything that came our way. Resulting in my working everyday for 6 weeks straight without any break. Initiation into the Galwegian ED was traumatic. Having to give 1st doses of all IV drugs, nursing walking chest pains in that had been waiting for 40 minutes, then not giving any oxygen until seen by a doc and acute abdomens getting panadol for pain relief. We were then posted to Merlin Park a awesome little off shoot in the middle of a forest where on ward rounds we can look out and see bunnies hop by! We were pretty much adopted by the renal unit and replaces a girl by the name of Maeve - Ireland's No 1. female mountain biker who broke her ankle whilst getting off the bike. In Merlin the air is clean, you get to sleep most on-calls and the units are so far apart that they used to have a bus to pick everyone up to go to arrests!

Here are our dorms where we spend some of our massive 56hr shifts.

It is a strange place, with many many weird inhabitant especially Unit 5/6 a source of endless gags. We had the patient who tried to smother the patient next to her with a pillow. We had the great escape where a 87yo lady in th emiddle of the night built stair up to the window, threw pillows out to soften the blow on her osteoporotic bones an dplanned to commando roll when she landed ( luckily caught by us as she was sitting on the sill and about to jump). Then there is the man who prefers to sleep on the ground. And the 2 long term patients that are electric wheel chair bound and race each other around the ground rain, wind or shine. We soon got involved in the Kidney crowd, both consultants were awesome, cool, well-dressed and knowledgable dudes.

Post Indian Shout By Dr Lappin

We even got invited to the Kidney Ball: To good diuresis

We even got to meet the villiage people:

Got to hang with Peter Doherty and MaryMullins

Us putting fake hair onto my consultant...he actaully is held behind his back by a nurse, who later spilt 2 baby guiness on him then went home with Graz.

I was next sent to rheumatology. Gee I love joints and steroids.

El Leal : Disclaimer - the following is all true

(Hey Cello... I apologise in advance if I offend you in this....)

Enter Leal (from left field). Making the 3rd manber of our party, indeed this man bought a bit of party. He is the cauky version of me, or am I the asian version of him? Anyway we are the Dynamic med video duo (and voss... but she's not here :) Known for his Brazilian good looks, womanising ways, drunken escapades, a penchant for olives, pop-corn and economics. He is an endless source of entertainment. Going by many names - marcello, lealdinho, cock, vector and I call him cello, but on this trip we have decided to label him Liability Leal or El Leal for short. Don't get me wrong, he is an intellegent life form - just ask him about the evolution of ideas. But long have we known him to be the single man-whore who would sleep with anyone whilst wearing a cow bell, and can miraculously be connected as a spit brother to almost anyone, at least by 6 degrees of seperation anyway. So imagine our surprise when we find that he is a changed man, no he's not gay, but he is settled of heart and all the better for it. He is a good man himself and a loyal, dear friend, may I now introduce the soon to become mega star through his pivotal role in MacBeth... please welcome the soon to be vegeterian Jew: Ross, also known as 1st murderer

(he's the one in the foreground, incase anyone was confused)

Ode to Toilets

It never ceases to amaze me how toilets around the world are designed so differently. I bring this up at this time because in our little hostel of Rotterdam, filled with little rooms there was a little toilet. Where some genius put the water hole bit right at the front of the bowl and a nice flat platform only 10cm away from your R-nus, for which when you poo you can feel the steam... and the smell. Idiots.

There is the opposite. Amazingly constructed for your defecating pleasure are the toilets located by us in the high alps of Sintra (Portugal) and Touloise (France) where at the touch of a but button the toilet seat revolves with a new layer of plastic on it for you peace of mind for the most hygenic trip you could possibly get in a public toilet. Also on the wall a button where instant freshness is released into the atmosphere to ensure next in line does not have to suffer the dreaded Cosby B-O.

And what the hell happened to toilet seats!!! Often amongst Spain and Italy were cafes with NO toilet seats. It just seems wrong, not as wrong as the hole in the ground found throughout China though. Why o' why does my cuntry of origin always seem to be a source of embarrassment.

The coolest toilets were a close tie between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Amsterdam where I got to urinate into a pair of large luscious red lips and Rotterdam where the toilet was literally a work of Kunst (art). I felt bad as I let stream of post kidney filtered fluid over this work of Kunst, but hey its really only fulfilling its own destiny.

By far the most interesting toilet experience was in some Dublin club where standing there was a very manic african man that was really too-happy for someone who works in a toilet (although while I was there for the 10 or so minutes he had made about 5 euros... making that about 30 euros an hour which is almost double my pay). But he was standing there asking everyone about how the pussy was upstairs and that the girls here were very very loose. To cap it off as I was leaving he reminded me that if I was to get a fuck tonight, to remember to put on a condom. I guess if it's not on it's not on. I gave him 10 cents.

Landing in the Eire

I'm a bit at buzz right now because I have just taken my 1st salmbutamol dose (after self diagnosing asthma) and feel all shakey... mmm beta agonist driven fun. At last we come to the main destination, Ireland, an island off an island off the main land of Europe. After a brief hiatus in sunny London, I boarded a little twin prop through the company Air Aeran, not to be confused with air Ryan which tried to take over it, and the only resaon it flew there was that the owner of Air Aeran is from Galway. Yep Galway is small, but it's a fun university town. All the students go home on Friday and you see everybody walking around with suitcases. Anyway, after getting off the run way I found out that the immigration system was down and that I had one month to present to the authorities. A sign of things to come in Ireland, where nothing really makes sense, alot of things are broke and for some reason they have never heard of the latest Irish invention (cement life jackets, wooden barbeques).

Ireland, known for its little men with congenital hypothyroidism holding a pot of gold (which on closer inspection is usually piss) at the end of a rainbow (I have yet to see a rainbow), four leaf clovers (again I haven't actually seen any clovers, let alone one's with 4 leaves) and the potatoe famine (you wouldn't guess it looking around).

Dont you love the clover leaf in the head

Also, in case you didn't know, it's famous for its Guiness, and guys, it is SO SO SO good here, I never was much of a fan, but now totally converted. Seriously, the further away Guiness is from the factory the worse it tastes.... which pretty much leeches Australia's as being shit (especially since it needs to be transported for 4 days from the east coast to get to Perth!!!). Guiness even tastes different from pub to pub and there is an inspector to check that it is being poured properly... what a great job. We later learnt that how good the Guiness was is propartional to the length of the hose and how clean it is....so girls - go get cleaning. Still we got right into it and it was not long before we craic-ed open our 1st Guiness and our house lost it's G-plates.

Initially staying in the smallest hostel room I have ever been in, I had one day to find us a house before I started work. And miraculously I did, and we currently live in the most well-wicked cookie, three story, brand spanking newly refurbished, centrally located and with a fire place!! townhouse. I luv it. Check it out...

I have an ensuite... my 1st ever one

Work started straight away and we instantly integrated. It's a little crazy over here and the system is all screwed up. I actually did a 56 hour straight shift once!!! I was cactus by the end. Nurses and doctors have a great divide here and we still wear lab coats.... however the Australian rebellion begins. I was blessed with good consultants and my teams were awsome, through which we met many irish. Including an uber rich reg (she owns a helicopter). We soon found many friends to go party with, and hence the drinking began. And the tequila started too.... oh my unfortunate twisted love for fermented cactus.