patrick.net

rando says

I have no car here, which is fine. I'm now in my Irish Gaelic class on Inis Oírr, a little island off the west coast. Don't need a car here anyway.

Yeah, my idea of a vacation doesn't include driving much or at all. That's why I like going places like Atlantic City, where you don't need a car.

www.youtube.com/embed/4xVOw_FRPlo

Had a wonderful tour of Inis Meán today with my class, and could understand almost all of what the tour guide was saying in Irish. I know she was speaking slowly and simply for us, but still, it's a great feeling to start to get the hang of this very weird old language.

Photo I took there today:

Are you going to see the island from the Star Wars movie? The first Jedi temple I believe.

No, not this time. Sounds interesting, but it's pretty far south, and I'm planning on going north.

If you go to Dublin, I'd be curious what locals think about FB exposing the identities of 40 employees to Islamic terrorists, and about Islam generally.

Those are the edges of the fields on the island. The place is so rocky that it was necessary to move stones to the edges and build walls out of them to have anywhere at all to raise cattle. The whole island is pretty much just composed of those walled enclosures. Supposedly there are 3,000 miles of walls on the one small island of Inis Meán. I'll post a photo below.

Even worse, after moving out all the stones and building the walls, there was still not enough soil to grow anything, so the locals hauled up seaweed, dried it, and burned it, over and over for millennia (literally thousands of years) to make enough soil to grow grass to feed cows.

There's not enough grass in any one of them to support a cow, so they moved the cows around from enclosure to enclosure to eat the grass there was.

We will let you enjoy you time off & give you hell when you return.
Gird your loins!

Had an excellent lunch of local lobster, brown bread, and salad for 30 Euros with two of the guys from my class:

rando says

It does sound like fun to live somewhere really different while we're young enough though.

@Patrick - if you don't mind me asking, how old are you? You can give an approximation and not your actual age if you don't feel comfortable doing so.

https://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/the-tragic-reality-of-deaths-at-the-cliffs-of-moher

Arrived in Belfast. This should be interesting. Going to check out Shankill and Falls Roads.

There is evidence of division all over, like Sinn Fein posters in Irish, or British flags and murals.

I happened to end up at a clearly Irish hotel, where being named Patrick is a good thing.

Couple of clearly sectarian postings I ran across:

Poster from Sinn Fein party (assoc with the IRA) that demands that Irish be recognized as an official language in the north, I think. And it's in Irish! Says "Respect for all! (Pass the) Irish act now!"

And you know which side these guys are on.

Amazing seafood restaurant called Mourne on Bank Square in Belfast.

We'll see if Patrick can take a hint.

My last picture was a comment on how you should have rotated the picture before posting it.

Oh right, my mistake.

Back in Dublin now. Compared to Belfast, Dublin is much more touristy and expensive, but there is also a happiness and lack of sectarian tension here, which is nice.

Diversity is not necessarily a good thing. Diversity harms social trust and cohesion.

If you want a change of food and are in the central Dublin area, this place was good(though I was there in 2012..five years is a long time)

https://www.yelp.com/biz/the-cedar-tree-dublin-3?osq=lebanese

One of the "peace walls" in Belfast. Tour guide said they have been effective in greatly reducing violence in areas where Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods border each other. You can go around them if you're willing to go out of your way. The locals on both sides still want to keep them because there is still tension and fear of renewed violence.

So walls can work.

Arrived in Norway. Oslo has the most beautiful airport I have ever seen.

And I'm not all that into tall blonde women, but damn.

First impression is that the country is extremely clean and orderly. No graffiti or trash that I can see yet.

Most people look pretty Nordic, like the nazis wished that they looked. A few Somali-looking men really stand out.

rando says

So walls can work.

Don't be ignorant. It's not like walls keep out bank robbers, murderers and pedophiles, so why use walls to keep out illegal aliens. In fact, houses, banks and prisons shouldn't have walls because they don't do any good, and we can use that wall money to treat victims of robbery, murder and molestation.

rando says

First impression....

In some ways, Mrs. Patrick might have advantages in learning what's hidden. For example, I heard Oslo females don't want to call taxis at night, because the male Muslim drivers rape female passengers. Oslo is now 10% Muslim, and the most common baby name is Mohamed. The government has recently reduced immigration, but even among Norwegians who might have objected in the past, Anders Breivik and Donald Trump have caused a reaction in favor of Muslims. Most Norwegians feel good about helping, and that has been hijacked to serve hijrah in the guise of multiculturalism, and the oil money has enabled indulging that. If you, as a male, say something that reminds Norwegians of either Breivik or Trump, then Norwegians might mentally assign you to the same category. If Mrs. Patrick, as a mother with daughters, were to ask the same questions and use the same words, she might get more candid answers.

Patrick,
You better focus on this site & forget the partying & playing
before these assholes destroy Patrick .net.

Not sure what this bygg fag is selling.

(OK, Translates as "building subject" and clearly just some kind of construction company.)

On a boat in the fjords now. It's an ad on the boat's TV.

You still giggled when you saw the ad.

rando says

Not sure what this bygg fag is selling.

Obviously industrial lubricant.

If anyone goes to Balestrand in the fjords of Norway, you must eat at the Ciderhuset and try this cider too:

Both the food and the cider were really top-notch, and the restaurant itself is pleasantly informal and airy, with stunning views.

No, the northern lights seem to be something that happens only in winter.

There is an excess of light though, with it never really getting dark at all. It's kind of nighttime between about midnight and 4am, but still not really dark. Makes it hard to sleep. The places I have been in don't have good enough shades to keep out the light. So that's somewhat disorienting.

rando says

Not sure what this bygg fag is

You live near San Francisco, and you don't know what a big fag is?

Found the website for the Ciderhuset mentioned above:

http://www.ciderhuset.no/home

Thoughts on Norway:

* Extremely clean and safe, maybe too much so.
* So blonde it almost hurts the eyes. Probably more than half of all people are blonde. Many of them look very similar to each other.
* Crazy numbers of hot women, more than any other country I've seen, and I've seen a lot of the globe.
* It's almost weird to see good-looking blonde people doing manual or menial jobs, but there they are. Bus drivers, garbage collectors, construction, etc.
* There are a lot of Muslims in Oslo, just going by women with head coverings. Officially about 5% of the population and that looks correct. They are more prevalent in certain neighborhoods than in others.
* Saw many more Norwegian women with swarthy immigrant men than the reverse. So maybe Norwegian women are actually importing them for dating purposes. It's possible.

Had a strange experience on the tram on my way from the Bergen airport to meet my wife downtown: Saw two young Muslim women out the window, and they saw me. They came in and sat next to me, which was the first odd thing. They chatted with each other in a language I could not identify, then the younger one started crying. The older one laughed at the younger one for crying, apparently. Another odd thing. Silence. I asked what language that was, and the older one said Pashto. I asked if they were from Afghanistan and they were surprised I knew that and we talked for about 10 minutes, the rest of the ride. They were sisters, and coming from an end-of-Ramadan Eid celebration (it was late at night). The younger one didn't know much English, but the older one said they had been in Norway for 3 months, granted asylum there after the US turned them down. They would have preferred to go to America. We talked about hair coverings for a bit. When they left, they stopped and turned around and both shook my hand. Also odd.

Arrived in Sweden today. First impression is that there are more Muslims and fewer native blonde people here.

rando says

Officially about...of the population....

According to the Norwegian government statistics, Oslo had a population of 660k at the beginning of 2016. Of those, 60k were Muslims for whom government subsidy was received. That works out to 9% on government subsidy. If you assume at least some Muslims are not on government subsidies, then the total is around 10% or higher.

rando says

They would have preferred to go to America.

Did they say why? They might have family connections or friends in America.

rando says

We talked about hair coverings for a bit.

Actions can say more than words, e.g. what type of hair covering they wear and how they wear it. Many submit to Islam due to fear or simply wanting to belong to a community, and say what they must say, but rebel in subtle ways.

curious2 says

Of those, 60k were Muslims for whom government subsidy is sreceived. That works out to 9% on government subsidy. If you assume at least some Muslims are not on government subsidies, then the total is around 10% or higher.

Wow. I would not have guessed quite that high. But I was mostly in tourist areas where they were not.

curious2 says

Did they say why? They might have family connections or friends in America.

No, but the older sister said their brother was already in Norway, and that was how they got asylum.

The older sister was more covered, not a hair visible, and said it was because she was more devoted to "her" religion. The younger one was clearly just covering the minimum possible. So there seemed to be a variation in religiosity there. At first I asked if it was because the older one was married, and she laughed and said definitely not, she was only 22. Seemed old enough to be married in a very Muslim community, but I didn't say that.

Overall, I had the impression that they were very aware of being stigmatized for being obviously Muslim and wanted to show me that they were "normal". Or maybe that they just wanted to make contact with an American. Kind of spooked me to be honest.

Some other differences between Norway and Sweden:

* Sweden is clearly richer and bigger than Norway, with more of a "colonial" history of running Norway and Finland. Bigger older buildings than in Oslo. Norway is a bit more earthy and Sweden a bit more elite. Internet seems to work better in Sweden.
* English is extremely common in Norway, with most signs also in English. People very quickly switch to perfect English when you don't understand Norwegian. Sweden is slightly less English-oriented with fewer signs in English, though most people seem to speak it well.
* There are an amazing number of commercials for casinos in Sweden. I guess they are legal here.
* Wine is similarly hard to get and expensive in Sweden just like Norway, with a state monopoly on all alcohol above 4% or so. A Bogle petit syrah that I like is about $24 in Norway, vs $8 in the US. You can buy weak beer in ordinary stores.

Stockholm definitely has tons of clearly not-ethnically-Swedish people, more than Norway does. Here's a photo I took in downtown Stockholm today at a mime performance in the central square:

You watched a mime?

I watched the people watching the mime.

rando says

Some other differences between Norway and Sweden:

* Sweden is clearly richer and bigger than Norway, with more of a "colonial" history of running Norway and Finland. Bigger older buildings than in Oslo. Norway is a bit more earthy and Sweden a bit more elite. Internet seems to work better in Sweden.

* English is extremely common in Norway, with most signs also in English. People very quickly switch to perfect English when you don't understand Norwegian. Sweden is slightly less English-oriented with fewer signs in English, though most people seem to speak it well.

* There are an amazing number of commercials for casinos in Sweden. I guess they are legal here.

* Wine is similarly hard to get and expensive in Sweden just like Norway, with a state monopoly on all alcohol above 4% or so. A Bogle petit syrah that I like is about $24 in Norway, vs $8 in the US. You can buy weak beer in ordinary stores.

Stockholm definitely has tons of clearly not-ethnically-Swedis...

get the alcohol in denmark