Ireland

I can't say enough about how awesome Ireland was. Definately a place I will return to and sooner than later. Maybe by this autumn. Here are some of the best photos, most of which are chronologically listed. Here's Mum at JFK.




Mummy and I met in New York. Stupidly, we flew into LaGuardia and took the shuttle to JFK. Do NOT ever do this. It costs $13 per person and it can take 2 hours to get to JFK, even though they say it's only 45 minutes. Take a cab. Same price, much faster. However, we had a long enough layover and Mummy was smart enough to be a Crown Room member. Gotta love the Crown Room!

The flight over was not too cool. I guess we didn't think to get the first class seats so we were in coach and I had the only seat that would not recline. Oh, and the movie was, "King Kong". Holy shit what a horror. Then, we actually landed in Dublin for a couple of hours, then flew back to Shannon. What's up with that? Of course, Delta sent Mum's bag to Ft. Lauderdale. I felt sorry for the chick who's bag wound up in Shannon. Ah well, off to the car rental place. Let me tell you, this has been an issue I've been most worried about. I've never driven on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road. Mum took over first, though. And off to Newgrange did we go.

Now, here in America, if you see a sign that says, "XXX City: 121 km", you think, OK, that should be about an hour drive. This is NOT the case in Ireland. First, the speed limit (when you're lucky) is 100 km and hour. This is when you aren't stuck behind a big truck, on a no passing road. Second, whilst on the subject of roads, we're talking bike paths here, not highways. THIS is why we rent itty-bitty cars. Anyway, after stopping for lunch, I took over driving. It wasn't too bad until we hit Dublin. This was NOT cool. It took us over 2 hours to get through Dublin. By the time we headed north to Newgrange, I was a little cranky. Jetlagged, frayed nerves, and traffic make Susie-Q a cranky little bee-atch. However, when you pull into a place that looks like this...




...things start really looking up. The lady that owned the B&B was Mrs. Aisling Law. What a sweet woman. She apparently lost her husband on Christmas of 2004. You could tell she was still a very sad lady, but as kind and gracious as anyone I've ever met. She had a housekeeper and a butler-type who reminded us of Michael from "Waking Ned Devine".

The next day, we go on our tour of Newgrange. Now, I had no idea what Newgrange, or Knowth was because I didn't read all the books on the history of Ireland as my traveling partner had. This kid (I'm pretty sure he was an archeological student) gave us a tour and this place is facinating. It's kinda involved, but basically Newgrange is a mononlithic burial site that is engineered such that five days a year, during the winter solstace, the sun comes through the roof and illuminates the interior of the structure. Pretty impressive shit when you consider this place is over 5,000 years old and I'm almost positive their surveying equipment was less than par. This is what Newgrange looks like to all you slackers that will never get to go yourselves...















Finishing up in Newgrange, it was time to trek clear across the country - again - and head to Dingle. This is where the meat of the stay would be. I was concerned that we wouldn't have enough to do there since we would be there for four days, but when you have a full blown spa and shopping and pubs, well...suffice it to say, I could live there and not get bored.

But before I get to Dingle, I must tell you about the dumbest idea I've had in a long, long time. I guess Mum wasn't all that bright either, because she agreed to it. Because I did NOT want to deal with Dublin traffic, I suggested that we take this "smaller" road around Dublin to catch the N7 (this is Ireland's idea of a highway). Now, we didn't necessarily get lost, but we did trek along the most narrow road - bike path - and never got over 40 km an hour. It took me 2 hours to find a little place called Kilcock and that wasn't even our final destination or even close. It was just a town that I figured if we could find, we wouldn't be considered "lost". As Mummy would say, "Well, we wanted to see Ireland, we got to see it". I don't have any pictures of this little jaunt as I was white-knuckling the steering wheel and Mother had a death grip on the Jesus bar (which happened to be the emergency break).

Needless to say, it took 8 hours to drive a mere 140 km (yes, for all of you Irish travelling veterns out there, laugh your asses off, now). By the time we hit the Dingle Penninsula, I was kicking at mach speed over the mountains in our itty-bitty little car and I know Mum was picturing a Snoopy manuever into the ocean. Naturally, the first stop at the Skelling Hotel was the pub.

The second day, we went shopping. The hotel was walking distance from the town, but since it was raining, we drove anyway. More narrow streets, but this is Dingle...














And these are itty-bitty streets















Now might be a good time to talk about the F-O-O-D in Ireland. Before we left, I had to cater a party for St. Patrick's Day. I had a hell of a time trying to find good Irish recipes, you know besides the potatoes-thing. I had no idea how good the food was. We stopped in a music store in town and this wonderful lady suggested we go to the best restaurant in Dingle called, "Out of the Blue". Their slogan is "no meat eaters allowed. If there is no fresh fish, we're not open". Absolutely amazing food...



Yeah, it looks like a real shithole, but don't let that fool you. If you ever go to Dingle, you MUST eat here.

Alright, so now it's Sunday. This is the day that we were planning to spend most of the day in the spa. Between facials, hydrotherapy, massages, hot tubs, saunas, and whatever else you could want, the question then became, "Can you get too relaxed??". My answer: an unequivocal, NO". For all you slugs out there who will never get to do the Irish spa thing... this is what it looks like















Monday we decided to go out on a boat and look for the famous Dolphin, Fungi. Now, here's what the harbour looked like on Monday



Notice the rain clouds and the white capping ocean there, folks??. Did I mention that one of the several things I forgot to pack on this trip was a coat? Yeah, I bought a tweed shawl, which provided me so much fucking warmth - not, as we were heading out into the open ocean to look for a godamn fish. Here's another image (actually Fungi did come out, we just couldn't get a picture in time (again, notice the white capping)



So after getting back to town, we decided it would be best to head straight back to the spa where the steam room awaited to thaw us out. Then it was off to the pub for an early supper. The Irish seem to really like fried garlic mushrooms, so I tried some. These are keepers, folks. I'll have to turn my catering partner on to these things.

My wishful second home...









Mummy in the Pub




















That night we had tickets to see Pauline Scanlon and her entourage play at a very old church in town. Here's me in front of the church - notice there aren't any lightning bolts coming out of the sky!!

















Here's Pauline, Donogh, and Eva playing at the church...



I guess I could have taken a better picture. Anyway, here's her website... check out her music. It really is amazing

http://www.paulinescanlon.com/






So, the next morning, it was time to head back toward the airport as Wednesday would be the most depressing day of the year... aka the return to home day. When we got to the dining hall for breakfast, this is what we saw out the window...



Notice how the water is like glass? Oh, and the sun is shining brightly? I guess we couldn't go looking for that fucking fish on a day like this, huh?








Seriously, though, it was so beautiful it hurt my heart. Then, on the way to Bunratty, we saw images like this...
















And like this (the only picture I got with Mummy the whole trip)







OK, enough pitty-party - time for more historic Ireland... Bunratty Castle! This was a suggestion of an Irish friend and he made an excellent call. This was a really cool castle. Considering most of the castles I've seen were in Germany and had been bombed out during different wars, this castle was actually restored and as a construction person, I absolutely love restorations.
















Here I am next to the Dungeon - how apropos... flashbacks of my childhood
















The next morning, we were off again, this time home. We had a five hour layover in New York because planes don't fly that often into Portland so Mummy and I hung out in the Crown Room and tried not to crash and burn. My flight home was four hours late and Delta sent my bag to LA so I was not happy in the least. But my house did not burn down and my cats were happy to see me, so all is good again.

I've already started planning the next trip. Again, it will be a spa deal and I'm tossing two places around in my little brain...



or



I've got enough catering lined up over the next three or four months that this should be a well deserved trip!

Happy Birthday, Mummy and Me.


PS To family, if you want more pictures, we have them, I just wanted to post some here so as not to clog up your email. Thank you so much for everything!