So, the family arrived seriously exhausted on a Saturday afternoon. I quickly showed them campus with the few hours of daylight left, dragged them through the Archaeology Museum to see bog bodies and viking ships, and them plopped them down in pub for an early dinner. I was really glad to see them. Especially with Christmas getting closer (the Christmas season starts right after Halloween in Ireland) I was getting a wee bit homesick.
The next day, I only met them for lunch and dinner since I was supposed to be finishing my history paper. I did finish half of it. They took the hop-on, hop-off bus tour of Dublin and saw the Dublin Castle Chapel, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Kilmainham Gaol and probably some other things. I remember it being cold then, but I must have been mistaken because it wasn't nearly as cold as it is now.
Monday morning, the slave-driving bunch had me up at an unfathomable hour to meet them at the hotel so we could leave. By virtue of providence, I was somehow mostly on time. The car they'd rented was not. It came eventually, about ten or 15 minutes late which wasn't really a big deal. It did not however have a GPS. That turned out to be perfectly fine since Mom had printed directions everywhere anyway and both of us make fine navigators, being able to read maps and what not. (We only got lost three or four times!) Also, Ireland has really easy to figure out road signs. The plethora of roundabouts also is fairly easy to work out, and though we only did it once, it makes it possible to go around twice if you're not sure of the exit the first time.
Dad also did a fine job driving, especially since he started driving on the opposite side of the road in downtown Dublin during morning rush hour. His impeccable driving record for the week included not hitting a single person or livestock, grazing only one car and the curb only once or twice in very acceptable situations, and not running into any walls. His only frequent errors were hitting holes, rocks, and continually driving too far on the shoulder. But altogether, a commendable job.
We discussed the likelihood of it being arson.
I don't remember what we determined.
Enough about cars, our first adventure was to Powerscourt, an estate with gardens about 40 minutes south of Dublin. It was very pretty and we took lots of photos. The estate had burned down in the 70s(?) and from the information video, it seemed they took a ton of video footage before calling the fire brigade. We discussed the likelihood of it being arson. I don't remember what we determined. After exploring the expansive grounds, moseying around the central pond and stumbling upon a pet cemetery, we packed Mommom into the very back seat and loaded ourselves in the car to make our way south.
We stopped at the National Heritage Center aka Viking Farm which was unfortunately mostly drowned, but we found a few viking huts and replica ships, as well as a cozy-looking sheep skin which when I thought about it, made me sad. Sheep are such gentle, helpless creatures, adorable as long as you aren't near enough to smell them. I think we got into Viking Land for free since most of it was under water. It was pretty neat though. After that, we made our way to Waterford to reach our first B&B of the trip. I don't remember the couple's names (Phyllis maybe?) but they were very nice. The husband recommended a great pub to us where we went and got giant and delicious portions of food. Gramps totally lied to the woman, telling her grits were more of a dinner item. We all watched confused, wondering why we'd never heard of it before. Obviously, grits are for breakfast.
The next morning, we hit up the Waterford Crystal Factory and learned how glasses and vases, etc, are made. They're all hand crafted. The process involves blowing the glass, drawing on lines, then carving in the designs with a spinning wheel. That description very bad I know, but for some reason I don't have any pictures. Dad does though, so see him if you're interested. (Luckily for you all, I found a vintage video that depicts the process. Skip to 2:43 to see cutting, and I think glass blowing begins around 2:00. I didn't watch the whole thing, but here it is. Don't try it at home though! It takes 8+ years of apprenticeship to do that stuff.) The crystal was pretty and then Mom got excited because she has a glass with a pattern they no longer make and hopes it's worth lots of money. Not that she'd sell it or anything. I don't know why people on Antiques Roadshow get so excited about things when most of the time they want to keep their family heirloom items rather than sell them.
Later in the action-packed second day, we departed Waterford and headed to the seaside town of Cobh. According to Mom, I threw my first of a handful of mutinies, rearranging the events of the afternoon to maximize our use of the short hours of sunlight. I maintain that it worked out for the best and we still got everywhere. In Cobh, we split up Scooby-Doo style as Dad, Mommom, and I went to take pictures of the town, Mom and Aunt Diane went to see the Lusitania, Titanic, and Irish Emigration exhibition, and Gramps bought toffees (I think he did other things too, I just don't know what). Dad, Mommom, and I saw a cathedral and decided to walk up to it. That involved walking up San-Diego style sloping streets which Dad later insisted upon driving. Mommom made it really far but then had to stop short. We left her on the side of the road, but did ask a bunch of smoking schoolgirls to keep an eye on her. (We also asked them how to get to the cathedral.) So we got there, took a bunch of pictures of the view and the outside of the cathedral, and then quickly went back to collect the grandparents we'd left scattered around the city. The fickle schoolgirls were nowhere to be found when we got back to Mommom, tsk tsk.
I've posted this picture of Mommom's high watermark before, but here it is again for reference.
We then departed Cobh, going to the Old Jameson Distillery in Middleton, outside of Cork. We arrived just in time for the last tour of the day. Long story short, I became an official whiskey taster, and Mom developed an affinity for expensive 15 year old whiskey. We got to our bed and breakfast, which was run by Jerry. He was pretty cool and had spent 20 years "in the bush" (Australia) and had stories of Aborigines and coupons for steak dinners. In Cork, there was a cathedral that had a ladder going all the way up the steeple. Just looking at it made me shudder The picture I have of it is utterly appalling because my camera cannot take pictures at night, but here it is. The ladder is the tiny line on the left side of the steeple.
You have to click on the picture to see it bigger, otherwise you can't see it at all.
After we got back from dinner, we all watched a TV program about a servant in Tralee from the early 20th century who murdered her employers and wore different sized shoes. This was because Dad was fixated on watching something in Gaelic and also because there were only three channels.
The scenery was breathtaking and we did have to stop for three escaped sheep who pranced across the road.
On our third day, we drove around the Ring of Kerry, a beautiful, scenic drive that was thankfully uncrowded since it was November and therefore not tourist season. The scenery was breathtaking and we did have to stop for three escaped sheep who pranced across the road. We did the outer-loop (taking the drive clockwise) which ended up working out perfectly since all the overlooks were on the left side of the road. We stopped frequently and occasionally unpacked Mommom too, because the coast was just so beautiful with the deep blue horizon, gently splashing waves, and small rock islands.
When we finished the drive (it took three or four hours possibly, I don't quite remember), we went to Ballyseede Castle outside of Tralee, where we spent the night. Our suite was beautiful (see facebook album) and the castle even had a rainbow over it when we left the next morning. Dad took advantage of the fact that he didn't have to drive one night (he did have to drive the entire trip) and had fun at the castle bar. The bartender had spent several years in West Virginia, and Dad also made friends with a nice couple from Texas. I stayed with Dad at the bar and didn't properly think about what I was doing. I had a lot of whiskey and cokes and just didn't consider that each time I had one, I was having a bottle of coke. Therefore, I woke up four hours after going to bed and could not get back to sleep. But the castle was definitely cool.
It was a bit windy, 85 mph to be precise, so the parking lot had giant danger signs all around.
The next day there was a big storm, but being the resilient travelers we are, we decided no little storm could get in the way of our plans. We made an impromptu stop at the ruins of a Franciscan friary in Askeaton (Dad unexpectedly pulled over to see these). In Askeaton, we saw a unicorn! We then continued to the Cliffs of Moher, the one thing Gramps wanted to see in Ireland. It was a bit windy, 85 mph to be precise, so the parking lot had giant danger signs all around. You were only allowed to go to one level of the platforms. When we first drove up, we thought it was snowing because there were white flecks hitting the windshield. However, I think it was hailing sea foam. It really isn't supposed to snow in Ireland in November, even if it did in the last week. It was pretty bad weather. But it was really fun to harness a gust of wind that would take you up the stairs and then harness another to take you back down. Sea foam was blowing straight up the 700+ foot cliffs. The wind was howling all day and night and the waves were giant and beautiful. I do concede that it would not have been a good idea to take the ferry that day as we'd originally planned.
Better quality video here
For reference, above back in September when I first visited the cliffs, and below during our road trip.
The second time was much more exciting.
We made it to the B&B in Doolin and the lady didn't believe us when we told her we'd been to the cliffs because of the inclement weather. We went that night to a pub recommended by the friendly Texas couple that had good music and food. Gramps met a group of hurlers at the bar and made friends. He also befriended a man named Billy, whom neither of us could understand no matter how hard we tried. At the start of the night, though I tried to convince him otherwise, Gramps made the faux paus of ordering a half-pint then tried to put it off on Dad. By then end of the night, he was doing whiskey shots with his bar friends and left the bar with a Munster Rugby jacket from one of his friends. So props to Doolin for being pretty cool.
The next day, we started our journey back to Dublin. We stopped at the ruins of an abbey in Doolin. The roads were in bad shape from the previous night's storm and a few were closed, so we had to adjust our route. We had a detour to see Dunguaire Castle. Also, we ran into a cattle-herding traffic jam. One of the cattle drivers was literally a driver, holding a baton out of the window of his car. The cattle ran along behind him, followed by the other herder on foot. By about noon or maybe 11 we were still on the west coast so we put the pedal to the medal and went east. We did indulge in another detour at Trim Castle since we were driving through Trim and the I felt the family deserved to see a real castle. We just walked around the outside though, because we were pressed for time.
We went to Newgrange, a 5000-year old passage site that looks like this:
For explicable yet unjustifiable reasons, the last tour leaves a full hour and 45 minutes before the center closes and we missed it by about 20 minutes. So instead we looked at the exhibit and Gramps found a rock that fit his hand perfectly. I'm not sure what to conclude from that. It was neat exhibit.
After that, we had dinner north of Dublin, found the airport and returned the car in lightning speed. Seriously. We unpacked our stuff and exited that car in the spans of a few minutes. There was something about the shuttle driver leaving for the airport. Sorry, it was a complicated experience. We drove to the car rental place, which was closed so we had to return the car to a hotel next door. The hotel had a shuttle to the airport, then we took a shuttle to the city, and I took my bag to my room then went to say my goodbyes. It was definitely the best vacation I've ever had.
So, thank you ever so kindly for bearing with the length of this post. I hope the pop-out quotes helped.
Nice post. Barcelona! Barcelona! Barcelona!
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