After 23 years of marriage, my lovely wife and I went on our first overseas vacation. Specifically, we went to Ireland. The land of leprechauns, clovers, three million O'Briens, and people who have a reputation for drinking and fighting or (perhaps) fighting and then drinking. Its probably a "rinse and repeat" kind of thing ... choose your order.
I'm going to foreshadow something for the reader. After eight days in Ireland, the only leprechaun I've seen in the last several weeks is this fella:
A couple of questions come to mind:
1. Where are the leprechauns in Ireland? I looked all over and didn't find a damn thing. I know they are there (probably hiding behind pint glasses in pubs), but I think this is just false advertising to lure Americans to drink with lonely Irishmen at pubs.
2. Do you have to claim the value of a leprechaun's pot of gold at customs? If so, best to bag that little squint and get your pot of gold once you get home.
3. Why is Lucky so happy? All he has to his name is a wheat based cereal with bits of dehydrated marshmallow. In the leprechaun world, this guy got a raw deal. Gold? No. Whiskey? No. He does get endlessly chased about by toddlers though. As for me, I don't like that. They usually just want money.
4. And what's with those bushy orange eyebrows? This dude's youthful appearance is wasted with those old man eyebrows. My bushy eyebrows really came into form at about age 40, and I'm still pissed off about it. Its like someone taped blonde shag carpet to my forehead.
Anyway, I digress. Back to travel stuff.
As any traveler knows, you have to put up with a lot of nonsense when you travel. The most nonsensical part of it is banking vacation days (for those of you who don't get vacation days, I'm sorry) so you can sit on a bus, sit in an airport terminal, sit on an airplane, sit in a rental car etc. In short, I did a lot of sitting at work, so I could do this kind of creative sitting at travel. And yes, I actually paid money for the privilege of getting stuffed like a sardine into a United Airlines 737.
The beginning of our trip was rather uneventful. Two things happened at O'Hare International Airport, however. First, we got to enjoy the pungent aroma of some lady who smelled like she bathed in garlic. Nearly knocked me off my personal little plastic bucket seat in the airport. Then another thing happened while I was trying to forcefully expell the stench of the garlic lady out of my nostrils. This guy shows up all important and in a hurry:
Between my fourth or fifth effort to get garlic out of my nose, I notice some people hurrying by me to board the plane. One of them was Al Gore, self-proclaimed creator of the internet and also known as the dude who almost, nearly, maybe got elected president only to have victory snatched away from him by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Poor Al. He had been Schwarzeneggered. I once met Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that guy had an orange tan and had dyed his hair a peculiar shade of orange also. He looked a bit like a burnt, orange creamsicle. Same thing happened to Al. Above you see a picture of a relatively handsome and optimistic man, but apparently disappointment drives you to dye yourself orange. In the old days, you just turned into a drunk, but you did keep your outward appearance of dignity while slowly dying inside. Now, you just lose the red power tie and slather orange crap all over your body and hair. I've already purchased my share of the orange stuff. Ladies, you go red. Dye that hair old lady red to get rid of the gray hair. Apparently, looking like this is better than showing your age:
Hint to all old ladies tempted to apply old lady red: People can tell by the wrinkles that you are old! Changing the color just emphasizes all sorts of crazy. Do you really want to partner up with Heat Miser on this? Do ya?
Upon landing in Dublin on April 16, 2013, and after standing in line to get my rental car, we were able to hit the streets. For those of you who don't know, Irish drivers suck. I realize I'm driving on the left side of the road, so perhaps I'm a bit over-sensitive. Your typical Irish road (other than the five or six freeways that exist in the country) is about three feet wide and is occupied by sheep, the crazy guy barreling at 60 mph (excuse me, that's 100 km/h) around the blind corner right at you, and the perpetually frightened and confused you. I thought I was doing myself a favor by taking to the rural roads first rather than getting drunk at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin the first day. As in most things, I was mistaken. Instead this first day was occupied by me cowering behind the wheel of my rented Renault driving around lost on rural roads just trying not to pass out from exhaustion and/or vomit in my lap out of fear. For those of you who have not had the left-side of the road driving experience, you will get used to it after about five hours of suffering.
So, we first drove to Drogheda. The "g" is silent so its pronounced "draw head a". Drogheda was a little town that was sacked by Cromwell in 1649. Aside from the normal bad day that a good sacking occasions, this one got worse because Cromwell hated the Irish and he really loathed Catholics. So, when Cromwell breached the walls his army slaughtered about 3,000 non-combatants and had all of the priests dragged out into the streets and their heads bashed in. From a personal perspective, it felt a bit odd snacking on the streets where this took place. I prefer the Monty Python approach and would happily prefer to provide a shrubbery in lieu of a sacking.
Oh well, what better way to remove that unease than to enter into a local church? And what do I find there, but the head of poor old St. Oliver Plunkett. Yep, the English got him as well. This theme repeats itself everywhere in Ireland. As a Catholic and non-Englishman, I'm starting to feel a bit of anxiety about the English.
After Drogheda, we went to Bru Na Boinne (aka Newgrange) and Knowth. Newgrange is a neolithic burial mound built in 5000 B.C. That's 500 years or so before the pyramids in Egypt. Here it is:
You can find this kind of stuff all over Ireland, though not as magnificent as Newgrange. Apparently, neolithic man really liked to heap up rock and earth in their spare time. That's a lot effort to bury the remains of your loved ones. Were these guys advanced? In some ways, yes. However, I can't help but think that being advanced might be to take the easy route by digging a simple burial plot and then retiring to have a beer. That's the way we do it now.
After this and a short visit to Knowth, we drove to Enfield. My first observation is that my spider sense works in Ireland. For those of you who don't know, my spider sense gives me the uncanny ability to navigate by intuition with very little need of maps or landmarks. In contrast, my wife typically needs to navigate by use of landmarks:
Stacy: Tell me how to get to the highschool.
Me: You go down West street and then take a left on 9th Street.
Stacy: Where is West Street?
Me: OK, let me try this again, from here you go West and you will run into it.
Stacy: Which way is West.
Me: Thats where the burning ball of gas we call the sun goes down ... that's West.
Stacy: Is there a Target over there or a Starbucks?
Me: No.
Stacy: Then you aren't being very helpful are you?
So, I think I've demonstrated that a basic understanding of where the sun comes up and goes down can take you a long ways when you are driving. For the men out there, keep that smug sense of superiority you rightfully have from your navigational skills to yourself. Out of jealousy, women don't like to hear it from you.
However, my spider sense is not infallible. First, it doesn't work in Quebec. I don't know if it is because they put gravy on french fries or what, but it just doesn't work. Second, it can often lead you along a straight line kind of approach to travel that isn't always the fastest. Witness my two hour drive to Enfield after Newgrange. Probably should have taken me no more than 45 minutes had I backtracked to Dublin. However, wrong lane driving anywhere near Dublin was not going to be attempted.
While dodging Irish drivers and driving to Enfield, we went past the Hill of Tara. It was at the Hill of Tara that St. Patrick went to preach Christianity to the Druidic High King of Ireland. St. Patrick was a runaway slave, and I guess this High King initially didn't cotton to the notion of not immediately cutting off St. Patrick's head. Unlike St. Oliver Plunkett, St. Patrick kept his head and was remarkably successful. Did I take this significant moment for Ireland and Christianity in? No. Damn it, I'm going to find Enfield.
So, we arrived in Enfield at the Johnstown House. It looks pretty good from the outside right?
However, when you enter its confines it retains its beauty but it becomes a little bit like a hamster cage. You know the ones where you can build those clear plastic tubes which go from one chamber to another. To get to your room, you turn left, go down the passage way, turn right, then left and then another left. Dinner was some crap we bought from a min-mart store. I don't have an excuse for this. Fortunately the pub at Johnstown House was easy to find, and that is exactly what we did to end Day 1.
In total, this was a good day. Hard to complain about going to Ireland, but I'll find a whole lot of things to get snarky about. By the way, did you know that I came up with the word "snarky". Ask my wife, she'll tell ya.
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