Subscribe
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
We just returned from a 10-day trip to Ireland, our last big pre-being-parents vacation. There’s so much to tell about this trip that I’m dividing it into three parts, the other two to come over the next few days.
Part One: Bird Poop
On our first afternoon in Dublin, as we strolled hand in hand through the tranquil park St. Stephen’s Green on our way to the frantic city center, we paused under a tree to take photos beside a pond.
Just as D took the camera to snap a shot of me, I felt something land on my head. As you’ve probably figured out, it was bird poop.
Maybe you’re imagining me at this point running in circles, shrieking, “Get it off! Get it off!” But actually, we both just laughed while D flicked a drop of poop off my shoulder and attempted to wipe it off my hair. All in all, it wasn’t the worst way to start our vacation. They say a bird pooping on you is good luck, and we did have remarkably good luck for our entire trip, with one notable exception (which I’ll describe in more detail in Part Three: Swine Flu?).
The weather was almost universally gorgeous, and the locals everywhere we went pointed out to us how lucky we were to have so much sun. Almost every day there was sunshine, blue skies, enormous fluffy clouds, and cool breezes. The temperatures were similar to what we experience in late fall at home in Alabama. And even when the wind turned chilly or the rain swept briefly in, we enjoyed it, strictly because it was such a welcome relief from the endless, sweltering Southern summer.
But let me go back to the beginning. On our first two days in the big, bustling city of Dublin, we weren’t so sure if spending so much money on this vacation was a good idea. Don’t get me wrong - it was a lovely city, especially St. Stephen’s Green, the park in front of the Dublin Castle Coach House, and the ivy-covered Georgian buildings, and we loved touring the Georgian house museum Number Twenty-Nine, seeing the bog bodies at the National Museum of Archaeology, and eating the most delicious fish and chips of our trip (and our entire lives) at Beshoff’s.
Still, I didn’t have that I-love-this-place-so-much-I-could-die feeling … yet. Ultimately, we are just not big-city people. We prefer walking side by side at a touristy pace to weaving single file through a crowd of people on narrow sidewalks while cars and buses whiz by. We had the same experience in Italy - Florence was nice, and we had a good time, but we didn’t fall in love until we went to Venice.
Our best experience in Dublin was the Irish House Party, an evening of traditional Irish music and dancing at the Landsdowne Hotel.
Not only was the music incredible, the hosts cheeky and fun, and the dancing amazing to watch, we hit it off with the couple sitting across the table from us, Alan and Wendy. They were from Portsmouth, England, and they were in town for the following night’s Take That! comeback concert.
We chatted with Alan and Wendy through dinner, and when they volunteered to join in learning a traditional Irish dance, I snapped photos with their camera (and mine, of course). After the festivities ended, we weren’t quite ready to call it quits, so the four of us stayed in the adjoining pub and had a few drinks. We learned about their town, where American Navy ships often dock and when they do, all the bars sell out of Jack Daniels. We talked a bit about their teenage children, who were being trusted with the house for the weekend; their travels - they’d been to the U.S. on their honeymoon two years before; politics; celebrity gossip; and the funny quirks of pronunciation within the English language (for example, in their Portsmouth accent, rubbish is pronounced a bit like “rabbish”).
Finally, even the pub was ready to close. As we parted ways, we decided to snap photos together, and the bartender volunteered to take one for us. Oh, and while we’re at it, he suggested, we could come behind the bar and he’d take our picture there! Naturally, we scurried over behind the taps, and the bartender took our picture.
Our hotel was only a few blocks up the hill, and Alan and Wendy decided to walk part of the way with us to get to a better street for catching a cab. On the way, we passed a bar that was still open, and in we went. There, Alan and Wendy attempted to teach us the Irish dance they’d learned, and I tried to teach Alan how to swing dance, and that devolved into a general dancing free-for-all, which paused only occasionally to let bemused locals slip past.
As you can see, we were having a pretty good time:
Finally, D had had enough, so we parted ways with our new comrades at around 3 a.m. The next morning we were supposed to check out of our hotel by noon, get back to the airport by shuttle bus, pick up a rental car, learn to drive on the “wrong” side of the road, and find our way to Kilkenny and beyond to Waterford, where we’d be spending the night.
We did manage to do all those things, but only after a very rough start that involved chewing a lot of anti-nausea gum. We ended up sharing a cab to the airport instead with a very nice local couple, who’d actually spent their honeymoon in one of the hotels we’d be staying at later in our trip. They recommended we visit the towns of Thomastown and Inistioge on our way from Kilkenny to Waterford, which advice we later took.
At the airport, we asked the cab driver where to go for rental cars, and he actually locked his car and went into the airport with us to show us, while carrying my luggage all the way. This is after we’d already paid and tipped him, and he expected nothing more in return. We were both a little amazed, and that continued the whole trip - almost every person we encountered - hotel clerks, waitresses, bartenders, rental car clerks, tour guides, and so on - were exceptionally friendly and helpful (in enormous contrast to when we arrived back in the States at Atlanta airport and were greeted with exceptionally sullen and miserable-looking employees at every level).
We ended up renting a more expensive car than we’d planned (the cheapest model was apparently better for city driving than highway driving), and D decided he would feel better if we sprang for the extra insurance. That was the first of several unexpected expenses that would send the total cost of this trip beyond our intended budget. But D adored that car, a manual shift Ford Focus with a diesel engine, so much that he wanted to have his picture taken with it:
Then came the semi-terrifying ordeal of D learning how to drive on the “wrong” side of the road, figure out how to shift with his left hand, and navigate roundabouts/traffic circles and the busy motorway around Dublin (picture that scene in National Lampoon’s European Vacation where the Griswolds are driving around and around a roundabout in London because they can’t figure out how to get out, except we were a bit more successful). We knew from the beginning I can’t drive a manual, so he’d be doing all the driving (which would prove inconvenient later, during Part Three: Swine Flu?).
We only got honked at twice during some imperfect maneuvers in roundabouts, but by the time we reached our hotel in Waterford that night, D was doing pretty darn well. By the end of the trip, we actually LIKED roundabouts and were telling people how the U.S. should have more of them.
Also on the way, we stopped in Kilkenny, Thomastown and Inistioge, all along the beautiful River Nore, and somewhere in there we fell completely in love with Ireland.
On the country roads - narrow, twisty, and lined with stone walls or hedges - there was something beautiful in every direction. Sheep or black and white cows dotting a green pasture. Ruined castles and cathedrals popping up around every other curve. Three-hundred-year-old bridges spanning the calm, reflective River Nore.
The scenery got even better the next day, when we drove along the southeastern coast between Waterford and Cork. In the fishing village Dunmore East, we climbed down the rocks to a little inlet of intensely blue-green water, where some local teens were jumping off a boulder into the water, then popping up shivering in the wind.
It was in Dunmore East that I decided my financial goal is to one day have a summer house in Ireland. Every new place we went in Ireland from that point on, I decided we should buy our house there. When we’d pass a house for sale, I’d perk up and say, “Hey, we could live there.” I especially liked any place that looked slightly like a falling-down shack.
At one point as I was detailing how we could buy a house and rent it out during the rest of the year, D chuckled and said, “You sure are dreaming, aren’t you?” And I said, “I’m not dreaming, I’m planning!”
Okay, so it’s true owning a second house at all - let alone one in a foreign country - would require some pretty miraculous financial happenings. But we both agreed that Ireland is our new favorite place, and even if we never have a house there, we definitely want to go back. If our bird poop luck holds out, maybe we will.
Coming soon … Part Two: Castles and Cottages and Cliffs, Oh My!
PATIENTLY waiting for the second installment…..okay, not so patient. It’s. Driving. Me. Nuts! :)
I agree… on with part two!!!