Ireland 2011

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

The reunion tour continues in October as I celebrate my 30th reunion from the school I actually graduated from. But first a look back at the other trips. I'd just like to say the video looks nice at 1080 and full screen. Click it. YOu know you want to.

[youtube]X-kffJwzrf0[/youtube]

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I am ready to go. Current temps for the Aran Islands, where Cindi and I will be taking two trips if the boat can across the angry atlantic is -14 Celsius today. You should plan on pictures.

[The Queen]

We have arrived!

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

YAY!!!!

[Drunk Monk]

Thanks for leaving the key in the special hiding place. Those albums look great on your computer. Next time, leave more booze for us.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Please note the note in the issues section as part of an apology for the length of these following posts.

The flight to JFK was packed. At least, thanks to Cindi’s frequent flyer miles, we were in economy plus on United. This gave us a modicum more free room. In the departure lounge there was a nice screen informing us how far away we were from getting an upgrade, again thanks to Cindi, to first class. We were tenth on the list with only one first class seat remaining. I gave Cindi the devil’s choice of whether she would take the seat and leave me, if the opportunity arose.

At JFK, we got to ride the train to the International terminal where the Aer Lingus flight departed. Unexpectedly helpful New Yorkers told us where the proper terminal was located. The line through Security was harsh. They had the heater on. As part of a consistent theme for the trip, I started leaking water from my pores in copious amounts.

The plane to Shannon was half full. Rows around us were empty. Cindi and I looked forward to stretching out and sleeping during the flight. That was until we realized the armrest didn’t go fully up. You couldn’t clear them out of the way to make that comfy three seat bed.

One of the joys of the Aer Lingus flight, besides the little aluminum thing to hang your coat on the seat back in front of you, is the inflight entertainment. They have a ton of movies and TV shows that you can watch on demand. They also have games you can play using the playstation like controller in the arm rest. The problem is they had a lot of bad movies to choose from. I chose poorly in selecting Bridesmaids and Cars 2. One was supposed to be good. The other was supposed to be marginal. They were both bad.

The other thing the seat back provides (All hail the seatback) is up to the minute info about your flight. It tells you how fast you are flying, your altitude, and more importantly how long until you land. I like knowing how much longer I get to be in the flying tin can.

We were going to arrive early in Shannon. As in 6 o’clock early. Our hotel wouldn’t let us check in until noon. I decided we should take a little side trip to my favorite ruin in Ireland, Quin Abbey. Doesn’t everybody have a favorite ruin? Cindi and I had been there on our trip in 2001, but due to the Mad Cow disease epidemic, we weren’t allowed on the grounds. This would be Cindi’s first chance to get up close and personal with Quin and maybe make it her favorite ruin, too.

Yeah. We landed right on time. Turns out it’s really dark at 6am. And with no one at customs and the car rental desk, we were in the parking lot at 6:15. Still really dark. There wasn’t going to be a hint of sunshine until 8. I figured we might as well drive into Limerick to the hotel, rouse my Dad, and get some breakfast.

Part of the reason for the trip was to take my Dad. I think if he had his way, my father would never have left Ireland back in 1982. He would have bought this pub out in Parteen, which is near the main Rugby stadium in Limerick, and lived out his days there. But the woman wouldn’t sell and he came back to California. Where he soon found out that Verbatim didn’t really have a spot for him there, either.
Which is the long way of saying, I like to get my father to Ireland every chance I can get. He started his trip to Ireland from Boston where he was helping my mother give yet another talk on Steinbeck. Our schedules were a bit off, so he arrived in Ireland a couple of days earlier. He had made the great concession to stay at the same hotel as us. Thirty years ago he’d stayed at this hotel when it was a Jury’s Inn and hated it. I pointed out that was thirty years ago and they had done some upgrades since then.

They aren’t big believers in street lights on the freeways in Ireland. They believe you should be a big user of the high-beams. I couldn’t get the high beams on. Nor could I get the seat to lower to a point where I wasn’t brushing my head on the ceiling. Yes, I was back in manual land. Even though the steering wheel is on a different side, the pedals are in the same orientation as american cars. I don’t think my brain could deal with using different pedals as well as driving on the opposite side of the road.

The torture for Cindi on the trips to places I’ve visited and she hasn’t or at least not as much is I feel compelled to tell my stories about every branch and rock and building I recognize. I need to point out the freeway changes I’ve noticed at Bunratty Castle and Durty Nelly’s. I have to tell the story of why the Two Mile Inn is called the Two Mile Inn. It doesn’t stop. I know I didn’t run out of stories until we were going back to the airport on the way home.

We sat in the Lobby of the Strand Hotel until 7:30 so as not to wake my father too early. We did kill a little time while we waited by walking over the Sarsfield bridge, which spans the Shannon River, to get a really early morning look at Limerick. The only people on O’Connell street were the street sweepers. I pointed out some sights. Told some more stories and then we went back to the hotel.

Despite my best intentions, I still woke my father when I called. He would join us for our first Irish breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

Ah, the Irish breakfast buffet. I had the white bread with Irish butter, sausages, Irish bacon, scrambled eggs, and some brown bread. I washed it all down with thick Irish Tea. I knew I was back in town after that sat like lead in my belley.

This also occasioned talks of my first trip to Ireland. How I stayed at the Ryan hotel with my father. I explained similar breakfasts and how the bacon used to be cut closer to the bone so you had these white hard lumps in the bacon which freaked me out the first time I saw them.

My father and I should never be in a car together in Ireland. We both know the best way to do things which is always at odds with how the other person wants to do things. We had a discussion at every roundabout about right of way. To the uniformed, there are roundabouts everywhere in Ireland. They use them instead of stop-lights and intersections. And if I have stories, my father has ten times as many. His stories are hampered by time and old-age.

I’m now thinking of starting a support group for the people who have sat in the back seat while my father and I discuss the best course of actions on our trips. The group now consists of Cindi and my nephew Zachary. I’m sure their treatment will be long and costly.

We arrived at the village of Quin and it’s namesake abby at nine. The interior of the ruins didn’t open until ten. This gave Cindi and I a chance to wander the grounds and take some photographs while we waited.

I didn’t realize I hadn’t been inside the abby since 1981 either. When Zachary and I were here in 2009, we had arrived early as well and couldn’t get in. Since there was a booth inside the entrance, I figured they were now charging admittance and I didn’t feel like paying, I was content to wander around the outside on that journey. I have since found out it was still free to go inside.

The first thing I noticed there was now a bridge right next to the Abbey across the local river to another ruined structure that I had never visited. I had never visited because I didn’t feel like fording the river. But now I could. Ah, new things.

The sky was completely overcast during this visit with the occasional rain drop to add some diversity. This was okay. I figured I was going to make a couple of trips to the abby on this journey. I especially wanted to get some sunset shots of the ruins.

One wall that had always been free standing next to the main abby structure had developed a bulge and now needed supports to keep it from collapsing. As I walked across the bridge to the other ruined building, I noticed a man walking towards me carrying a chainsaw. Fortunately, he wasn’t a deranged killer, just a man carrying a chainsaw. I never did see where he ended up.

Cindi and I made a circuit of the outside. The cows who graze in the field outside the abby walls were most generous in their production of cow pattys. I think my shoes emerged unscathed from my travel

In the fine Irish tradition of promptness, the man in charge of opening the gate into the abbey arrived fifteen minutes late. He must be really happy about the new bridge because it allowed him to park right next to the abby. He also took about five minutes to park his car just so.

He also wasn’t the friendliest of guides. He warned us not to do a survey with our cameras. He told us we couldn’t take pictures of single headstones unless we had the families permission to do so. I asked him I if I could use the port-a-jon and was rebuffed.

It’s still a great ruin. The most impressive feature was the two story garderobe. There is also a lovely arched inner courtyard. It has an upper story you can get to. It used to have small staircase you could climb to get to the top of the walls but those have been blocked off since I last climbed them in 1981. We bumped into the caretaker/guide as we wandered the ruins. I tried to make small talk but he was having none of it.

On the way back, we got to play one of my favorites games, which could be called “I think it’s around here” or “You just passed the turn”. On a lark we decided to find one of my father’s employees Lilly Kelly nee Goggin. Lily was the first hire of the Verbatim company in Ireland and probably the first person I met in Ireland as well. If you needed the life of a party you would call her. If you wanted someone stereotypically Irish you would call Lilly.

Well she works at the Limerick Institute of Technology which my father kind of knows where it is. I’m sure if he were driving, he could go right to it. He would spot the landmarks he remembered and make the proper turns.

Too bad I’m the driver. We made some abrupt last minute turns. We ended up near Thomond Park in a group of red brick buildings. I felt like we were driving into trouble, in the we have no where to park and you want me stop sort of trouble.

But he spotted a familiar building which had an empty handicap spot out front. I pulled in and got the dreaded “Run inside and ask” Great. I did and much to my chagrin, it worked. I found Lilly’s office. More importantly, I found Lilly.

There is nothing better than surprising someone that completely. If we had been better people, I’m sure we should have called ahead and set up a meeting. Instead I burst into her office after not seeing her for two years and asked her how she was doing. I think this is how we’ve come across Lilly the last several visits I’ve made at her residence over the previous eighteen years. She must be getting heartily sick of the surprise arrival.

But she hid it well. She hugged me. She gave me a “Jayzus it’s good to see ya” We ran to the car to jabber with my father. Lilly said we should go find her husband, Mick, at the house. We promised to meet up later. (We didn’t)

Here is why I hate my memory. I think we stopped to see one of my father’s friends, Brendan Bradshaw on the way to see Lilly. Brendan is recovering from bypass surgery and pneumonia. I think we stopped at his house, the second number Nine on the same street. He was abed and didn’t feel well enough to come down.

After the one, possibly two visits, we returned to the Strand Hotel, our home for the next ten days. We unpacked and thought about sleeping. Well Cindi put the sleeping plan into action. I took pictures through the window of the Shannon river and the Sarsfield bridge. I took the elevator upstairs to see if I could get out on one of the balconies to take some better pictures of Limerick.

Limerick used to be a city that had it’s back to the river. But in recent years, they’ve built many new buildings facing the water and added promenades to walk along the rivers. The day we arrived would have been the best day to walk these walks and photograph Limerick. I only got those few photos from the balcony of hotel and through our dirty hotel window.

What made the sunny day great for the locals was it was the first sunny day they had had in a long time. As a matter of fact, they had some bad flooding in Dublin the day before. It was the largest one day total of rain for October the country had ever had.

I finally napped for a couple of hours. But certainly not enough.

We made plans with Dad to go out for dinner. He had heard from some friends about a place called Johnson’s out the Ennis road near Durty Nelly’s and Bunratty.

We started looking for an exit that probably existed before the dual lane carriage way was built. Which means the landmarks are no longer there. Which means I get to pull into the gas station near Bunratty and ask about the location of Johnson’s restaurant and receive blank stares for my trouble. We talk it over and decide to eat at Durty Nelly’s rather than continuing our quest for the mythical Johnson’s. Turns out it had another name and was actually located next to the gas station.

I’ve always been skeptical about eating at Durty Nelly’s. It reeks of being a tourist trap despite it being founded in 1652. But who says they couldn’t be building tourists traps back then?

Don’t get me wrong. I love going there. It looks great in pictures with the castle in the background and the river in the foreground. It also looks great inside with it’s warren of different rooms and cubbyholes. I just wouldn’t eat there.

I will now. We had a great dinner. And as is the case on vacation, I had desert as well. The first of many we had on the trip. I’m pretty sure I had the beef. Mainly because when push comes to shove on these menus, I have beef.

We traveled back on the pitch black dual carriage way to the hotel. I think we bored Cindi with talk of the Limerick Inn. My father expressed a desire to go through the new Limerick tunnel which bypasses Limerick and goes under the Shannon river. It just doesn’t go where we need it to go.

[Drunk Monk]

will we get tq commentary? 'cuz it's always nice to get another perspective.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Once the PTSD subsides, I'm sure she'll have something to say.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I'm enjoying the tale. Keep 'em coming!

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

In the early seventies, my mother took me on a trip to Guadalajara, Mexico. She thought it would be great fun to get off the plane, with no plans whatsoever, and find adventure with her Mexico on 5 dollars a day book firmly in hand.

This is why I plan out every trip I take in excruciating detail because I never want that adventure to happen to me again. As someone once pointed out, ‘Adventure is bad things happening to other people” If it Wednesday in Ireland, we were cruising to the Aran Islands, more specifically, Innis Mor, which in Irish means the big Island.

The travel Gods have noticed my obsessiveness and decided to have some fun at my expense.

We were supposed to sail out of Doolin, which is south and west of Galway or North and West of Limerick. But sailing is problematical from Doolin when it gets to be this late in the year. Their dock is subject to tough tides and they suggest you call the day before to make sure they are actually sailing.

I didn’t have to call. I had a note in my email box saying that OBrien Lines ferries had refunded my money for the cruise. Sigh. But that’s okay. I’m flexible. I’ll just rebook for Thursday and we’ll do the Thursday plan on Wednesday. This meant traveling to Clonmacnoise, another ruined abby complex. And where Quin had the two buildings complete with Garderobe, Clonmacnoise had seven or eight buildings and two round towers.

Clonmacnoise was an important part of early christian Ireland. It was one of the fords for the River Shannon in the center of the country and was the starting point for the rebirth of Christian Europe. I had never heard about the place until a friend on Facebook went their and posted pictures. I knew we had to go there when we went back to Ireland.

I had a map left over from my last trip to Ireland in 2009. I think in the intervening years they have built a crap load of new roads in Ireland or upgraded dual carriageways to motorways because many of the designations of the roads on my map have changed. Can I point out this makes navigation tricky? Especially when my father the navigator is constantly mentioning I need to throw this map out?

If you know the town you are in, setting off in the proper direction is somewhat easy as the roads are usually referred to in the direction they travel. In Limerick, there is the Dublin Road, the Ennis Road, the Tipperary Road, and the Cork Road. Those roads all lead to those towns. Since Clonmacnoise is in the direction of Dublin, we left along the Dublin road. Or at least that was my plan.

I don’t think I had even completed the right turn from the hotel, when my father asked why we were going this direction. Well, I had looked at the map and planned the route and it seemed if I wanted to get to Clonmacnoise, it would be best to travel in this direction.

Granted the most directs routes have names. My father knows shortcuts which may or not still be in effect. Also because of the new road construction, there are now different routes you can take to bypass the cities. Before these bypasses were built it was a nightmare to get through Limerick. Basically you went from two lane freeway to a narrow city street complete with streelights and round-a-bouts. You got old waiting to get through afternoon Limerick traffic.

Since it was early, traffic was light up the Dublin road. My father and I would sing out landmarks we remembered in some twisted memory game designed to rattle any passengers in the back seat. We roared through Castletroy which was the suburb were the Lynch family clan resided. We passed Chawk’s Petrol station, for which my father has a fondness. It might be because it used to be last stop for gas before the wilderness of the Irish midlands.

I’m thinking the Irish sign makers and route markers are out to make people lost or drive them into the arms of GPS suppliers. I’m still not going down the GPS route, but this trip pushed me to closer to that camp.

Even the big signs on the motorways are sneaky. First they fill them with plenty of information. You usually you have the next four cities listed on the sign. Some of the cities are enclosed in brackets and I could never figure out why. The next exit is sometimes listed at the top, sometimes listed at the bottom.

But they are big and you can see them and they give you some warning that your turn is coming out. In the smaller cities, if there are signs, they are small and usually right were you need to turn. Ah, the excitement.

The trip to Clonmacnoise went the smoothest of all the trips. The numbers I had written down seemed to match all the roads we were on. There was some quibbling from the Navigator, but we made it. We made it long before we could actually get into Clonmacnoise.

But the sun was out and if we crossed the dew and cow-patty covered field, we could take pictures of the pretty ruin of castle Clonmacnoise. It sits on a bluff overlooking the Shannon and is surrounded by a very nice moat. The sun shined and we snapped.



Clonmacnoise sits in a great location right against the river Shannon. Great for scenery and great for raiding Vikings who wanted a quick pit stop at the medieval equivalent of an ATM. Although according to Wikipedia, Irishman did more raiding at Clonmacnoise than the Vikings ever did.

The place was founded in the sixth century by St Kiearan who had a magical bull. I can’t find the reference about bull’s skin and it’s magical properties but myth has it, it eventually became the Vellum for an illuminated manuscript called “Book of the Dun cow” I think it highly likely that the bull outlived Ciaran since Ciaran died nine months after founding Clonmacnoise.
Our sun was not to last. As Cindi and I made are way back to the main compound, the clouds came in and occluded the sun. During our wait we wandered over to the visitor center, which was closed that day for training. Things being closed was going to be a theme for the day.

My father was in discussion with the curators at the ticket desk when we returned. He was trying to get the time for the video presentation. They said it would be in five minutes. He didn’t quite hear them, so he asked again. The comedy bit with the phrase five minutes started. I chimed in as well. I was either funny or a dick to the curators. I’m hoping for the former.

We toured the museum after the video presentation. Because of the constant Irish rain and their fragility, many huge Irish high crosses had been brought in to the museum to protect them. They also had some exhibits about the life and times of the monastery. They also had a nice lucite box of bone fragments including a jaw bone on display. The best part about the box was a lack of explanation for the bones. Just some box they decided to hang on the wall. Make up your own story.

While Cindi and I wandered the cloud covered grounds of the monastery, my father waited in the coffee shop with tea and scones.

The grounds were great. I should have paid more attention to what I was looking at rather than grumbling about the clouds. I might have learned something. But I did get lots of pictures with a faint sun in the background. The newest structure house an altar for a out door masses and plaque commemorating Pope John Paul II’s visit there in 1979. I saw him and was an altar boy for the mass Pope John Paul II gave in Limerick.



We were driven from the grounds by a large group of german teenage tourists who had arrived at the monastery.

When I originally saw the pictures of Clonmacnoise, one of the captions said this place was the only reason to visit Athlone, which is the closest big city to Clonmacnoise. I looked up the town and saw a fairly sizable castle right on the Shannon. I thought it might be worth the trip to see the castle. Plus, it was only a few miles up the road.

If you are going to visit a town in Limerick during the day, you are going to get to deal with the traffic. Since Athlone, straddles the river, there is only one way through the town. Our drive went slowly. I kept my eye peeled for parking places, but they all had cars in them.

Across for the Castle, a funeral was being held a the local cathedral. This was not doing any good for the traffic or the parking. In an effort to park I made two loops around the castle and the cathedral to no avail. I eventually crossed the bridge back they way we had come in search of parking and a tourist office.

We eventually found parking in the large Athlone Mall. My father, who doesn’t like to walk much, agreed to hold the fort while we found the tourist board and visited the castle. We had passed many signs indicating there was a tourist office nearby but no real sign of the actual office.

As Cindi and I left, luck appeared and I saw the giant ‘I’ which indicates tourist office in the council building across from the mall.

First things first, we headed down the bleak concrete steps of the council building to the basement and the bathrooms. All I ever think about in these industrial space is Eric Idle saying “And this way to the whirling knives”

When I returned to upstairs there was a counter with all sorts of brochures for touristy things, including one for the Tullamore Dew Heritage Center. But there still wasn’t anyone behind the counter. There was a library with a librarian through an open door behind the counter. I asked the librarian when she the person from the tourist board would be back to man the counter. She said, “Spring.”

I asked about tour guides for the town. The librarian didn’t know of any but would make a call to find them. The calls turned up nothing. I thanked her and said maybe we would find somebody at the castle. She looked crestfallen as she told us the castle was closed for repairs.



Cindi and I decided we would walk over the bridge, take pictures, and find something to eat around the castle. I had noticed in my fruitless search for parking that Sean’s pub was adjacent to the castle. According to the Guiness book of records, Sean’s is the oldest pub in Ireland, dating back to the 9th century AD. Workers repairing the plaster walls had found waddle and daub construction underneath the plaster.

Of course if you search for Sean’s pub on the internet, right next to the glowing review about Sean’t being the oldest pub in Ireland, there is the article saying it’s a complete fraud. Either way, it seemed like the place to get some grub.

Much like the castle and the tourist board, Sean’s was closed. As it turned out, all the restaurants in the immediate vicinity to the castle were closed. The only thing open were the numerous empty parking spaces now available around the castle. The same lots that were crammed when I had made the two circuits only twenty minutes ago. My father had said this would happen once the funeral had left the church. Yeah, but who listens to him?



We ambled back to the mall in search of my father and lunch. We had Paninini’s in the food court while we talked to my father. The Panini seems to have replaced the ham or the cheese sandwich as the sandwich of choice in Ireland. I’m still looking to what happened to the Oxtail soup.

The decision was made to go to Tullamore to see the Whiskey distillery. My father had it fixed in his mind that Tullamore was south of Lough Dergh, which is one of the major lakes on the Shannon. My map contradicted his recollections by putting it north of Athlone and Lough Dergh. I figured to go to the one on the map.

In my father’s defense, I found a Tullamore on the map south of Lough Derg where he indicated. It just wasn’t the one we wanted. It’s always good to have two cities named the same thing only twenty miles apart.

The trip to Tullamore was fine. Actually finding the distillery was a struggle as all the signs pointing us to it’s location disappeared once we hit the city. What was even more confusing was passing a gate that said it was the distillery but wasn’t actually our destination.

I found the place on the shores of the main canal. There was a sign to it, only it said it was for the tourist office. Which turned out to be in the Tullamore Dew heritage center.

The building we found ourselves in was never really the distillery, it was just a warehouse by the canal where they stored the whiskey. The distillery was actually housed where Cindi saw the Tullamore Dew gate. But it’s not their anymore. There has been a lot of consolidation in the Irish Whiskey industry. Tullamore Dew, along with Jameson’s Whiskey are now brewed together down near Cork at the New Middleton Distillery.

But they did have displays and exhibits to show how Tullamore Whiskey was made and a bit of history of the town. My favorite part about that tour was the fact an early balloon had crashed into the town back in the 1800‘s. The flame from the exploding gas bag ignited the town roofs and burnt most of the town to the ground. I also learned the DEW in Tullamore DEW doesn’t mean glistening water on leaves of grass, but are rather the initials of one of the original distillers, Daniel E. Williams. Travel is about learning.

As part of the tour, we did get some samples of the whiskey. They gave out one chit for each participant. Something got messed up and they had served my father, who was waiting, the two samples, which he had enjoyed. Since I still had the drink chit in my pocket, I was also given two free samples. I had my sip and was finished. I think Cindi said she would another to finish hers. I will say it vaporized right in my mouth

The other claim to fame for Tullamore Dew is that it was the whiskey used in the first incarnations of Irish Coffee, first at Foynes in Ireland for air travelers arriving in Ireland. This recipe was then carried back to the United States and made it’s first appearance at the Buena Vista bar in San Francisco. I don’t know how many times I played at the Cable Car roundabout across from that bar as my parents were in there swigging Irish Coffees. I hate you Tullamore Dew. You ruined my childhood.

The plan for the drive back was to travel along Lough Derg. I plotted the route and gave the map to Dad. He did some initial kvetching before agreeing that my route was probably the best one after all.

Cindi, in an inspired defense, went to sleep in the back of the car, while I got lost driving out of Tullamore. My father and I eventually found the right roads. We were on them for a little while.

But the closer we go to Lough Derg, the roads seem to get smaller and smaller. We couldn’t find a sign post for about an hour. We were looking for a town called Borrisokone which would mean we were nearing the lough. Those signs or town never materialized.

Since we had plans to go out for a fancy dinner that night, the plan for Lough Derg was aborted. We piloted our way through a town called Nenagh and then back to the motorway.

We dined at my father’s favorite restaurant in Ireland, maybe in all the world in a town called a Adare which is about ten miles south of Limerick. It’s called the Dunraven Arms after the Lord of Adare, the Earl of Dunraven. It’s actually a hotel with the restaurant attached, but to my father it’s the restaurant that really matters. Mostly for a chair in the lobby in which he is fond of taking his picture.



Luck smiled upon us and I was able to get a spot right in front. Unlike everyone else who had parked there, I was facing with traffic. My fellow Irish drivers think nothing of driving across the lane for a parking space.

Dinner was excellent. My father knows the Maitre d’ but can’t for the life of him remember the man’s name. Cindi helped out by introducing herself to the man. I had a less than stellar lamb dish, but I had made comment about my father’s dinner of Roast Beef and our Maitre d’ carved off a hunk for me as well.

Later in my room, I checked the email for information about our planned trip to Innis Mor in the morning. All I got was another refund for out trip. Time to change plans.

[Drunk Monk]

Funny, I don't think I've ever heard that Mexico trip tale. Perhaps it's my failing memory, or that you blocked it out.

Thanks for sharing. It breaks up the Monday monotony.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

I don't block, I dredge.

No, that story is always there although not shared. If we were to have a deep conversation about my problems with my mother, that story would certainly come up.

[The Queen]

will we get tq commentary? 'cuz it's always nice to get another perspective.

Upon her return to work this morning, The Queen was informed that her deadline for completing the scripts for the new integrated video training is a month from today. In between now and then, I also am required to spend five days in Florida visiting my mother and stepfather (Stenograph's policy regarding vacation time is use it or lose it, so if I don't take these days, I don't get paid for them). I also expect to take some time away from the computer for tennis, getting the windows replaced and a visit to the dentist. Basically this means I will be writing about software non-stop during every non-working moment between now and December 7th. Long story short - I'll leave it to the master to tell the stories. I've learned that if I don't interrupt, he tells them very well. :-)

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

For the second day in a row, we weren’t to be traveling from Doolin to Innis Mor. Cindi had envisioned a desire to go to Glendalough, which is another ruined monastery set in the Wicklow Mountains.

The Wicklow mountains, for those in the know, is where the water for Guinness Beer comes from, not the black water of the River Liffey in the heart of Dublin as has been often speculated. In further trivia news, Dublin can be translated to mean black pool which was one of the first settlements on the river Liffey. I could go one but it has little to do with this essay.

The other thing is the Wicklow mountains where Glendalough is located is really far from Limerick. It actually sits on the East Coast of Ireland about forty miles south of Dublin. I remember going there thirty years ago and it seemed like it took the whole summer to get there. So, I was against the idea. Until our cruise to the Aran’s fell through again and I realized it wasn’t that much further to Glendalough than it was to Clonmacnoise.

Part of what was making these trips easy was I had a fast car from Hertz. They had given us a Diesel Volvo which had plenty of pep. And the speed limits on the Irish motor ways was 120KPH or 72 mph.

I was initially against the car because it was a Diesel and was afraid it would be difficult to find Diesel at the Irish Petrol stations. It also hid all it’s seat functions, so on the initial drive to Limerick I had my head wedge the ceiling and my thighs pressed against the bottom of the steering wheel. It turns out that all the lever on the seat options are mechanical. You have to pump them to get the seat to move. Indeed, I am spoiled by my own cars electronics. But It only took me a day to figure that out.

The plan was to leave early and get breakfast on the road. We had done two Irish breakfast buffets in a row and were ready for a change. My father had declined to go with us on this trip, preferring to hang out with his friends in Limerick. We planned to meet for dinner.

Since we were heading out the Dublin road, I figured we could revel in my father’s memories by stopping at Chawk’s for gas. By leaving this early, a little before seven, we could be in Wicklow by ten at the latest. This would give us plenty of time to stop at the Rock of Cashel on the way back and still be in time for dinner with my father.

I gave the guy at Chawk’s fifty euro for gas. I grabbed the green diesel handle and filled up. Cindi went into the little shop that was part of Chawk’s to buy some snacks for the trip. For those of you wanting specifics, the price of a liter of diesel was about 1.42 euros. They sell petrol by the liter so you don’t have a heart attack when you notice the gas price. If you do a little math, you find out the price for diesel in Ireland at the moment is $7.63 a gallon.

I’m walking back to the car when the guy in the cashier’s booth beckons me over. He wants to know why I filled up with unleaded after I paid for Diesel? Come again? I filled up with Diesel? I used the green handle. The green handle means Diesel in the United States. Too bad we weren’t in the United States.

Of course in all the English speaking countries, the word Diesel means Diesel. That was the word clearly written above the black handle, a color very different from the green color. It also occurred to me that the Unleaded nozzle wouldn’t fit in the Diesel opening. Again, it was the other way around. The Diesel nozzle doesn’t fit in the unleaded opening.



So, I’m sitting at Chawk’s with a diesel car half full of unleaded gas. I’d heard these stories before and thought how could those people who did that be so stupid?

I admitted my problem to the girl behind the counter and asked where I could get a mechanic. She said there was a mechanic and he didn’t open until nine. A quick check of the wrist watch showed me it had just turned seven. Two hours for the mechanic. She said I could have his mobile number if I wanted to call him.

I researched getting a mobile phone for the trip, but it seemed that the phone plans were really expensive. I figured I could always call from the hotel or people could reach me there to contact me.

The nice Chawk’s girl took pity on me and let me use her phone. It rang a lot of times to no answer. I would like to point out that Chawk’s is the exception to the rule in Ireland. Most places of businesses don’t open until nine at the earliest. It’s usually more like ten.

Cindi did the rational thing and looked through our Hertz contract in the car. There was an emergency road side assistance number in our little pamphlet. I called. I got a woman in Dublin. She told me it would be easier to call the Shannon desk since it was closer and they would know more about mechanics in the area.

The man at the Shannon desk, knowing full well he was in Ireland, said there wasn’t a thing he could do until nine am. I should just hang tight and he would call me when he got someone to help us. What’s my number, he asked. Um err. I told him I would call him back at nine.

We spent a delightful two hours waiting at Chawk’s. I wandered around the station to see what I could see. There was nothing. Cindi read her book. I read a newspaper. I watched the hands on my watch move at a glacial pace.

I had a moment of trepidation at nine. It was a shift change at Chawk’s. I feared I would have to be telling my tale of woe to somebody and begging the use their cel phone who might not have been as receptive to my pleas. But the same girl was still behind the counter when I came to the counter. I’m sure the Chawk’s people were mighty sick of me and my car blocking their pump for the last two hours.
The guy at Hertz was different one from the one I talked to at seven. He wanted to call me back as he searched for mechanics to aid me. I explained about my lack of cel phone. He put me on hold while he made calls. When he came back on the line after a few minutes, he said the mechanic was just up the road and would be their in about two minutes. I looked up from the phone to see the truck pulling into the yard. Release at last. Sort of.

They wouldn’t be able to change the gas at Chawk’s. The car had to be towed to the mechanics service station which was on the other side of Limerick from where the car currently rested. It was also going to cost me a 150 euro to fix this little mishap.

As Paddy, yes Paddy, hooked up the car, I noticed on the side of his truck, that he offered 24 hour a day road side assistance. I asked him if I had called at Seven would he have been able to pick me up? He said sure. He even had the AA roadside assistance emblem on the side of the truck. I was only a little furious that we could have started this process two hours earlier.

The Tow Trucks shop was a Suzuki dealership out the Ennis Road just beyond my father’s favorite Limerick store, Ivan’s. We had to go past our Strand Hotel to get there.

The Mechanic said it would probably only take an hour to fix. I said great. He said maybe an hour and a half. I was happy to learn that I was not the only person in the contaminated fuel predicament. There were three other cars already in the shop that had done the same thing. The head guy at the Suzuki dealership said it was pretty common.

Cindi and I settled into wait. She had a book. I had thumbs to twiddle. I gave them an hour and ten minutes before I started peaking into the shop. They seemed to be having problems. For some reason, the Volvo had a tricky path from gas tank to fuel pump and they were having problems releasing the fuel.

It took two hours. We finally were on the road at Noon, five hours after we started. I got to fuel up again, because they didn’t put any diesel back in the tank. I wasn’t the least bit worried I’d make the same mistake again.

I did notice that there might be short cut out to M6 motorway that didn’t involve going back through town and by Chawk’s. It did involve a toll and going through the new tunnel under the Shannon River. I opted for the tunnel.

Oddly, there was only one car in front of us at the toll plaza. Oddly, the driver seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time to pay the toll. Oddly, the toll taker eventually held out a book to the car in front of us for that driver to sign. Using a ton of conjecture, it seemed the woman in front of us didn’t have the fare and had to sign a promise note to pay the toll in the future in order to be let in the tunnel. We were never going to get to Glendalough.

If this were the Eighties and we were trying to get to Glendalough starting at Noon, it just wouldn’t happen. It was a two lane road from Limerick to the Curragh with passage through every small town along the way.

But knowing my predicament, the Road builders helped out with a motorway. I don’t think I did any speed less than 75 until I hit the toll plaza at the Curragh. Of course, we had to get off the motorway there and use the secondary roads to get to Glendalough.

I guess the builders of Glendalough took a cue from Clonmacnoise and didn’t build their monastery in an accessible spot, thus subject to raiders. Even today it’s out of the way and not near any big roads unless you are coming from Dublin.

The first thing we saw getting of the freeway was the Kilcullen rouandabout which had a giant rusted steel sculpture of Kilcullen. There weren’t any good spots to stop or we would have taken pictures.

Then we drove on roads were sheep had the right of way. The Curragh is one big grass plane where they raise horses. We must have passed a dozen massive stud farms as we drove.

This was the tricky route to Glendalough full of small towns, smaller roads and hidden turns. I don’t think I made one correct turn on the road. And most of those roads don’t have a convenient spot to make u-turn among the hedgerows.

We did get to pass through Hollywood were we had a delightful lunch of crisps and some cheese. Hollywood was kind enough to mimic California’s, Hollywood, by spelling out the name of the city on the Hillsides. Recent weather had reduced it to ‘L - WOOD”, but we knew what they meant.

We crested the hills in the famous Wicklow Gap, which was a stop begging for us to take photographs but the sun was racing towards the horizon and we still hadn’t make it Glendalough. Next time.

We made it to Glendalough around three. Clouds partially covered the sky and the mountains to the south occluded some of the light coming into the valley. The monastery sits on the shores of the lakes of Glendalough surrounded by steep mountains on either side.

The nice man at the ticket booth informed us the video presentation was broken. This left a marginal group of artifacts for us to look at for our six euro. He recommended just going out to the lakes and looking around for free. We took his advice.

Cindi and I didn’t have enough time to see the ruins and we knew it. I figured we should race to the upper lake, see it’s artifacts and then race back to the main compound around the lower lake.

At the upper lake, there was a waterfall and some small groups of rocks which were probably of some importance. But the sun took that time to make an appearance, probably the last one of the day.



Viewing of the upper lake sites was abandoned as we raced the kilometer back to the lower lake and St Kevin’s Tower. We raced by people walking their dogs and sheep in the fields. The clouds taunted us by blocking and unblocking the sun.

Cindi went on as I stopped to get a front shot of the ruins from the wooded walkway. She’s been with me long enough to realize that I’ve wandered off yet again and not to worry. Or she’s escaping. Too bad I had the keys for the car.

The Sun came out fully while I waited for ten minutes, so I decided to to the monastery. It’s a great site. Much more compact than Clonmacnoise and as is the case in most of the ruins, they are still used as cemeteries. So, centuries old grave sit next to brand new graves that are still tended.

The sun finally broke through as I walked the grounds. I raced around taking pictures rather than finding out about the buildings. The only one I can reasonably identify is St. Kevin’s Tower, which is the large round tower in the center of the grounds. I’m sure the other buildings are churches and workhouses and whatever. I also continued to build my portfolio of pictures of celtic crosses.



Later, I learned from another blogging photographer who was at Glendalough at almost the same time as us, there was an eleven foot tall high cross on the monastery grounds. Legend has it that if you can wrap your arms completely around it and make a wish, the wish will come true. We need more legends like that in the US. But, again, I only learned of this later.

Cindi and I spent almost two hours on the grounds. We could have spent the day there and that still wouldn’t have been enough time to do the ruins justice. But I had a plan. I’m learning it’s bad when I plan.

So, the sun was still up. Sort of. I of course had a crazy idea of what to do with that light. I had the plan when I first plotted the trip to Glendalough when I figured I would have plenty of time on the return journey. But the five hour delay wasn’t going to deter me. The sun was going to shine for two more hours and that was plenty of time.

Rather than driving back to Limerick along the roads I had just traveled and get home without the headaches of being lost, I would plot a new course to Cashel and it’s Rock.
Cindi wanted to go there and explore it some more. We could make it. I knew we could.

We only missed one turn on the way back to the motorway. The sheep had left the road by the time we got back to the Curragh. We missed another opportunity to screw up traffic at the roundabout by stopping and taking pictures of the iron Cuchulain.

We got on the new road at Port Laoise. It was another fine chance to get lost which I did in one of the small towns. But we made it to the Rock of Cashel just in time to see sun disappear. We got a nice silhouette of the rock and it’s accompanying conservation scaffolds.

My father told us there was a nice restaurant to eat at in Cashel. Since that was part of the plan, take photos and eat in Cashel, although the original plan called for the meal to be lunch rather than dinner, we figured we would stop and eat. The plan would have been even better if we knew the name and the location of the restaurant my father remembered.

We pushed on, instead, to Limerick through really dark roads and multiple road construction projects. I was amazed that my Irish roadworkers were still on the job at seven at night. It used to be a strictly nine to five sort of country.

Cindi and I settled for dinner at the Strand hotel’s River restaurant. It was expensive and marginal. No more dinners at the hotel.

I checked our email back in the room. Still no word from the ferries about a trip to the Aran Islands.

[Drunk Monk]

So there's no pic of the iron Cuchulain? Or is that coming?

The suspense is killing me.