Hello all!
As we're writing this from the bowels of the Buswell's Hotel business center, it's the end of Sunday evening (about 11:30 p.m. or so) - and Buswell's is actually very nice, I just say bowels because the business centre (note spelling) is down in like the third sub basement.
Andrea and I have both survived the journey here without major incident. The flights were "ok" - the flight on Aer Lingus in coach was really pushing it for me as I was not designed to sit still in a small chair for extended period of time without "bumping the leg of the person next to me every 30 seconds" :) Was quite the adventure - we're seriously considering seeing what it would take to upgrade our seating on the return flight.
We got into Dublin about 8:00, which was actually a little early, and were able to get our cab to the hotel just fine. We left the bags off at the hotel around 9:00, but they were full up and we weren't able to check in until after 2:00.
So! We went on a grand adventure and got our "hop on, hop off" bus pass! This thing was awesome! We've been to the Book of Kells at Trinity College (which was nice, no pictures alllowed of the good stuff though) and the Guiness Storehouse, which was extremely busy, and was quite a letdown. It was kind of like the Coca-Cola visitor's center in Atlanta - a lot of neat stuff - but really more a tribute to itself than an actual "tour" - Anheuser Busch in St. Louis still has the ranking "best" tour in my book. Oh - the Guiness tastes the same over here as it does back home in the states - rumors to the contrary.
Sometime along those lines, we hauled our backpacks all over the city of Dublin, the guided tour bus we were using to travel was an awesome adventure, as there were definitely some colorful and entertaining drivers - you actually learn quite a bit of history from the different ones - and pick up some interesting phrases - like "the most recent Rebellion" Oh - our bus company had the open top double decker, which is definitely the way to go. We rode it so many times, we actually fell asleep on it towards the tail end of the day.
The weather here is absolutely wonderful! Rod would hate it :) There is no need of air conditioning, it's been sunny clear and in the upper 60s all day occasionally getting a little warmer of cooler, depending on cloud cover. Nice breeze, a little damp in general, but a beautiful place.
Before I give you over to Andrea, a little bit on Dublin, which incidentally seems to have been financed by Arthur Guiness in about the same way Augustus Busch financed St. Louis. Dublin is a beautiful city, not that big, but it's a big city - noone you meet on the weekends is actually from Dublin - they're all from somewhere else - also the city is filthy - trash on the street is common - not sure what the deal is with that - maybe they don't clean is much on the weekends.
I've got more - but Andrea wants to type - so let me give you to her:
ENOUGH rambling! Bottom line, the toilet paper is ROUGH - even the toilet handles are on the wrong side. We had planned to go out to the Temple Bar area (Like Westport) tonight but ended up passing out around 6p, which was really our first good sleep in over a week with all of this wedding business - I'm sure you all agree. We are really looking forward to the driving tomorrow.. Not so much, imagine the running of the bulls in Spain only with cars and no indication of which way to go and they are all on the wrong side of the road! Would definitely say this place isn't handicap accessible - maybe in other parts of the country. Just think EVEN the keyboard we are using is setup different than in the states!
We are having fun and spending some quality time together along with lots of Euro! :-) Will try to keep in touch if we can if not, know that we love and miss you all - mostly. :-)
O'Briens Out!
Hello family & Friends,
Andrea speaking here, we made it out of Dublin by the grace of God. Driving a Ford Focus that seems to bounce off things just fine.. Michael is driving the trip as it is more money for both of us to drive.. Have you ever driven with him in the U.S.? Just picture me screaming in the passenger (normal driving seat) as we fly down curving one lane roads at 100 kph or 60 mph. Still haven't figured out how to use the Euro or distinquish Celsius versus Fahrenheit..
Went to Easkey yesterday. Found the O'Brien graves after MUCH searching, took lots of pictures. For the O'Briens coming from that close to the Ocean you would think Michael would know how to swim! We climbed down and touched the North Atlantic - not as cold as you would think. Food isn't all it's cracked up to be, getting used to the toilet paper, walking awefully funny though :-). In Galway today, got here late not much to do. I DID find some shops open though! Love you all and we will try to call soon. 6 hour time difference means I might wake you at 2a CDT! Andrea
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Get back away from the keyboard Andrea!!!
Ok, Mike here, wrestled the keyboard away from the blonde ambition. Having to keep her on a pretty short leash as the tall blond tan endowed woman seems to be drawing lots of attention over here in the land of dermatology patients with no chins. :)
We did somehow by the grace of god manage to make it all the way up to Easkey last night. Let me tell you, in this day and age, Easkey is a very small, very depressing, very unemployed farming town - I can only imagine what it must have been like 80 years ago. Andrea and I did forage through the graveyard before eventually locating the grave, there are other O'Briens, Geraghtys, Maloneys and a ton of Kevanys in there - but no names I recognized - we ended up documenting the location of the grave and taking lots of pictures - we had grander plans, but an 80 year old limestone monolith has not weathered as well as we had hoped - it is pretty dang big though. We thought about going to the local pub as some of the gravediggers we talked to suggested (seriously, they were digging a grave) but quite honestly there looked to be some hard looking people in there and I wasn't comfortable going in there. They also suggested that we crash the funeral for the guy they were buring today because he was related to a lot of O'Briens. Again weird - of course this is the same gravedigger that seemed a little embarassed when I asked him if there was a directory map of the graveyard, the companion of him appeared to either be smoking a handrolled cigarette, or something else, but it was definitely hand rolled and unfiltered. Anywho - we ended up putting a note in a plastic page protector and taping it to the foot of the tombstone and putting some rocks on it - so who knows?
We then managed to make it to Cong today, scene of the filming of The Quiet Man.
WHAT A RIP! It has got to be the biggest tourist trap so far - it was an extreme disappointment - the people didn't even really seem that interested in working hard to steal...errr....earn our money. This despite the fact there were easily a hundred people visiting the town at lunch time to check it out - if they were organized they'd be making a mint. Anyways, our research indicated the Bridge from the movie is still in good shape, but it turns out it is about 30 miles outside of town through windy mountain lake roads.
Of course, we had to pay 3.50 to buy the brochure that detailed it's exact location, as noone would give it up other than "it's outside of town"
So we drove there through some of the most beautiful country in Ireland, we took lots of pictures.
I almost hit a sheep on the highway.
Three times.
Seriously.
It would have been baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddd.
These sheep though, do respond fairly well to a well placed horn blast and a revving of the engine and the sound of a screaming passenger.
Some interesting bits of Irish roadway trivia:
The Irish have a sign for everything, my personal favorite is the reverse lightinging bolt double switchback down a steep hill with what appears to be a car combination. Definitely worth a "bad feeling" when travelling through the mountains.
All roads, regardless of their status as a red, greem, or yellow, roadway are 8 feet wide in each lane, at maximum, 2 lanes - 1 in each direction. All roads are immediately, within inches, bounded by fieldstone fence and hedgerows. The "fancy" roads have a shoulder. The super nice fancy roads, have a paved shoulder. All roads are still limited to two lanes. Your position in the lane is best determined by the sound of brush hitting the passenger side of the vehicle and the volume of profanities coming from the passenger. You must drive as fast as humanly possible, but will inevitably be passed on the right regardless, and will inevitably be forced to yield to farm equipment and oncoming tour busses, frequently simultaneously.
No worries!
:)
As Andrea said, we did get into Galway a little late this evening, so that's kind of disappointing, Galway is easily the most modern city, and have the most refined drinking establishments.
Taxis are your friend.
:)
O'Briens OUT!
First things first when travelling in Europe:
If you need to find an Internet cafe, ask the children - they know exactly where it is and how to get there - their parents look at you like you're daft (Daft - that's my new word of the day) :)
Unpleasant discovery about Ireland: Just about every single shop and store rolls up the sidewalk at 5:30 in the evening, every day - this is ironic as it hasn't been getting dark till almost 11:00 p.m. (Which is weird in and of itself) So we haven't been getting in as much shopping as we'd like - fortunately Andrea has discovered many, many, many wonderful trinkets along the way at each landmarks we visit.
Not sure if we'd mentioned this or not, but we hit the Cliffs of Moher yesterday or the day before, it was an impressive view, after a significant climb, but there was also a tremendous amount of fog. Fortunately they sell some impressive postcards of what it looks like on a clear day. There is also an O'Brien tower with one of the clan badges carved into it at the top, so that was neat. (This day was the day that if it's cold, damp, and rainy - you must be in Ireland)
Incidentally, the Irish seem to have developed an intense and passionate hatred for rain. They don't like it - although on the days it gets warm, they run out and get sunburned and then sweat, as the humidity is high and *nothing* has air conditioning. On the plus side, everything has windows that actually open.
Went to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park yesterday, it's kind of a restored Castle meets Missouritown experience, they had a lot of displays of livestock and various houses and shops - it was definitely enjoyable. It's the most fully restored castle in Ireland (supposedly) that is over 6 stories tall! (A former O'Brien castle, so of course it's grand) Andrea and I hiked all the way to the top of it and it was quite the experience.
Today we hit the Rock of Cashel, which is a "restored eclesiastical structure" it's at the top of a mountain with a fantastic view - we took lots of pictures. It's also bordered by, I kid you not, "Hore Abby" I can't help but suspect this was not a coincidence. :)
Then we hit the Waterford crystal factory today. Now *this* tour was worth it and was fascinating - really just about everything is done by hand. We really enjoyed this tour. For those of you that didn't know, we received some pieces of Waterford Crystal for the wedding and we were excited to look at other pieces in the line. Long story short - it turns out that Waterford has model lines that are manufactured *exclusively* for sale in the US, and are not avaialble in Europe for sale, even though they are allegedly made here. I suspect this has something to do with being able to more effectively set price controls, and the lady we spoke with more or less admitted to that.
Let's see - found the B&B, Waterford has the worst traffic so far, B&B seems nice....
WOMAN WANTS KEYBOARD NOW....
Still haven't found fabulous food here, toilet paper is becoming more bearable. By the way the most used word here is "brilliant," like they use in the Guiness commericials. Everything is Brilliant! Going to Cork tomorrow which promises to be a fun and live town complete with bus tour. Not much else to report as Mr. O'Brien has captured most of the fun above.. Can't keep him away from the Internet EVEN on our honeymoon! :-)
Cheers,
The Travelling O'Briens