Ireland, 9/14-23,2006

We're at Dublin's airport arriving by Ryan Air from London's Standsted airport.  Danee picks us up, we get some euros and we're back at her house where she and Phil will host us for 3 days, actually 4 days total.  We are staying in the attic that is much bigger than I expected.  Surprised me.  Alicia, her mom, had stayed here in January 2005, my first trip to Ireland.  My friend Sally and I stayed in a neighborhood B&B that Danee had found for us.  We chat, eat a delicious breakfast and then Janeen lays down.  I lay down a few hours later.  We both nap till 4 p.m. when Phil wakes us.  Get up, dressed and leave for downtown by train that is referred to as the "dart" here in Dublin.  We are actually staying in a suburb called Raheny in Mary's house, Phil's Mom.  Danee, Phil, their son Lorcan 7 and their daughter Neamh (pronounced Neeve) 4, live with Mary in her town house.  Phil takes us and Danee will meet us later.  It's about 4:30.  We take the dart in and Phil pays.  Go to a pub and have our first  guinness which is always a first with Phil.  We walk around Dublin.  Danee meets us and we stop for another guinness and then go to "The Dungeon" for dinner but it's being remodeled.  So we go to the same place we went with Sally 1/2005.  Good food.  Janeen and I split a Caesar's salad and I get ravioli which is very good and have a great bottle of wine.  We pick up the dinner bill.  Enjoyable dinner.  Good conversation.  Take a taxi back to the house and get to bed immediately and sleep very well.  Up about 7, shower and get dressed.  Get on the Internet and answer emails here on Danee and Phil's computer.  Phil is checking on flights and a car for us.  We book the flight to Glasgow and the rented car here in Ireland and then later the Copenhagen flight from Edinburgh, all on Janeen's card.  Spend most of the day just hanging at Danee & Phil's.  Had breakfast in the garden, a great bagel with cream cheese, tomato, sprouts, arugula and sun flower seeds.  YUMMY!!!  It is a beautiful sunny fall day here in Raheny.  Spend the day catching up on the journal, checking Internet and plans for the next few weeks.  Never leave the house.  Mary's other children Veronica, Nora and Kevin come by with Veronica's kids Heather, Adam and Emma to visit.  The younger 4 play together in the yard.  Mary treats us to dinner of great Indian food takeout at the house.  We were going into Dublin to hear some music but pooped out and went to bed.  Danee was all set to go, Mary was watching the sleeping children.  I hope she wasn't too disappointed.  I also played cards with Lorcan and then wrote letters to Alicia, including a note from Lorcan in her letter, Amy & Bob and M&M on the Vietnam stationery.  Up late.  Slept well.  Down for breakfast and everyone is still reclining.  I make another yummy bagel with the same stuff and then have a croissant with more stuff.  Make coffee that is great.  Danee & Phil go off with the kids to Rugby practice for Lorcan.  Mary's up and we sit outside for a bit.  Phil has left us instructions to go to Dublin.  We get a call from him regarding the booking of the Copenhagen flight because we had used his number for contact.  I try to return the call after checking the Internet with no luck.  Phil & Danee get home and Janeen is now trying to find out the details of this call and our flight booking.  We spend this day with her on the phone cancelling her debit card and hopefully our flight to Copenhagen dollars which have been drawn from her account.  It's too late to do the tour of Dublin or see the Book of Kells now.  We go into Dublin and walk around a bit.  We find a great restaurant for dinner sitting on the veranda at the "Mackerel".  You can watch the people walking on Grafton Street below, a pedestrian street only.  I had a carafe of very good wine, salad and rare tuna w/wasabi and soy sauce.  It was very good but expensive here too at $57.  Phil gave us his cell so they could contact us and meet up.  We're just starting dinner and he calls.  They don't seem to want to eat here so we'll finish and they'll find us here a bit later.  I have another glass of wine, use the john and connect with Danee and Phil seeing them from our veranda.  We go to a pub with some music, an absolute necessity when visiting Ireland.  Get a guinness and listen to some music.  Move on to another pub that is packed and you really can't see the musicians.  We have a huge beer here.  Phil does all the ordering.  Finish our beer and sweeze out of this pub.  We're hungry now and stop for fast food.  I get some potatoes with sour cream and a bottle of water.  We get a taxi back to Raheny and go immediately to bed.  We had a fun evening in Dublin.  We're up late.  Been sleeping well here.  Danee was going to take us to get the rented car but we're up too late.  She has to take the kids to a birthday party for Emma, Veronica's daughter (Phil's sister).  Phil fixes us breakfast.  I shower, dress and pack up.  We call the budget place to let them know we're late.  Phil calls a taxi for us before he leaves to meet up with his family.  The taxi is here and we're in the car but don't have the address.  How embarrassing!  Phil has been taking care of so much stuff for us, we fail to get the address of the rental car place.  Janeen doesn't want to pay the taxi guy while we're trying to get the address, but the meter is running.  Sometimes I don't get her!!!  It's our fault we don't have the address.  I go in call Phil and the line is busy.  Call Danee, no answer.  Mary is trying to help me and gives me a number to call that is an Indiana number and she doesn't realize that it is.  She doesn't recognize it.  I try to get some info off the computer and the battery is not strong enough.  It's a very stressful moment.  The phone book is there so I look up Budget, call the city number and luckily it's the right place.  He gives me the address and we're off.  The taxi fee is at E8 already and Janeen is mad.  I tell her it's our problem not his!  Now we're in traffic for a big Irish football game.  We finally get to the Budget office and the fans are all over with their colorful support of their team. Get the car paperwork done and it's more money than quoted, 88, plus 25 pick up, plus 5 taxes = 118.68 plus 55 gas charges refundable if returned full = $173.68 split between us.  Still working out to be about $15 a day after the refund of the gas, so not too bad.  We now get in the van with Brian from the Budget office along with the other 3 people renting a car and he drives us to Dublin's airport to pick up the car.  That was a surprise but I was glad to not have to drive in all this traffic and people from the rugby game.  It has now become much more involved than we had expected.  Heavy traffic and an accident making us late.  We get the car about 2 p.m. and Brian tells us when he gets back to the office he'll extend our return time to 5 p.m. on Friday.  We get out of Dublin ok and head for Glendalough.  The roads are very cute and the villages as well.  The signs are terrible.  We made many wrong turns and I got a bit frazzled.  Janeen annoys me so I get worse.  We stop in Lauragh thinking it is Glendalough.  Park and walk a bit realizing we need to get back into the car and drive to the parking lot of the park.  Get back in the car and I almost hit a car pulling out of the parking lot.  WHEW......go down the road farther and see the lower lake, farther on the upper lake, a huge car park and picnic area.  We take the walk beside the lake and walk almost to the waterfall.  You can see it coming down the mountain.  The spot is very lovey and it is a beautiful day.  Stop and take a picture of ourselves with the timer on the camera.   We walk back to the car park and drive back to Lauragh and then can't find our way towards Waterford.  We drive as far as Arklow as it is getting dark and stay at "Ros Maolan" (Melon Head in Gaelic) Guest House ($25.40 ea.) where Eileen is such a nice gal.  They got the name of the guest house from a boat they owned that had the same name.  We walk down the street to the Arklow Hotel for dinner and have delicious cod & chips with a very good salad and a great salad dressing on the side.  Walk back to the guest house and go to sleep.  The room is very nice and we sleep very well.  We're up late, have breakfast at 9 where Eileen makes us toast and coffee with juice.  She was so kind to make us the breakfast because Janeen had negotiated the room without breakfast to keep the price down.  She insisted on giving us the breakfast.  We head out of Arklow to Waterford.  Stop for bagels in Gorey and shop a bit here in another cute little town.  Get 2 fairy tale books, one for Niamh and one for Rose who we will be visiting soon in Copenhagen, a friend of mine's daughter from the States and living there with his Danish wife and children.  Buy some groceries in this town and also some wine to make a picnic lunch.  We put 1E in the meter producing a parking ticket for the car to park legally on the street.  Drive on to Waterford and assemble our bagel sandwiches in the parking lot of Waterfood Crystal while waiting for the tour to start.  They are quite good.  There is a fee for the tour but they do give us the senior price at $8.25 each.  Go on the tour and it is very good.  The tour shows us how they blow the glass, grind the edges, and then the finished product.  The crystal is very beautiful. They had made 2 copies of the crystal ball New York was given by Waterford for Times Square Millennium and they show it after their introductory video.  It is unbelievably brilliant.  The show room is wonderful and I buy the kids each some Waterford wine glasses, set of 2 each, and have them shipped home.  The pattern on the glassware is Irish knots meaning "of the family" and very simple in design.  They are really very lovely.  We drive on to Cobh (pronounced Cove).  This is the town the Titanic picked up their last passengers.  The Titanic did not come into the harbor but a boat took the passengers out to the ship as the harbor was not deep enough.  The town is cute.  We check for a room driving up a huge hill but it's too expensive.  Check at a hotel and B & B right on the harbor and their too expensive.  Janeen gets directed to a guest house and we get a room here for 20E on the 3rd floor of an old building.  It's a little spooky and the lady is too.  We go up town to get food at the local fish & chips pub and we're too late.  They tell us the Watersedge would still be open, so we go there for dinner.  Very good food here, wine, beef Murphy pie for $30.  Back to the guest house and to sleep.  Very tired!  The bathroom is across a scary hallway.  Everytime I had to get up, it spooked me!  Slept well though.  Up late.  Get showered.  Draw out some more cash at the bank down the street.  Go around the corner to a cafe and buy some bagels for later.  Sit in the park and eat left overs for our breakfast.  The park is right next to the place where they picked up the last passengers for the Titanic.  There is a restaurant with a bar called "The Titanic".  It's a lovely day.  We stop at a shop on the waterfront before we leave Cobh and I buy a few things.  One is 3 small linen bags with clover leafs embroidered on them and they will make lovely gift bags for jewelry.  The lady at the guest house told us how to go to Midleton and the Midleton Distillery now owned by the Jameson Whiskey Distillery.  Drive to Middleton, park at the distillery and sit in the park having some lunch with our left overs and grocery purchases waiting for the tour to start.  The tour is very good.  I take many pictures and at the end you have a tasting of Jameson Whiskey.  They ask for volunteers to taste their whiskey against Jack Daniels and a Scotch whiskey.  Jameson's whiskey is double filtered and they claim the other whiskies are not.  Two guys volunteer and tasting the whiskey agree that Jameson's is the best.  They do not know which is which.  At the distilleries gift shop we buy 5 assortment of small bottles of whiskey for Phil, a yo-yo for Lorcan, I get some playing cards with Irish scenery on them and a post card to mail to Mark that has Jameson bottle stickers on it.  We leave this cute town and head for Blarney Castle outside of Cork.  Get caught in bad traffic in Cork and miss the road twice to Blarney!  There is construction all over and we are on an expressway and keep missing the damn exit we need to take.  I am a bit frazzled again behind the wheel!!!!  You must remember that I am driving on the left side of the road in a stick shift car on a very busy under-construction expressway.  WHEW.....Finally arrive in this cute little town.  We get the senior price into the castle again which is called here pensioner.  Climb up the stairs in the castle, kiss the blarney stone that they say the local boys piss on......UGG.  We walk around the grounds which are quite interesting and beautiful.  There's the Witch's Kitchen, The Druid's Cave, The Fairy Glen, The Wishing Steps and a few more I can't remember the names of.  We take several pictures of the area and some of us in these unusually enchanting areas.  It's getting darker and threatening rain, so we leave and try to find a room.  Start at the Pub/Hotel right in town and they are full.  The manager there, Gary, was so sweet calling several B&B's and found us a room with no breakfast a bit out of town for $63.50 split between us.  The place is called Davmar B&B where Dave and Margaret are the owners, thus the name.  Very nice 2 story home outside town.  We have a hell of a time finding the place and Janeen and I get into it in the room.  She says she's not going to town for dinner.  I'm just as happy because I would like the space from her.  I go to the pub and thank Gary again and eat up stairs.  Chat with some Canadians and a couple from Moline, IL who invite me to share their pizza.  I'm too hungry so thank them and order on my own, the lamb and very good.  Drive back to the B&B getting lost again.  Can't seem to make that turn just past the light!  Find it and go to bed.  Up late, slept in.  Nice room and nice shower.  Have coffee in the room and left over food.  Margaret offered last night to give us toast and coffee but our late exit didn't prove to make it happen.  We drive back into Blarney and Janeen wants to check out the gift shop by the castle.  I buy the girls cute little woolen covered whimsical pens reminding me of Alice in Wonderland.  Janeen wants to go to Woolen Mills, a huge place in town.  I don't like the place so we agree to meet in 45 minutes at the restaurant with the Irish Stew sign.  She has a bit of a problem communicating where this restaurant is but I think I understand.  I walk back to town and by a sleeper for Miles new son in Denmark who we will be visiting soon.  Buy some wine and groceries and then stop in another shop for 2 silver bracelets with Connemara marble set on the top of the bracelets.  One is for me and the other for my friend Sally Sippell.  My first trip to Ireland was with her and we never got to Connemara so it caught my eye. They were marked down from 32E each to 16E which is a bargain at $20 each and I liked them very much.  I stop in the tourist office for directions to see the Bells of Shandon in Cork but decide it's not worth the time or the trouble.  She tells me we should take the bus because of traffic and construction in Cork.  I remember the confusion getting to Blarney thru Cork, so forget it.  Buy a book here and some Irish Clover socks for the girls.  I have so much fun buying them stuff.  I really go overboard.  Meet Janeen in the Bistro.  Very good steak w/mushrooms and onions, veggies, salad and coleslaw.  Delicious lunch at $24 and ate it all.  She has the stew which she takes and throws out later.  We head for Killarney now and take the back roads out of Blarney.  The Irish countryside is very nice.  We stop at the Toy Soldier factory where I buy some beautiful handmade cards for 3E each.  They are very lovely of fairies and a fairy snowflake.  I buy the cutest cast iron hand painted Santa and Capricorn which the girl puts in a cute bag.  The leprechaun has some description paper with it.  Also buy a puzzle of Diarmuid (pronounced Dearmude) & Grainier (pronounced Granyah) that is so beautiful.  Kind of stupid for me to buy as now I am carrying around this big puzzle box and it will be a very difficult puzzle to do because of all the small pieces and intricate details and fabric designs.  Diarmuid & Grainier are very famous lovers who run off together and there is a long detailed story about their adventures.  We leave here and head on to Killarney and the lakes.  The countryside is filled with flowering hedges of wild fuschia.  It's beautiful.  It's raining so we go onto Dingle, thinking we can see the lakes tomorrow afternoon and maybe it won't be raining.  Get into the cute town of Dingle and go into the Dingle Bay Pub & Inn.  I get a hot Jameson to warm me and calm my driving nerves!  Very good, while Janeen fins us a room.  She has been very good at finding us a room and negotiating good prices.  I just leave it up to her because I have been doing my part in all the driving.  We're at the Quayside and plan to go back to the pub for music tonight.  I'm drinking my wine, Janeen her coke and rum and looking forward to the chowder we had seen being served earlier at the pub.  We go after 9 and they are not serving any more.  We are really disappointed but the music has started so we get some guinness and listen to the music.  We each have 2 guinness and talk to Americans in the pub.  Lots of them are in town as the Ryder's Cup golf competition is going on outside of Dublin tomorrow.  I'm dancing to the Irish music and feel my knee hurting a bit.  We decide to go into the other pub down the street.  Fiona, the manager at the Quayside, had told us about another pub with music tonight when I talked with her about India.  We meet more Americans in this pub.  I guy 2 more guinness and while waiting for them to set up, Janeen goes back to a table.  I don't see her when coming back with the drinks so watch the group alone and drink my guinness while Janeen sits and waits and wonders where the hell I am.  We both by now have had our fare share of alcohol!  She gets up to go to the john and sees me.  Comes back and tells m she's going to the room.  She leaves and I finish both of the guinness.  Leave the pub and bump into some people from South Africa.  They take my pic with him, bum a cig off of them and chat in the street.  I go on to the room and can't get in!  The big door from the street is shut and locked.  Was not like that when Janeen returned to the room with the keyI find out later.  The door is locked and Janeen is up in the room with the key.  I ring the door bell several times and no one comes to unlock the door and save me.  I'm drunk and it's cold out here and I have on my light-weight leather jacket.  I want my bed.  I try to open the door to a car I think is ours and it opens.  I get in the car and the door locks!  I realize immediately it's not our car and try to unlock the doors.  No luck.  I'm thinking I'm spending the night in this car!  I try to talk myself into calming down and just relaxing and that I should be happy I'm inside a car warmer than standing outside in the cold air.  I get a little freaked anyway and start blowing the horn.  The fellows in the B&B who belong to this car look out the window and see that I am in their car.  They come down and save me asking me what am I doing in their car????  I explain and thank them for getting me out of the car and letting me into the B&B.  It's all too funny and I'm extremely lucky they were in the same Quayside B&B we were staying in and that I did not get arrested for being in their car.  WHEW........I get up to the room and awake Janeen.  She doesn't think it's funny at all and now I get pissed at her for not having any empathy towards what has just happened to me.  We have a rowe and then I find out when she arrived the door to the B&B was open.  I still will never understand the fact of her having the key, but we were both drunk.  Another crazy day has ended and very eventful!!!!!!  Up late.  Get our stuff together and head out of town.  Stop for gas and there is a deli inside where I get coffee and  breakfast potatoes that are surprisingly good.  They have cake for sale baked by the local women to benefit hospice so I get a carrot cake which I eat later and it's not that good.  No cream cheese icing on it, I figure is the reason.  We drive on to the famous Slea Head Drive of Dingle which drives along the sea mostly.  We are going the opposite way from the map we have.  We stop by a Celtic museum where they are charging 4 euros to see.  It is actually a collection by an American man of relics from Europe.  He has a huge head of a mamouth which is impressive, lots of tools, decorative objects for the body and interesting stuff but not worth what he is charging in my opinion.  They have a nice gift shop with jewelry that has ogham writing on it and I liked a pair of earrings but decided againt them.  There was beautiful hand loomed sweaters for 75 euros but I have no use for them.  If I lived in a colder climate I would have bought one.  Some American woman came in with the cutest hat on that she had just bought in Dingle and I think was made by this same woman.  Janeen wants me to go back and find the other way of the drive, so we do.  She asks and insists it's this road this guy tells her even though I point out to her that the way I thought we should go was the right way.  This road sign says the end of Slea Head Drive clearly on a sign as you end the drive.  We follow the road she wants and don't see any signs for the drive.  It's a nasty rainy, foggy, misty day.  We stop by an old church that is for sale.  Take another turn off and drive back on a 2-track grass-in-the-middle road to nothing.  We cannot find any of the signs for the various sites on the road that the map we have shows us.  The roads here in Ireland are not marked well and when they are it's in Gaelic.  We come to a deadend down a road by the sea to a fisherman.  It was an impressive drive however.  He looks at the map with some confussion but says he thinks we took this road, the wrong one, and should go back and end up driving back on the road into Dingle with the ending of the drive sign.  So now we go back for the third time on this road going in the opposite direction of the map.  We drive the whole thing in the rain.  It would be spectacular in the sun.  Make a stop at Com Dhineol Beach where they filmed Ryan's Daughter.  It's too nasty to take a walk on the beach so we just view it from the car and I take some pictures.  Stop at a pottery shop that has amazing masks, too expensive for me.  I would have one sent home if I could afford them.  We get back into Dingle.  Janeen wants to eat at the fish place which is open today.  I don't, so we go on into Killarney.  Stop to decide if we should get a room by the Lakes then.  It's still terrible weather and a local guy in the gas station tells us to go thru Limerick and that the weather will probably be like this again tomorrow.  Ireland is getting the affects from Hurrican Gordon.  There are gusts of heavy wind and lots of rain.  We decide to move on and forget Killarney and the Lakes.  Try to get a room in a town outside of Limerick but still to the south.  There is a horse show going on and the B&Bs are all full.  The woman in one has us follow her husband to a home where her friend will rent a twin room with shared bath for 30E each.  The drive way is terrible, straight down and narrow to the house.  I drive down and now have to turn around and drive back up.  We don't take this place.  Stop at another outside of town, same story.  We drive on to the next town, Newcastle West and find a nice room with no breakfast at Shanagarry B&B for 25E each.  Normal driveway with lots of room.  She tells us where to go for dinner and we drive thru town to this pub.  Have a good dinner of stuffed leg of lamb, wonderful veggies and mashed potatoes for $21.50.  Back to our room and to sleep.  Up to a beautiful sunshiny day.  The storm is over.  Thru the night it did some damage in Kildare where the Ryder's Cup is being played.  Power lost to many people we hear in the news.  We head out towards Dublin after eating my left over lamb, half of it!  The lady at the B&B gives me some coffee and makes toast for Janeen.  We stop in town for coffee and a danish, buying Mary some flowers here.  The drive back to Dublin is easy thru many cute little Irish villages.  We drive thru County Tipperary and also the outskirts of Limerick.  Nearing Dublin we pay a toll of 2E.  We pass Kildare where they are playing The Ryder's Cup.  It's a perfectly beautiful day still but did go thru an area where it had rained and it is getting darker and stormier as we near Dublin.  Get lost around the airport.   Janeen can't read the map and signs and I have to do it while I'm driving.  Janeen has no compassion for my frustration.  We stop to buy gas and the lady there tells me how to get to the Budget car place.  We pass it as I'm thinking it's on the other side of the street.  Drive on further into Dublin city centre and it's hard to find a street you can turn on toturn around because many are one-way streets.  Finally get turned around.  Find the place, turn into an alley-like road and park the car.  Go inside and settle up on the bill which turns out to be 118.68E for the 4 1/2 days we've had the car.  We get a taxi back to Danee & Phil's, driving along the Irish Sea thru a cute town near Howth.  Mary's home and we move back in upstairs.  We give her the flowers and she's quite happy with the gesture.  Danee comes back, we chat, we've checked the computer and we go to Howth for dinner at Big Blue, taking Danee and Phil.  We have a wonderful meal, I have salmon, a bottle of wine to split between us and order 3 fabulous desserts to split between the 4 of us.  They are outrageous.  The desserts in Europe are to die for~~~Janeen and I pick up the dinner bill at 118.68E as this is our last night in Ireland and our last dinner with Danee & Phil.   Back to the house and to sleep.  Up late.  Decide not to go into Dublin and pack up. Use the computer and try to find a hostel with no luck.  Janeen calls the Scotland tourist office and they book us into Amadeus in Glasgow.  We have soup, bread and baked garlic with Phil, Danee and the kids, giving them all the stuff we have bought for them, book for Niamh, yo-yo for Lorcan, Jameson for Phil and a candle for Danee.  I call and talk to Amy and she has not talked to PODS, she will do that on Monday.  Washington Mutual has changed my debit card and the old one is no longer working for PODS to deduct the monthly fee.  They have charged me more money per month and a late fee.  Amy will try and fix the problem.  Danee takes us to the airport, we're flying Aer Lingus for $84.38 to Glasgow, Scotland.  The flight is delayed so we get some food for our dinner at the airport, not great but tolerable.  Finally leave after 10 p.m.  We're in Glasgow in 30 minutes........Glasgow, Scotland next..........