On the road again...and off to the cliffs!

Another Irish breakfast started out our last few moments in Galway. This was a nice pit stop to get a bit refreshed and save Matthew some driving time. As mentioned in a previous post, a typical Irish breakfast so far has consisted of eggs (scrambled, poached or overeasy), ham, sausage and some kind of tomato that has been warmed up. Oh, and I almost forgot, tea is also part of every breakfast (and lunch, dinner, dessert also). Matthew is not a fan of eggs so he has also tried porridge and cereals. Breakfast is included in each stay at the bed and breakfast.

We left around 10:30, got some more petrol for the car and headed 45 km to the cliffs of Moher. Now since we didn’t do a lot of work prior to leaving Ireland, I spend some of my navigational time reading to Matthew from the various books we bought or the ones Aunt Leslie let us borrow. Travel books are so helpful to prepare you for where you are about to visit. The cliffs of Moher are these massive cliffs which jet out into the Atlantic Ocean and rise about 650 feet high. There are all sorts of birds living there as well as we could hear them squawking very loudly even from way above where they were.

Cliffs of Moher






Upon arrival, we immediately realized we werne't the only tourists attracted to this place. The place had loads of tour buses which reminded me of the various stops Grandma, Mona and I made on our trip to Europe years ago. The 1.5 hour drive from Galway was worth it. It was a beautiful sight and although there isn’t any historical significance to the cliffs (at least that we could find), they are a part of the beauty Ireland has to offer.

We ran out of time to visit the Aran Islands which are made up of three islands: Inis Mór (Big Island), Inis Meáin (Middle island) and Inis Oírr (East island). If we come back here, we will try to visit here. One of Mona’s friends had mentioned these to us, but with making the stop in Galway over night we had to get on to Ballybunion so we had to cancel the island trip. Even with the rain and fog we could make out at least one of the islands as we were riding to the Cliffs of Moher so at least we saw them, and now we have a definite reason to come back to Ireland!

We drove another 20 km after leaving the cliffs and drove to the Tarbert ferry which cost 18 euros but would knock over an hour off our drive time to cross the Shannon River rather than zig zaging south around it. The ferry runs very frequently throughout the day so we caught the 2pm ferry and it was only a 20 minute ride and we were on the other side. The Shannon River is the largest river in Ireland and was really pretty to ride across.

Tarbert Ferry


After 20 more kms of driving, we arrived in Ballybunion and we immediately loved this quaint town. The tour books say is has about 1,300 people so it’s very quaint and very easy to get around. We finally found our bed and breakfast called The Tides guesthouse only after a few attempts at locating it. We had to put in the actual longitude and latitude coordinates to arrive at the right place! One thing we have realized when we have asked directions…there is usually no road name or street number available to provide sometimes there are very vague directions that are very open to interpretation something we are getting more used to now.

Ballybunion's beaches





The Tides is a beautiful place overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Our host David is really nice Irishman with the thickest accent we have encountered so far. He helped us get settled in our room and we both immediately stared at our computers for about an hour (even though we were starving) because…we have free wireless Internet! I know it may sound so lame, but we are so used to having wireless internet in our everyday lives, it feels like a bit of a luxury to have it here.

We headed into the town of Ballybunion which is literally about a 30 second drive, ate a great dinner, walked on the gorgeous beach and headed to the reason we are here --- golf course! But before we headed to golf, we both commented this already was our favorite town.

Matthew originally had a tee time for July 1 early in the morning, but because we didn’t make it to Ballybunion in time, we went to see if he could still try to walk on for July 2. He can so that is great. Our host told us about these great hot seaweed baths that this area is known for where you get a private room and you sit in a bathtub of seaweed (obviously not for everyone) and it’s supposed to have some great rejuvenating effects. We tried to go tonight, but they were already closed so maybe I will go when Matthew goes golfing.

Today was a great day to be together. We got some rain and we saw such beautiful and stark differences in the landscape that we started to realize a little more deeply the great beauty of this realivitely small country.

Things we have noticed a lot of in Ireland:
Roundabouts
Bed and breakfasts
Sheep
Pubs
Beautiful coastal towns
Tourists

Pit stop in Galway

After the late night with our new friends, we slept through breakfast and our check out time. It was already apparent we were not going to make the 5 hour trek down to our next planned stop of Ballybunion. So we checked out, said our goodbyes to all our newfound friends (which included five beautiful dogs) and headed south to our newly planned pit stop in Galway. Along the way we enjoyed the scenic route as we left Delphi.

More beautiful scenes in Delphi






We arrived in Galway with rain all around. Since this was an unplanned stop and we hadn't eaten breakfast, we asked a local for a good place to eat. After getting a great lunch, we went to the Tourism Centre. These tourism centers are in each city and filled with eager college students or retired people who sole purpose is to help you navigate the city, find lodging, and provide great help (and no tipping is allowed). We had the nicest college student help us secure housing at Villa Maria (a bed and breakfast within walking distance to the city center).

We headed to Villa Maria and met our host Frances who set us up in a nice room. We got settled, rested and then headed out to the city center on foot to Eyre Square, Lynch's Castle (now a bank), pubs, and shops. We found a place to check internet in the city center, bought a calling card (which we have yet to figure out how to use) and strolled hand and hand in this vibrant city.

Scenes from Galway




There is a university here and you can sense a very youthful feel to this city. It's a beautiful place and we were glad we ended up with a night here.

Delphi, A Diverse Mix of Friends and World Class Fly Fishing

The Delphi Lodge & Fishery





The Dining Room

So another morning began with a delicious Irish breakfast. Ham, sausage, biscuits, cereal, porridge, and eggs (if you eat them). Then a walk around the grounds on what was turning out to be a beautful day. We met a couple of interesting characters right away outside the house. The first was a man with his knickers riding high and one of the goofiest looking dogs I ever seen (looked like a big ball of fur - he told us he was a Penkingnese). He was telling us that this dog (called Precious) just won 4th place in some dog show. I couldn't understand everything he said as he had a very thick English accent, but he then chuckled as he said "but my grandkids don't like him, because he is always biting there legs." I will never understand the faciation with people who have dogs who like to bite other people. He had another dog there that was a springer spanell. Almost at the same time he was talking with our fly fishing teacher how difficult it was to train Springer spaniels (although dog he and his wife brought with them to the lodge). David (our instructor said "Labs are are born half-trained and Spaniels die half-trained". After this, the older man blew a whistle around his necked, raised his hand his Spaniel stopped in his tracks and would not move. Keep in mind this was from about...50 feet. I thought that was quite impressive. He then told us the dog would not move until he blew the whisle again, or he walked to the dog and touched it. As we met David for a fishing lesson at 10:00 a.m., there were a few prep things to be done in the fishing room which was located off the side of the house. As we were getting our gear together, another interesting chap walked in - Mills (an 80 year old man with quite an active mind). We could not understand a word he said, but David felt the need to apologize for whatever it was he did say. Mills still runs around trying to catch the ladies and maybe he said something to that effect when he saw Angie. Anyway old man Mills is also quite a famous fisherman as we learned a few minutes later as David was teaching us about the different fly times that Mills has some of these flies named after him.

Fly fishing lesson with David







Following our lesson and lunch, we head about 9 km to our time to put our fishing lesson into practice at Peter's house. Peter has the best real estate we have ever seen and we spent the afternoon on the lake practicing fly fishing. Matthew caught all three of the fish (trout). Turns out since it was such a gorgeous day, it's not a good day for fishing for trout and salmon. The weather should actually be rainy and overcast.

Fly fishing practice with our gillie, Peter






After fishing we rested and then had another wonderful dinner of a full lobster and had another great evening of wonderful discussion with new friends. Matthew especially connected with several of the guys as they talked sports and Irish history and computers. He even played his first game of snooker (which is a type of billiards game). He was teamed up with the Scottish man nament Lament and played two Irish guys Padraigh (pronounced Poric) and Jerry. Matthew and Lament won the game with Matthew scoring almost all the points himself. The men were definitely impressed by this and then we all retreated back to the lounge. We talked lots more, listed to Lament play beautiful music on the piano (short clip included) and enjoyed reflecting our fishing adventure into the wee hours.

The Hangout room



Lament playing piano (video is very dark)

From Rosleague to Delphi - UPDATED

Up at 6:30 – can’t believe it! Downstairs for breakfast, we quickly noticed that hot food was not served until 8:00 a.m. so we went ahead and ate anyway and decided to come back at 8:00 as well. Hey we are on vacation – why not?! I couldn’t miss the fresh salmon and scrambled eggs! So good! We checked out and headed to Connemara National Park which was about 2 km from where we were staying. The park is free to
all visitors and has a really nice visitor center and beautiful walking trails. We opted for the 1.5 km trail which took about 30 minutes.

After leaving Connemara, we head to the KyleAbbey Manor which a really wealthy man built for his wife back in the late 1800s. It now serves as a convent and sits on the most incredible mountainside. We toured inside the main house, but there wasn’t a lot open to the public. There’s actually way more to take in from the outside. There is actually a lot to see there with a Gothic Cathedral, mausoleum, and walled gardens. We only saw the manor and the gift shop and were ready to hit the road again. We did notice a few tour buses parked here so I am pretty sure it’s a spot often visited in this area although it didn’t seem to have a long standing Irish history as many of the other things we had seen or read about the first few days.

Then back into the car for the trek to Delphi through Leenane. More windy roads and sheep everywhere. They are in the middle of the roads, on the sides of the roads, everywhere. They seemed to be painted on in red, blue, green, etc. which I suspect is so that people know who they belong to. On our way, we stopped at the Carrig Pub in Leenane and talked with a local pub owner for quite awhile. We had another Bulmers cider and just enjoyed the view.

We arrived at The Delphi Lodge which is rich with fishing which we will spend a half day tomorrow learning how to fly fish for salmon. Each night the menu is unknown until the chef arrives and knows what the catch of the day was. We all eat together at 8pm with all the other guests at one long table. Tonight we will definitely have to get to know some people.

UPDATE: So, The Delphi Lodge, it really deserves an entire post to itself. Apparently, people come from all over the world to stay, eat, and fish. When we first arrived we were greeted with tea and cookies in the library. We started to explore a little bit and walked into the room where fish are cleaned and a Swiss man who looked scrufffy (to say the least) had just caught a 7lb salmon. I couldn't figure out what stuck me more - the smell of the room, the smell of the freshly caught salmon, or the smell of him. Which ever it was, I suposed when you catch a 7lb salmon you can smell like you want. We then took our massive bags upstairs to our room. We went outside for a bit, but realized that if we didn't take a nap that we would be worthelss for dinner. So, we went up watched a movie and fell asleep.

We were then woke up around 7:30 for dinner at 8:00. We started to assemble at what is known as the Honor bar (drink what you want and just write it in the little book at the bar). We met the other guests of the lodge. We then sat down for dinner and the converstation started to flow as well as the wine and food. The guests included a lawyer from Scotland, a group of Boeing employees (3 American, 1 Norweign) who were there meeting with some Royal Bank of Scotland employees (both Irish), and a husband and wife from Manhattan. We were fascinated by the conversations that emerged from this diverse group of highly educated and well cultured people. They (we chimed in occasionally) talked about politics, education, religion - you know all the stuff you are not supposed to talk about with people you just meet. Everyone, despite differing opinions was very respectful to each other and seemed to value the differing thoughts.

Occasionally the Scottish guy would crack a joke that no one could understand (mostly because we actually couldn't understand his thick accent), but he always thought his jokes were really funny. It reminded me a lot of my uncle, and just like my uncle he was generally the only one laughing.

After the exceptional dinner, we headed back in the living room for more drinks and conversation. We headed to bed pretty quickly as we had fly fishing lessons in the morning!

Dublin's a wrap...on to the countryside!

I woke up to Matthew saying, “There must be something wrong. The clock says 12:30. did we only sleep for an hour? I feel so awake.” Well, folks it was 12:30 p.m. which was immediately apparent when we opened the shades. To anyone needing a good night of rest, just get a set of black out shades and you won’t even know what day it is. So this was our last morning in Dublin which we slept through, but felt like a million bucks. We headed to Starbucks for a Dublin city mug for Mona and some sandwiches since it was already lunch time. The city was again buzzing with people everywhere and...oh, I forgot the hotel check out story.

Since I forgot to actually activate the SIM card I received for my Blackberry so I could use it internationally, Matthew called Verizon to get that turned on at like 3am the first night since we were up anyway with jet lag. He also called AT&T and had a very lively discussion with them about getting the wireless USB card to have international access (which never happened). Matthew also called our banks to ensure our they knew we were out of the country so there wouldn’t be any holds on the cards. How does this relate to checkout? Imagine our surprise when the “toll free” numbers Matthew confirmed with the front desk were “free” were actually considered “long distance” since the country code for the U.S. was used before the 1-800. So another lively discussion ensued with Matthew and this time the front desk clerk about the about $350 dollars in phone charges. Well, if you know Matthew, you probably know what happened next…the guy removed all charges except the actual “toll free” rate of $2.75 per call made. Phew.

Bags were packed and we headed out of the city for the countryside – still no rain! It was a beautiful ride from Dublin to Letterfrack. I called the Rosleague Manor where we were to stay for a street address so I could plug it into the GPS. The nice woman said, there is no street address. Just come to the viallage of Letterfrack and it will be apparent where it is. How funny! So different than Dublin already. It was quite a bit longer drive than previously anticipated. We ended up in the car for a good half day. It was all beautiful driving, but still not much to do but take it all in.

Scenes along the way to Letterfrack





Matthew has been doing all the driving and I am so thankful for that, but after awhile it definitely all started to make us ready to get out of the car after all the narrow roads constantly hugging the side of the road to make room for other cars. We stopped for gas even though we had only used a quarter of a tank. This is when we got surprise number to. For ¼ of a tank, it was 18 euros (about 25 dollars)! I was sure they guy had it wrong as I read the big sign which said 1.18 euros. Well that’s for LITERS, not gallons! There are roughly 4 liters in a gallons so gas is expensive, not cheap as we had been thinking all along. So far we have not found a single thing that is cheaper in Ireland (than NJ/NYC), including gas.

We arrived at the Rosleague Manor and the view was spectacular. We settled in, had the most delicious dinner, talked with some people, laid on the hammock (Matthew got eaten alive by midges!), headed into town for a drink, talked with our moms, played Connect 4 and just enjoyed being together. We love just hanging out together. It’s a good thing since we are married now, huh! And by the way, on the western side of Ireland, it doesn’t get dark as early…like 11:00 p.m. and the sun was still going
down. So cool.

Rosleague Manor (front of place)



Rosleague Manor (view from the front porch!)

Dublin Adventures - Day 2

After sleeping in, we awoke and headed directly into the town center to Grafton Street after passing along St. Stephen Green which was directly in front of our hotel. St. Stephen's Green is a bit like Central Park, but on a much smaller scale.

St. Stephen Green


Grafton Street is a pedestrian mall with lots of shops, pubs, and people. It was surprising to see all sorts of musicians playing in the area. Matthew promptly found the best hot chocolate in Ireland for breakfast and we headed to Ireland’s oldest college – Trinity College – to see the famous Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is a Latin translation of the Four Gospels from the Dark Ages. It seems that scribes took care of the writing and separate artists ornately decorated the pages. It was beautiful. Also, we saw the Long Room which houses over 200,000 books. It was pretty magnificent.

Grafton Street




Trinity College



We still hadn’t seen a drop of rain (totally uncharacteristic of Ireland!) so we stayed on foot and headed to the Tourism Centre to check out any tours we may want to do. We had heard about a “literary” pub crawl which takes you through pubs famous writers used to frequent (e.g., James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, Jonathan Swift) and the tour guides perform from different writers’ works. We asked the lady at the tourism center about this tour and she encouraged us to go and said it would be no problem to purchase tickets when we got to the meeting location.

After leaving the Tourism Centre we struggled to find our Hop On bus again so we stepped into a pub, had yet another type of beer. We started to notice a trend at this pub – Budweiser is King here. People love Budweiser and Coors Light – traditional American beers. Oh look – there’s the bus!

We found the bus!




We hopped on and headed to Kilmainham Gaol which used to be an active prison that housed some of the most famous of Ireland’s rebels who fought for freedom against the British rule. The jail was interesting and the tour guide was excellent weaving stories of these men, women and children who were housed there. During the early 20th century when there was a famine many children were jailed for stealing loaves of bread. Capital punishment was in full force here and carried out swiftly. I always love visiting Alcatraz for some reason when going to San Fran, but I got the same feeling after the end of this tour that I get at the end of that one...time for something more uplifting!

Kilmainham Gaol





So off we went (via cab because we didn’t know when the Hop On bus was coming again…it can’t be this hard to figure out!). Our next tour was the Old Jameson Whiskey Distillery. Before you get any ideas…we just went were people recommended, but it seems the Irish are fascinated with drinking. This turned out to be Matthew’s favorite tour as it was very interactive and we got to become expert taste testers of whiskey. One reason the Jameson tastes so good is that it undergoes a triple distillation process (separating alcohol from the water) which is good for whiskey (bourbon only has a single distillation process and scotch has a double distillation process). I read in a local magazine after our tour that Ireland used to produce 60% of the world’s whiskey and now just 4%. They still act like they have the market on whiskey – rightfully so – Jameson and ginger ale is yummy!

Jameson distillery tour




We took yet another cab (yes, because we couldn’t locate the Hop On bus) and headed straight to the hotel for a quick change of clothes for our pub crawl. Before you get too excited…the tour ended up being sold out when we arrived at the meeting location! We were actually a little relieved after the initial disappointment as we figured enough with the drinks already. We made the best of our now free evening by grabbing a nice dinner at Foley’s Pub and Restaurant down the street from the hotel. Matthew chatted up one of the servers and found out about a card house down the street called Fitzwilliams card house. He enjoyed a rousing card of poker with some locals and then we called it a night.

Arrival in Dublin

Angie and I front of the most important Guinness ingredient, water.


After the most amazing wedding we could have asked for, we embarked on our Ireland adventure. I (Matthew) got the bright idea of changing our seating so we could have exit row seats that did not recline. Actually I think just for fun the airlines made those particular seats incline so you can get a good view of your feet the whole time. Needless to say, we didn't get any any quality sleep, and as we landed, the priority was getting some sleep at the hotel. Before that could occur...we had to get there!



Our first adventure started once we got the car rental. For those who don't know, the steering wheel is on the right hand side of the car and you drive on the left hand side of the road. If that weren't enough to get used to, there were only manual cars available. So, not only is the steering wheel on the right hand side, and driving on the left hand side, but the gear stick is also on the left hand side. That took a little getting used to, but off we went. I (Matthew) drove pretty flawlessy to the hotel (The Shelbourne), and even got a chance to cut off a few drivers New Jersey style (unintentionally, of course!).


Angie after she signed for charity.


We arrived at The Shelbourne hotel which is absolutely beautiful. Thanks to years of Angie traveling for her job, we were able to stay here using Marriott points. This is supposed to be the grand dame of Dublin's hotels which was bought by Marriott although there is not indication that this is a Marriott in any signage, etc. After we checked in, we slept for 4 hours. Our body were so off that we we joked that we will never know what time it is on the enitre trip. We will just sleep when we get tired.


The 9,000 year lease Arthur Guinness signed.

Once we woke up we bought tour bus tickets and decided it is completely acceptable to look like tourists while here. The tour bus pickes up and drops off at the various sites every 15 minutes. We got off to a late start, so we went directly to the Guinness Brewery named the Guinness Storefront. We learned all about beer making and got to learn how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness and of course promptly drank it. Then we went to the Gravity Bar and drank a differnt type of Guinness that we don't have in the U.S. called "Foreign Extra Stout". We talked to the nicest bartender for quite some time and swamped thoughts about American and Ireland people and culture.


Dublin Street from Tour Bus

We then walked towards the canal over the River Liffey and over to the oldest pub in Ireland that the bartender recommeded called The Brazen Head. We each had another Guinness and dinner (or was it lunch, what time is it!?). Angie had a Greek salad and I had the bangers and mash. It turned out that the both of us ate the bangers and mash (yum!). We decided enough was enough took a cab back to the hotel and went straight back to sleep for another 4 hours. We work up and were hungry again. At this point it was close to 2am - most pubs were closing and I couldn't get in to one place because I had warm-up pants on - that reminded me of home! We thought the streets would still be buzzing with people, but there wasn't a single person on the street. We ended up at a 24 hour convenience store, bought two baguette sandwiches and a bag of chips and headed back to the hotel room for more sleep. We will try to get a ton done tommorrow.

Guinness Brewery

A few thoughts on the day:
- minus the driving, Dublin doesn't seem that much different then the US
- the people are extremely nice, but are not very specific when giving directions
- the accents are wonderful
- the cab drivers are all native and are extremly helpful and friendly
- it is extremely expensive here (Internet in the hotel is 20 euros which is about 30 dollars!)

Back to sleep now!



Christ Cathedral















Video of pouring the perfect Guinness