Well, the world has started spinning on its axis properly
again, so maybe just a few introductory ramblings before we start our virtual
tour of the Emerald Isle..
Technology Update
Thanks to all of the readers who took a moment to let me
know you still received the Feeder via email, despite the outage of the bottom
feeder dot com email. Besides lowering
my anxiety quotient it was heartwarming to see that there are many people “out
there” who actually read the thing, keeps me going. Some of the names have been with me for
years, as we are starting to approach the 20th year of Bottom
Feeders. Go figure… as I used to say,
where DOES that time go?
And, speaking of the BF email outage, after many, many,
MANY, emails back and forth from Bangar, Rajeet, Narji, and friends, asking me
for my IP address (huh?), directing me to this site, that site (“page cannot be
displayed”), yesterday it started flowing again. Greatly relieved. That kind of stuff just upsets me. I don’t need to understand it; I just want it
to work! Fingers crossed, we return to the happy Blogger!
Home again
Somebody once said (something like): "it’s nice to leave, but
it’s nice to come home again". We greatly
enjoyed the trip, but it’s also nice to (yes, we’re retired) arise in the morning when you
want to, not when some electric device wants you to, so you can get your
suitcases in the hall for transfer to the bus, er, I mean coach. As a quick aside, we stayed at some wonderful
hotels, all of which have “porters” which means young men who take your
suitcases from curb/coach side directly delivered (pretty smartly) to your room which
might be three floors and a long way from the “car park”. And then in the next day or so, they reverse
the process. Fortunately the ones we
saw were pretty well built for the task.
Guess I can see why. Fortunately
our tour organizers (Cole Travel) arrange to stay at least two nights in a
given spot so it isn’t every day pack unpack.
We find that a thoughtful touch.
In addition they sponsor a dinner in the hotel the first night, and “on
your own” the second providing the feeder with ample opportunity to seek out
pleasurable dining places in new towns.
Touring Dilemma
So now I face the age old question of how to share our Ireland
trip. As I so aptly demonstrated with
the journey to the Netherlands, I can take longer to talk about it than it
takes to live it. Plus, this being our third
trip to Erie (Irish for Ireland), there are a few places we visited that were repeats for us and
while just as lovely, 9th century castles don’t look much different or go anywhere
over the years. The theme of the trip
was to explore “Maryland Ties”, that is, places that related to Maryland
History and Lord Baltimore. We kind of
concentrated on southeast Ireland which maybe you can see
.
We started out arriving and staying in Dublin, headed west
through Aughrim, up to Cong, then staying in Galway, down past the Cliffs of Mohe in the Burren to stay in Killarney, visiting the (beautiful) Dingle Peninsula,
staying in Cork, then back to (Malahide)/Dublin and home. Of course along the way we visited several historical
sites. Soooooooo..
The journey of …
Began at the Hollywood “Social Hall” in a Keller bus,
welcomed by Mr. Cole of Cole Travel.
We had
a flight that left Dulles at 10:30pm arriving Dublin at 10;25am (local time - 5
Hour differential). The flight was,
well, a flight,
with ;ousy audio and limited classical selections, and I didn’t
waste any pixels on the food. Once on
the ground we did the usual shuffle being electronically welcomed to the city
While standing in lines to show the nice young man your
passport.
And then a brisk walk to the coach
That concluded what a savvy friend calls “the travel bubble” which is what you enter at your departure
point and emerge from at your destination.
All the lines, crappy food, rude people, regulations, etc., are behind
you and you can begin to really enjoy the trip.
Ours started with a drive around Dublin
We were given a little time for lunch on our own, and MFO
and I wound up in “The Duke”, apparently a favorite watering hole. Well, I didn’t have water
Ahhhhhhhhh it’s still better in Ireland
After that we stopped at some small, local craft brewery
Although I will continue to enjoy their product, they know
what they got.. Bud’s place in STL
pales by comparison
And the lines at that mega gifty shop are long and
continuous, with credit cards and cash flashing. There is a self guided “tour”
that covers multiple floors of the seven(!) story facility, full of exhibits explaining
the ingredients, process, and loving care that goes into that lovely caramel
liquid. The top floor is given over to
the “Gravity Lounge” where you can trade a little tear off portion of your ticket
for a pint. They can’t pull them fast
enough. I will give them credit though,
they strictly adhere to the “two minute” resting period in the glass before
releasing it. It was crowded, but does
provide a picturesque view of the Dublin skyline
After that, our slightly woozy travel troupe headed for the
Brooks hotel where we had stayed before.
More on that later, but we rested and then got
DFD
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