Dublin tonight. That's where we started last Friday morning after a long, long flight from Seattle to New York and on to Dublin. We took our rental car on to Killarney. That stretched our day of travel to 33 hours once we pulled in to the Holiday Inn at Killarney Town.
I'm finding myself on sensory, information, emotional overload. Since arriving here, we have experienced a news blackout of sorts. Even the Internet news focuses around Ireland. I've heard our President's name mentioned once in the past eight days.
I've heard much more about Libya from a UK perspective. What we've heard the most is about the new government taking over in Ireland. Enda Kenney is the prime minister's name, and throughout the week, we've heard him referred to as the taoiseach or "tijex."
Mr. Kenney has named his cabinet, and a common thread runs throughout all government officials' speeches: we will be honest with the Irish people, regardless of the information. I guess time will tell about that promise.
Ireland is suffering severely economically, and the common opinion is that the financial entities screwed up the economy; now the people have to pay for it. Sound familiar?
Other news that has dominated the radio waves includes Justin Bieber's visit to Ireland, i.e. Bieber Fever. We've learned much more about Justin Beiber than anyone other than teen-aged women would want to know.
They called it "absolute madness/mayhem" where the average age was 10-16 for concert goers. He picks a girl from the audience for each concert, sings to her, gives her a dozen roses and dances around her on the stage.
Apparently the paramedics had to come and attend to the young lady who was selected from the audience because she was hyperventilating upon learning of her selection.
We've also heard about Prince William's travels, which have included Belfast this week. We know also that he's headed off to New Zealand WITHOUT Kate. I wonder if people hyperventilate when they see him in person.
My news from the Lovestead has been rather limited too, because our home computer takes a notion every once in a while to lock up Hotmail, which is Bill's email provider. So, he has been very limited in connecting with me.
The telephone situation became a moot point when I learned that my cell phone would not work Internationally because it's too old. Then, when I tried to call my mother at least a dozen times via phone card, I kept getting the answering machine for "Brenda" who was never home.
Later, we learned that the hotel imposes a $2 charge for every attempted call from the room. Fortunately, the clerk had mercy and deleted most of the charges. So, my news blackout continues except for the wonderful Internet options as blogs and Facebook.
Yesterday we drove along the northern coast of Northern Ireland after taking a walking tour of Londonderry/Derry. The town truly has an interesting history, having grown significantly since its "walled" days. The wall still stands, and I believe we walked through three of the four gates.
Londonderry is reported the only city in Europe that has retained its complete wall.
We also saw evidence of Northern Ireland conflicts. Without remembering or knowing the specific details, I'll refrain from making a stab at the general reasons. Just obvious that segments of the population here have stood firm for their beliefs and many continue to do so.
The coast tour was again beyond beautiful Terrain changed from rolling hills to vast flat lands for farming. Our ultimate destination was the Giant's Causeway where volcanic eruptions left 40,000 stone columns.
The wind blew furiously throughout the day. "Bad hair days" are a given. Every time we stepped from the car to take pictures, any semblance of a hairdo went out of the car with us.
I've noticed difficulty in getting a comb through my hair, and I'm glad that I bypassed the urge to get my hair trimmed before coming. Would not have made any difference cuz when the wind wants to mess up your mop top, it will do so.
I've also given up on trying to pinch pennies, pounds or Euros. It gets confusing trying to figure out how much anything costs or how broke you're going to be when you hand over a 20 of any currency. So, I just figure I'll worry about that later. A person could go crazy fast and miss half the fun doing all that ciphering.
Yesterday was a first for me with my first British pounds ever. After all, I've become old hat with Euros. Later today, we'll return to Euros so I've got to spend the rest of those 50 pounds I have from the ATM machine.
We'll go through Belfast today and spend the next few nights in Dublin, where there is much to see. Annie says Sunday is open for the Irish National Stud. We'll meet with geocachers Saturday and probably geocache around Dublin.
Lots to see yet, and this old brain is feeling the pressure of trying to remember it all. Not a bad challenge though.
A few tidbits:
Irish towns have storefronts for their "family butcher." So, if Steve Wood were here, we'd see "Woods Family Butcher." So far, we haven't seen any fiber glass halves of beef hanging from these stores, which are certainly as much an Irish staple as the pubs. Well, almost as much!
When we listen to news of murders and crimes, everyone is referred to as "a man" or "a woman." Age given, location given but no name until after "post mortems" or official arrests. The news stories remind me a lot of the "100 years ago" feature in the Spokesman-Review.
Lots of talk radio with texting input here. One day's conversation was completely devoted to pancakes; after all, it was International Pancake Day, and the Irish take it seriously. We heard recipes and we heard callers who were throwing most of their pancakes "in the bin" because they kept sticking to the bottom of the frying pan.
A lady called in with her "eggless pancake recipes" and suggested that other frustrated flapjack cook put a little oil in the pan and make sure the pan was hot.
One topic involved "what do you lie about to make your weekend seem better than it was." I thought they were stretching that one a bit, but people called in. And, then there was the discussion of what to do about noisy neighbors who don't turn down their radios or TV's at night.
One lady must have been listening in because we had a knock on our B and B door in Galway. A lady looked in when I opened the door, told me she was upstairs and just said, "The TV, the TV." So, we turned down the TV.
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