Notes from Ireland I


(NOTE: These are the notes I e-mailed home to parents and family. Names of the Datanerd and Mrs. Datanerd changed. The rest of the details are fully factual.)

I read in the Irish Times that "Confidence in Economy Continues to Climb", and I know I'm not in America.

Friday and Saturday: Galway
Caught every break possible, plane landed early, caught express bus, and was in Galway by 10:30. Spent the day decompressing, then took Mrs. Datanerd out for a birthday dinner. She had mixed grilled seafood, I had mussels. Mussels here are amazing.

Saturday we took the city tour on a 1960's vintage double decker bus (Leyland Diesel). Took around city, rode to Salthill, a seaside resort town. Rode around once, stopped and had lunch of cheese and bread from local weekend market. Picked up bus again to go to Salthill. Salthill reminds me of a coastal Maine resort town. Very pleasant. Stopped in pub. Apparently this joint was the local asylum. This one's stereotypical customer was the crazy old lady who comes in for soup, a glass of milk, and cognac for lunch and never leaves. More on that in a bit.

After an hour of pub and walking around the seaside, we picked up the bus and headed back to Galway. Dinner fish and chips at famous chips place. After dinner, had trouble finding sitting space in pubs that had traditional music. After 4 or 7 tries, Mrs. Datanerd spies a city bus heading to Salthill, so we head back up there. And the old woman was still in the pub, yelling at the bartender, and he throwing things at her. We hit two other pubs, one with a coal fire, and one with a wood fire and crap strung from every rafter. Atmosphere. The wood smoke killed the smell of tobacco smoke which reeks through every pub here.

Mrs. D. has found another cider she likes, Bulmers. It is served cold on tap, or from bottles or cans over ice. Drier than american ciders like Cider Jack, and apparently the favorite of rugby hooligans here.

Our hotel room in Galway was small but nice, with good location for exploring the city. It included breakfast, which made it a good value as well.

Sunday: Took 11:00 bus to Dublin. Checked into Gogarty's apts., gave us 2br instead of 1 br. Good thing because noise from street was problem in front room facing street, but not a prob in back room. Not much to report from the night.

Monday: Took city bus tour from tourist office. Stopped at Guinness Storehouse and took tour. Incredibly impressive. Learned all about history and production of Guinness, and how to pull pint of the black stuff. Drank in bar at top of storehouse with full view of Dublin City. Met girl from Murphy, NC, (my ancestral home) and her friends from UNC-Chapel Hill. Got back on bus, completed tour slightly wobbly from 3 pints :-). Mrs. D. then went shopping, I went to cheesemongers and bakery to get stuff for breakfast.

Right now Dublin hasn't impressed as much as I thought it would. But it took a couple of days for Galway to grow on me, and I'm sure that will happen here as well. Dublin is still trying to find itself, whether to be a big European city, or a small government center. Hopefully once we get out of Temple Bar some more we'll find the real Dublin. We plan to try the seaside villages tomorrow. Wednesday, we take the train up to the north to see the giant's causeway and Antrim. Friday we fly home. We'll mail some photos from here.

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