Courage and Kindness

We got up, got showered and got out the door exactly when we planned to. We walked the several blocks to the aircoach stop outside the tourist Centre/Church. The trek was amazingly easy considering all the luggage we were hauling.



The bus got there about 20 minutes later and took about a half hour to get to the Dublin airport, getting us there about 7:30 A.M.



We found our checkout counter after some slight confusion, and here's where the problems start.

# 1. Jim's ticket was booked under the name "Jim". His passport and license both show the name "James". the leap from "James" to "Jim" was apparently way to difficult for the security guy to make, and he gave Jim a hard time about the difference before deciding to let us through.

# 2 The lady behind the counter informed us there were storms in Chicago and our plane was delayed three hours. we were already there well over an hout early,so our wait time became somewhere around five hours. ACK!

We got a wheelchair and someone to push it for Jim, and went to our gate. We got some food and settled in for the duration. Did a little last minute shopping in the airport gift shop and we read. A lot!




We finally got on the plane around 1 P.M. Irish time when we were supposed to have left at 10.00 A.M.





We arrived at O'Hare at 5:30 P.M. Chicago time, went through customs (with the wheelchair and a pusher. yay!) and since the delays had caused us to miss our connection, got rebooked.



They rebooked us on a flight that was supposed to have left at 5:30, but due to the storms had also been delayed. At that point it was due to take-off at 7:30. It didn't wind up boarding until 9:00 P.M and there was a gate change involved as well.



We arrived at LAX at midnight. Only 8 hours later than we were supposed to get there. Which meant instead of Jim's brother picking us up as planned, we had to get a Super Shuttle. The driver kept circling the pickup area til he managed to get a full van, and then he took us to Glendora, via Norwalk. I am geographically challenged, but I don't think that's a direct route.

From Glendora, where our car was parked in front of jim's brother's house, we drove home, arriving in Upland at about 2:30 A.M.

The next morning, I had to be at work in Diamond Bar by 7:30 A.M. I have no idea how I managed that AND got some work done.

There are no more entries in this journal. Typing in the whole day of travel a year later has been enough to exhaust me all over again. I'm gonna take a nap.

Happy birfday me!


We got up earlier today. yay!

This morning we visited Trinity College



where we viewed the Book of Armaugh, the Boof Of Darrow, and the Book of Kells.

We made a quick run back over to the Beatty library to get some free gifts that came with the Dublin Pass. Then over to Temple Bars cultural center for the same reason.

At that point we were getting grumpy(me more than him) so we went to a restaurant called the Shack for Irish Stew and Guiness Steak pie. Both dishes were faboo.

Back on the H.o/h.o over to Phoenix Park to go to the Dublin Zoo. It was raining (of course!)



so a lot of the aminals were hiding in their indoor enclosures.



We did manage to get glimpses of quite a few though.



The zoo was fairly empty, but it still took us a few hours to get around the whole thing.





After the zoo, we called it a day and headed back to the hotel to get everything packed up. We had room service, and were done packing by midnight. Amazingly, there wasn't even any difficulty getting the suitcases closed.

That probably should have told me things were going way too well....

TBC

Sunday morning we overslept.

Once we were up and moving, we tried to go to Dublin Castle, but it was closed.



We did see bits of it from the outside.

We also saw the Dublin Gardens, behind the castle. The gardens includes a huge round grassy area with a labyrinth laid into it in tiles. We watched a young boy following the paths with with glee.




Next to the Dublin Gardens is the Chester Beatty library, where we were excited to find they had a disply of Leonardo Da Vinci's Leicester Codex.



Outside the Beatty library was a fountain with a statue commeorating the special olympics.



A duck and several duckling appear to live in the fountain. I spent some time taking pictures of them.



We had lunch at The Forum restaurant. Yummy soup!

Next we caught the H.O/H.O bus over to the bank of the Liffey, then walked a few short blocks to Jameson's Old Distillery.



Our Dublin pass got us in for free. While we were waiting for the tour I had an Irish coffee at the bar in the Lobby. Since it was still rainy and cold that irish coffee went down really REALLY well.



There were computers with interactive family trees of the Jameson family. On one of those, I discovered that one of the original Jameson's (great?) grandchildren was Marconi, which I thought was pretty interesting.

Before running an introductory video, the tour guide told us that everybody would get to taste a glass of Jameson's at the end of the tour.



Except four of us. Those four would get to taste FIVE whiskeys. Not being a whiskey drinker, I wasn't going to volunteer for this, but at the last moment some impulse made me throw my hand up in the air, and she picked me!

The tour was pretty interesting, and I took a lot of pictures (of course!). At the end, during the tasting, I discovered it's not whiskey in general that I dont like. It's scotch. I don't much appreciate peat. (Except for a really smoooothe scotch GianCarlo gave me a taste of at faire recently).



We still have most of a bottle of Powers Whiskey (which as it turns out is made by Jamesons) left. We had bought it back in limerick, because Tim said he wanted to numb the pain of his tooth woth it. He never touched it and we packed it to bring to Dublin with us.



Powers turned out to be one of the ones in the testing, along with Paddy, Jameson's, a scotch, and some J.D. After the tasting I got a cute little certificate saying that I am now an official taster, and I had tasted sparingly, so jim, who IS a whisky drinker, got to tast all of the tasters as well. Which assuaged my guilt that he hadn't been chosen. yay!

As I mentioned before, Jameson's is very close to the River Liffey, so after Jameson's we strolled along the Liffey,



up to the Ha'penny Bridge, which is the most famous bridge in Ireland.



I wanted to make sure that we had a chance to cross it. On the other side of the Hapenny, there was a picturesque little passageway with a lot of foot traffic.



I thought we should turn around and get to Temple Bar as we had made reservations to go on the Musical Pub Crawl which started at Gogarty's in the Temple Bar District.




(For any of you SecondLifers out there, this is the bar in the Dublin Sim that Keltish sometimes plays at. I wish I could get on there, but this puter won't let me)



Jim decided we should go ahead and go see where the passageway led. I must of gotten very turned around somehow, becasue that passageway let out right into Temple Bar.



We went to Gogarty's to wait, and shared a bowl of some very nummy veggie soup and Irish bread for dinner while we waited for the Pub crawl to get started. The leader of the musical pub crawl/the guitarist, led us all from Gogtgarty's to the Ha'penny bridge Inn,



where he and Alan the Accordianist played for us for an hour and discussed irish culture, music and instrtuments.



They then led us over the Ha'penny bridge, and over to a pub called Brannigan's, near the millenium spire(a.k.a the stiletto in the ghetto). This pub had a bunch of movie posters all over the place because it is near the Savoy theatre. According to our guitarist (no, I can;t remember his name) movie stars attending premeires there would sneak out and go to Brannigan's for drinks during the movies. he also said that the bar has ties to the 1916 Easter rising, as some of the men involved in the violence at the G.P.O. ran from there and his out in Brannigan's. At Brannigan's they sang and played and told jokes for another hour.



they told us a friend of theirs, Alan Doherty who played on the soundtrack to the LoTR would be playing with a bunch of his friends, just to please themselves, at Bowe's, a pub just down the street. Which is how I came to be sitting in a pub in Dublin, on midnight of July 9th, my birthday, sharing a cider with my husband and listening to a group of local musicians jamming for their own pleasure.

Note: Dublin was so busy that I had no time to journal. I am writing this from the perspective of having been home for a week now.

Saturday morning we all managed to get up at an ungodly hour and get all our stuff intio the van. I slept through most of the drive back to Dublin. We stopped at a gas stationand I roused enough to go in to go in for snacks.

There was a major dogshow in Dublin Saturday and Leisa wanted to attend it and talk to a ladt who had written books on Irish Wolfhound breeding. After some confusion we dropped Leisa and Tim off at the fairgrounds, then found the hotel the four of them would be staying in before heading to the airport in the morning, so they could store all of their luggage.

Rowena and Byron then dropped us off at our hotel, The O'Callghan Alexander in Marion Square, near St. Stephan's green.



The link below show's you the exterior of the Hotel and if you click for the second picture, It's the EXACT layout of the room we inhabited for the next few days.

http://www.ocallaghanhotels.com/dublinmain/Alexander.aspx#

We were able to check in early and settled into our room, then had lunch downstairs at the "winner's lounge", which is the hotel's bar.


We got directions from the the concierge and then walked several blocks to the Tourist's Information Center.



It turned out to be a converted church.



At the Info center we got our Dublin CityPasses and picked up tickets that would allow us to use the Hop on/Hop Off tour busses plus all public transport busses for the next three days.

We accidentally got on the public bus once we were outside the visitor center and had to walk a few blocks back to get the Hop on/off bus. On the way we found the statue of Molly Malone.



According to Declan (yes, another Declan) who drove one of the busses we rode, the locals call her "the Tart with the cart" among other things.

We took the Hop on/off bus for the entire circuit to get our bearings, and figure out what we wanted to do.

We decided to start with the Guinness Storehouse at St james Gate.



Our Dublin passes got us in free. It's a self guided tour so you can go at your own pace. The Storehouse is the second largest brewery in Europe.



Along with our free entrance we also got a little plastic paperweight that has a few dropps of guinness encased insode it in a little bubble. Attached to the paperweight is a little tag. At the end of the tour you wind up several stories up in a room called the Gravity bar. It has clear sheet glass windows all the way around and a fabulous view of the entire city. In the Gravity Bar they take the little tag off the souveneir and give you a free glass of guinness.




It was after 6 when we left the Guinness storehouse, which meant that the H.O/H.O bus was running at 30 minute intervals. we had just missed the one, and the next one was running late, so we got to stand there and enjoy the Irish weather for quite a while.





We caught the bus to the closest stop to the hotel and we saw the boyhood home of Oscar Wilde on the walk back.



We relaxed a bit at the hotel before going out to find food. To jim's chagrin it was late and we wound up eating at a burger king.




After a bit of wandering we managed to find our way to Temple Bar, dublin's cultural and party district. The link below explains:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Bar,_Dublin

We went in a couple of bars to listen to music and the third one was THE Temple Bar. It was extremely crowded and jim and I would up standing in the doorway between two rooms getting jostled everytime someone wanted to move between the two rooms. I was in the midst of a bit of a meltdown as that many people jammed into such a small place was making me claustrophobic and I finally just about shoved my way outside to wait for Jim to be done soaking up the atmosphere. It was late and I was obviously overly tired, so we caught a cab back to the O'C. A. at that point.

Ok, so I've managed to lose track of the correct date. I recorded Monday july 2nd, and Tuesday july 4th, throwing the dates in this journal off ( Already adjusted as I trranscribe to LJ)
It's disconcerting to have the dates confused since my birthday is July 9th and we arranged to be in Dublin on my birthday. Luckily I have a printed clander page from Outlook. Today is definitely Friday and therefore July 6th. I think? Must figure this out so as not to miss my birthday. (Editorial note:transcribing this exactly as I wrote it at the time. And ROFLing at myself) But not now. I'm tipsy. (ah, that explains why I don't remember writing this!)It was necessary. Tell you later. (Editorial note: actually probably not, at least not in any detail)

Tim stayed home again today because of his tooth.



The rest of us went to Killarney and the Ring Of Kerry. We stopped in Killarney on the way to The Ring of Kerry, originally because we saw a factory outlet store. But while we were looking for a sparking pot (sticks in my head like that) we found that there were jaunting cars you could hire and take a ride through Killarney, into the National Park and back. It only cost 12 Euro and it was SO worth it.



We never got our drivers name but the horse was named Ned Kelly. The driver called him Kelly, which amused me, of course.



It was a five mile tour with the driver giving us history and commentary about the local landmarks along the way. I can not tell you how terrific it was.



Byron and Rowena had driven off without Leisa and I as we searched for a loo, and they parked the van. When we had accomplished our mission we headed to the carriages and while we waited for them to come back we chatted up the driver. Two things stand out. The driver told us that if they had left without us he would take us home and we'd have a party. And Leisa told him about her previous experience driving horses.



Which caused him to allow her to drive Kelly for a while once we were inside the Nat'l Park. He told a driver in a passing jaunting car that he was going to marry her. He was such a flirt! Leisa says he was already married though. Guess he was wearing a ring? I didn't see. He did tell us he had 5 kids.

Inside the park he stopped at Ross castle to let us get out and go take a look at the castle.



He waited for us while we did that and then we got back in his jaunting car and we got to see even more of the park and town on the way back.

After Killarney we drove the Ring of Kerry.



It's spectacular.
We got to sit for a few moments on the edge of a gorgeous lake.

This was the view from where I decided to sit and just breathe for a few minutes


Unfortunately Rowena sat on her camera which had been in her pocket.


Stopped to take a picture of a ruin (and a goat!).



Walked out on a promontory above the mountain and lake,




hiked a short way down a hillside to where a river met up with the ocean, and looked at tidepools ("look! It's a turtle!" "ummm, no, that's a crab"),



and collected more seashells.


The Ring of Kerry is really a must see, as far as I'm concerned. It was the beauty that I had been expecting of Ireland. the old castles are great, and the Cliffs of Moher and Mizen Head were terrific, unique experiences. but the Ring of Kerry is the Sky and the Earth and the Water in its many shapes and forms.



It was the Irish experience I had been hoping for. It soothed and energized me.

There was a spot at the top of the hill where you could see an old stone circle and the fields leading down to the bay. the Atlantic stretching out to a couple of islands and beyond.

I must come back.




The Ring of Kerry is a full day trip at least. (next time maybe we can find a B N b on the Ring?) Once we came out the other side it was back home, and baked taydoes for dinner.

I don't think I've mentioned before that we have had a regular visitor all week. The neighbor's dog keeps showing up at the back door hoping for treats. Which we have furnished of course. Here's a picture.




Ok, so why was tipsy necessary? Like I said, not giving that much detail, but suffice it to say it involved a crowded hot tub, full of my oldest and best friends and a decided lack of anything resembling cloth.

Today was all local.

Tim has a tooth absess and is not feeling well, so he stayed at the cottage while Leisa and the rest of us went to Lough Gur's Visitor Center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lough_Gur



The cottage is so close we could have walked, but we try to preserve Jim's feet whenever possible, so we drove.



We tried to take a walk around the lake, but were soon deterred by gates across the trail.

There was a group of some sort out on the lake in kayaks. Maybe the Irish version of Boy Scouts?



They were playing bumper kayaks from what we could tell. It was apparently a lot of fun as we passed one of the kids who had been playing at one point and in typical irish gregarious fashion he told us all about it. He seemed to have fallen in, which must have been freezing!





After our shortened hike we backtracked past the cottage, stopping to say hi to Jim's drafthorse friend.



She had a pretty little paint with her this time, who we assummed was her filly. Not a baby, but quite small. Leisa had an apple with her, which she fed to the paint as the bigger horse didnt want any.



Next we went to the grange stone circle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grange_stone_circle




This circle was easy to access and you could walk all the way around, walk through it, and even got to pet 4 calves that belong to the farmer who own the land.



Of course, the presence of the calves means you also have to pay attention to avoid cow patties.




We made a small monetary offerring at what appears to be an altar or key stone. Sadly, I didn't have a ribbon to tie on the wish tree across the circle from the keystone.




Next we continued on to the town of Limerick where we did some shopping. Leisa found an Arran sweater and scarf and a throwblanket in a little shop called Irish Handcrafts.






We wandered through their market, and had McDonalds for lunch. You know, Irish beef makes McDonalds sooo much better!

Rowena schmoozed a fire captain she saw driving past to find out where the local firestation is.



We topped off the day with a really cool guuided tour of the Limerick fire station. I guess Byron tries to visit a local station in every country he visits.






The station had a memorial to a couple of firefighters whos parents or grandparents came from Limerick. After their boys died in 911 the parents or grandparents sent the memorial plaques they were given to the Limerick Fire Station.









We headed home after that and had tacos for dinner and we are now sitting and watching Angel on Sky.

We were going to hottub, but the wind is truly hideous out there tonight.

The following is the view from the front door of our cottage

Today we drove to Mizen Head which is the furthest southwetern point in Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizen_Head

We followed the path out to the farthest area,



where the signal point is. There are some incredible views along the way, especially from the suspension bridge.




The bridge was a little scary.



Once out on the point you turn a corner, and the already blustery wind intensifies. Byron said he thought it went up to 100 knots! We each took pictures on the little platform at the bottom of the stairs,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brassangel/1220130132/sizes/m/

and we wandered through the signalling station/museum.



On the way back we went up "the 99 steps".




Had me huffing and puffing of course, but I counted as I went and there are indeed 99!

On a whim we stopped at a beach near Mizen head.It was called Barley Cove Beach.



We collected seashells and stood with our feet in the Atlantic.



Which means I have now had my feet in both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. (First trip to FL).



There wasn't much rain today, and actually some blue sky!

We stopped at a factory outlet store where I finally got a sweatshirt. I have been wearing one I borrowed from Byron all this time, so he finally got it back. My new sweatshirt is green with IRELAND printed across the front of it.

It doesn't seem like we did much today, but it was a lot of driving.



We got back to Bruff at 9:30 P.M and Clancy's, the place we had planned to go for dinner was closed. The only place that was open was the chinese place. We were not impressed 8(

Today we went to Bunratty Castle



The link below explains Bunratty Castle and Folk Park

http://www.group-trotter.net/ireland/places/bunratty/bunratty.html

On the wall in the entryway to the castle there is a letter written by Jackie Kennedy after having visited there.



We wandered through the castle and through quite a bit of the park



The view from the Bunratty Castle battlements is amazing.


There is also a little shopping area,



a post office, and a cafeteria. We had lunch there before getting on the road again. The food was forgettable 8(


After Bunratty we drove to the Cliffs Of Moher. Otherwise known as the Cliffs of Insanity in The Princess Bride.



When viewing the cliffs, you have a choice. You can head toward the left out over the cliffs, or to the right, which goes up a ways and gives you a vantage point for viewing the cliffs. To the right there are stairs which we chose to take.



I guess we had all been cooped up in the car a bit much because Byron and Rowena and I started jogging up the steps. For me, this didn't last long of course. I started walking again, and I guess I had tired myself out more than I thought, becasue I didn't pick my feet up far enough and managed to trip up one of the sets of stairs. That's right folks, second time on this vacation.

(I forgot to mention slamming my head into the low hanging stairwell at the cottage yesterday and again today in one of the cottages at Bunratty.)



Ever take one of those slow motion falls? I had enough time as I was falling to analyze the fact that I was holding my camera out in front of me, and that the camera had the precious wide angle lens that Jim had given me for christmas on it. My priorities clear, I somehow managed to twist around so that the camera was saved, and I landed on my right (a. k. a. the bad) shoulder. Something popped in there. For a few moments I lay there taking in the pain. Couldn't feel my fingers at first, and my shoulder was hurting like hell. It's very convenient travelling with a first responder, though. Byron came back and did a quick check on me. Grabbed my hand, asked me to squeeze and I was amazed to discover my fingers were not only still there, but worked! He sat me up and had me try to move my shoulder, and we discovered I suddenly had better range of motion than I have had for the last several months.



Through all of this, other hand was being held by what I assumed was my husband, but once I was no longer distracted I realized the hand-holder was a random older gentleman and that my husband was standing several feet away with Rowena, waiting for Byron to finish checking me out. This struck me as hilarious for some reason. Also, a nice lady nearby informed us her friend was a Dr and I should let her look at my shoulder, but by then the pain in my shoulder was fading quicky and we finished heading to the top plateau of the stairs.



You all have seen the cliffs in the movie, I'm sure, but I can't begin to put into words the beauty of the cliffs in person.


While we were in Bunratty, I had bought some stamps for some postcards for my niece and nephew and I found a postbox in the parking lot across the road from the Cliffs, so I was able to post those. yay!

Next we drove to the Burren.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burren

We stopped at the Portal Tomb. You follow a path out to near the tomb and then have to hop from one rock to another to get up close.



After taking a few picture of the Polnabron



we hopped rocks around the area and up to alittle ridge line.



You could see between some of the stones far enough to tell there were little caverns under some of them.



In the center of one rock I fould what looked like a perfect scrying bowl, complete with snail shells and weeds.



A storm was moving in, so we made our way back to the van and headed home. On the way, we made a stop at a place called Thad's Steakhouse for dinner.



Addendum: The weather here is schizo! I think this is where the saying "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes" comes from. Rainy, sunny, rainy, sunny, rainy, ,alternating all day long!

I managed to get up a little early today, which is good, because we are only allowing an hour for 6 people to get ready. At least there are two bathrooms, even if one of them only has a tub with dubious temperature control.



Today we went to Blarney Castle.



The tower stairs there are scary! Circular of course, and very narrow, and again, like in the Bloody Tower, I was afraid I wasn't going to make it up them. I managed though. All of us except for Tim kissed the Blarney Stone.

You climb the stairs, all the way to the top of the battlements, and you have to lay down on your back scoot out and arch your back while holding on to a couple of metal bars and being helped by an older gentleman who pushes you out to it and then yanks you back. That was even scarier than the stairs, but I did it!

if you look at this picture full size you can see someone all the way up there being pushed into the gap and kissing the stone.



This was also a challenge for the germaphobe in me, 'cause they wont let you use anything to kill germs either. We even bought the picture that they take as proof of our having done it.

Blarney Castle has a Rock Close http://www.blarneycastle.ie/pages/rock
We wandered through it checking out the Fairy Glade, The Witches' Kitchen and the Druid's Cave.



Next to the Druid's Cave there is a large tree with an extensive root system you can see because it sticks up through the earth.



I had to stand there for a bit with my hand on the tree's bark feeling the energy of that spot. Being beside the tree, above it's roots, sheltered by it's branches. It's a good thing I was with people who understand that.

Next we came to the wishing steps, which you must descend, then ascend again, backwards and with your eyes closed. Since it was a day of dealing with fear, I did that too!

We also saw the Druid's Circle with a scarificial Altar. Nearby there was a stump that I did not like at all, as it felt pained,



though it was giving way to new life, growing from it's various nooks and crannies. Also, we passed a tree that had grown with some of it's branches shaped like an Irish harp.



We had lunch at the Lemon Tree restaurant and headed back to the cottage.

Here's an idea of the type of road you see in towns around Blarney, this is actually a two direction road. It takes a lot of pulling to one side to let oncoming traffic pass.



By the time we made it back to the cottage it was dinner time. Spaghetti, mmm!

After dinner we squeezed all six of us into a very friendly tangle of legs and various other body parts in the four person hot tub on the back deck. There was MUCH laughter. We all got out before it got too TOO cold and went in to watch Ghostrider before we all crashed for the night.

The picture below is how I spent much of this trip, trailing behind the others as I gawked and took many many pictures. Always as I was catching up, Jim would be stopped a ways behind the others, waiting for me to catch up 8)



Oh, and the day off yesterday did wonders. I am feeling MUCH better!

There's not much to tell today, as I took the day off to nurse my cold. Leisa, Rowena, Tim, and Byron went to Cashel, and did some grocerie shopping. I took a long bath and spent much of the day in the TV room stretched out on the couch.


Jim had stayed with me, but he got a little stircrazy, so he went for a walk all the way down to Reardon's.



He took the camcorder with him and made a little travel film as he walked, and he took my camera and took some pictures as well. Along his walk he found the Wedgetomb,



made friends with a draft horse




and took pictures of the cemetary we had seen on the way in, just for me.




He's so sweet!