Irish Blatherings: Galway!

Sooooo….Dublin was great primarily because I was there with Miss Laura Becker.  But I dropped her at the airport and found my way across Ireland to Galway.  As I may have stated in my prior entry on “Driving In Ireland”, Irish highways (other than being in the wrong direction) seem very nice, wide, well paved and with reasonable signage.  So it was not that hard to leave the airport, head south and then find the highway across ireland to Galway.  It is a 2 ½ hour drive (God himself knows how many kilometers that is) and I wanted to try and get there before dark to try and find my hotel.

I of course did not ask for a car with Bluetooth (nor do I know if that even exists in Ireland or Europe because I am a sheltered American or “Merican” if you will) but in any case I did not bring any CD’s for (what I am now thinking of as the “archaic”) CD player and was sentenced to Irish Radio.  A couple of things I found out:

1. Southern Ireland and Southern England while I was there were suffering from disastrous “Katrina” level flooding with a low pressure system sitting out in the Atlantic and dumping rain on the southern portion of both countries.  This is and was totally unreported in US Media as far as I could tell even though it threatened both governments because people were so upset and there was such widespread suffering.  On my trip home this reminded me what a silo we live in news wise.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2014/02/16/08/17/british-storms-claim-2-lives

2. Irelands Police (the Guardia) watchdog group had found that they were being bugged by someone and no one knew who it was but heads were going to roll.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-26279237

These were the only two stories on the news but I was saved because there was a football game on with Manchester United playing Fulham.  Unbeknownst to me the Premier League is in tumult with perennial contender Manchester United having another horrible season and being at risk for being dropped from the Premier League.  Naturally there is much hand wringing going on about what (based on the BBC feed I was listening to is a NATIONAL tragedy.  While you might find as an American that watching soccer is boring (like watching farming as one of my friends says) I assure you that it is only “more so” on the radio but with limited choices… I tuned in.  And it was a boring game, with Fulgham leading 1-0 late in the game but miraculously Manchester scores 2 goals late in the game before regulation expires SAVING THEIR SEASON and perhaps their coaches job. I learned the next day that Manchester had set the record for “crosses” whatever those are and it was considered a very poor effort but even poorer because they had to play the extra time for the time lost for penalties and...Fulham scored salvaging a tie and you would have thought the world had ended.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/feb/09/manchester-united-fulham-live-premier-league

So it was a pretty interesting trip across Ireland.  Not much to see from the highway.  A few towns, a lot of fields.

I believe we have previously discussed the fact that I am genius.  And a planner.  A GENIUS PLANNER!  In that regard I had my hotel reservation that morning on “the internets” reading several reviews and then booking and receiving confirmation on line at “The Western”.  I also had an address but I had no map and no directions because it is in “City Center” in Galway.  Dublin also has a “City Center” as I would imagine Belfast does as well.  It is what they mean by downtown and I figured I would find it.  Well… it was getting dusky (dark) by the time I got there but the plan worked reasonably well until I got to the City Center and could not find the hotel.  Streets are not clearly marked for the 53 year old traveler trying to navigate the wrong side of the road while looking for 100 year old street signs which are not on posts on the corner but instead are on the sides of the buildings nearest to the corners.  After several (4) trips around downtown I finally did the girlish thing and asked and was pointed to the top of the hill and a one way street I had not yet explored and there I found my hotel, pulled into the alley behind and pulled down into another tiny, perilous garage at The Western!

Now, being an American I of course thought of the wild west!  It was “The Western”.  Maybe a cowboy theme!  I did not think any of this consciously but it was definitely there and then i realized it is “The Western” because it is on the west coast of Ireland.  Evidently they have a west coast too.  It is just on the Atlantic and California is not there.  Who knew?

So I got online and did a little research about where I could get a top notch gluten free meal and all reviews pointed towards a place called Ard Bia.  It was down by what was referred to as the Spanish Arch:

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

They date from the 1500’s and were at the bottom of the hill on the bay where the river Corrib runs into the bay.It was pitch black and I was solo as i worked my way down into the pedestrian mall and through it asking questions and you walk way out on the quay and underneath the arches and there was a little house.  It was packed and they seated me and my newspaper and served me some hot gluten free bread and fresh butter and then a nice seafood salad and very good steak.  Looking around the food looked good on every plate and they had an adequate, reasonably priced wine list.  I would definitely recommend this place to anyone but especially to the gluten impaired.

I spent a little time exploring the pedestrian mall which is a nice bunch of shops.  No Cigar stores but a good cheese monger and a plethora of drug stores and gift shops and specialty stores, several of which had some Cuban cigars for me.  This mall or near it is where you want to stay in Galway.  There were at least a dozen bars, all with music every night and there was plenty to do.

Part of the energy comes because it is a college town.  I was unfamiliar with the National University of Ireland Galway but they store 17,000 students there in what looks to be an excellent liberal arts and research university.  Perhaps I should go there for the Masters in Writing?  Or perhaps I should learn to write a sentence first without…  In any case, it seems like it would be an excellent place to be an old person studying abroad.

http://www.nuigalway.ie/index.html

Irish Bars are there for the atmosphere, for the average music and for the Irish whiskey.  There is plenty of all these things and I did not walk into a single establishment where I was treated like a stranger.  Everyone was friendly and loved to pour the Red Breast for me and I must admit I developed a “taste” for it.  I had never been a fan before.  But if you go, you have to hit a few of these establishments.  Most of them seemed pretty much the same to me, but I mean that in a good way.

The food for the Celiac in Ireland is not much.  “Irish Cuisine” is a misnomer like “English Cuisine”.  It is shit… at best.  But it is edible and there is food to be had.  In Galway I found an edible Irish breakfast at every hotel including “The Western”.

Sausage, egg and although I could not partake with my gluten issues an awful little piece of “pudding” that kind of passes for hash browns.  They also will occasionally have the abomination known as “bacon” in England and Ireland.  This is heinous stuff.  I swear is it thick cut, fatty and appears to always be boiled instead of fried, as God intended.  But the Irish Breakfast, with a little hot Irish Tea and a newspaper.  It works.

They also have gluten free pizza in Galway and Dublin.  The Milano’s chain.  Nice product and consistent.  I strongly recommend it for a safe snack at a chain that “gets it”.

In Galway, like every other town I have been in, in England or Ireland they have a cheesemonger.  In Galway it is Sheridans.  One of the smartest things you can do in any town is ask around for the best cheesemonger.  It is always worth the question and Sheridans was....fabulous.

Sheridans had everything.  fresh fruit, sausage and most of all cheese.  A lot of it.  I am a simple man with simple tastes and that means Irish Cheddar and maybe a nice cave aged Gruyere.  

Knowing your cheesemonger can lead to a feast wherever you are and Galway was no exception.

Blood Oranges, gluten free bread with fresh butter, Italian salami and a lot of cheese.  Your leftovers travel well and make a good snack.  There also were several good wine shops.  I took advantage.

***

So Galway is a keeper.  I am strongly recommending it and I am lobbying for Sandy and I to take a trip back.  It is a beautiful town with beautiful people and 1500 years or so of easily accessed history.

Irish Blathering: The Cliffs of Moher

Soooo… while in Galway I headed south to The Cliffs of Moher.  Driving there was an interesting nightmare but that has been previously recounted.  Beautiful countries and picturesque little towns all with one to five pubs.  A frightening drive but a beautiful one but what was I risking my life to see.  I could blather on about this but sometimes brevity and just shutting up is the way to go.  Read this website which tells you more about the cliffs, more eloquently than I ever could.

https://www.cliffsofmoher.ie

When I scrambled up the steep path to the top of the cliffs to get my pics… an apocalyptic storm was rolling in and it was… majestic.  God is Great...all the time.

Irish Blatherings: Driving in Ireland...for the Ancient!

Sooooo…. whenever you travel anywhere there is the question of….how am I going to get around?  There is walking.  A lot of people do that.  There is public transportation (every other civilized place in the world has advanced train systems) or… you can rent a car.  Why rent a car?  Because I am a Becker.  Beckers hate tours, have short attention spans and like to look around, come when they want to come and go when they want to go.  Now my wife, surprisingly backed the idea for me to rent a car saying, “you would not be happy without a car”.

So I got online and found that it was about as easy to rent a car in Dublin as it was in America.  So I landed in Ireland, collected my daughter and headed for the rent a car booth.  The European partner to National Rent A Car.  Perhaps Hertz or Enterprise would have been a better choice.  After declining a manual transmission and more stupidly GPS I ended up with a beat to shit Renault.  It had a 100,000 Kilometers on it and based on my rudimentary understanding of the metric system (remember when we were kids and they told us it was just a matter of time till the US adopted it?  HAH!) I think that means it had 60,000 miles on it.  The guy at the place with the actual car meticulously marked down all of the dings of which there were a lot.  Later I would be grateful that I had not got something gleaming and new.

First problem.  The steering wheel is on the wrong side.  You say “OF COURSE IT IS IDIOT!” But it provides a lot of problems.  Generally it is a problem related to:

1. Being old

2. Being accustomed to certain spatial relationships

3. Being old and deteriorating

4. Not dealing with change

5. Not liking change

6. Hating everything different or strange...pathologically.

So I try and get in the wrong side of the car… where my daughter is already sitting (I will do this approximately 3 more times while she is with me.  I walk around sheepishly and get in and we are off.  The directions are easy, out of the airport and then onto the M1 north to Balbriggan.  It is nerve racking and I run over a couple of curbs on the left side but… we get on the highway.  HEADING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.  I had always wondered how the drunks do this and now I was doing it sober, and jet lagged at 9:00 A.M. in the morning.  But I was handling it.

… heading north on the M-1.  Which lane is the fast lane and which lane is the slow lane… thinking...thinking...getting honked at...THE LEFT LANE IS THE SLOW LANE IDIOT!  So I stay there and as our exit approaches… I start moving over into the fast lane to exit the highway but of course...THE EXITS ARE ON THE LEFT TOO...IDIOT!  They tell me that as I am aging the plasticity of my brain… my ability to grasp and learn new things… diminishes.  It is always nice to be living in a proof of the theory.

So I swerve back to the left lane and make our exit.  Then the real nightmare begins.  4 way stops in Ireland are for sissies.  Instead they have Russian Roulette/Chicken game called “The Roundabout”.  The roundabout is basically just a way to kill foreigners.  My mind was able to contemplate it abstractly… in the same way as I might understand an Escher print.  I am supposed to merge and keep to the...RIGHT OR LEFT… I don’t know and then casually swerve to the left to get out of the penalty loop and proceed on my way.  This requires, since I don’t know my way, some combination of reading signs, making sure I don’t hit any of the other vehicles and listening to my daughter giving directions, saying “no not here!, (when i make the wrong turn) and occasionally hearing her shriek and seeing her curl up on her side of the car as I almost kill us by hitting a car, a sign, a curb or a cow.  Surprisingly this makes me tense and when I am tense...I drive even worse.

We negotiate several of these with a variety of fear and panic… and we finally hit town which is when the fun really starts.  I failed to mention that once you get off the highways (which are lovely) you end up on these scenic, rolling NARROW roads.  For some reason judging the distance between my car and the cars careening at me head on from the right is extremely difficult for me so I keep us far to the left.  We keep going off the soft shoulder because there is not real shoulder.  My daughter dies a little each time I do so but in fairness I am mostly only doing it when a car passes going in the opposite direction.  But we finally hit town where the streets get even narrower… and there are more cars… and stop signs… and...people.  My daughter keeps saying “you're real close to these cars” and doing that annoying flinching thing again. *CLUNK” my mirror clips another car mirror.  I drive on pleased I did not hit a person.  The roads are so narrow most folks have their mirrors bent in so… it wasn’t even my fault… too much… really… but there is likely an Interpol warrant out for me.  

Fortunately the hotel came up quickly after that and we decamped, checked in and… found out where the train station was to ride into Dublin.

***

The car sat… somewhat ambivalent in the hotel parking garage.  It had been difficult for me to negotiate my way into a spot after driving down one of the parking lot circular ramps ON THE WRONG SIDE...until someone coming up the ramp almost hit me.  Best leave driving alone and take the trains.  But the next night we were going to see a concert so I thought that since it would be late, I did not want to walk across downtown Dublin late on a Saturday night and wait for a train.  We could drive!  My daughter got directions while on the hotel WiFi (you see you cannot use your phone for maps in Europe unless you are a TMobile customer) and she saved the screen shots with the directions.  She got two sets, one for a nice gluten free restaurant I had read about and one for the Olympia Theater where we were to see a show.

I made a number of mistakes in not thinking this through:

1. I could have sent the maps to the hotel desk and gotten printed out.

2. I had not counted on the difficulties of traveling in a strange country with difficult to read street signs at night.

3. I did not count on the abject confusion and panic related to driving on the wrong side of the road, not knowing your way IN THE DARK!

I think you can guess that the driving part of the excursion did not go well.  And then, besides it being dark… it started to rain.  We never could find the restaurant.  Laura had directions in miles and I had a car that measured distances in kilometers.  There were perhaps 75 or so close calls before we finally gave up and miraculously found our way back to city center, found a car park (the silly Irish word for a parking lot) and found the theater.  

***

I did the smart thing and had several drinks at the concert because when you are driving home and you don’t know your way, nothing makes it easier than a cocktail or two.  

THE BEAUTIFUL OLYMPIA THEATER!

BRILLIANT!  We left and because we had tried to go the restaurant first we couldn't just backtrack the way we had come, although we tried… and we tried.  Now the Irish people are really nice but I must say as direction givers, late on a rainy night, they suck.  Between me being tired and still jet lagged and having a few cocktails… we were lost.  I clearly missed a turn or three.

Laura, also tired.  When tired we Beckers tend to get very passive aggressive.  That helped too.  I kept driving but had absolutely no idea which way was north which is where I wanted to go.  Epic fail.  Finally at one gas station a cabby gave me some directions to get back to the M-1 by going to the 3rd main intersection about 5 kilometers down the road.  I am absolutely confident that I missed it but from that we were able to find M-20 and follow the signs for Belfast which I knew was north and eventually… we got back to the windy road with the roundabouts but there was no traffic and we were just happy to be at home.

***

The next day I took my daughter to the Guinness Brewery and to Leopardstown Racetrack for a big race and then I took her back to the airport and I headed across ireland to Galway.  It was an easy pleasant trip although I missed my daughters company but it was fun streaming down the wrong side of the highway at 100 km per hour listening to Manchester United play a game v. Fulham F.C.  It was really exciting with Fulham having a 1-0 lead until the last five minutes and Manchester scores two goals and is about to win a much needed game until they get to whatever the injury time or whatever they add on to regulation and Fulham scored to salvage a tie and further damage Manchesters chances of remaining in the Premier League next year.  Heady stuff.

But then I got to Galway.  And it was dark. And I didn't know where I was going.  I was supposed to be staying in The Western Hotel in the City Center so I followed the signs to City Center Galway… and then hit a bunch of one way streets.  They also have a lovely pedestrian mall which i discovered as I almost drove through it.  But after stopping and asking a few folks and driving around the block four or five times I finally made it to my hotel and was able to park and get some food and plan for the coming day of driving the next day.

***

I woke up and had a nice Irish Breakfast and some tea and discussed my agenda with the WHEN YOU THINK “OH...IRELAND...THE ROAD SIGNS WILL BE IN “ENGLISH”

hotel receptionist.  She recommended that I drive north to Cong and see the Abbey and a friend had recommended that so I grabbed a brochure with a typical low quality brochure map in it and I was OFF!  Getting out of town with the traffic was a little bit of a challenge with the requisite amount of fear and confusion but finally I was headed north for Cong in a light rain swerving off the shoulder every time a car was coming the other way.  The Abbey at Cong was stunning.  It had literally existed for a millenium and been ransacked and torn down… before our country was even a consideration.  It is such a humbling thing being in the presence and walking and driving around something truly… ancient.  Because in the States if it is 200 years old we pretend to care but eventually we tear it down to make room for the strip mall.  There was not a strip mall within 50 miles of Cong.  

I drove through the town and then headed north and just drove and drove.  Narrow roads.  Rain and sunshine.  Rolling fields and just awesome, glory of God type beauty.  It was in so many ways and like so many beautiful, perfect, God sent things… humbling.  And with that kind of humbling, if you're lucky… there is also joy… and peace.  And tooling alone through western Ireland in a piece of shit Renault, fearing for my life at every turn… there was a bunch of peace to be had.  Piece and Peace.  Funny.  But I felt blessed and that is just not a feeling which most people get.  Might have been better with my wife, or with my daughter, or with my priest.  But I will never know and never need to because it was excellent with just me, and beautiful Ireland, and God.  Sometimes God just rocks!SERIOUSLY?  WHEN ARE YOU EVER GOING TO SEE ANYTHING LIKE THIS?

I TOOK THIS PICK BECAUSE CORNELIUS MC GRATH RECOMMENDED IT!

The next day, against the advice of the hotel desk lady at the Western Hotel in Galway I drove south to Cliffs of Moher.  She implied that the weather was going to be somewhat “sketchy”.  I felt like she was totally disrespecting me as an American!  Seriously!  What could go wrong on narrow roads with rock walls 18 inches from your car diving 60 or 70 MPH (and God only knows how many KPH) through windy, undulating roads in weather that started at 50 degrees, dropped to 26, and rose back to 53...all in 4 hours of driving?

It was… a glorious nightmare!  I saw all kind of things.  Beautiful blue skies.  Rain.  Snow. Sleet.  Ice.  Beautiful skies.  ICE,  Cars sliding into rock walls.  Busses moving sideways down narrow roads towards me.  Beautiful sunswept rock breathed with the Atlantic crashing against the road I was driving on and soaking my poor, freaked out little car… and it’s driver.  It was an awesome trip.

I headed south from Galway into the County Clare. The County Clare was flooded.  I knew this because it was all over the news.  On my car radio and on the TV and in the papers.  Politicians were being crucified and the suffering was dramatic and the people were outraged and I was driving down into the northern reaches of it.(what was really amazing to me upon returning to the States was that no one here was aware at all of the suffering that was going on in south Ireland and south England.  This huge Katrina like disaster with 100,000 or more households displaced… was not even remarked upon in the states.  It reinforced what a huge, protected silo I live in where if it does not affect my drive to work….fuck it.)  

THIS IS WHAT A CAR LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT HITS ONE OF THESE 1000 YEAR OLD ROCK WALLS…. THE WALL WINS!

But Clare County was flooded and I was driving into the northern reaches of it to see the Cliffs of Moher.  And it was frightening.  60 miles took about two hours and I saw 5 different accidents in snow, rain and ice.  But I lives, driving the wrong way, slowly, but like an American! With only a modicum of fear.  The quickest way there was a windy road that would be beautiful in any case but for me was covered by a fresh snow and it was breathtakingly gorgeous.  The type of beauty which humans are not meant to witness from their awful beaten up Renault but which was right with me every mile… or kilometer… whatever.

The cliffs when I got there, after driving through ten beautiful villages were awesome.  After driving through the apocalypse I arrived during beautiful clear blue skies and 60 mile per hour winds and made my way to the top of the cliffs where I got to watch a maelstrom flow in from the Atlantic until I was admonished by a park worker that I was an “IDJIT” (I believe he meant idiot which sounded correct) as a needle like 60 mph rain poured in on me from the cliffs.  It was painful and...awesome.

THE CLIFFS OF MOHER!

From there and I have to say, the best part of my driving tour, I headed north from the park,staying off the main road and along the coast and saw some of the most beautiful Atlantic, stone beach landscapes that I could have imagined.  Sadly I was too busy attempting to stay alive that I could take no pictures but…. it was awesome.  I  headed back north to Galway along the coast, looking at Galway from across the bay and in the ocean spray and was frightened at the prospect of an additional 40 miles of driving on those unnerving, twisty, slick, stone walled, frightening roads… and i was profoundly grateful that God would allow me the chance to die alone in such a beautiful place.  God is good, all the time.

I RETURNED TO GALWAY IN A RARE, BRIEF, SNOWSTORM IN IT’S PEDESTRIAN MALL

Irish Blatherings: Dooblin!

I AM NOT CERTAIN BUT I BELIEVE LAURE BECKER WAS HAVING A MARGARITA... IN IRELAND!

Soooo...I arrived at the beautiful Dublin airport to meet my daughter.  It had not been a bad plane ride over once we got on a new (unbroken) airplane.  On the trip over I was sitting with a very pleasant guy who lived in Dublin who as he was telling me about (it was 90% unintelligible to me because of his accent and because I am old) Dooblin just kept saying it like that and so… so did I.  I originally was supposed to arrive an hour before my daughter who was meeting me there from Cambridge but with my flight delay I texted her and she said she would find me.  I cleared customs quickly and easily and when I came out, she was not there.  Moments like this are when I realize that my wife does everything and that I am (at best) a parasite that lives on her gifts for organization and planning.  Conversely my daughter is half me.  We were going to meet each other.  How hard could that be, in a foreign airport… where your phones don’t work?  My first temptation was to call my wife… she could sort it out from 5000 miles away...right?  I turned on my phone hoping against hope for free WiFi and VIOLA!  I texted her.  She was in the wrong terminal at arrivals.  She found me in 5 minutes.

We went to get our rent a car and ended up with a slightly used Renault.  I had the sense to get an automatic transmission figuring driving on the wrong side of the road would be challenge enough (which, by the way I was correct about).  My daughter had been responsible for making our accommodations (when it was clear i would not be) and she sensibly found us a room for about 100 bucks a night which I didn't think was too bad.  What she had not realized was that it was as far from Dublin proper as say… Chesterfield is to downtown St. Louis.  Oh well.  We were staying in a place called Balbriggan which I quickly stopped trying to say, instead referring to it as Bilbobaggins.  It was 20 minutes from the airport and I will once again defer to another time to describe driving there which for my jet lagged ass could best be described as…”horrific” and for my poor daughter…”more so”.

We finally screamed in Balbriggan with my mirror clipping the mirror of a parked car.  I was of course pleased that the thump was not me hitting a warm body.  We swung into the garage attached to the hotel and garages are a challenge just like the road because you must… keep to the left.  But we parked and found our way into the hotel which was pleasant.  Were able to check in quickly and I was able to grab an Irish Times and we retired to a reasonably comfortable adequately priced room.  It would be a fine base of operations.  We discussed the options for getting to Dublin and we were assured the train station was a 5 minute walk and so… we were off!

BILBRAGGIN BEACH

Walking to the train station we purchased tickets round trip without incident.  One of the interesting things about Ireland is that unlike England they have adopted the Euro.  I had the foresight before I left to go to US Bank in Clayton and get a couple of hundred dollars of the currency which is always worth more than a $1.50 but less than $2.00 in my limited experience.  You can use most ATM cards to get dollars but there are fees involved and there is always something to be said for landing with walking around money.  The train station in Bilbraggin is on high ground looking down on a huge beach which is kind of in a bay which leads to a little channel.  Tide was out and there were a bunch of boats just sitting on the ground in the dry channel.  In Europe, the trains run on time and ours showed up pretty quickly and we hopped on and headed south.  The train tracks had a reasonable amount of time on the coast where I guess you overlook the “Sea of Man” which in retrospect seems rather pretentious or perhaps even ominous.  In any case, a lovely train ride, 20-30 minutes landed us in Town Center.  Both cities I was in identified the downtown area as “Town Center” and signs would direct you there which was helpful in each case.  Laura had found us a map and since our phones didn't work she was our navigator.

I had forwarded to her the name of a well reviewed Celiac Friendly restaurant and we made towards to for a late lunch.  The Millstone.  It was excellent and I ate some delicious fish thing and then had piece of beef which was represented to me as a Hereford steak.  Hereford Beef is very big and well advertised in Ireland but generally I would say their meat sucks.  I might hate the idea of factory farming, antibiotics, Monsanto,  and what not but we have unbelievable beef in our supermarkets and restaurants, well marbled, properly fatted and delicious.  I did not find the same to be true in Ireland.

Then we walked.  What a nice, beautiful, friendly, attractive interesting town.  Once again speaking some semblance of English is awesome and we were able to ask stupid questions and get patient answers.  Even though the iPhones did not work we could use free WiFi in abundance to look up and find our way to our next stop.  Over the two days we visited a lot of places.

From my perspective they had great shopping. For me that generally means Cigar stores ( for Cubans) and cheese mongers (for all varieties of cheese).  We did not want to do too much on the first day so we just bummed around.  We walked by the Olympia Theater where I was unable to get tickets for Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros on line.  We walked in and the nice lady behind the window said “we just had a cancellation” and were able to grab two tickets.  Better to be lucky than smart.

We made our way across town to the Jameson Distillery.  It is a lovely, touristy place.  Being tourists we looked in the gift shop and then we took the tour.  Now I don’t know what experience you have with distilleries but as a veteran of the bourbon trail and having spent a few weekends in Lexington and Frankfort…. distilleries are all pretty much the same and even though there is some slightly more than rudimentary physics involved all distilled beverages are made in pretty much the same way.  Jamieson, we were quickly, and then repetitively told, was “triple distilled”.  Every distillery has a wistful story about the product that is lost through evaporation when manufacturing their product and here is was “The Angels Portion”.  In Kentucky that share belonged to the devil.  We did a tasting which was a nice affair and did nothing to particularly enhance my love of Irish Whiskey.  I did learn one thing and that is that Irish Whiskey and certainly Jamiesons the grain is heated with a smokeless source, formerly anthracite and now natural gas.  Scotch, tastes like smoky scotch because they roast the grain with peat and that produces a lot of smoke.  It was a fine way to kill and hour or so.

We called it a day and headed back ready for a full day the next day and we got up and had an Irish Breakfast (sausage, eggs, pudding, tea) at our hotel and headed back to town.  Now I always like to look in bookstores wherever I go and so with the help of Google I had located a few of them.  I believe that sooner or later they will all cease to exist so… I go and pay homage. Chapters bookstore did not disappoint.  I like to collect foreign first editions of my favorite authors but alas, they were not in the offing here either in their new or used section.  Still, it was a nice massive place with a great feel and my daughter milled around patiently more or less.
A BAR IN TEMPLE BAR

We got lost and turned around more than once but found a gluten free pizza place for lunch that was nice and then found a beer (also gluten free) for me in the Temple Bar area.  Temple Bar is confusing because it is an area, a hotel, a bar, a hostel and so a lot of things are in “Temple Bar”.  So we drank a little and I got speak at length to a bartendress who essentially convinced me that I needed to spend the second half of my trip in Galway.

That night we went to the Olympia see the concert.  Despite it starting late due to a power outage it was a great show.  The Olympia is just a gorgeous two balconied, intimate venue and it was a great end to the night… other than the fact that we got badly lost driving back to Balbriggan.

The next day we made the obligatory pilgrimage to Guinness.  Now I cannot drink beer anymore and I still have a loyalty to St. Louis beers from when Anheuser Busch was still “our” beer and more recently to Schlafly which is now “our” beer.  But everyone said we had to go, if nothing else for the view of Ireland from the 7 story tower shaped like…*deep annoyed sigh* a pint glass.  We looked at the gift shop, heard the beginnings of the self guided tour and blew through 7 floors in about 20 minutes.  The Anheuser Busch tour puts it to shame and even the Samuel Adams tour in Boston was far superior.  Beer, like spirits is pretty much always made in the same way but like the “triple distilled” Jamiesons and the “beechwood aged” Budweiser, Guinness thing is that their barley is roasted. *yawn*.  The tasting room up top though was awesome and the view spectacular.  I sipped my water and gave my daughter my beer ticket so she could have two.  I did have the blessing of watching an experienced server put their logo in the froth on top of a glass.  You should go and skip the tour.  Just take the elevator straight to the top.  It is a no brainer.FROM THE GUINNESS TOWER
THIS IS THE PATHETIC GUINNESS VERSION OF A CLYDESDALE!
We visited St. Patricks Cathedral and the Irish Gallery and the Irish Library.  I could wax poetic but really we blew threw them as only Beckers can without paying a lot of attention but just trying to take it all in and check it off our list.  That is a stupid way to visit such brilliant, ancient historical places but, we are what we are and in the end I was in Dublin, hanging out with my daughter and didn’t really give a shit about where I was at.  It could've been Gary, but I was happy it was Dooblin
ST. PATRICKS CATHEDRAL

Irish Blatherings Post 1: The Importance In Realizing Your Lack of Importance

Soooo...I am 52.  I thought for a while that I was 53 but then I did the math.  It was interesting to realize that no single fact could be less meaningless than whether I was 52 or 53.  Not to anyone.  Certainly not to me.  At 52/53 I am BUSY!  BIZZY!  CRAZY, STUPID BiZeeeee!  Get it?  I am busy because I am RFP (really Fucking Important).  I am:

1. A husband

2. An empty nest father

3. A lawyer which for me means:

a. I have clients who expect me to be available

b. I have employees who expect that I will bring in enough paying clients so they

can eat.

c. I need to bring in enough paying clients so I can eat.

d. I have to take care of a lot of administrivia (i.e. getting bills out to clients,

getting clients to pay bills, making sure we have supplies and helping to deal

with shit when it breaks.

4. I volunteer a lot of time with SLU’s law clinic

5. I blog infrequently and intelligently.

6. I keep in touch with a large number of people younger than myself on Facebook

(nothing creepy about that).

7. I am a home owner.  There is stuff to do.  Getting things fixed (can't fix them myself),

cleaning up and of course cooking.  I have to cook a lot because of specific dietary

needs related to being an asshole.

8. We also have a place in Michigan which requires attention and visiting.

9. My parents are old.  They don’t “require” attention but they “merit” attention.  More

thanI give.

10. My siblings had children who I like but who might or might not be “damaged” and are

now having children themselves.

11. I was active in my old church, I sense the same will be true of my new church.

12. I read

I say this not to impress anyone.  I trust you have busy lives as well.  But what I have realized is that… for some period of time… all of these things go on, things get dealt with and many things… thrive, in my absence.  This is, in no particular order,

1. Humbling

2. Frightening; and (if you're paying attention)

3. Liberating

I am a bitter, shallow man.  I complain...A LOT!  My glass, half empty.  This is a character flaw.  Arguably a DRAMATIC character flaw but if God is kind to you he delivers a modicum of self knowledge along with all the aches and pains and maladies that complainers deal with as they age. My recent dissatisfaction is evidence of how little I have to complain about.  That is a two headed complaint.  

1. My “career” does not lend itself to enjoying sabbaticals and as I have grown older and realized I might only be ⅔ of the way through my work life, the concept of sabbatical seems eminently sensible.  But this plays in with my second complaint;

2. I don’t travel enough, specifically internationally.  Every time I have left the country in my life it has been a broadening epiphany giving me a look at the world outside my silo and making more appreciative of our great country, God’s baffling kindness towards me, my family and my country and my home, wife family and… kitchen.  Sometimes it can even help to make me more appreciative of my job!

So my New Years Resolution was that for the rest of my life I would leave the country twice a year.  My wife and I then spent some time together in Florida visiting her parents and we stretched it out that in 2015 we would take two weeks and go live in another country, towards a goal of moving for one month a year to another country and just taking it in or in the immortal words of Jules in the movie Pulp Fiction we are going to “Walk The Land”.

Jules: I'll just walk the earth.

Vincent: What'cha mean walk the earth?

Jules: You know, walk the earth, meet people... get into adventures. Like Caine from "Kung Fu."

That is good stuff.  But my plan I think is to fly the earth, drive the earth, live around people I didn’t grow up with for a while each year and do it with my wife.  Sooo… my daughter is in Cambridge this semester and my wife decided I should go visit her so went and met her in Dublin and I decided I would spend a few days wandering around Ireland on my own which led me to Galway for a few days where I am now typing away preparing to fly back to the Lou tomorrow.  In my absence it appears things have gone… splendidly.  Perhaps I should leave more often and… perhaps I will but the next several posts will be known forever as my own personal “There And Back Again” and if you don’t get that reference, shame on you and Google it, but I think I will call this little series my…”Irish Blatherings”.  Round one was yesterday when I put up the Edward Sharpe Concert.

Peace!