Musings From Abroad...: My Irish Eyes Were Smiling…

I didn't realize that it had been so long since I posted anything. While my foot issues have prevented me from doing a lot of traveling, I have been busy over here.

I was lucky to enjoy a lovely visit with Tom for two weeks. It was nice to be able for him to see where I have been living, working and playing for the past year. Sadly, I wasn’t able to take off as much time as I had hoped, but I was able to surprise him with a trip to Dublin. I sprung the news about the trip on the first day he arrived, so at first, I don’t think he heard me because he was in a state of jet lag stupor. Once it had pierced his sleep-deprived brain, he was very excited.

We took a late night flight to Dublin on Thursday. Friday was spent tooling around the city. We got very lucky with the weather --- sunny and a little chilly. Perfect walking around weather. Not too cold and not too hot.

We were staying near Trinity College, so it was easy to get around. We hit Trinity College, Dublin Castle, Grafton Street, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in short order. The stained glass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral was absolutely beautiful.

One of the many windows

Now, I'm used to churches having donation baskets. I think this is the first time I've ever seen one look like this, though.

Guinness keg used to collect money for their organ

Tom thought he saw some cute woman who quite possibly was famous at St. Patrick’s. Of course, he had no idea who it was. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me about her until after we left, so I don’t have a clue who it was.

No visit to Dublin would be complete without a visit to the Guinness Factory. Surprisingly, Tom has never been on a brewery tour, so it was new for him. I wouldn’t call the Guinness Factory a traditional brewery tour, but it did have the most important thing for a brewery tour --- the pint at the end.

After the Guinness tour, we wandered along the River Liffey and stopped off at the Brazen Head pub, which is the oldest pub in Ireland. It's been around since 1198. It may be a tourist attraction, but it was very cozy and perfect for a Friday afternoon.

On Saturday, we had booked a tour to venture out of Dublin and see the Wicklow Mountains. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a big fan of tours. I don’t like being held to someone else’s idea of where to go and what to see. More than that, I don’t like relying on other people to be on time. And, I can’t count on people not to annoy me. I know I sound like a bit of a prima donna, but I’ve had enough bad experiences on tours that I am sufficiently skeptical of them.

All that said, neither Tom nor I wanted to drive in Dublin. Neither of us needed the stress of worrying about driving on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road. And with a walking cast still on, it wasn’t really a good option for me. So, we sucked it up and booked the tour for early pickup on Saturday morning. In short, it was a good move. While I was not thrilled with the stop at the “handweavers” (it was basically a chain store), the rest of the trip was great. Everyone was fairly well on time. There was one guy who was consistently the last person on the bus. Tom thought it was intentional because he was with this one woman who was a bit loud and annoying. The tour took us through Wicklow Hills and some of the areas where the movie “P.S. I Love You” was filmed. If you don’t know the storyline, essentially Hillary Swank plays a woman whose husband has died recently (played by Gerard Butler) and he leaves her notes that are designed to get her to move on. Part of the movie is filmed in Ireland. The annoying woman was obviously a big fan of the movie and kept asking everyone who the other guy in the film was. Tom said to me “You know that you know, why don’t you tell her?” I didn’t offer it up because I didn’t want to get drawn into a big conversation with her. She eventually cornered me and asked me if I knew who it was. I said “Jeffrey Dean Morgan. He also played Denny on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.” She looked at me like “no, that’s not right.” Whatever. I tried. Look it up, chickie. I’m right. At any rate, this is a picture at one of the locations the movie was filmed at (although I don't know how you would know that for sure. It all starts to look the same.)

Some bridge from the movie

The rolling hills brought us up to Sally Gap. It’s the high spot in the hills and was frickin’ freezing. Great views, but the wind was blowing so hard. I was able to get a bunch of pictures.

The area to the right is a house owned by the Guinness family

The tour took us through the countryside and to a 6^th century monastic settlement founded by St. Kevin. What’s left of the settlement is mostly ruins, but there are a few buildings still left strewn through the graveyard.

St. Kevin's Church (aka the "Kitchen")

Celtic Cross on grave

There is a beautiful little hike from the settlement ruins to a lake.

You could take a separate hike up this hill to see this waterfall, but it was pretty steep and I couldn’t do it in my boot. Instead, we wandered around the lake.

As this was the end of the adventure, we were invited back to the bus for a complimentary shot of Jameson. Tom downed it, but I couldn't get through the whole thing.

Traveling back to Dublin took some time because of traffic due to the big rugby match between Ireland and Australia (Ireland lost). By the time we got back, the city was all lit up.