And Now The End Is Near.... (Frank Sinatra)

Well, readers, this is the last posting from the Emerald Isle called Ireland.  We return home tomorrow and leave behind wonderful people, places, music and accents.  It was wonderful for me to return to my "home" and also show Karl where his ancestors came from.  The blog will be silent until July of 2014 when we will be in Austria for a Blue Knight convention and a river cruise.  But before I go I thought I would share some things that I have noticed about Ireland and my take on them.  So until then, enjoy!

SHEEP - lots and lots and lots of sheep.  You see them in the pastures, the front yards, the barn yards and on the road.  It's amazing that we didn't see any dead!  Somehow they escape and graze on the side of the roads totally oblivious to cars and trucks rushing by they.  There are also cows and goats around, but not as plentiful as sheep.

DRIVE ENTRANCES - It seems that 90% of the houses and farms in Ireland have a walled drive entrance.  it can be made from rock, brick, cement, wood or hedge.  And the entrances are usually ornate to a degree.  Some are extremely ornate with gates, stone lions and insignias.  Other are just walls and no gates at all.  Some have small gates.  And usually the houses don't match the entrances.  Most are moderate homes/farms and seem to be out of place with the entrances.

WEE and WEE BIT - You have wee - wee man, wee cup, wee car, wee pint.  Or you have wee-bit - wee-bit of sun, wee-bit of a walk, wee-bit of rain.  And don't EVER ask an Irishman how far something is - it's always just a wee-bit down the road.  Or it's only a wee 15 minute walk.  Their minute is an Irish minute which really is about 5 minutes for their one minute.

WEATHER - The weather is always changing - not daily, but hourly!  You can have rain in the morning, showers in the afternoon and sunny in the evening.  Temps can range from cool to very warm in just hours, so you always keep an umbrella and a coat or sweater handy.

POTATOES - Potatoes,of every kind, will be served with everything!  Sometimes you have two types of potatoes served with the same meal.  When we first got here and ordered a meal it was served with mashed potatoes and a baked type of potato.  You get "chips" (fries) with almost everything.  You order lasagna and you get a salad and chips.  You order a sandwich and you get a salad and chips.  You order quiche and you get a salad and chips.  Well, you get the idea.

IRISH BREAKFAST - If you are asked if you want a full Irish breakfast, be careful.  The breakfast includes bacon (which to us is really a slice of ham), sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, blood pudding (yes, made with blood), black and white pudding and an egg (usually over easy).  Then if you don't want that you can have porridge (oatmeal), scrambled eggs, fruit, dry cereal, yogurt, cold cuts and tomatoes.

MENUS - No matter where we went for meals, either lunch or dinner, it seems every place had the same menu.  For lunch it was always sandwiches or wraps, fish and chips, paninis, soup of the day (almost always vegetable).  For dinner it seemed to be pork belly, Irish sirloin, lamb stew, chicken curry and lasagna.  No one seemed to have any different ideas.

SPEED LIMITS - OMG!!!!!  They drive like maniacs here.  And whoever set the limits should be shot!.  Motorways (freeways or expressways) limit is 75, urban roads (ones that you would see going through towns, usually 2-4 lanes) 40, and country roads (usually 2 lane small roads with lots of curves and obstacles) 60.  And on these country roads there are buses (two deckers) who travel them and go the 60.  And the bridges on these roads make the roads narrower because they have taken the same bridges that have been there hundreds of years ago and just pave it over.  So it's very tight for a car and a bus to pass each other without one (usually the car) almost kissing the bridge.

WASHCLOTHS - Facecloths are a unique thing over in Ireland.  They will provide a hand towel and a body towel, but face cloths are an unknown thing.  You finally get used to washing you body with your hand.  Finally Karl borrowed one from another hotel.

TV SIZE  - True there isn't much to watch on the TV, but it would be nice to watch a program on a TV screen that is bigger than 12"!  I mean my computer screen is 14", for goodness sakes.  But they are flat screens so I guess they think that it is progress.

LITTLE MAN - Now this was a unique thing that happened almost as soon as we started driving around Ireland.  One of the guys in our motorcycle group made a comment about it and we have since seen it the whole time.  It seems that when you come into a town, no matter what town, if you look carefully you will spot a little old man standing by himself.  His hands are in his pockets, he's not really near anything like a car or building or another person and he's not doing anything like talking to someone or anything, but he's there when we entered a town.  We jokingly said that he is the town's alarm.

CHILDREN IN PUBS - Now this was the strangest thing yet and we couldn't see this is in the US at all.  We saw children in pubs whether they served food or not.  They would be sitting at the bar with their parents drinking their soda or eating.  A couple of time we even saw the bartender pour a pint or two for the adult and let the child take the pint to the table!  Could you imagine that happening in the bars in the US.  That would cause  the bar to close in a heartbeat.

All in all, I love Ireland, but I could never move here.  The weather is the biggest drawback for me.  There are too few days of sun and a lot of days of rain or overcast skies.  I will take sunshine any time.

I hope you have enjoyed this journey with us and I hope that it may make you think about starting to travel if you haven't.  Remember, it's better to start now instead of waiting until you retire because the older you get the less you are able to do the things you've always wanted to do.

Waterford Crystal At Last!!!

Finally, after 15 years, I made it to the Waterford Crystal factory and showroom.  When we were here in 1998 we arrived on Sunday and at that time they were not open on the weekends.  Well, we made a special trip to go there and take the tour and drool over the pieces.  If I was a multi-millionaire (notice I said multi) I would go and have nothing but Waterford in my house!    We went though the factory with a glass cutter of 40 years as our guide and we were able to see the process from beginning to end.  At the end of the tour we were in the engraving room and watched the engraver working on a piece and also looked over the pieces that were already done.  When the tour was done we were left off in the retail store (of course) to browse and shop.  Unfortunately the prices were WAY out of my price range.

If you look at the seahorse symbol you will see that the tail is curled the wrong way.  It was changed so that the tail would form a shamrock shape.

A beautifully created Celtic harp.

The engraver doing what he does best.








After we left Waterford we drove back to Cork so that we could see that city and do some "tourist" shopping.  When we were on our cruise last May of 2012 we stopped in the port city of Cobh (Cove) to see where the Titanic set sail from and walked around the town, but never got up to Cork which is only about 15 miles away.  So we decided to take in Cork.  And as we were there we finally gave in to an American lunch because we were really tired of fish and chips or tuna pannins.  But we did eat 100% Irish beef!

We are now back in Dublin for the last few days before flying home.  Tomorrow we are going to drive back up to No. Ireland and try and see if we can get in contact with some people that we hope are relatives of Karl.  We tried before but they weren't home.  We aren't sure if they are distant cousins of his or if the family has left the farm and sold to a different family altogether.  We will see tomorrow.

Reflections of the Past

On this part of our trip we traveled from Westport to Clifden on the southwest side of Ireland.  Now if we went straight there it would take about 1 hour and some odd minutes.  But did we go that way?  Pshaw - of course not!  We took the longest way possible and went the coastal route.  Along the way we came upon a fantastic place - an abandoned church with the gates open (woohoo!!)

Usually Karl and I like to visit old cemeteries and see how old the gravestones are, but this was a jewel find.  When we've seen buildings like this during our travels they are in fields or on private property so we can't get to them.  Some I would have loved to explore.  But we were in luck with this one.  We drove up the driveway and walked around and in this for about 30 minutes.  All the wood has deteriorated and grass and ivy have invaded the insides, but you could still see (in your imagination) how beautiful it would have been.  Out in the back was a gravestone and huge monument for the Lord High Bishop of Killala Co. who died in 1866.  Then we arrive at our B&B (about 5 hours later) and the owner tells us about another abandoned building just a 20 minute walk from the house.  Of course we couldn't pass that up.  So off we go walking down a dirt path among cow pastures and  horse pastures and come upon this:

 It is Clifden Castle of 1856.  Again it was abandoned and we spent about another 30 minutes walking around it.  It the floors were intact, it would have been a three floor residence.  We think it was more of a residence than a defensive castle because there were no windows for defense.  Most of the walls had lost the outer slate covering, but you could still see some of the slate higher up that showed a design on the walls.  Huge fireplaces were in the walls and you could see where the poles would have been to hold the floor in place.

The next day we went to the Aran Islands which I had missed going to the last time I was here.  The islands are off the southwest coast and consist of 3 islands, the largest being Inis Mor.  There are only 800 residents on this island, but during the summer holiday months the island increases to over 2000 per day!  The other two islands, Inis Meain and Inis Orr only have about 200 residents per island and they don't get the tourists like Inis Mor does.  We hired a pony cart to take us around the island (which is only 9 miles long and 2 miles wide) and we had a tour with Jack and his owner (we forgot to ask his name - doh!)  If you aren't sure what a pony cart is, watch the movie The Quiet Man with John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara - she drives a pony cart.  Anyway, Jack and his owner took us up to Dun Aonghasa fort which is a semi-circular Celtic stone fort built by Celtic tribesmen  about 2000 B.C.  The fort was built on the highest point on the island so that you could see all around you.  One side of it is sitting on sheer cliffs.

Here is a picture of Karl taking a picture of the cliffs.  Notice how close he is to the edge (without any railings or barriers!)

And this is what he was shooting!!!!

Tomorrow we are off to Waterford where I will hopefully get to the Crystal factory (which I also missed last time I was here because we arrived on Sunday.)

Rain, rain, rain. Oh, did I mention rain?

I love Ireland, but would I pack up and move here?  Nope, not on your life.  People keep saying that this year the weather has been worse than usual, but they also say that it always rains and is usually cloudy most of the time.  I can't stand being in Sacramento during the two winter months we are there because of the gloom so I can't even imagine living in a place where it is cloudy 80% of the time.  But, of course, that is why Ireland is called the Emerald Isle.  The green here is like an emerald color everywhere you look.  There is never a brown spot to be seen unless it is a field that has just been plowed.  Everything is lush and full.  Now on to our journey.

Like I said in the title - the last two days it rained almost the whole time.  Not a downpour all the time, but drizzle one minute, rain the next, then a downpour next.  Needless to say it dampened our ability to do a lot of walking without the umbrella.  But being the intrepid travelers we are, we solidered on.  After leaving the Giant's Causeway (wasn't that a cool place to see?) we continued on to Londonderry for the night.  But before we arrived at Derry we just had to stop at Malin Head.  That is the northernmost point of Ireland.  So we went as far as we can in Ireland on this trip.

Now Londonderry is very unusual place because it is divided by a river and on one side it is called Derry and the other side is called Londonderry .  Unfortunately we didn't explore the city at all because it was rained too hard by the time we got there. But we stayed in a beautiful old B&B for the night.  It was built in 1897 and is divided in half where one side is a B&B with 3 bedrooms and the other side is the private residence.  The hosts, Michael and Ann, were great!  They welcomed you like you were family.  That's the way to run a B&B!

The next morning it was still raining (surprise!) and we motored down to Donegal town.  What we are trying to do whenever we can is take a coastal route to see the west coast of Ireland and today was no exception.  After checking into our hotel we grabbed the umbrella and off we went.  We explored the town as much as we could with the rain then returned to the hotel to grab a pint and some dinner.  This hotel was a very modernistic one.  It's called The Glasshouse and the front is covered in glass.  It really looks out of place in this old Irish town, but it was comfortable - except that our room was lime green!


Anyway, the next morning it was drizzling, but we decided to visit the Donegal Castle which was just up the road from the hotel.  Our trip to the next town was a very short time so we had to try and  waste time.  But the castle was a very cool place to see.  It was lived in until the late 1600's when the owner was given a different piece of land farther down south which he decided to move his family too.  Him and part of the roof too!  It seems during those times there was what was called a roof tax and when you had a roof put on your house you were taxed for the amount of roof you used (go figure).  Anyway the owner took part of the castle's roof to put on his new house and that left the castle pretty much open to the elements for over 300 years.  When the trust took it over in the 1980's they replaced the roof and started restoring the castle.  Part of it is still without a roof.  I also had to include this picture of a 17th century toilet.

We stopped in Sligo that night and found out that this town really loves W.B. Yeats.  They even have a statue in the center of town for him.  He was born in Dublin, but spent his childhood holidays there all the time.

THE CELTIC TWILIGHT

by

W. B. YEATS





    Time drops in decay
    Like a candle burnt out.
    And the mountains and woods
    Have their day, have their day;
    But, kindly old rout
    Of the fire-born moods,
    You pass not away.

The next day was partly sunny with very little rain (yay!!!!!)  Off we went to our next stop which was Westpot.  One the was there we stopped at a place called Ceide (Kayja) Fields.  It is a neolithic site that has been excavated to discover the walls and dwellings of people who lived in Ireland over 6,000 years ago.  The picture below shows the ring of what was once a residence.  They have discovered that there are stone walls in this field alone that cover 135 acres!  But they have also  discovered more walls and tombs as far away as 45 miles to the south and 20 miles to the north.  It is a huge field. 

Westport was once a sea port, but has since turned into a tourist town.  The shops are quaint and the pubs are plentiful with music filling the streets.  Tomorrow we are off to Clifden.

......We Are On Our Own Now

HEY!  Bet you thought I forgot all about my readers, didn't you?  No, not true.  We have been busy for the last few days and would come back to our B&B totally whipped.  But we did make great finds.

Our main reason for going up to Northern Ireland was to do research on our family trees.  We didn't find a whole lot to actually hold in our hands, but we hope to have some things mailed to us back home.  So let's start from the beginning.  Karl had a lot more info about his great grandfather, but he did have some holes to fill and I didn't have a lot of info on mine, but hoped to find anything I could.  We did discover that to find most information you really needed to know what church they belonged to, what townland-parish-and county they lived in and what dates you were looking for.  So we started on Karl's first.  When his aunt died he found an obit of his great-grandfather and another Hutchinson (Robert) that he was told by two other aunts that was no relation to his family.  Well, we found a genealogist who looked into the info that Karl had and found out that Robert was probably a brother to his great-grandfather that the family wouldn't acknowledge (soap opera time).  And he also found out that the story he was told about his great-grandfather rowing a boat over from Scotland to Ireland didn't happen because a Carlisle Hutchinson was shown as leasing property in Armagh Co. as far back as 1850 and a Samuel Hutchinson on the same land as early as 1830.  So he now needs to see which Carlisle was still in Ireland at this time - great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather.  Plus to find out who Robert really was.  THEN the genealogist's found the land that was leased and showed us where is was in comparison to today's map.  We did find the land, but there wasn't anyway we could get closer because it was about 1.5 acres back in a field full of barley.  I told him that there wasn't a crop growing and the land was just dirt I would have gone exploring, but I didn't think the farmer would have appreciated my walking through his crop.

I wasn't so lucky.  I didn't have enough info for anyone to even start looking so I have ordered copies of my great-grandfather's marriage license and then I can see who his father was, what church he was married in and all the other stuff they need.  Then I have the contact of a lady in Ballymena who will check for me when I get the info to her.  So after two and a half days of research we decided to take a bus tour of Belfast.  It was very enlightening to see how the city is still divided.  There is actually a wall circling part of the city to separate the two major problem neighborhoods.  One is called Shankill and they are totally Unionlist which means they want Ireland to be united as one country, but the other area is called Falls and they are completely Nationalists and they want to keep Northern Ireland as part of the UK.  In Falls they have murals that depict a lot of our protesters and radical leaders who fought for one cause or another.  They hang the Union Jack proudly on homes, light posts, and drape across the street.  It's really crazy to see.

After we did the tour it was close to traffic jam time so we decided to stay in town for dinner and wait for the traffic to clear out.  We were directed to the oldest pub in Belfast,  White's Tavern was opened in 1630!  And has been operating continually the whole time.

 

Today we took off from Belfast and drove the Causeway Coastal Road.  It follows the coastline from Belfast, east, to the north and takes you to the Giants Causeway (more on that in a moment).  Any way, our first stop was at Carrickfergus Castle in the town of Carrickfergus.

 

The castle used to be the home of the Earls of Ulster, which is what Northern Ireland is called.  The first part of the castle was built in the early 1100's and was used until World War II.  It is almost completely intact except for a tower that has deteriorated.

Our next stop was Torr Head.  If you look closely at the picture you might see a building on the very tip of the outcropping.  That is where you are the closest to Scotland, only 12 miles away.  And I climbed that thing too!

Then we got to a place called Carrick-a-rede rope bridge.  It is a 30 meter deep and 20 meter long chasm that connects a small island to the shore.  It was erected by salmon fishermen years ago.  Did I go over it?  Not on your bloody life!!!!!!!

 Our last stop was at the Giant's Causeway.  It's a unique rock formation on the seashore that looks like someone put paving stones down for decoration.  But since it is in Ireland there is a story behind it (of course).  As the story goes - a long, long time ago an Irish giant named Finn MacCool was creating the coastline of Ireland when he was challenged to a fight by a Scottish giant named Benandonner.  Finn accepted and built the causeway so that he could walk to Scotland.  Well, when he went over he spied on the Benandonner and saw that this guy was HUGE!!!  So he ran back to Ireland and told his wife, Una.  Well, Una (being the smart woman that she was) she dressed Finn in baby clothes and put him in a large cradle.  When Benandonner came to see where Finn was, Una told him that Finn wasn't there right then, but would love to introduce him to their baby.  Beneandonner freaked out when he saw the "baby" and assumed that if the "baby" was this big, Finn must be enormous so he ran back to Scotland destroying the stones as he ran so that the giant Finn couldn't come over and get him.  Either way, fable or fact, the formations made by volcanic flows are amazing!

End of Ireland Motorcycle Tour 2013, But ..........

Again we were a few days without Internet so I have to cover  more than one day here.  Bear with me, ok?

We arrived in Killarney Friday, wet, cold and ready to stay in one place for a few days.  We met up with other Blue Knights that came over from the continent for their convention which our tour included.  So our group of 174 people swelled to over 200, but it was good to meet new people and see other friends that we knew.  On Saturday we took off for another ride since the weather turned good again.  This day we went around the Ring of Kerry.  I'm sure everyone has heard of the Ring and how you should see it when you are in Ireland.  Well, this was the second time I had been around it and I have to say that the Ring of Beara and Slea Head Drive are much, much prettier.  Those two rides get you closer to the coastline of the rugged Irish west coast and the Ring of Kerry takes you through more of the countryside.  But the reason that one is so popular and famous is because that is the road that is wide enough for buses to take tourists on.  The roads to the other two are only good for cars and motorcycles.

 All along the roads we traveled we found cows and sheep - lots and lots of sheep and cows.  Well, on this ride I couldn't help but take a picture of this little one snuggled next to Mum.

After we said goodbye to the Blue Knights at the convention on Sunday our small group of 9 bikes took off for the town of Galway to spend the night.  And, of course, like the pattern, it was rainy and cold again.  But we just suited up as best we could and we took off.  We ended up taking a ferry across the bay with cars and, as you can see, a very large bus.

After the ferry ride we headed off to the Cliffs of Moher.  These cliffs are 700 feet tall and 5 miles long.  If we had better weather we probably could have seen the famous puffins that nest there, but they were the smart ones and were out of the rain.  The cliffs got their name from a ruined promontory fort "Mothar" which was demolished during the Napoleonic wars to make room for a signal tower at Hag's Head.

After making it to Galway last night we took off today for Dublin in, you guessed it, good weather.  It seems that every other day is rain.  Tonight we said goodbye to our new friends from Virginia as they fly home tomorrow and we continue on to Northern Ireland by ourselves.  So even though the motorcycle tour is over we continue in a car for the next two weeks on our own, so stay tuned.

What's Ireland Without Some Rain?

As you can tell we haven't had internet for three days so I've got a lot to catch up on with this blog.  Someone said to me the other day that the previous blogs have been rather short, so I think this one will make up for it.

Tuesday we left Kinsale and were set to arrive in Rosscarbery that night after sight-seeing that day.  Our first stop was to Blarney castle where everyone had to kiss the Blarney stone.  I decided not to climb up the narrow castle steps with the throngs of people since I already did that 15 years ago and Karl didn't think he could climb all the way with his bad leg.  So we waited until our group did the kissing thing and talked with other people that were waiting for their own group.  The ride wasn't too bad this time with the threat of rain, but not much really fell. 



Our next stop was to a vantage point where we saw how people who lived on Dursey Island got to and from there.  Dursey Island is a small island off the coast and the only way to get to the island is by the cable car.  But not only are people transported that way, but sheep and cows are lifted by a hoist and put on a barge that takes them to the island.  Not too bad right?  Except that the water they have to travel over is choppy and not smooth most of the time.

On Wednesday we traveled from Rosscarbery to Kenmare in the driving rain.  There are some pictures, but very few since most of the day the rain was very heavy.  I had on long johns, t-shirt heavy jacket, jeans, outer protective pants, boots and socks.  Everything got soaked!  The only part of me that wasn't wet was a small spot from my knee to the middle of the thigh!  But here I do have to brag.  Many people who ride motorcycles know about the "Tail of the Dragon".  That is a stretch of road in Deal's Gap, North Carolina where in 11 miles you do 318 curves - a motorcyclist dream!  But here is my bragging part.  On this day's ride we were on roads no bigger than a cow's path, barely paved, room enough for one car, but is two way traffic, not a straight road in sight, in the rain and on the wrong side of the road!  So take THAT you tail of the dragon riders!  You ain't got nuthin' on us!  This picture shows one the the better paved roads.

On Thursday we were on to Dingle and it was a beautiful ride!  Partly cloudy, but mostly blue skies shined on us.  We drove through some amazing countryside with the farms dotting the green hills and the fields being separated by either a stonewall or hedgerows.  Then we were at the coastline, which reminded Karl and I of the California coastline on the Pacific Coast Highway.  We road around an area called Slea Head Drive with follows the coastline for quite a while.  Most of the road is about the sharp cliffs and gives a dramatic backdrop to our riding.  We couldn't have asked for a better day of riding to see this beauty of Ireland.

Today we rode straight from Dingle to Killarney because, again, we were in hard rain.  We are here for two days before we travel to Galway on our own (with our original group) since the official tour has ended today.  We hope to have better weather this weekend so that we can enjoy the Killarney area.

Phew!  I think I have made up for the short posts this time, don't you think?

What a Ride!

On Saturday our group assembled in the lobby of our hotel to get ready to go to Celtic Rider where we were going to rent our motorcycles and gear.  We were going to be shuttled there by our hosts, Ireland I chapter of the Blue Knights.  After our "transporter" got there we had to wait a while for the other person to bring another car around since not everyone would fit in the first vehicle.  Not a joke,but this is what we rode down in to get our bikes.

After we rode the bikes back to the hotel we went to dinner at a very unique restaurant called The Church.  Why is it called that?  Well, believe it or not it is a bar and restaurant in an old church - it stills has the organ pipes in the walls.  Dinner was very good and the group was even better.  We had people from Calif.., Virginia and Utah with us.

The following day we took off for the ride to Kilkenny where the "official" tour would start.  We have over 170 participants that come from the US, England, Belgium, Norway, France, Germany, Poland, Scotland, Wales, and of course Ireland.  We first met in the courtyard of the Kilkenny Castle where we were "officially" sent off by the Lord High Mayor and a couple of newspaper.  It was kind of funny seeing all these modern motorcycles gathering in front of  an  11th century castle. 

We took of in groups and would meet up at different spots to sight-see or eat and then take off again.  One of the spots we stopped at was the Rock of Cashel - a medieval church where they are doing massive restoration of the building.

Many of the roads we were on were barely large enough to fit two cars so you can imagine our horror when this is what we encountered on one of those roads - 

Tonight we are in the town of Kinsale after a very rainy ride.  Water soaked through the suits and the temps were rather low so it was good to get to the hotel for a dry off and warm food.  Tomorrow we are off to Blarney Castle (yes, I already kissed the Blarney stone 15 years ago) and ending in Rosscarberry on the southern coast.  Forecast calls for more rain (blah).

 

It's beautiful in Ireland!

The weather here has been unbelievable!!!  Sunny and comfortable temperatures have followed us over from the US and everyone is loving it.

After arriving on Tue. we stayed awake as long as we could so that we could adjust to the time change - so off we went on a bus tour on the Hop On-Hop Off line.  That is the best way to become familiar with a new city.  They run a specific route pointing out important places to see for a price and that includes 2 days.  We just rode around the first day and then figured out where we wanted to stop and see the next day.  Our first stop was, of course, at the Guinness Factory at St. James's Gate.

 Over 200 years ago, Sir Arthur Guinness started brewing a special type of beer on 40 acres that he signed a lease for 9000 years.  You read that right, 9 thousand years, for $45 a month!  The factory tour gives you a great insight into how the beer is "created" and why it is so special.  It took us about 2 hours to go through the museum and some of the exhibits weren't even open.  So you can imagine how much longer it could have taken.  And for those who asked me to have a Guinness for them - here you go!

 In my hands are a certificate for pouring a picture pint of Guinness and the actual pint!  Didn't spill a drop, didn't slop over the side and had the perfect size foam head.  Now I'm an expert.  Oh yeah, tasted good too!

Our next stop was at the Kilmainham Gaol.  This prison was built in 1796 and was in service until 1924.  All of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Uprising (which lead to the War for Independence) were jailed and executed there.  The walls were thick and the cells were small.  Windows were dinghy and the whole place was cold.  Not a great place to be.

This is the "great room" where there was three floors of cells with about 30 cells per floor.  The staircase shown was for the guards because it was large and straight and the guards could run quickly down in case of any disruption.

This spiral staircase, on the opposite side of the straight stairs were for the inmates because it was impossible to move quickly down them, hence they couldn't rush the guards.  They went down into the floor where the kitchen was located.







Tonight we went to The Brazen Head Pub which is the oldest pub in Dublin (1198) for dinner and a show that talked about food, folklore and faeyres.  It was a good time with good friends.

Tomorrow we are off to rent the motorcycles for our tour that starts on Sunday.  Hopefully the weather will co-operate.

New Travel Chapter - But First, A Message From The Travel Imps

Well, folks, the travel blog is up and running again for a few weeks. On the 3rd of June we are departing from Sacramento to the green isle know as Ireland. We will be returning on the 2nd of July just in time for the 4th celebration. But, as usual, the travel imps had struck again.

 For those of you who are regular readers of this blog, you will always see that the travel imps do something to make us a little uneasy, scared, angry, downright p*@!ed right before we plan on leaving to go any where. Let's preface this story by telling you that we had no idea that the imps were in waiting and if we didn't have so many places we go to and have vehicles at we never would have suspected anything wrong until the VERY LAST MINUTE! I'm talking about probably the night before we were to leave.

Anyway, we were busy getting clothing lists, itinerary, hotels, motorcycle rental, etc. together so that it would be a seamless trip. HA!!!! We keep a car (Karl's late aunt's car) stored in his cousin's barn up in WA so that when we are up there in the summer or if Karl had to go up there he/we would have transportation. Well, his cousin usually takes "the Beast" out once in a while and keeps the battery charged for us. This year they have been so busy themselves that they really didn't have time to do that so his cousin, Marilyn called and asked if Karl had any plans for the Beast. Ironically we were just talking about bringing the Beast down to CA so in case we needed a car that would fit 4 or more people. Our car only fits 2. So Karl decides to fly up to WA and pick up the Beast and drive her back down to CA. He makes his airline reservations, figures out what he will need to take, how long the trip will be to drive back, etc. Now this is around May 15/16 or so and he is flying out on the 19th. When we fly we always use our passports for ID instead of worrying about pulling out our licenses. He starts to pack a few things and he can't find his passport! We tear the house apart and can't find them anywhere. Panic sets in because we are leaving for overseas in 3 weeks! Immediately we wrack our brains on where we used them last and we both remember using them to fly to Texas, but can't remember seeing them after that. We did remember that we flew out of Phoenix to ABQ because our motorcycle was at the NM house. So we called a Blue Knight friend that lives in NM that watches our house and stores his camper trailer in our garage for the summer. We had that poor man go back 3 times to check places out that we thought the passports would be. Sometimes asking him to recheck places again. In the meantime, Karl takes off to WA and I start the process of getting an appointment to go to SF to get a new passport. He gets back from the drive and we start checking the CA house again for two days before we have to ride up to Boise for the Memorial Day weekend gathering of the Blue Knights. Our appointment was for 10:30am on the 29th of May. Since we were going down to SF to get them and they were on an expedite status each passport was going to cost us $190 - A PIECE! But there wasn't anything we could do. Now we are back from Boise, the 27th, and Karl thinks we packed them in a large plastic tub I keep for the afghans I crochet for the Children's Hospital, but it was emptied out already. Karl thinks he may have put them in a small make-up case we put his aunt's jewelry in and stored it in the gun safe. Nope, not there. Then as he is about to put the case back, he looks off to the side of the shelf and there, up against the side of the black safe, between some papers are the passports!

Now hopefully the travel imps are happy for causing us such grief and they will let us leave without any more problems.

Copenhagen, Denmark

We were finally on solid ground for a week in the capital of Denmark after dismebarkingthe ship around 9am. Grabbing a taxi we stuffed our luggage long with our friends, Tom and Debbie and their luggage and took off to the apartment we were staying at. Tom did some homework and found a great two bedroom apartment in the heart of the city. The first day we got settled, unpacked and took a stroll down the canal that was next to our apartment. The area is called Nyhaven which means New Harbor, but is really the oldest harbor in the city. It used to be a "naughty" place where sailors would take shore leave to drink, eat and "other activities" (wink, wink). Now it's a posh place to meet friends, have dinner or a drink and live. The next day we met our host couple Karl was emailing through his police connections. Rene and Marjbritte were great hosts and showed us many places in Copenhagen, how to get around town on the buses and what we should see while we were there. They took us on a walking tour and gave us a great introduction to this wonderful city. It's a mixture of old and new and seems to be a very vibrant and clean city. The following day we walked to the Rosesnborg Palace which is now a museum, but was once the summer home of the royal family. The rooms are furnished with items from the fisrt king, Christian IV to Frederick VI. Plus the crown jewels are stored there. In fact, one of the displays for the royal christening outfit was out because the Queen's grandchild is being christened this Sunday.

The weather was on and off most of the time we were here, but it didn't deter us from exploring. This day we went on a bus tour of the city called the Hop-On, Hop-Off bus. What a way to see a city! It takes you around most of the important sights and lets you get off to visit for a while and then catch the next bus and continue on your tour. We were taken to the harbor where one of the most recognizable symbols of Denmark is - The Little Mermaid. This poor girl has had her head cut off three times and her arm once. Thank goodness they still have the original mold so that they can remake whatever body part is taken.

I'm sorry, but I had to take a picture of something very unusual to us, but seems common place to Europe- a public bathroom! That's right - a bathroom underground in the central plaza. Go figure!

Okay, on with our tour. Did you know that Sweden is only 17 miles from Copenhagen? We didn't either until we found out that it is connected by a tunnel and a bridge! Well guess where we went? You got it - we went to Sweden for the day. The cute town of Malmo is just across the channel and we had a wonderful time walking the streets and seeing the old buildings and the outdoor restaurants. We had a great Japanese lunch in one of these places and were very warm and comfortable because they have heaters between the tables and blankets on the chairs for us. Our final day we went with Rene and Marjbritte to the coastal town of Dragoer, prounounced Drower. It is a quaint fishing village that hasn't changed in many years. Fishing boats still sail out of the harbor for their daily run and bring the day's catch back to the shoreline so that they can sell the catch fresh. Houses are still thatched roofed and the streets are still small and cobblestoned. In fact the houses aren't really big either.

Well,folks, we are traveling back to the USA tomorrow. I hope you have enjoyed taking this journey with us and maybe we have peaked your inner travel bug. Our next adventure will be June of next year when we go back to Ireland for a motorcycle tour with the Blue Knights.

Land of Fjords

On our information sheet that Princess always gives us the night before we get into our next port, they wrote this about Norway – SIZE: 125,020 square miles, slightly larger than New Mexico. Kinda nice to see your state mentioned since most of the time we are forgotten about.

Anyway, today we sailed into the beautiful land of Oslo. Oslo sits on the edge of a fjord and was first inhabited by seafarers since the 8th century. It was actually “founded” until 1048 by Harald Hardrade, the half-brother of St.Olav and is Scandinavia’s oldest capital. It is a beautiful city, very clean and orderly. There is a little graffiti, but not like Amsterdam.

We boarded our bus for the 90 minute ride to the Hadeland Glassworks to watch the master glass blower do his work. The pieces are absolutely stunning, but very expensive – too expensive for me. Plus they are so heavy it would put our luggage weight over-limit. And to ship it would cost around $100. So I was contented to just brose.

Our next stop was the Viking Ships Museum where there are three ships that were found in places called burial mounds. The most intact one was found in 1905, dated to be built in 900 and was the burial ship of a queen. There was a legend of such a ship with a lady buried with it, but no one looked for it until a farmer saw a piece of wood about 1 foot long sticking up out of his field. They found the skeleton of a woman in the burial house on the ship and realized what they had found. It was in great shape because of where it was buried the ground was mostly clay and compacted around the ship and kept it protected from the air. Our next stop will be Copenhagen where we are based for a week then we will be flying home.

City of Bikes

Our ship docked in Rotterdam, Netherlands this morning, but we were off early to drive to Amsterdam for the day. Amsterdam is a very interesting city and reminds me of what Venice would look like, since I have never been there. Canals are all through the city and they use it like we use streets. Taxis can take you everywhere you need to go. And bikes? OMG, bikes are everywhere! I heard that there are 10 million bikes in this city. And beware if you are walking anywhere. Bikes (and scooters) have their own path, but don’t care if you are in their way or not – they will run you over.

Our first part of the trip took us on a canal ride through the town. We saw many beautiful architecture and houses in bright colors and VERY close together. There was one house which claims to the be smallest in the city. It was 4 stories tall and only as wide as a picture window that we have in the states. Along the trip we went by Anne Franks’ house where she was in hiding for more than 18 months. The lines are usually hours long, but today it was only about a block long. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to go back to visit since we only had about 2 hours on our own. On the canals there were many houseboats – some really nice and others, well, let’s just say that they could improve them by taking them out of the canal and burn them. When we returned to the launch point we took a bus tour of about 45 minutes to see the city from the street side. Then we were on our own. Our first stop was for some lunch. Three of our party of four had the famous split pea soup. The fourth (me) didn’t want any part in that. Can’t stand it at home and didn’t want to eat it out. Our next stop was in the red light district per instructions from my son. “Mom, make sure you stop in and see.” Well I did and I was surprised. It’s like shopping for a piece of clothing – you look in the window to choose what “kind” of girl you want. Then we walked a little farther and came upon the famous “coffee houses”. You don’t drink the “coffee” there, but you do go and smoke weed instead. In fact they have stores that see “vision seeds” for you enjoyment. Most of the coffeehouses you can stand in the doorway and just get high from the smoke coming out of the store. But remember, prostitution and drug use is legal there. Unfortunately the city is full of graffiti because of how open they are.

Now for some trivia - just remember these and impress someone – Dutch windmills use to number over 10,00. Now there are only about 900 left and of those only 600 really work. Take a look at the blades on the mil – if they are in the + position it’s not working at the moment. If it’s in the X position that mill is out of commission and isn’t working anymore. The next day we are at sea steaming towards Oslo, Norway which is good because we need a day of rest.

Londontown

We woke up this morning to the beautiful white cliffs of Dover. Unfortunately because of the sun’s position we really didn’t get the full effect of the white chalk cliffs. They were more gray than white. But you can get the idea of what they would look like white.

We took a two hour bus trip into London to spend most of the day. I had been there more than 20 years ago, but wanted to see it again to see if anything changed. Nope – not a lot. The one thing we did do that I didn’t back then was take a river cruise. It was a great way to see some of the sights that you really can’t see from the land. It took about 2 hours and was a great time. One of the newest things was the “London Eye” which is a HUGE ferris wheel type thing. It has pods that holds about 30 people and turns very slowly so that you can see London from above. It takes 30 minutes to do a full revolution. It was built for the English millennium by British Airways.

As we were waiting on the boat to start the cruise I was lucky enough to get a film clip of Big Ben ringing the noon hour right above us. For those that don’t know – Big Ben is the bell in the tower of the Parliament building. Many think that the whole tower is called Big Ben. Again, we were too late to witness the changing of the guards . Here are the things we were able to see on our cruise: 1. Tower of London, which was built in 1078 as a fortress, royal residence, arsenal and prison. On the river is a now blocked entry gate to the tower called the “traitor’s gate.” If you went in most of the time you didn’t come out. 2. Tower Bridge, opened in 1894 which many people mistake for London Bridge. 3. The Mayflower (replica). The real Mayflower moored outside the building still in existence prior to sailing to America with the pilgrims (one of which was my ancestor). 4. Prospect of Whitby. One of the oldest pubs in London. Karl and some friends drank there when they were on a cruise and he was excited to see that it was still there. It was built in 1520. Tomorrow we are off the ship in Amsterdam.