UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND Part 3 of 44

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Ok on to Dublin....

Day 2 in Dublin, First Proper Guinness

The Dublin airport is no different than any other airport.  Planes depart, Planes arrive, people come, people go, there are signs in different languages to direct passengers.  So I noticed two languages as I walked through security and customs.  One was obviously English and the other was, well I didn't know, but I assumed it had to be a native language, so maybe Gaelic?  I would learn later in my trip that it in fact was Gaelic or Irish.  I arrived in Ireland at an interesting time because they were holding their country's elections and guess what was a topic of major debate?  You guessed it, mandatory Irish lessons for all students starting grade school.  One party wanted to make it optional due to budget constraints and another party deemed it necessary for the Irish identity and the tourism industry. Gaelic/Irish lessons are a big draw for Ireland as their are 88 million people around the world that claim Irish descent.  I thought that was interesting as I made my way to the very touristy area of Temple Bar which is basically one large tourist trap made up of pubs, bars, more pubs and restaurants, oh and the occasional gift shop right connected to a pub.  So I'm pretty much in the thick of it, especially with my hotel being named Temple Bar Hotel.  I couldn't avoid the trap even if I wanted to.  But I had to head to the Brazen Head, supposedly Dublin's oldest pub, for the Irish Cultural Dinner led by Johnny.  We would get a traditional Irish meal while hearing stories about Ireland's history and customs.

Here's my Irish Beef stew...

Hmm Hmmm Good!

And here's Johnny telling one of his many stories.

Over the course of two hours, I learned so much about Ireland history that I wish I had taken notes but this is what I remember.  Ireland being on the edge of Europe, was one of the last places in Europe to be exposed to Christianity by Archbishop Patrick (later St. Patrick) and the Industrial Revolution.  Ireland also had also been conquered by the Vikings (200 years) and later the British (800 years) and their history had been suppressed or relegated to "underground" storytelling.  Because Christianity came to Ireland so late, they held on to their story's of mysticism and magic longer than their European counterparts.  These stories are still alive with us today in the form of St. Patrick banishing all the snakes from Ireland or a small childlike creature or as we would call him a Leprechaun, that had a hidden treasure or pot of gold.  I especially like the Leprechaun story.  Supposedly there are stories about all types of fairies and creatures but the Leprechaun story has been commercialized the most.  Legend has it, if you were able to sneak up behind a Leprechaun and say "I have caught you, now show me your gold" the Leprechaun would take you to his hidden treasure and you'd be rich.  During the British occupation, less than 1% of the Irish population owned property.  All the land was owned by 8,000 British nationals and their land was leased out to the Irish citizens, who then payed their debts with their crops.  Legend also has it that if you caught a Leprechaun, got his gold, and instead of paying your debt with crops you paid with gold and you received all the land as well.  The English landlord would open the bag and the gold would turn to dust.  Legend has it.  

In most european countries I visit, there is one or two events that really have an impact on it's culture. Most times it's WWII.  In Ireland, it's the potato famine.  Over the course of 200 years or so, the potato became THE Industry in Ireland and the country relied heavily on it.  When the blight hit, half of potato crop was wiped out.  In essence it was the potato bubble.  At the time, the population of Ireland was 8 million. Over the course of the next 80 years, the population would decrease to  4 million.  Thus the term, Ireland's greatest export is it's people. In one year there were 20,000 people living in Toronto, Canada and the next year, more than 35,000 Irish had migrated to Toronto.  Today there are about 5 million people living in Ireland.  The Irish migrated to places like Boston, New York, Chicago, and Baltimore and quickly found politics.  Legend has it that in every household in Ireland there were two pictures hanging in Irish house a picture of the Pope and picture of JFK.  If Kennedy could be President, then any Irishmen could do anything!

A few days later, I heeded all my friends advice and decided to take a bus tour of Wicklow.  If you've seen the movie P.S I Love you, you've probably heard of the Wicklow or if you've seen Braveheart, you've probably seen the natural beauty of the Wicklow.  Our tour guide was absolutely the best.  I got to the pick-up location early but wanted to find a restroom as I didn't know how long I would be on the bus before we made pit stop.  I returned to the bus with a hot chocolate in hand and politely asked, "Am I good if I bring a drink on the bus?"  He responded "As long as it's a Guinness, you can bring anything you want on this bus!"  For seven hours he showed us the beautiful Wicklow, Glencree and St. Kevin's Monastery.  Wicklow means Meadow of the Vikings and Glencree is Valley of the River/Two rivers/Heart.  It was truly a magical experience and I'm forever grateful for the stories and history that our guide shared with us.  He told us stories about Paul Hewson meeting Bill Gates in a hotel on the outskirts of Dublin to discuss Medical and Food aide to impoverished nations.  Paul Hewson is better known as Bono. 

Here are some of the pictures from my tour...

So much love near the Love Bridge

Largest Pint of Guinness near the Guinness estate

Place one hand on when enter and two when you leave

33 Meters High in honor of Jesus

Roof is all stone, only one of its kind.

Meeting of Two Rivers...that's the real name. 

Don't fall in!

We aslo went to Glencree, a former Military Barracks, turned into a prison, turned into a school, turned into the Glencree Centre for Reconciliation.  The Center was originally founded to address the ongoing war between Ireland and Northern Ireland.  Notice the trees planted by government officials.  My wife and I have been given the green light to plant a tree in honor of our grandparents.

Represents the two conflicting sides of Ireland and Northern Ireland...one day hopefully they will be one.

A few of us from my tour group met up for a few "proper" Guinness and some of us just couldn't hang like they used to!

On that note, off to London.

UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND Part 2 of 44

As I mentioned in earlier blogs, I really fell hard for Ireland, well at least the areas of Ireland that I visited.  I feel that my simple words won't do Dublin and it's surrounding areas justice but I'll put forth a valiant effort to share my new found love for this mystical and charming place the Irish call home. I left for Ireland on a Saturday.  My dear friends, Mark and Jocelyn, and I left for Zurich Flughafen (airport) going to different places.  I was going to Dublin and they were going back stateside, after spending nearly two weeks in Italy and Switzerland.  I typically don't do a great deal of planning when I travel because that's just not my style and I prefer to wander around town as if I'm not really a tourist. Also, my wife tends to do most of the touristy planning.  For example on my 30th birthday, she took me to Paris and we literally walked for seven hours straight one day!  Seven hours is a long time, even for me, the person that walked around Amsterdam aimlessly for five hours. But for this trip I decided to be a full blown tourist and booked a few touristy type things.  My first adventure would be a cultural dinner at Dublin's oldest bar, the Brazen head, led by Johnny of Irishfolktours.  My next touristy trip would be a guided bus tour through Wicklow and it surrounding areas.  Little did I know that I was going to have an adventure before I even arrived in Dublin.

As usual, I arrived at the airport with about an hour or so to spare.  And with no checked luggage, I feel very comfident about relaxing before my trip.  So when I saw that my flight is delayed by thirty minutes, I think in head, "no worries, this will be ok"  But when I saw that the delay was caused by strong winds, I immediately thought, "now see, this isn't even funny!"  Delays are one thing but when it involves wind, that just involves all types of variables that my brain can't even comprehend into the equation.  Two things to note.  1.  I took an atmospheric sciences course in undergrad to fulfill my science lab requirement, basically Meteorology 101.  It was either that or Rocks for Jocks and I chose the tougher of the two.  After AP Biology and AP chemistry in high school, I was pretty much done with science classes.  But anyway, we learned all about updrafts and downdrafts in regards to wind and how pilots completely duff landings, approaches, and take offs because they're not reading their gauges appropriately in heavy winds.  2.  I'm that guy on the plane.  I try to hide it most times but i'm definitely that guy.  You know what guy I'm talking about...sweaty palms, yells "WHOA" at the sign of turbulence and gives you  the "We're all going to die" stare when the pilot asks the flight attendants to sit due to turbulence.  #2 actually get's better the more I fly and the shorter the flight is.  So if I fly every week or every other week or short distances, like in my old job, then I get used to it and can handle the short flights.  After our 30 minute delay we board and then they immediately tell us that our flight is being held for another hour due to wind in London.  I forgot to mention this but my flight was to London and I was going to hop on a different carrier for the trip to Dublin.  It would have been easier to fly direct to Dublin, then to London and then back to Zurich but my wife wanted me ride on the plane back from London with her.  So basically she was asking a person that doesn't like scary movies to go see Friday the 13th and Paranormal Events on the same day.  What's an extra flight for love, no?  I had a very small window to land in London and get my next plane to Dublin and this wind delay was not helping at all or so I thought.  I think it's funny too that the pilot kept making announcements stating that he had good news and that we were being bumped up by 10 or 20 minutes.  Each time I looked at my watch and it always added up to us leaving an hour late.  How can I trust a Pilot who tells me that we're going to be leaving 10 minutes earlier than expected and now our take off time is X and not X minus 10.  Are we flying at 42,000 feet or 22,000 feet?  Another thing that didn't help was that someone got sick on our plane and had to be removed and of course she had checked luggage. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  So there's another 20 minutes to do a security sweep of the luggage and allow the ambulance to remove her from the plane.  There goes my connection to Dublin and there goes my Cultural Dinner reservation.

In my head, I'm thinking that I'll need to pull a serious O.J through the airport to catch my connecting flight and hope that they hold the gates open a little longer than usual.  Not the bad white bronco O.J or the kick in the door in Vegas give me the loot gangsta style O.J but the O.J that was a commercial icon and movie star.  They are two different people.  It's like Michael Jackson and Jackson 5. I'll just leave it at that for now.  The landing approach was brutal, I was so preoccupied with getting all my belongings that I didn't even worry about the plane flying sideways or the bumpy approach.  Exiting the plane, I was on a mission to find my Aer Lingus flight location and to board the plane.  Let the sprinting begin.  I got a serious workout running through Heathrow.  I guess I was hoping that my plane would be 2 minutes away, which makes no sense because it was a completely different airline and kind of (yes kind of...) going to a completely different country.  What I wasn't expecting was to have to go through security again and then get attitude from the Aer Lingus clerk.  She just pointed over her head and said something inaudible.  So I started running again and the signs said that my plane was a 15 minute walk away, so basically at my sprinter's pace I should make it there in 13 minutes.  Heathrow is a maze.  Seriously, it's like they built this airport in 1950 and told themselves that no way in hell is London going to grow and then after it started to grow and expand, they just started adding Chutes and Ladders.  For all I knew, I was going to end up back at the Aer Lingus clerk's desk.  Okay, I'm making good progress....G1-10...G11-20....G21-30...G61-70....G8f and G8e....WHAT!?!?! Where are the 80's, I'm going to 83  My flight is going to leave because I'm stuck in airport purgatory!  An airport attendant told me that this is a common mistake people make and that if I walk a little ways back in THAT direction and make a left at the door that doesn't look like an entrance to anything and THAT would be G81-90.  Ok, I don't have time to argue this point either, so off I went to more winding and turning and finally to my gate.  

DELAYED due to wind.

I could have been frustrated but I was just happy the plane was still in London.  I'm was there, the plane was there, we were there together and that allowed me to relax.  At least for 30 minutes or so.  Then we boarded and then we landed in Dublin.  All in a day's work for me I guess.

Next up Dublin...I seriously planned on talking about Dublin this blog but then I got distracted by my misadventures in life and you know how I can ramble on.