Ireland Family Vaca - Sept 2011

Here's the map of our trek through Ireland.

Ireland, Day 9 - How to get the perfect creamy head

By the time Sunday rolled around, we averaged about 20K steps a day (or 8-12 miles of walking) and it showed. All of our feet hurt, and we had packed in some long days, so we decided to chill out and sleep in a little. Alarms were set for a lazy 9 am, and everyone was ready about 10:30 or so. After having a tasty breakfast of potato waffles (yes, potato waffles - unclear if they were waffles made out of potatos or hash browns shaped like waffles) we were off to the Guinness Storehouse - the last thing to do on our extensive “things to see in Dublin” list. Luckily we alloted plenty of time because this place was HUGE and we were quickly sucked into the marketing extravaganza. We walked around the building like zombies with our eyes swirling in a clockwise direction, arms out in front of us stiff, and a blank look on our face while we chanted “we love Guinness, we love Guinness...”.
But really, it was a cool interactive 7 story display of the history of Guinness, brewing process, marketing/advertising history, food and bars with live music, and even a room where we learned how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness - complete with the creamy head. We have a certificate with our name on it to prove it (Megan had to forge hers since her pour was far from perfect, bummer). And of course, no trip to the Guinness store house is complete without a 30 minute tour of the gift shop and lunch at the restaurant (where we ironically ordered Smithwicks).
After we left the Guinness tour, we drove over to see Powerscourt Townhouse, which was closed by the time we got their on Saturday. Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to expectations (don’t even bother going) and we left quickly after arriving. The street it is on, however, is lively and could be a nice place to grab a snack or lunch if you have time.
After Powerscourt, we drove back to the apartment for an afternoon nap and packing up (early flight didn’t leave time to pack in the morning). Everyone was exhausted, so we decided to take the Laus to the same stop as the restaurant we ate at on Saturday. We went to the first decent restaurant we found, Cactus Jacks, which was a little Mexican place. It was good, but probably not very authentic. We had a relatively quick meal, and headed back home. However, at the Luas stop we discovered Wifi and Mark wanted to skip the coming train to try to call his GF since they had barely talked the whole week - who could blame the guy? We all agreed that we didn’t mind waiting 10 minutes for the next train. As soon as it pulled away, this guy appeared from no where and started talking to us. Except, we didn’t understand a thing he said - he likely had some mental illness. Megan was positioned to push him into the train tracks since he keeps reaching for his pocket - she was scared he was going to knife her dad (he took a fancy for Don and became good buds with him) until he finally found the pocket he was looking for and pulled out a flask of vodka. After that, we assumed he was just wasted out of his mind and didn’t mean any harm. However, he followed us onto Luas, and kept “talking” to Dad, until crazy guy #2 came out of no where and joined the conversation - offering guy #1 a 40. Dad had became such good buds with guy #1, he got the 40 - his lucky night! We got off a stop early to try to take advantage of Dad’s buddy being distracted by #2 - but to no avail. He followed us off and got really angry when he couldn’t walk fast enough to keep up with us. Somehow we lost our tail and got to the apartment without further confrontation. Last time we’ll ever let Mark try to make a phone call.
And that is how we ended our trip to Ireland. The next day we were on an airplane, barely missing Hurricane Katia (which luckily turned into a tropical depression or something).
Oh, one more note - as we were boarding the plane Megan kept poking me but I had no idea what she was talking about. It happened that the woman in front of us was an actress on The Tudors, Sarah Bolger, who played Princess Mary (Megan wasn’t positive at the time but saw her name on her boarding documents and checked when we landed). Megan was obviously kind of excited about this, but her mom REALLY wanted to see her. However, she was sitting in first class and we had to figure out a way to get her mom up front to see her without looking completely obvious - and the prefect opportunity presented itself when we were directed to go upfront to ask the first class lady for drinks because they were out in the back. However, it took 3-4 tries for her mom to figure out which seat Sarah was in (and an additional attempt because someone in the front cabin passed out on the floor and had a semi-medical emergency) but eventually her mom saw her. We caught Mom walking through the cabin at least one more time being a star stalker :)

Ireland, Day 8 - A Day in Dooblen

We got up early and ran out to get everyone bagels at the bagel shop we had seen nearby. Unfortunately, it was still closed at 8 am, so we went to the shopping market across the way to get groceries for breakfast. We paid 50 cents for a plastic bag to hold them (oof) and then carted them up to our apartment. YAY CITY LIVING!
After breakfast (and a long time of ironing Mark’s newly washed jeans to try to dry them since we had no idea how to work the washer/dryer machine), we took the Luas down to the stop closest to the city center which is still a good 10 minute walk. Our first stop was at Trinity College for a tour of the grounds and to see the Book of Kells. The college itself was very crowded with many tour groups passing through and a wedding at the chapel. It was weird to me that it cost money for the college tour (Megan’s note: the tour actually was actually free because it offset the admission into the Book of Kells - this way we got a campus tour AND saw the Book of Kells - BOOM). Imagine paying for one of your college admission tours at a school you visited. It still was worth it and the writing on the sets of old books they had was amazing. We of course hit the gift shop before heading out towards Dublin Castle.
Mark and I decided to detour to get an ethernet cable so we could use the “free” internet at our apartment. After leaving the store, we booked it to Dublin Castle and ended up there before Megan and her parents. Unfortunately, Megan had lost her fitbit pedometer. There had been signs at the Book of Kells to watch out for pickpockets and Megan kept it on the outside of her pants so we thought someone had swiped it that way. She was bummed out and after her parents got tickets, we were hanging around on benches when I noticed that her fitbit was caught on the top of our paper bag from the gift shop. Talk about lucky! It was so close to falling off yet it had hung on a good 15 minute walk to the castle. The castle tour was pretty cool. The buildings are still in service today and they were prepping them for their presidential election. It was still beautiful and we also got to see the base of the castle (dug up after Hurricane Andrew’s impact took down the existing building) and thoughtful excavation some years back. After Dublin Castle we went to Christchurch Cathedral.
It was another 15 minute walk and we were all pretty hungry so we decided to walk past the cathedral to the Brazenhead bar which was supposed to be the oldest bar in Dublin (and also the namesake for the Irish bar in Dublin, Ohio where Megan’s parents live - double win). It was only a few blocks past and we settled down there for some lunch and more Smithwicks before heading back to the cathedral. I noticed there were street vendors set up on the grounds outside the cathedral and even though I had just eaten lunch, I proceeded to get a German bratwurst. It reminded me of a different time I was in Christchurch and got a sausage …... If I hadn’t had that one, I would have said this one was the best ever, but it is only the 2nd best. After wolfing down my sausage, we headed into the Cathedral. Unfortunately it was after 4 and we couldn’t get any more tours but they did give us a handout and let us walk around the beautiful building. They also have an elaborate crypt which has been setup with many artifacts that detail some historic events for Ireland. Megan was most excited by the cat and rat, which was a mummified cat and rat (one chasing the other) that got stuck in the pipe organ. It reminded me of Kevin’s friend at leiout. There was also a lot of Tudor stuff (from the show The Tudors from Showtime) that Megan and her mom had watched right before the trip.

Next we headed south to the other enormous cathedral, St Patricks. This one was actually bigger than Christchuch Cathedral and was equally impressive. It seemed to be less setup for tourists and didn’t have the cool crypt area but it was beautiful nonetheless. On the way home from the cathedral was Powerscourt Townhouse, an enormous building that was used as a “townhouse” in Dublin and was converted into an enormous shopping center. Unfortunately, we got there at 6 right after they closed so we didn’t get to see it. We resolved to hit it tomorrow. Instead we headed back to the Luas and took that back to our apartment and took a quick nap.


We then headed back out via Luas towards the Temple Bar area. Along the way, we stopped at a great Italian restaurant, Bar Italia, just north of the Liffey. They were pretty packed and had to put us downstairs with a large, loud group. We were not very broken up over them leaving. We split a good bottle of Chianti and had a great meal. Megan and I split a prawn and pasta dish and one of their delicious thin crust pizzas. I love Italian food.
Afterwards, we headed over to Temple Bar and checked out the bar for which the area is named. It was super packed and super loud and there was so space whatsoever (and tons of people making out). We decided to go across the street to Fitzsimons Bar. This place was equally big but had a live musician and had some free tables that we snagged to hang out and listen. We got a few rounds of drinks while enjoying the atmosphere. The guy playing guitar was really good and we had a great time before catching a cab back to our apartment.

Ireland, Day 7 - Ballykissangel, what WAAAAHHAAATT!

We woke up to a delicious breakfast at the farmhouse from Mark and Mary Ann. I opted for an enormous omelet with spinach and goat cheese (all fresh) which was delicious. Of course I had bacon on the side. After we packed up, we headed off to the abbey which was amazing. It had a huge area within its walls and they were doing renovation on the building sections. We wandered around and MEGAN FINALLY GOT TO TOUCH A SHEEP! Afterwards, we headed over to a old building that had been a mill which we briefly discussed buying and snacked on a giant slug.
Next we decided to swing by Moss Pottery. We got to see them throw the pottery (they are ridiculously good at it) and paint the pottery (also ridiculous). Afterwards, Megan headed upstairs and spent a fortune.

Then it was time to go into town. We headed up to Kilkenney Castle which was awesome (i don’t remember much - i am confusing Dublin castle with Kilkenney castle in my head - MEGAN!) Megan’s Add: Kilkenny Castle is a non working building preserved for touring (where Dublin Castle is a working government building). Kilkenny was owned by a rich family for 800 years until one of the bad sons gambled away all the fortune and lost it. Now it is a historic monument and captures how is looked before they lost all their money. There is still one person left in the world who can claim the title (Duke maybe?) but he won’t because he doesn’t want to also claim any legal issues (namely debt) associated with the title. The family was of good breeding though, as many lived to their 60s, 70s and even 80s in a time of no antibiotics and wide spread plague. The last family member with the title died in his 90’s a decade or so ago.
Afterwards we headed across the street to the design gallery which was supposed to have tons of arts and crafts. It actually was pretty small and the ceramic wine holder we wanted had a chip in it. As such we didn’t get anything and headed over to Smithwicks for a brewery tour.

The brewery tour of Smithwicks was one of the best tours we had in Ireland. Jane, the tour guide was super awesome and we got to go inside the functional factory and watch as they brewed the beer. The factory is built around a heritage site of an old abbey and it is neat to see the contrast between the abbey and the new fancy brewery. The best part of any brewery tour, of course, is the end when you get to taste and we hung out in their cool underground bar and had a few pints of Smithwicks before heading out back towards Dublin. Oh, we also went to see Kyteler’s Inn, which is a bar build in Kyteler’s old house, and it still looks like it did in medieval days. It is a really neat building and it would have been a cool place to hang out some if we had more time. Kyteler was accused of witchcraft after her 4 husbands all died mysteriously and she gained a lot of local power - her maid got burnt but she escaped never to be found. Logic lends itself that she probably poisoned her husbands rather than bewitched them to death, but one never knows. Kilkenny was a really neat town and still has a lot of the medieval feel too it - a must see on any Ireland trip.
Megan’s father had watched a BBC show that was based in the small town of Avoca called Ballykissangle and was really excited to see the town, so we headed east towards the coast to get a chance to see that on the way back to Dublin. When we stopped in Avoca, he jumped out to take some pictures and ended up chatting up a woman who was actually an extra in the show. When I got out to take a picture of him with the Avoca sign, Megan decided it was time to speed away in the car to find a bathroom but elected to not tell us that (Megan’s note - I said, don’t get out of the car or I’m leaving you because I have to go to the bathroom now). We walked down into town and watched as she sped away again without noticing us. We finally find her back at our original parking spot and headed into Dublin.

We were renting an apartment that we had found on vrbo. It worked out really well - it was a 3 bedroom/ 3 bath apartment a little north of the city. We walked to 101 Talbot (about a 30 minute walk) for dinner. It was good Mediterranean and then walked back to our apartment. We noticed trains running along that route and decided in the future we would take the train (called Luas). Once again, we were all exhausted, but Megan’s mom decided to do laundry. Little did we know, the washer/dryer (one machine to do both) were impossible to figure out how to use and it took all night for her to do 3 loads of laundry resulting in wet jeans for Mark, since all of his clothes got washed....ooopps. I think we finally figured out how to work it, but after one load of laundry got washed about 4 times since we couldn’t open the door once it started the cycle.

Ireland, Day 6 - Near, far, wherever you are...

We woke up to a delicious breakfast again. Standard Irish fare with fresh fruit and juices and then we picked a hot dish. I wisely kept it to eggs, sausage and bacon and toast and avoided crazy things in order to not get sick. Mark did not and we left him in his room to recover while we headed down to the Cobh Heritage center. They had a lot of interesting information about the potato famine and the conditions on ships when people were leaving. There also was a lot of info about the Titanic and Lusitania disasters. They have some cool setups that use existing parts of the ships to show what some sections would have looked like.
We went back to pick up Mark and also got Megan’s iphone she had left there. As soon as we parked at the Titanic walk in downtown Cobh, Mark realized he left his jacket, so we left Megan and her parents and drove back to get his jacket. Today would prove to be the day of losing stuff. We got back in time for the Titanic walk to start and we toured around Cobh seeing the different sites and getting stories about the Titanic. Truth be told, all this info is in the heritage museum and you can probably just walk around Cobh yourself to get a good idea but the tour wasn’t bad by any means, and the guide was very enthusiastic. We got a suggestion for lunch and headed over to Gilbert's Restaurant & Townhouse. I had the burger which was really good. Megan had a slight problem ordering and ended up with a salmon sandwich with a full salad on top of it. It wasn’t that good.
Next we headed out towards Cahir to see the Rock of Cashell. It is an enormous walled fort with an abbey inside the walls. Unfortunately it is under construction right now to protect the 800 year old chapel in the middle. They have the chapel covered in a scaffolding and then they put tarp basically over it so that they can dry it out. Once it dries out, they will start repair work. Their best guess for the time it takes to dry out? About 5 years. Don’t hold your breath. Even so, it was a great tour. Although the tour was packed with people, the tour guide was really good and did a great job of stories to which we could relate with history and mythology. We had a great time and the grounds are wonderful. Unfortunately, we had taken too much time and the Cahir Castle (where we went afterward) was closed. Due to our strict schedule, we didn’t have time to see it the next day, so it’ll give us something to go back and see in the future!
We headed out towards our B&B in Kilkenney. It turns out this was the one time our GPS was wrong. We ended up in the middle of nowhere and luckily found someone nearby who directed us to the town near the B&B. We were then able to figure out where to go and got there okay. The road was so narrow that we narrowly missed a few dogs who came running out to keep us away from their property but we found it. This B&B was on a farmhouse and Megan was SUPER excited because they had 2 baby hedgehogs that the dogs had brought in. Megan played with them and then played with the two cats they had there (which she named Drooly and Stretchy). We took a walk around the farm and saw the horses and pigs and chickens among other things.

They told us about a sweet abbey ruin nearby on the way to Kilkenney proper. We had dawdled too much at the farmhouse so by the time we got to Kilkenney we were all grumpy and we ended up eating at a crappy steakhouse. This was probably our worst meal in Ireland. We headed back to our B&B and went to sleep in preparation for a long day the next day where we would be heading back up to Dublin.

Ireland, Day 5 - After Kissing the Stone, Hindsight is 100%

Our second breakfast at Friar’s Glen was perhaps better than the first because I wised up and stopped getting the full Irish Breakfast and instead got scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and sausage on the side. It was tasty and I didn’t feel terrible anymore. Again, we talked to Brigid about suggestions for the day, and she pointed out some options, but it wasn’t as in depth as her ring of Kerry walkthrough. We decided to see Bantry House which was supposed to be somewhat similar to Muckross house, but hopefully the people there were infinitely more helpful. We were boycotting Muckross since they were so useless.
We drove up to Bantry House which is an amazing manor looking over the lake. It is still used as a B&B so some sections were roped off. We were given packets for the self guided tour around the house. The packets were informative about the different items in the house, but didn’t really detail a lot of history. Still, it was very interesting because it was still in the family, so all the original furniture and paintings were still there and the people working were descendants of the original owners (told us stories of rollarblading over the beautiful mosaic floors). After going through the whole house, we wandered up and around the beautiful grounds.
Next we headed off to what is probably the most famous and touristy spot in Ireland: Blarney Castle (although I have sadly since learned how few people actually have heard of the Blarney Stone - where is your Irish Historical knowledge PEOPLE). Once we got within 5 miles the traffic started to back up and we expected it to be a shitshow, but luckily there was ample parking and no line to get into the grounds. The Blarney Stone is actually at the top of Blarney castle, so you have to wind your way through in order to get to the top. There was a decent line and it took us about an hour until we got to the top. When it is your turn, you lay down face up on the ground, grab these two rails and lean back and kiss the stone which is actually below the floor where you are lying.

It is a little hawkward but not too bad. Your pictures will come out way better if you shoot from the left hand side where they tell you not to take pictures. They don’t really enforce it or care really though so go ahead and do it. Otherwise they want 20 euro per photo if you let them handle it. It is actually interesting to wind your way up and down from the stone because you are seeing the various rooms in the castle.

Once we got to the bottom, we headed over to the poison garden. This would never fly in the states. This garden has nightshade, poison oak and plenty of other dangerous plants. It is basically a lawsuit waiting to happen. After narrowly avoiding death at the hands of these deadly plants, we headed over to the snack bar for a quick sandwich which we took to go while we explored the druid’s cave area. Once Megan was satisfied exploring there, we headed back to the car to drive over to the Jameson distillery.

It was a good thing we had boosted it because we barely made the last tour. They had already started the video by the time we got there, but they let us in and we proceeded around the old factory. The best part was that they select 8 people to get a free comparison tasting of Jameson, Johnny Walker and Jim Beam and there were only 11 people in our tour since it was the last one of the day. Thus almost everyone got to do it. I am in general not a huge fan of whiskey and I’m sure the whiskey lovers will cringe when I say this, but I had a Sprite and Jameson drink that I enjoyed.

Next we headed back through Kinsale to get dinner. We had been using the book Eyewitness Ireland for dinner suggestions and once again it was spot on. We went to Man Friday for a delicious meal overlooking Kinsale. We asked our server about some suggestions for a pub to hit for some live music. He gave us a few suggestions and we headed over to the one that sounded better on the main strip. As we enjoyed some drinks while listening to the guy play guitar and sing, one of the regulars at the pub who was wasted got up and started requesting songs. Or at least attempting to request songs. Mostly all anyone could make out was : “HEY. can you play balhalblhablahlbh”. To which the singer would respond “Don’t know it”. This went on a few times between every song as the drunk guy tried to get him to play his crazy made up song names. Eventually we headed out to our car and then drove up to Cobh. We had directions to our B&B, Knockeven house, but it was pretty dark and we couldn’t find it on the road so I decided to do a 3 pt turn. Luckily for us, where I pulled off was the road to Knocheven house and so we just drove up the path and parked. Pam, the proprietor, was very friendly and showed us to our rooms. While we were moving stuff in, she prepped tea and scones for all of us. It was a welcome change from Friar’s Glen who hadn’t been excited at all for us to arrive late. In fact, after serving us, Pam stayed to chat with us for a good hour before we all headed to sleep. The sitting area is set up with 1800s era items, but all the rooms were more modern and very comfortable. Plus they had wifi so I could drop stupid Peyton Manning from my team after his surgery.

Ireland, Day 4 - It probably could be ok, or maybe not...

We woke up in the morning for breakfast at the B&B. As is the standard, they have a buffet tablet set up with fruit, porridge, juices and various breads and biscuits and then they take your order for a hot breakfast. I once again got the Irish breakfast, but this time I left the black and white pudding alone. We talked with Brigid, the owner’s assistant, about our plans and she gave us a bunch of suggestions for things to see and outlined it all on a map so we knew what to do for the day.
Our first stop was Muckross House, an elegant mansion a few minutes away. After parking and walking up the grounds to the desk to purchase tours, we encountered the least helpful people in all of Ireland. Even though we were there when it opened, we couldn’t get in any tours until 3 pm and you can’t book ahead of time. The next day was also the free day, when anyone could come so we asked what time we needed to show up to ensure we get into a tour and the guy responded “I can’t even begin to speculate on that matter.” They were the least specific and decisive (and self aware) people we encountered - so we dubbed it the day of non-specifics by making the rule that no comment could be definitive. It had to be as non-specific as possible (i.e. if I ask if people are ready for lunch the appropriate response is “I may be hungry”). Try it with someone you hate - they will want to punch themselves in the face.
We decided to ditch it and head to the ring of Kerry since we could get a tour at 2 pm, or maybe 3:30 pm, or maybe not at all. Turns out that Ring of Kerry refers to a circuit around the county of Kerry area, not some ancient circle in a field or something else as I assumed (Megan’s note: it’s a road that goes around the area that has some unique and pretty flora/fauna - nothing ancient about it but Warren can keep thinking this if it makes him happy, or not). The Ring of Kerry is one of the most touristy areas of Ireland (i.e. a lot of people go there - not because it’s campy), but you are driving on a road that barely has enough space for one car, yet it a “2 lane highway”. We were advised to drive anti-clockwise as that would save us stress since tons of tour buses are on the teeny tiny road. We set off for Valentia Island which is a bit outside the ring of Kerry and as such, a little less touristy. We took a ferry over and wandered around the tiny town before grabbing lunch at a small cafe. They had DELICIOUS tika masala sandwiches there. I ordered a hot chocolate, which Mark promptly made fun of until the waitress informed him it was her favorite item on the menu. That shut him up and he spent the rest of lunch wishing he had gotten one.
We headed out towards some cliffs but we veered off in a bad direction and ended up at a quarry. Luckily, no one fell in to the quarry, and we turned around and headed back to the intersection where we had gone the wrong way.
This time we took the correct turn and ended up at tetrapod parkway, or as Megan liked to call it, trekapod parkway. Tetrapod parkway has impressions in the rock from the first fish that grew feet and walked around dragging their tails behind them. They couldn’t breathe air yet, so they stayed close to the ocean. It was SUPER windy and unfortunately when we opened up the car doors, our map blew away. They had given us an additional map when we took the ferry over which covered most of the same stuff but we didn’t have it all labeled with the good attractions. Now we were on our own :-(. We remembered that we wanted to drive to the top of the mountain on the island because it offered panoramic views of the area and we headed up. As we were driving up the 15-20% grade road, a car came barreling down the road. Even though uphill has the right of way, they didn’t move at all and at the last minute I had to swerve off the road to avoid them. Unfortunately, there was a 3 foot drop off on the side of the road and now I only had 3 wheels in contact with the ground. The only good thing was that it was so steep that I just let the car roll back and I got back onto the road. When we got to the top, there were a ton of sheep there and Megan decided she was going to be stealthy and try and touch them. She didn’t have much luck with that. After it started to rain again, we swung by a sweet candle shop where Megan did some shopping before cutting back across the Island to the Skellig Experience.
Apparently, some crazy monks had decided that wherever they were living wasn’t inhospitable, windy and treacherous enough so they moved to an offshore Island which was pummeled by the elements. Somehow they survived there for 600 years and left some amazing ruins behind. They carved stone stairs all through the mountainous Island and left some of their huts fairly intact. In better weather, you can take a cruise to the Island, but that was not available because it rains and is windy all the time in Ireland. I gather sometimes it snows or has some kind of weather that is worse. Hail maybe? I’m not sure..
After the Experience, we headed back to the mainland across a bridge to rejoin the ring of Kerry. We had taken our time, so at this point, by the time we got back, most of the small towns along the ring were closed down. We headed into Kenmare, where we had what was probably the best dinner of our trip at the Lime Tree Restaurant. Everything we ordered was amazing and we got great service. They gave us directions to take the highway back to Kilarney instead of the winding roads at night. It was nice to just take the highway up and not have to focus on running off the road, especially since we all were tired. We got back to the B&B late, but this time there was no grumpy man to greet us - UPGRADE!

Ireland, Day 3 - BURN HIM!

When you wake up in a castle they had better make you an effing awesome breakfast. luckily our rooms included breakfast so we headed down to the amazing breakfast buffet. They had multiple smoothies, all sorts of meat and cheeses and of course, eggs, sausage, bacon and pudding. They had a bunch of homemade breads as well and everything was delicious. After sufficiently gorging ourselves, and trying to convince the server to give us a free coffee mug, which he didn’t go for, we headed out to the castle grounds to take pictures of the castle as well as the gardens, including a great planking picture (hard to explain to the other guest so we just went with it and let them stare at us).

Sadly we had a full schedule again so we headed out this time for the Cliffs of Moher. We got in and paid for the visitor center experience, which turns out it was terrible. However what would turn out to be the defining moment of the trip happened in the men's bathroom. While Mark was at the urinal a 45 yr old man sauntered up and yelled "guns out"..."aim"..."fire" before doing his business - this can only be described as AMAZING. By the time we left the visitor center to walk up to the actual cliffs, it was driving rain with 30mph winds. Once again my rainpants/jacket got a workout. We took some pictures and then went up the other side for more pictures before heading out to Bunratty Castle which was a restored medieval castle with an attached medieval town.

At this point it was 3 pm and the last admission to the castle was 4, so we booked it to the pub there to get some food before seeing the castle; we had such a jam packed schedule fitting in lunch was difficult. Luckily the pub was absurdly fast and we were in and out in about 30 minutes including Guiness and a chowder appetizer (recommend both). The castle was amazing. I didn't realize medieval castles were whitewashed with lyme annually to keep them clean. Due to this whitewashing, the walls were actually white which didn’t match up with how I imagined it from my legos. The castle itself is awesome. They had all the rooms decorated in typical medieval fashion and it was amazing to see the setup. They were prepping for a banquet dinner at the castle and it was fun to see the castle bustling with activity. We had actually tried to book that dinner but it was full so we were planning on driving an extra 2 hours each way to a different one. Luckily Megan mentioned that to one of the workers and they set us up by transferring the dinner to this location because both castles were run by the same people. That meant we had time for Megan and her mom to do some shopping and then to drive up to Adare, a cute little town nearby with thatched roof cottages, etc. We wandered around the town, looked in a few shops and finally settled on a pub to get a drink before we headed back down for our banquet dinner reservations at Bunratty castle.

We walked up the narrow staircase and were greeted by women in medieval era costumes serving mead as well as some minstrels on harp and violin to keep us entertained. After a short greeting, they crowned an earl and lady of the castle before we got down to our multicourse dinner. Along the way, the maitre d of the event stopped by to tell us that Mark was going to have to go to the dungeon for flirting and having immoral relations with the ladies of the house (sorry Kelly, sadly this is true) and that he would have to sing a song to get out. Lo an behold, hilarity ensued

Once he was in the dungeon, he had to sing a song to get out. Once again, hilarity :
The food was good, with the exception of the chicken dish. We had a Swedish group sitting next to us and they asked in very broken English - do you think this tastes like...ummmm....paint. Megan’s mom was like “we said it tastes like shoe polish, but same thing”. Next thing we knew, they were flagging down the staff to inform them the chicken tasted like, well...shoe polish...or paint!! The waitress lady was so confused, and Megan was mortified for them to mention it (their plates were empty so clearly it didn’t stop them from eating it) so she tried to soften the blow by asking if there were special spices or wood the chicken was grilled over to give it the “unique” flavor - nope, it was broiled chicken. So basically, it just tasted like paint.

We finished up our meal before heading out to Killarney which is the origin city to begin our trek around the Ring of Kerry the next day. We had said we would get in late, and it proved to be the case as we pulled in to our B&B, Friar’s Glen around 12:30. The guy who let us in was not super happy, but he can deal with it.

Ireland, Day 2 - Well, this is hawkward...

A good thing about B&Bs is that you usually end up with delicious breakfast. Our B&B Waterloo House, was no exception but we had to request an early service since we had a jam packed day (Megan was in charge of the itinerary after all). I got my first taste of Irish breakfast: Irish bacon, sausage, fried egg, black and white pudding and a blanched tomato. It was good (Megan disagrees - blahck) but I didn't feel quite right afterwards (Megan says thats what happens when you eat blood sausage - blahck). After packing up we took off for Newgrange. Megan had plugged in coordinates of all our destinations and they were spot on. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to park at the actual site and had to drive 30 minutes to get to visitor center which was on the other side of the river.

We got to the center and bought our tickets and quickly headed out to the bus for a short 5 minute ride on a private road to Newgrange (why wouldn't they let us drive it?) Newgrange is amazing. It was built about 5000 years ago as a crypt and as a testament to the engineering of that time is still standing in great condition today. They only used it one time a year, on the winter solstice. They had designed it so that was the only time of the year when a beam of light would hit the back wall through a small opening at the front of the crypt. We got a great tour in and through the magic of technology (aka - a light wired in to shine like the sun), we got a chance to see what the light looks like within the crypt on that one day. The truly amazing part about the crypt is that there was evidence that there was never any fire in the inside of the tomb, which means they planned it all out, precut and carved the stones before laying them in place, and once they were in place, there was no light inside except for about 15 minutes 3 days a year during which time they did the burial ceremony.
There is also a lot of graffiti in the inside, because it was rediscovered in the 40’s after a farmer unburied it (the only unstable part of the structure was the dirt top that slid off to hid the opening). However, the tour guide made an excellent point that people typically get distracted by the fact that there are carvings from a few decades ago and forget to look around and really appreciate the master craftsmanship of a 5000 year old, dry (mortar free) structure which purpose was so important that it justified the time and effort to be used 1 time a year. Very cool.

We had to book it from Newgrange because we had a 3:30 falconing lesson planned at Ashford castle. When we pulled up to the entrance to the castle, we were met and directed straight to the falconing school. As we drove in through the grounds and golf course the castle finally crept into view. It is enormous! We drove for another 5 minutes through another gate, past the helicopter pad (this place is serious) and parked and met our falcon tour guide. “What is Falconing?”, you may ask - and let me tell you. It’s an ancient form of hunting where a hawk (or bird of prey) is training from a baby bird to work with their handler to look for food. It is a very trusting relationship where the bird realizes that they will get fed by the trainer which is the incentive for them to stay versus flying away to the wild. They aren’t leashed and are free to fly and are trained very similarly to a dog - it takes years for a falconer to master the training process and relationship. While in the olden days, they were used to catch dinner, now they are used for pest control.

Our guide outfitted us all with thick leather gloves and instructed us in the art of falconing. 15 minutes later we had hawks sitting on our fists and were ready to go hunting!! We sadly didn't catch anything. They are really smart and if they are above their "hunting weight" they won't try and catch anything until they digest more (origin of the saying “Fed up”) - they are weighed in every morning to ensure that they are at their “flying weight”. It was still amazing to send them off and call them back, as they responded so well. Megan would totally get one but they might not play nice with our cats.


Next it was time for fly fishing lessons. We learned how to string the line, cast, fake cast and all kinds of other stuff. Unfortunately the river had closed for fishing the day before and it was pouring rain and high winds so that we couldn't take the boat out. As such we headed in for a drink while they brought the car and our luggage around (this place is serious). Once they came in with our luggage we headed back up to the room, everyone else who didn't have rain pants and water proof shoes (thanks Patagonia) changed and we went down to the restaurant attached to the castle. There were two food options: the George V restaurant which was described as "men may choose to wear a tie but a jacket is required" or another good but more casual restaurant. Since we were packing light we opted for the other which was still delicious. After a failed attempt at taking the sunset (stupid forgetting tripod in the room), we went back in and explored the castle and then headed back to the bar where a woman was singing show tunes. We hung out and had a few drinks and chatted up the bartender some before retiring to our enormous suite.
Oh, and you may wonder about the origin of the day’s title. How can you not combine Hawking and awkward when something awkward happens when you hawking. From now on, whenever something is awkward, we have to say, well, that is just Hawkard with and extended and emphasized HAAA at the beginning. Try it, it’s addicting.

Ireland, Day 1 - And we’re off!

This all started after we tried to convince Megan's parents to travel with us as part of our Honeymoon; they declined on the basis that it was our honeymoon, but Megan couldn’t drop the idea of coordinating an international family trip. When we were on a cruise in Australia, one of our fellow travelers suggested buying them plane tickets and not giving her mom a chance to come up with other excuses to try to avoid traveling with us (maybe Megan should have taken the hint). And that’s what we did - as a gift from us, Megan's brother and dad we forced her mom to travel to a different country.
We were able to get perfectly coordinating flights - all 3 parties would meet in Toronto and travel together on the long leg to Dublin. After our flight from SFO to Toronto was delayed for an hour leaving us only 50 minutes to make it through customs and get to our gate we were quite worried since the car and hotel were all in our name. There was some frantic emailing of itineraries and confirmations before we took off and luckily there was cell reception in Toronto (granted at $15 a megabyte and .79 cents a minute) so we were able to get a hold of people and have them get food and hold the plane for us if necessary. We managed to just make the flight after an idiot trip though customs that was needlessly complicated and slow. After meeting up with Mark and Megan's parents we immediately boarded the flight to Dublin. We took a fairly sleepless (for me) 8 hour flight and then wham! it was go time.
Irish customs is the easiest ever - no security or anything. They were basically like “Bring whatever you want into our country, we don’t give a shit. In fact, we welcome you with open arms just how you are”.
We got our rental car (manual enormous SUV and the wrong side of the road - booyah. Megan's family was more stressed about it than I was.) we had loaded up our GPS with Ireland maps and Megan has taken the time to pre-program all our destinations so all we had to do is punch in the B&B and after only a few mishaps with the left side of the road we were there. The best one was when I decided to 3 pt turn in front of the hotel and got stuck in the middle of the road when I couldn't figure out how to put it into reverse; turns out the stick has a little pull switch to reverse. Woohoo!

We dropped off our bags and got some suggestions and walked into down town Dublin. Dublin is a pretty small city and we easily got to the St Stephens Green area which is a mini central park and centrally located around a lot of bars and shops. We stopped to get lunch at Bruxelless, a pub which is just off the main strip in the St Stephens Green area (the general touristy downtown part of Dublin). I had coddle which was a cream based sausage and bacon soup (no cuttlefish included in the soup, despite that Megan wanted it to). The soup was okay and I got my first taste of Irish Guinness and sampled some soda bread. I'm a big fan of both. Regardless, it seemed appropriate to have our first official meal in Ireland at a pub.


On the way to the pub we had seen two city tour options: a hop on hop off bus around Dublin or a water/land car/boat that was Viking themed. They wore viking hats and yelled aaaargh to scare people at intersections. Sadly we picked the red non Viking bus (but Megan still randomly yelled ARRRRGH whenever possible). We took it up to the Kilmainham Gaol on the west side of Dublin and we got a good tour guide who talked us through a lot of history and took us through the very impressive jail. Unfortunately we were quite tired and jet lagged but not quite as bad as Perth when I fell asleep during the candlelight jail tour. [In Perth, it was a ghost tour and they had a bunch of people trying to scare you. They actually drop a body off the roof and it falls down to the floor right above you. We were so tired then that we didn’t even flinch.] I did however pass out once we hit the red bus again (see pictures).


we got off and started back towards the hotel and along the way took a detour by O'Donoghue's bar, which was a variant of Megan's families namesake. After a drink there and friendly chat with another local grabbing a pint (check off Irish stereotype #1 - chatting up a friendly local at the pub), we headed back to our hotel and promptly passed out for a few hours - worst idea ever. It delayed my adaptation to Ireland time at least a few days (Megan disagrees and enjoyed the nap).
We woke up and all showered and decided to head out to dinner. we had gotten some suggestions from the woman who checked us in at the B&B and we headed into Temple Bar area (super hip hangout location of tourists and locals) to find some food. Our first choice, Fallon and Byrne, was full (B&B lady said they don’t take reservations but they do) but on that same street we found an Italian restaurant on the same street with only a thirty minute wait named Boulevard Cafe.
We got a bottle of wine at the nearby wine bar, Olesya’s Wine Bar and Bistro, while waiting and ventured back in for a delicious Italian meal before heading home. The staff at the restaurant were super friendly and we felt really welcomed.

Ireland!!!

nbd - we are staying here
FALCONING!@!!!



Guiness count: 4

Bull-Sh*** (shark that is)

(written by Megan)

3:30 am is super early, especially when you woke up at 3:30 am the day before, and went to bed at 1 am (thank you Fiji water and TD – look it up if you don’t understand the reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveler's_diarrhea). Luckily I don’t need a ton of sleep to function and Warren got enough sleep to be ok with driving. We rented a car for the day to allow us to drive south to Pacific Ocean which is about a 3 hour drive from our resort. We had an 8 am dive scheduled with Aquatrek – the pioneers of shark diving in Fiji.

That’s right – shark dive. Of course, this is the thing we “couldn’t miss” in Warren’s mind. I was happy with the white tipped reef sharks that we had seen the day before. However, this is what he wanted to do so I was in. We got there, found the shop after driving in a circle for 30 minutes, asking 4 different people who gave us 4 really bad directions, and ended up finding the place 10 feet from where we were driving. Thing to remember if you ever go to Fiji – they are really bad at describing directions and there are no signs to anything. However, in this case there was a sign but it was pointing in the wrong direction. But, we made it. We got our gear and we were off.

Since we are only open water certified we are technically allowed to go to 60 foot depth. When we signed our liability waver we agreed that we were certified to go to the 100 ft depth that is included in the first dive. That was a lie. I was already nervous about diving with sharks and now I got even more nervous because we were lying about our qualifications. Messing around with a sport you can die doing is no joke but I was hoping that we’d be fine and went with it. I figured I seriously couldn’t be the first diver to do that and the company has a 100 percent safety record – it had to be ok. (Warren: I was too tired to realize that we weren't certified for deeper than 60 ft)

We hopped into the boat and off we went to the dive spot. We geared up and jumped in. It actually was pretty painful because some of the people on our dive were close to retarded. It made me feel better about my chance of survival – if they were going to make it back up to the boat then I defiantly would. I’m sure sharks have a sense of the pecking order as well – surely they’d go for the annoying woman who was in everyone’s way and took a year to do anything before a normal person like me, right?

We descended down a rope to the bottom where they had a line set up. We were over weighted so we basically dropped like a rock to the bottom and held onto the line. It was not so much a dive and more of an observation under water since we didn’t really swim anywhere. I had brought my digital camera but quickly handed it to Warren once I realized something was wrong with my regulator as it was leaking water into my mouth. I started having a panic attack (big fish that could eat me, too deep of a dive, water leaking into the device that is my only life line to the precious air) but was able to get myself calmed down and started enjoying the dive after I realize there were tons of fish swimming us around us including massive sharks. The reg was leaking a little with each breath but it wasn’t so bad that I couldn’t breath and I kept reminding myself that I had a back up if I needed it.

We stayed on the bottom watching the sharks for about 25 minutes before slowly ascending and surfacing. We stayed on the surface for about an hour or so before going on our second dive which was to about 60 ft. The whole time we were on the surface they were chumming the water to attract sharks. When we got down to the second spot there were hundreds of fish, some were 6 ft tall and a few meters long, and probably 30 sharks of about 8 different species. The bull sharks were the largest; some were 3-5 meters long and swam as close as 4 ft from us. They were not interested in people, but gobbled up the fish heads they were feeding them. There were guides behind us with metal rods to discourage curious fish from nuzzling us or defend us from a shark if it got the fish head confused with someone’s hand. Luckily we didn’t interest any of the wildlife and made it to the surface in one piece.

Once we finished up, we went off to our resort which was about 2 hrs back North. Warren had found it since our time share was short one night. When we pulled up, our jaws dropped as it was amazing. When we checked in they handed us juice and hot towels to wipe our hands off with. We sat in couches while we checked in and got all the information we needed. We had a 4 pm massage on the beach, so we had just enough time to get our bags to our room and go off to the cabana our massage was in.


After relaxing with our beach massage we went to change into our swim suits to hang out by the infinity pool and have a drink. We had a private cabana dinner at 8 pm so we waited until the sunset before heading back to our room to get ready.





Our room was unbelievable as well, and it even had a bathtub on the balcony that looked out over the pool. It was what I always envision 5 stars hotels to be like, but they never are. The dinner lived up to our expectations as well. We were in a cute little building that looked out over the beach and the ocean. We had our own serving staff that started our dinner with champagne. The customized menu had 2 appetizers listed, a bread plate, 8 entrees and dessert. We were assuming that we’d pick from the menu, but it ended up that it was prefix and we got EVERYTHING. I was full after the first appetizer and was not sure how’d we ever make it through the meal. On top of being full, exhaustion was creeping up on both of us and we were finally feeling the last 30 days of non stop fun. I ate a bite of everything, but nothing completely. I had no idea how much the dinner cost, but we estimated there was no way we were leaving for less than $1K based on the food we got. Luckily when the bill game it was completely reasonable and made me feel sick about how much food we wasted. Our server was super friendly and we really enjoyed talking to him. He kept telling us how excited he was that we were spending our honeymoon in Fiji and said that if we were staying longer he would show us his village (it was a genuine offer, not just talk). Typically you don’t leave gratuity in Fiji, but he was so good we left a normal US tip. However, he crossed it out when he came to collect the bill saying that we shouldn’t tip him. When we insisted he said the resort doesn’t give them the gratuity anyway, which made me ashamed of them. We snuck off and got cash to give him and caught him before he was done cleaning the table up to ensure that he actually got the money he earned.

We were asleep before hitting the bed and I had a migraine sneak up on me. I told Warren that I had been waiting for that feeling of “I’m ready to be home” and it didn’t come until the last few minutes in Fiji. I felt ok with the trip ending even though I was sad it went by so quickly. It ends up that I think I had gotten a bit of CO2 poisoning from the first dive since my breathing was irregular and had a migraine for 3 days. Warren took good care of me on the way home and even let me get room service on our last night during the layover night in Auckland (we flew home via New Zealand to SFO but spent one night in NZ). The trip home was successful and easy as we had no flight or luggage issues our entire trip.

You’d think we’d need to sleep for 5 days after getting home, but on Sunday night Warren had bought me tickets to see Straight No Chaser (an a capella group that we got into a few years ago but always seem to be away when they tour). Their concert was awesome and my head ache had gone away. It was a perfect ending to a perfect trip.

Up in the Air and Under the Sea

(written by Megan)

We really wanted to go scuba diving since we had heard Fiji had great soft coral dives and luckily we had found a company that does hot air balloon rides and that sounded interesting as well. We convinced the dive trip to wait for us to get back from our balloon ride and we were able to fit both into one day.

We woke up at 3:30 am (yes, that is not a mistype) to get ready to be picked up for our balloon ride at 4:30 am. Once we met up with the crew and pilot they had us pile into a van and follow the balloon truck around as they deployed test balloon (helium balloons with a LCD light that they watch to see air patterns as it floats up into the air) from a couple places to determine our take off point. Since the direction the balloon floats is only controlled by the direction the air is flowing, the pilot has to pick a take off point that will allow us to land in a reasonable location (not the mountains that were to the west or the sea that is in the other directions). Our pilot quickly figured out the best option and had his crew start setting up the balloon.



We’ve all seen hot air balloons in the sky. What I didn’t realize is how massive they are, which we quickly figured out when they stretched it out on a soccer field, and it took up almost the whole thing. Once they got everything attached we piled into the balloon and they started filling it up. Being scared of heights, I was feeling pretty nervous getting into the basket. I was scared that we’d loose control and be blown out to sea and be lost forever or just drop out of the sky. However, once we took off the ride was unbelievably smooth. (Warren : I was surprised by how hot it was. Whenever he shot the fire it was ridiculously hot. The captain was wearing a cowboy hat and after being up in the air for a while I understood why)

Talking to the pilot (who is from a town 1 hr away from where I grew up in Ohio) he was saying that there is no motion in the balloon. He also had amazing control of how high we were – at one point he dropped us down between two hills into a ravine with a river, dropped the balloon so it just kissed the top of the river, and lifted us out of the ravine over the hill on the other side. Once I saw how much control he had and how smooth the trip was, I was feeling much more relaxed and confident.

We floated around and enjoyed the rising sun. People would wave from the ground as we passed over them and livestock were a little unsure what to make of us. After about 30 minutes I heard a commotion from the other side of the basket and realized a girl was freaking out saying “I need to get down now”. The pilot stayed calm and was like “well, that’s a little difficult right now”. It ends up that she partied a little too hard the night before, didn’t get enough sleep, and freaked out from the heat of the flame and height. Once she chucked over the side of the basket she started to feel better and stopped freaking out. The pilot had no pity and didn’t make much effort to accommodate her. He told us that one time he stopped, dropped off a passenger, kicking him off the balloon, and took back off because the passenger did the same thing (partied too hard and started getting sick in the balloon) and was ruining everyone else’s ride. The pilot didn’t kid around.

As far as landing goes, that’s kind of up in the air pending where the wind takes the balloon. There is a balloon caravan of a van and a truck carrying the trailer for the basket that follows us around on the crazy local roads and tries to meet the balloon where ever it lands. The problem in Fiji is that the road infrastructure isn’t as established as a lot of places, and if the caravan is on the wrong side of a river it could take them an hour to drive around to a bridge and get to the other side to meet the balloon. Luckily we were able to land on the same side as the caravan when the pilot finally found a field that didn’t have crops in it. The pilot purposely crashed the balloon basket into a tree to stop our forward momentum and dropped us down in a 10 by 10 grass patch. After loading the basket onto the trailer they drove us (in the basket with the balloon inflated) to a larger field so they could drop the balloon down onto the grass without ruining it. The whole operation was pretty amazing.

We were dropped off, ate a bite of breakfast (included in the balloon ride) and ran off to the dive place. After getting our gear we jumped into a boat and went off to our first dive spot, about 45 minutes off the shore of the main island (45 minutes going 40 knots which is pretty freaking fast). (Warren : We thought this was fast but going back was another story)

We were diving with 2 other people and the master diver. The water was amazing – super warm and the visibility was great. We saw a ton of cool fish and a couple sea turtles. It was about a 45 minute dive after which we hopped back into the boat and moved over to our next dive spot.





During our surface interval we were talking about favorite dive places and sharing dive stories. Our dive instructor didn’t really explain the next dive, other than we’d be down for 35 minutes which seemed short to me. I asked if we could stay down longer if our air was ok, but he said it’s hard to coordinate with the boat if we don’t stick with the time. That didn’t make sense to me but he is the expert so I was like, eh – whatever.


It ends up we were on a drift dive (where you drop down into a current and just float along without having to swim). It was my first drift dive ever and it was amazing. There were so many fish and stuff just flying by. We saw four or five sea turtles, and as we were coming out of the current we found a group of white tipped reef sharks under some coral (my first sharks ever!). I get excited thinking about how AWESOME the dive was. When our dive instructor gave us a thumbs up, telling us it was time to surface, we all got up and everyone was like “THAT WAS AMAZING – MY NEW BEST DIVE EVER”! If you are unsure about diving, once you go on one like that you’re hooked.

Unfortunately we only had 2 dives, so we headed back to our resort for a quick shower. The boat driver was flying on the way back. It took us 35 minutes to get back and we were bouncing like crazy. I think he was up to 50 knots on the return. He had the biggest grin the whole time while he watched all the tourists lurch back and forth. A few days ago, we had met a Australian guy who retired to Fiji and brought the shoe company he owns over to manufacture there and he offered to have us come to the manufacturing location for a tour.

At this company they make UGGs. It ends up that there are hundreds of little mom and pop places in Australia that make sheep skin shoes that are known as Uggs (short for ugly). The company in the US has copyrighted the name, which is considered generic in Australia (think clogs or flip flops) and therefore cause a lot of companies to go out business because they can’t ship to the US or sell on Ebay because the US company is huge and strong arms them with lawsuits, etc. The ironic part of it is the US Uggs are made with lower quality sheep skin and manufactured in China.

They took us around the manufacturing shop, where everything is done by hand. We then picked out our shoes. It ended up that we had to special order my shoes and Warren’s slippers. We also wanted to get my brother’s girlfriend a pair for Christmas. When I was deciding on style and colors I saw they had grey and red died sheep skin. I was like “light bulb”. I then ordered my mom a pair of classic uggs and my brother slippers in red and grey leather, where the different panels are opposite colors, figuring they’d be perfect to wear during an Ohio State game. They would have made them for us while we waited but they had to order grey leather, so guy was nice and guaranteed they’d arrive before we left for Christmas so we’d have our gifts in hand.

We were satisfied with our day, so we went back to our resort, swam in the pool for an hour or so and made dinner. We knew we had to get to bed at a relatively good time since we had another 3:30 am wake up day tomorrow.