thoughts on ?

OK, I forgot to mention last time that if you are going to GB, London at least, DON'T purchase any duty free booze. It is hard to take when you get off the flight to see lower prices for what you purchased, lugged on the plane for 9 hours and through all the airport halls just to be able put it in your bag before you clear passport control. Now maybe Ireland could be different.

Apart from the Guinness conspiracy, that being of course that Guinness is cheaper than anything else to buy in the bar. Since Guinness has been around since whenever, 17??, and Arthur G. was a Lord in the British House, I think it was just another weapon against the Irish aiding the British to hold them in a subservient culture. Put a few pints of the dark stuff in your tum and you will not be running off to battle very soon. Not because your wasted, Alcohol content rivals American swill (4.2%), but because your so heavy and bloated you cannot move. Well maybe wattle a bit. Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa, I think I just slagged the Big "G".

Now in NA when you travel 100 KM and the speed is 60 or 100 you know it will take you 1 to 1.5 hours. In Ireland make certain you have emptied your bladder and have at least two meals packed. Manual transmission, roads that might let two goats pass, no place to turn around if you miss the one and only turn to Donnegal because all the signs are in Gaelic , if you can find them, and half of them still give distances in Miles rather than Km (look for the rust to tell the difference). Gas stations are plentiful in towns, or on a Motorway but if you go out in the woods tonight your sure to get a fright. I don't know how the wheels stayed on sometimes, all of a sudden some free wheeling Irish sod comes flying at you at breakneck speed over a hump bridge (you know the kind you go up so you only see the sky and then you come down to see at 90 degree turn waiting for you on the other side) and you have to move into some hedgerow praying like a demon that you don't lose a mirror on either side or your life. Pave's combated these encounters of by closing her eyes and not opening them again until I would say something like 'well would you just look at that now'. Oh what did I miss this time would be the reply. I have driven in Rome, Paris and other places around the world but I can honestly add Ireland to a place I might leave the driving to someone else, should we return. Oh ya if you stop for directions get ready to listen to them 3 times just in case you didn't get them the first time. Which you won't because before the directions are finished they start telling you about another way but then no better stick to the first way. Not to mention the accent, and if you think my explanation of getting directions in Wales was bizarre double it at least twice for Ireland and get ready to see the same round about a couple times from different directions.

Ireland is a great place to visit for its natural beauty and a lot of history. The oldest Neo-lithic site in the world is just outside Dublin, at least 4,000 years old and possibly close to 6,000 years old. Just to experience the construction of the Burial Tombs make you realize how intelligent those people where not just wandering around being hunters or gathers. One of the tombs is about 10 Metres high with stones in the roof angled away from the centre while the roof decreases in diameter creating a sort of upside down cone shape. the tomb has stayed dry over all these centuries, maybe some of our architects could take a design lesson from these ancient civilizations. As well the entrance was build in such a way that the tomb is lit up by the sun on the winter equinox and that a special light box (opening) was built to accomplish this feat.

The Giant's Causeway and the Rope Bridge must see places to go. The first of things Pave' never thought she would do was cross the Rope Bridge. The 1st of things she never thought she would do is Kiss the Blarney Stone and become an Irish Whiskey taste tester (with a certificate to prove it) from the Jameson & Son distillery. Who knows what else she will do that was never on her list of things to accomplish.

We had lots of fun in Ireland and certainly glad we bankrolled ourselves to higher amount that we originally started out with.

Ta Ta for now AJ