After spending an amazing 15 days in Ireland, I decided to do this post a little differently. This first post will be a gaggle a general information from the trip. The following posts will revert back to my old format of detailing the trip daily. First, I will discuss how Aer Lingus got added to the never fly with them again list, joining Hawaiian Airlines.

Our original trip was planned from Sunday September 10th thru Tuesday September 26. On Sunday morning the 10th, I was enjoying (I use this term loosely) a round of golf with my friends. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:15 PM, so a morning round was not a problem. At around 9:30 AM as I on the 15th hole, and I got a text from Aer Lingus telling me our flight had been cancelled for “Operational Issues” and to call to get it rescheduled. What the heck? Long story short, we were rebooked on the same flight for the next day, Monday. No compensation, no sorry, no nothing. But I did have to pay over $100 to select new seats that were not as good as the seats we had before. Happy, happy, joy, joy. We had to cancel a tour, but were able to get our money back on that. We also had prepaid tickets to visit Kilmainham Goal that we were not able to use and lost money on that. Serinity Now!! We were determined to roll with the punches, and after a 10 1/2 hour flight on Monday, landed safely in Ireland.

The Weather

Ireland is called the Emerald Isle because it rains so much it is always an emerald green. So how much does it rain you ask? The South and East of the Country sees bout about 150 days of rain a year, similar to Seattle. The West Coast gets about 225 days of rain a year. We would be in all of those places. Our pre-trip research had prepared us well for the probability of rain. We had raincoats, umbrellas, special bags to put the wet umbrellas in so you could put them in your pocket, and scotch guarded shoes and boots. We were prepared. And in case you were wondering about the special bags to put the wet umbrellas in, here are pictures. They were very useful, and I highly recommend getting some if you are going to travel in a rainy environment.

And in case you were wondering, that is not a giant donut in the background, it is a neck pillow for flying.

So how much did it really rain on us and was all of our preparation really necessary? YES. It rained on us every day except for one. It rained on us 14 of the 15 days. And the rain varied from a light to moderate rain most of the time, with heavy rain only a few times. Rain, rain, rain.

Driving

You read that correctly, you drive on the left side of the road.

You are seeing that correctly; you drive from the right side of the car. So how hard could it be to drive on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the car? If that was all you had to do, it would be manageable. But driving in Ireland is like an “As Seen On TV” ad, there is always more. Try adding in hundreds of roundabouts (traffic circles in the US) where you drive clockwise instead of counterclockwise. And people drive fast and aggressive in the roundabouts. Next try driving on roads that are barely wide enough for two cars to inch by each other. Then add parked cars to one side that are half on the sidewalk and half in the street. Then add full sized double decker tour busses flying by you at high-speed missing taking off your side view mirror by less than an inch. Still not tough enough? We will add some bicyclists (yes, in the rain), some construction, some hedgerows that come right out to the street, and some rain. In the city centers, you can add unpredictable pedestrians that dart out all the time. Needless to say, driving was a challenge. To my credit, I did not damage the car even though it felt like I was going to a few times. There was one helpful thing they did. Most intersections had large blue signs pointing out where the curbs were to help you avoid hitting them.

The Restroom

In the US, we typically call the bathroom the restroom, or the bathroom. In Ireland, they are mostly called Toilets. Here is a collection of public signs.

This sign confused me.

Are they telling you the toilets have been turned off and no longer work or are they for people with disabilities?

And this was my favorite. It was common in public toilets.

This machine dispensed one square at a time. The squares were a little larger than our typical squares, but it was still one square at a time. Can you spare a square?

The Food

Almost every pub and restaurant had the same basic menu that was supplemented with a few different items. The core items you could find at most places were: Irish stew with lamb, which was outstanding; Shepard’s Pie with beef, which was a beef stew covered in browned mashed potatoes; Fish and chips, with one giant piece of breaded fish instead of several; Vegetable soup, a very thick and creamy soup that was delicious; and Goat cheese salad. In addition to these core items, it was pretty easy to find steaks, chicken, and fresh fish dishes, hamburgers and cheeseburgers. The food was not bland, but it was very lightly spiced and there were no dishes we ate that had any spicy heat to them. The black pepper was so finely ground it was like a powder. Whomever used it at our table would always sneeze and sometimes cause someone else to sneeze as well. Most of the sodas came in 11-ounce bottles, which felt small. The entire time we were in Ireland, I only found Dr. Pepper once and of course I had to buy it.

While the size of the soda was a little disappointing, the size of the beer was not. You can order either half a pint or a pint. I only ordered pints. And they were all outstanding.

Here are two interesting bags of chips I found.

I’m not sure what shamrocks taste like, but apparently, they are good when paired with sour cream. And now on to breakfast, a very important meal in Ireland. Here is what my breakfast usually looked like. Eggs, Irish bacon, Irish sausage, Irish yogurt, and cold cuts of salami and chorizo.

And my breakfast was several items short of a proper Irish breakfast. I passed on the baked beans (seriously), black pudding, and mushrooms.

First, the items I passed on. I love baked beans, just not for breakfast. I did see a lot of people eating them with their breakfast. Black pudding is a type of blood sausage. That was a hard pass. And I’m ok with mushrooms, but with so much other good food, I didn’t want to waste the room in my stomach. Next, the food I ate. The eggs were eggs, nothing special there. It was the same with the cold cuts. The Irish yogurt was the bomb. It was much thicker than our yogurt and tangier. When you added some fruit compote to it, it was fantastic. The Irish sausage was a bit plain for me and had an odd, almost sawdust like texture. I really wanted to like it, and kept trying it, with the same result. I believe that is the definition of insanity. Now the Irish bacon was another story. It more than made up for the Irish sausage.

As you can see in the picture, it is really ham with a bacon tail. And it was delicious. If I had to pick only one food I could eat for the rest of my life, this would be it.

We also learned a chicken sandwich with mayo is really a chicken salad sandwich. And the servers at every place we ate had the same routine. The service was really good until after the desert was served, then they disappeared. We were constantly hunting someone down to get a check. And you have to tell them you are using a credit card, because they bring the machine to your table. Most places will let you add the tip right there, but a few would not, and you had to leave a cash tip. And in the evening hours, most places that served alcohol had a security guard at the door. It was not required, but was extremely common.

The Distilled Water Saga

I have a CPAP machine that I travel with and it needs distilled water to operate. I have never had a problem getting it wherever we have traveled. I did research on the internet and looked like it would be easy to get in Ireland as well. Famous last words. On our first night, right after dinner, we walked to a local store that listed distilled water on their website, but there was no picture with it. I should have noticed that clue. At the store, I couldn’t find any distilled water, so I asked an employee. They pointed to the Ballygowan Still Natural Mineral Water.

This is where I learned they have still water, and sparkling water. But not distilled water. Mineral water is the exact opposite of distilled water. Now I had to go on a walking hunt for distilled water. After several stops at a variety of places, someone told me they sold distilled water at the pharmacy, and it is behind the pharmacy counter, and I had to ask someone there to get it. I walked to the nearest pharmacy that was still open and success, they sold distilled water. Typically, I pay around $1 a gallon for it. In Hawaii, I had to pay $2 a gallon, but that was understandable. Here I paid just over $15 US, for a liter. And that was not going to be enough for the whole trip, so I had to buy a second liter. In case you struggle like I do with the metric system, there are about 3.78 liters in a gallon. I was paying over $56 US a gallon for distilled water. That’s a big ouch.

A Few General Things

The floors in buildings are numbered differently than in the US. The ground floor is zero, not 1. The first floor is up one, what we call the 2nd floor. And so on. If the basement is the first floor down from the main floor, it is -1. See for yourself.

And the electricity in your room is controlled by a box you have to put your room key in to turn on the power.

And the electric outlets are different as well. We had our converters with us.

The Words

Even though they speak English, there are many different words they use. Some are from England, and some are from the Gaelic language native to Ireland. Irish people cannot pronounce the “TH” sound, so thirty sounds like tirty, thanks sounds like tanks, and so on. Here are some of the words we learned while we were there.

Now that we all have a slightly better understanding of Ireland, it is time to end this post and prepare for the next ones. Stay tuned for the actual trip.