back from ireland!

[Tinwhistler]

Been back about an hour. Been traveling 24 hours straight. Watch this space for stories and pics starting sometime tomorrow

[Soliloquy]

Awesome! Welcome back, sir!

[escushion]

Yay, can't wait to see.

[Silver Jelly]

Yay! Story and picture time!

[Wasabi Poptart]

Welcome back! Hope you had a great time.

[Dave]

Did you take your whistle and play for/with them?

[callistarya]

Did you take your whistle and play for/with them?

Yes! He was so awesome! When Tin played Crested Hens (which is a slow one) the whole pub shushed each other so they could hear him. TWICE! It was so awesome! There was a guy that told me "your fellow plays bloody brilliant". I couldn't help but beam. The same guy went to shake his hand when it was over and he treated Tin like a celeb. He was all shy but want to meet him so bad. I'm so proud of my "Fella"

You all will love the pics. We had an awesome time!

[checkeredhat]

Welcome back! I just got back from China last night myself! Seems like a lot of forumites are out travelling this summer.

I'd love to go to Ireland some day, its such a beautiful country and I constantly hear about how incredibly nice everyone is there, and I'd love to find out some more about the Kane (I think it was O' Kane before coming to Canada) side of my family.

[Tinwhistler]

Here's the first day's photos. You can see the entire set on my Flickr account, and I'll be making a photo set for each day's travels. You'll need a flickr.com account to see these photo sets.
Flickr: Ireland Day 1



We flew out from DFW to New York. The weather was nice and the clouds were big and fluffy.



Here we are, landing in New York. New York was a big disappointment, and not a good start to the honeymoon, let me tell you. We exited the aircraft directly onto the tarmac (rather than taking a concourse to the gates). Some of us have been forced to check our carry-on baggage because the plane was full, and we were supposed to collect it here, on the tarmac, before entering the airport. Delta calls this "valet baggage check" or some such. We were waiting for our bags with about a dozen other people for about 5 seconds tops when some chick from Delta starts screaming at us: "You can't stand here! You need to move! Come on! Come on! Move move move!" She was totally rude. We ignored her, waited for our bags, got them, and entered the airport.

We entered Terminal 2, which was hot and crowded. We decided to stop at an airport restaurant and grab a bite to eat. We waited over an hour for service. We got some nachos, a hot dog, a hamburger, and a couple of beers.



Now, granted the hot dog was listed as a "kobe beef hot dog", the burger did have a grilled pepper speared on top, and the fries had fried rosemary and parmasean cheese, but we really were a bit shocked by the bill.

Not counting souvenir purchases, this is about what we spent in Ireland every day, for a couple of meals each, appetizers, and a couple rounds of beer at each meal. We should have saved the money in New York and eaten at Wendy's
Notice the time the check was printed: 4:05pm. We landed at 1:08pm and almost immediately ate since we got up at 6am and skipped breakfast on the way out to the airport. Yeah, we weren't that impressed with JFK. After our terrible experience here, we decide to just nap/rest in the airport lounges and not venture out into the city itself.


Yay, we're back on the plane, this time heading over the Atlantic to Shannon, Ireland. Happy to have JFK behind us The flight was like 6 hours long, and we tried to sleep during most of it.


Sunrise occurred over Shannon as we neared our arrival.




Landing at Shannon Airport. Even on the approach, the countryside was simply awe-inspiring. This really helped set the mood for our week in Ireland! Pictures really don't do justice to how beautiful it was to fly over this gorgeous country.




This is the drive to our rental cottage. We didn't get many pictures, because it was my first day driving on the left side of the road and it was absolutely terrifying. In Ireland, evidently the center divider lane (when you have one!) is merely a suggestion, and we were almost run off the road several times by tour buses and other large vehicles that just didn't fit in one lane. These pictures were during the more sedate parts of the drive where we weren't screaming in terror.

Ireland's major highways have a roundabout system rather than the exit ramp system I'm used to. I've heard horror stories about driving the roundabouts, but I really loved them. They made switching between highways really simple, and if you missed your exit, you just go around again and catch it the next time. The highways were nice and big, and easy to drive, but it was once we got on N67 that the terror began. It didn't help that we got lost by taking a wrong turn at Ennistimon. We went through Lahinch, Miltown Malbay, and Cregg before realizing that we were going the wrong way.

Our landlady called N67 the "corkscrew road up the coast" which is a really good description of it. We went for nearly an hour on it in the wrong direction, and it was where most of our terror occurred. At one point we got behind a tractor moving about 5 mph, and Calli absolutely refused to let me pass it so that we could calm down and start again. It probably didn't help that I was hugging the left side of the road the entire time because I wasn't used to the steering wheel being in would be the passenger seat in the USA. Shifting with the wrong hand wasn't that big of a deal, surprisingly.

Eventually, we got turned around, went back up the road and went around the Cliffs of Moher looking for Lisdoonvarna. We somehow went in a big circle and so we stopped at the Stonecutter's Kitchen restaurant to call our landlady since we had seen it twice already in our travels. The Luck of the Irish was with us, as the restaurant was directly next to the Clare Jam Shop Road, which led to our cottage--so named because it was the road that had the jam shop on it, naturally.




So we made it to the cottage! The yard was full of cows. Our landlords didn't own these cows. They rented them, in order to keep the grass down. We thought that it was kind of strange you could even rent cows for that purpose!

The last picture is a shot from our kitchen out the window. Past the cow, a few hundred yards away, is the ocean! And beyond that is Inis Oirr, the smallest of the Aran Islands. This is basically the same view we had from the master bedroom. Nice! I've lived in Houston, and spent a lot of time in Galveston. I was expecting that, being so close to the ocean, that it would smell like salt, seaweed, and slightly fishy. The air here smelled nothing like that! It was clean, crisp and lovely.




While the cottage was 'modern', many of the buildings around it weren't. Behind our cottage were some sheds for laundry, rubbish, etc, and most of these were built out of stone, which was really neat. In the yard next door was the remains of a stone house, and all that was left was the corner of the building, completely built out of stone. We found this kind of thing all over Ireland: Ruins and other remains of buildings from times long gone.


After gathering up our courage, we went further down the Jam Shop Road and into Doolin. We had a couple of pints at O'Connor's pub, along with fish and chips and fried brie. Yum! This picture is taken from across the street at a picnic table. At every pub we ate at, there was outdoor seating off the premises where you could take your food and beer. This was nifty because in the US, naturally, all alcohol has to stay on premises. From where we were standing, if you did a 180 degree turn, all you saw was raw Irish countryside:




These are two pictures of the stream you could see from the picnic table across the street from the pub. After eating, we decided that after traveling all day, we were ready to call it a day.


About 3/4 of a mile from our cottage was Doonagore Castle, between our cottage and Doolin. This castle is now a private residence, so we couldn't get up close to take pictures or go inside. But we stopped on the road to take a couple of pictures.


From the back yard, you can also see Crab Island, which is a very small bit of land just off of the Irish coast near the Aran Islands. The sun was just beginning to set as we took these pictures. It was around 10:00pm local time.


Happy to be here!


Our first Irish sunset

[escushion]

Good gods, look at that ocean. What a beautiful place. And those walls are cool! (Never thought I'd say that.)

You guys look cute too .

[sixpackshaker]

Bloody Awesome. It looked like you 2 had a grand time. I'd love to go see Ireland one day.

[checkeredhat]

Good lord! That is one expensive hot dog.
And it sounds like Delta is an airline I should stay away from. Every time I've flown its been with Air Canada (Or Jazz, a partner company of Air Canada), and its always been a pleasant experience.
And I hadn't ever actually considered how weird it would be to drive on the left, with the steering wheel on the right side of the car.

Man, I'm so jealous of your accomodations! It looks awesome!

Do you mind if I ask if this was a terribly expensive trip? China has satiated my taste for travel.

[Tinwhistler]

Delta itself wasn't too bad. I've flown Delta a few times out of Houston and Dallas and had a great time. But JFK itself was an awful experience both ways. I'll get to more of that on the last day's pictures

The trip itself wasn't cheap, but it was what I'd expect for a European vacation. We spent about 2200 on the plane tickets, and about 875 on the cottage and car for a week. We spent about 100 euro a day eating and buying little nick-knacks and souvenirs. We ended up spending a little under $5000 for the entire trip.

[escushion]

Also: New York stuff gets ridiculously priced, airport stuff gets overpriced, put them together... Still not sure how the nachos came to $15 though. That's a weird fucking bill.

[Tinwhistler]

yeah, look at the $4.00 charge to add some freaking guac on them. Heh

[checkeredhat]

That's ricidulous. In China, it was like 10- 30 RMB for a meal, depending on what you had to drink. That is like $0.60 to $1.50 CND. And it was GOOD food too.

[callistarya]

That's ricidulous. In China, it was like 10- 30 RMB for a meal, depending on what you had to drink. That is like $0.60 to $1.50 CND. And it was GOOD food too.

I have always heard about how BLAND Irish foods are. Such a lie! The food was FANTASTIC. I'll prolly miss that quite a bit to tell you the truth.

[checkeredhat]

That's ricidulous. In China, it was like 10- 30 RMB for a meal, depending on what you had to drink. That is like $0.60 to $1.50 CND. And it was GOOD food too.

I have always heard about how BLAND Irish foods are. Such a lie! The food was FANTASTIC. I'll prolly miss that quite a bit to tell you the truth.

I've never really heard that about Irish food. Actually, I don't know any Irish food. other than that there's lots of potatoes.
Is shephard's pie Irish? Cause Shephard's pie is delicious!
I HAVE heard that about English food though, and my mom is English and if her cooking is an indication, its true. Steaks= Well done. All the meat, no seasoning but salt and pepper. Bleh.
The Irish in my family is my dad's side, and he was raised on the East Coast, so rather than being raised on Irish foods, I've been raised on Canadian east coast food. Lots and lots of fish, basically.

[callistarya]

That's ricidulous. In China, it was like 10- 30 RMB for a meal, depending on what you had to drink. That is like $0.60 to $1.50 CND. And it was GOOD food too.

I have always heard about how BLAND Irish foods are. Such a lie! The food was FANTASTIC. I'll prolly miss that quite a bit to tell you the truth.

I've never really heard that about Irish food. Actually, I don't know any Irish food. other than that there's lots of potatoes.
Is shephard's pie Irish? Cause Shephard's pie is delicious!
I HAVE heard that about English food though, and my mom is English and if her cooking is an indication, its true. Steaks= Well done. All the meat, no seasoning but salt and pepper. Bleh.
The Irish in my family is my dad's side, and he was raised on the East Coast, so rather than being raised on Irish foods, I've been raised on Canadian east coast food. Lots and lots of fish, basically.

Shepherd's pie is definitely Irish and sooo good. There were potatoes and sausage with everything just about . I don't think we had to season anything while out there. I think a touch of salt here and there. And I mean a touch. lol

[Tinwhistler]

We had traditional Irish breakfasts once with black and white puddings which looked like little sausage slices, but didn't taste anything like sausage. Calli didn't like the black pudding, so I ate it. We didn't know what it was, but I thought it must have a high grain content like oats due to the texture and flavor. I just now looked it up and saw that black pudding is basically blood sausage...oats onions, and blood in a sausage casing. I thought it was awesome, but I think I just grossed her out telling her about it

[PCT]

That second to last pic is the cutest ever. Glad you guys had fun.

[Sparhawk]

Calli, that second to last pic should be your avatar picture, it's a really good one.

Glad that you guys had a great trip and a safe one (except for getting robbed in the NY terminal with that food bill). Looking forward to seeing more of the pictures and hearing more about it all.

[Amorous Eyes]

Awesome pictures!

Damn, that was one expensive meal.. crazy!

Also, I don't drive, but do love 'roundabouts' cuz the driver can stress less.

[callistarya]

Thanks guys! We had a great time. People said they could see the love in us. That was kinda cool.

---------- Post added at 05:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:51 PM ----------

Calli, that second to last pic should be your avatar picture, it's a really good one.

Glad that you guys had a great trip and a safe one (except for getting robbed in the NY terminal with that food bill). Looking forward to seeing more of the pictures and hearing more about it all.

As you wish!

[Wasabi Poptart]

Sounds like a great time. Glad to hear you both enjoyed yourselves.

[Espy]

Wow! Glad to have you back Tin and Cali! Love the pictures, I told my wife we needed to go there STAT.

[North_Ranger]

Damn, seeing those pictures makes me all kinds of nostalgic. *sighs* I wanna go back to Ireland...

Trust me, it'll hit you both as well I don't know why, but Ireland just seems to have this magnetism about it...

[Hylian]

Welcome back

[Baerdog]

It sounds like you guys had a great honeymoon, I can't wait to see more pictures. I definitely agree with you about flying over the country. I remember when we broke through the clouds when I was flying to Ireland some years back and realizing that I had to completely redefine my concept of green.

[Tinwhistler]

Haven't really had a chance to make another narration yet..maybe tomorrow!

But here's a video I dug out of the files

[Morphine]

WOOOW O_O
Beautiful pics and that pub story made me literally smile. Sounds like you had the time you deserved =)
Soooo want to go to Ireland one day...

[Matt²]

I'm adding Ireland to my list of places I wish to go someday. Nice pics and stories!

[Amorous Eyes]

My mom's been a few times to Ireland (she has a sister living there) but I've never been.

As pretty as it looks I don't think I could spend longer than a weekend there.
I love nature 'n stuff but I also like to be able to get out of it.

[Necronic]

Actually, considering that was airport food, and New York Airport food, I would say that's not too horrible. I've had 50$ 1person lunches at Airports in shit-holes like Tulsa before. Looks like you were getting charged the same I was for the most part.

[Cajungal]

You guys look so happy together. I'm so glad y'all had a good time in Ireland. Gorgeous pictures!