Final Post From Ireland

Wow, since the last post we have done it all. After two months living out of suitcases we will soon fly back to Washington, then in a little over a month we will start our trek back home to Mazatlan. Hopefully the pictures will help describe some of the places we have been.

We enjoyed The Ulster American Folk Museum in Northern Ireland. This is a great interactive village with good representation of how life was and then for all the immigrated to the US, and other countries.

Joel always had his book with him so when Janice saw a great place to "shop stop" Joel just leaned against a wall, read a little until Janice walked out and we kept going until the next "shop stop" came up.

For all you beer drinkers, there were more "taps" then most US beer drinkers have ever heard of.

Yes, more beer on tap!

Shown here is the case of many different hard ciders of which Janice says, Bulmer's is the best.

Most of our time in Ireland was spent independently except for our time on the Shamrocker tour. We met some great young people and enjoyed their company and befriended several. A perky young Irish woman named Lynn was our guide and kept us informed on the country, history, and fun times to be had. We stayed in hostels on the tour and also in hostels five other nights so learned a lot about them. The accommodations are basic. We had private rooms, but most stay in small dorms of from four to twelve people with the luck of the draw for roommates with often mixed gender. The kids seem to thrive on this and meet a lot of new people and form groups to cook meals or scout out their towns. From the young people we saw we would recommend this for any young person as a way to see the world and meet people from all over the world. I would encourage our grandkids when they get old enough to see the world this way. We enjoyed a four night/five day tour with Shamrocker Tours. There were 32 of us, most were young people, 30 and below except for a couple my age originally from the US but who moved to Israel in 1987.

Lynn, our spunky young tour guide from Shamrocker tours.

The young people were mostly from Australia and New Zealand. There were also three American girls and a pair of sisters 19 and 17 from Germany. We stayed in hostels and visited a lot of interesting places. We visited the Cliffs of Mohr,
Burren Park, Aran Island, a surfing town, and many other interesting places. Our last two nights were spent in Galway during Galway Race week. The town was packed and it was a fashionistas dream. All the Irish women were trying to outdo themselves as woman with the best hat or best dressed.

                                 

We took a horse and buggy ride all around the Aran Island with Kevin McDounach and his horse Charlie.

We will take the liberty of making some observations on Ireland and the people. The Irish are probably the friendliest, most helpful people that we have met in our travels. It seems like conversations start easily. The people of Ireland are very vocal about their government and voted out a left leaning government in April and now have a centerist government. We listen to their complaints, but know to keep our mouths shut as we know that in each nation the people complain about their government, but it is theirs and rightly would become defensive if an outsider criticized it. Ireland is the most expensive country in Europe, so if you visit, expect to spend premium prices for lodging, food, and drink. An average lunch before beverage is around 10 Euros, ($14.50), a pint of beer is 4-5 Euros, ($5.60-$7.00), a glass of wine 5 euros,( $7), if you smoke, cigarettes are 8.55 Euros a pack,($12.75). Groceries are very high and a dinner meal, not fancy will be 20 Euros, ($29-$30) and up. This is just the main course. Fast food won’t save you, Chicken sandwich, $6.00, Quarter Pounder Meal $13.00! We had to set our daily budget much higher than we did in Spain. Driving was interesting as in Ireland you drive on the left side of the road and the driver is in the right side of the front seat. Getting between cities and towns is well signed, but once you get into many of the towns, the nightmare begins. Street names often don't match maps and many don't have street signs or house numbers. One ways start and stop and many of the roads and street are extremely narrow. Parking is at a premium in many of the cities and often will cost $30 a day, Parking laws are strongly enforced and if you are just a few minutes past your time your car will be "clamped" and it costs 80 Euros to get the clamp off.

In parts of Ireland there are literally miles of stone fences and as you go north their are miles of hedge rows for dividing property. When they rock fences where erected [some a few hundred years ago] was also a way to keep some people employed. Often the rock fences would go nowhere in particular. Everything is green. All shades of green.

During this trip to both Spain and Ireland Janice spent as much time on the beach as she could scouring the rocks/pebbles for Sea Glass. Most beaches had very little but there were two areas where she hit the jack pot. North of Dublin by about 30 minutes and right in Galway on one of the beaches. In Galway, she needed to just stop as there were too many to take back.  Here is her blog going through her experiences finding and making jewelry out of the special finds. http://tearsofmermaids.blogspot.com/

The Irish young people seem to identify with the US much more than the young people of other countries. They listen to mostly American music, contemporary and 60’s and 70’s, travel to the US, and seem least critical. Ireland has an interesting unemployment system. If a young person is unemployed he/she is immediately placed on unemployment of 207 Euros, $300 a week. There is no expiration, no job hunting or training requirement. A significant number choose to stay on unemployment and live at home. With the Irish Government in dire financial straits this system is being reconsidered.

I have a feeling the Whitakers will relax and attempt very little in our month we spend in Washington State besides enjoy family and friends. Until next time, La Vida es Buena".