Do Not Ask an Irish Person to say "Top of the Morning to ya"

Don't worry, I did not ask an Irish Person to say "Top of the morning to you" although they should for the tourists. This blog post comes from one of the first days I met Kevin and I asked him to say something really Irish and he asked me for an example and before I could say "Magically delicious" (which is also a little wrong to ask but I felt like it would be less insulting to ask that because I was betting that they did not have Lucky Charms in Ireland but anyway) he stopped me to say "Oh and Irish people do not say top of the morning to you'". And I was like, that didn't even cross my mind, although technically he still said it to tell me that Irish people don't say it.

On one of my days in Ireland I asked Kevin if I looked like a tourist. He said yes, that my skin tone gives me away. And I laughed because much of my friends and family would say I was light compared to them. Although I have a tan now, I still think I'm pretty light but in Ireland I'm dark. I even noticed it as we were walking around.

Anyway, I really liked Dublin. The city feels really young, is not too big but not too small. It really just has a calming/welcoming feeling. Kiah and I have already discussed returning next summer as we both would like to continue our travels abroad. What I forgot to say about Ireland previously is that they are like the UK and drive on the opposite side of the road. Having only seen this in Ireland I was totally tripping out and just kept constantly looking both ways so I wouldn't die. In Dublin, as you are crossing the streets, they have in white painting either look left or look right for people such as myself that are not used to looking to the other side of the street upon crossing. Thank God for those signs. Although, if you are like me and have been drinking, those signs mean nothing. On our first night out, I had to hold on to Kevin because I was not going to be able to cross those roads by myself and survive.

Oh yeah....it makes sense but no one ever mentions it...there is a river that runs smack in the middle of Dublin. Yes, I should have assumed there was a river as it is an older city, with a lot of history and they needed it for transport and etc. but NO ONE EVER MENTIONS THE RIVER. Not only is there a river, but they have canals that connect to the river. Yes, I know, it seems so obvious but it should have been mentioned in pictures or in a sentence such as "as you cross the river" or "as you cross one of the bridges"  but nope, never been mentioned.

On our first day in Dublin we arrived by bus in the early evening and then went to a pub to get a drink. We walked through the really touristy part of Dublin and found something more off the beaten track to get a drink and watch Gaelic/Irish Futbol. When Kevin first told me about it, I was like "Yes, I want to watch that" because that is so cool and cultural and I had NO idea that such a thing existed. It is played between the different counties in Ireland. It played with 15 players on each team on a soccer type of field and the players have to score by either kicking it over the goal posts like in American football and they get one point or kicking it through the goal posts and they get 3 points. they can carry, bounce, throw, kick, pass or solo which is a drop of the ball and a toe-kick back up into their hands. It was kind of cool and really past paced. I really enjoyed the game and the atmosphere. I mean, come on, I'm in Ireland at a pub watching an Irish game with Irish people, totally cool. We went to a couple of more pubs (and is it bad if I can't remember what we ate?) and spotted out some Starbucks to go to in the morning and went back to the hostel to sleep.

The next day, we did more the touristy things, walked the river, walked up and down the touristy areas, got my Starbucks (yes, yes, I did get my frappe), walked by St. Patrick's Cathedral, went to Stephen's Green, went to Trinity College (totally beautiful, I would love to work there) where there was this spinning golden statue and my Star Wars reference was lost and I was sad.

For those of you that don't know, I started collecting Harry Potter books from different countries in different languages as kind of my souvenirs from where I traveled to. I told Kevin  I wanted a Harry Potter book in Irish and he didn't think they existed. I looked it up and they did. Although when I did further research in the morning of our second day, I found out that some of the corporations that do this are not in Ireland. One is in the United States! Buying one from the US would not satisfy me. So I decided to look at the covers and if they were different then to buy one cause it'll work. Anyway, we found paperbacks that had totally cool covers and none I had seen before. I got the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince one because on the cover were the Cliffs of Moher and that just fit the whole Irish theme and Irish book so I was pretty happy. As I pointed out a book, Kevin points out the Harry Potter books next to the book I originally pointed out that was in IRISH! Now I had a dilemma. Which book?! They both fit perfectly so what did I do? I got both of course! I was in love with both of them too much to put one back.

This probably will not help anyone but I'm going to throw in this little blurb because if you know me, you know this is totally my style and it'll also give you a better idea about my Irish friend. Earlier in the week, I had asked Kevin one of my favorite questions. Who would play you in the movie of your life? And I was surprised I hadn't asked him before. But anyway, at first we came up with Justin Timberlake, Neil Patrick Harris and people like that. No one we were completely satisfied with so the question still hung in the air. As we were walking around and waiting for the rain to subside we walked into a CD/Movie store. I don't remember what movie it was but he turns to me and says "Jude Law. Jude Law would play me." And as I had just seen the same movie title, I thought the same thing. I don't know if we ever came to a conclusion for me but I would like to think Tina Fey and I'm going to pretend that was our conclusion.

So as previously mentioned, I love Harp. It is one of my favorite beers and I didn't think it would be hard to find in Ireland since its an Irish beer. But of course, it was. I wanted to go to a pub and listen to an Irish band play Irish music so we went to the touristy area of Dublin known as Temple Bar (there is also a bar named Temple Bar which I will soon mention) to have our beers and listen to music. The first pub we went into was crowded. Not only for the music but because Ireland was going to be on the TV in the Olympic sport of boxing. But as I was looking for seats or a place to stand....low and behold there was Harp! So we had to stay of course and have a pint or 2. And to be quite honest, Kevin and I weren't overly loud or talkative or that energetic but I just had so much fun being there and people watching and just in  a pub with Irish people enjoying Irish beer and music. After our pints, we went to THE Temple Bar. This is a bar that is so photographed and is like the representative place for the whole area and we were trying to find out why this one pub was so popular and everything kind of circled around it. The only thing we found out was that its big, (they also had Harp) expensive, and know for their Whiskey,...and that was it. I think people were in there like we were, "why are you famous Temple Bar? Let's go in and see." But it was still fun despite the costs.

I would have to say that my second day in Dublin might probably have been my favorite day abroad. Despite being the first day that I wanted to text people back home sooooo badly and starting to get homesick, it was just a good day with my Harry Potter books, the Irishness and just being with someone you like to be with. The day wasn't too tiring or too touristy, it was just a good day.

Thank you Kevin and thank you Ireland!

"Never Trust Irish Weather" - Kevin Healy

So my second day in Ireland was very laid back. I learned that they do not have Dr. Seuss in Ireland. As I was telling Kevin that my last post was a Dr. Seuss quote, we talked about how he kind of knew the movies (Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, etc) but not any of the books. I was so sad to learn that fact and was telling him about how as a typical graduation gift, people give "Oh the Places You Will Go" and how I thought that was perfect for traveling.

We went to Ceide Fields. According to Wikipedia it means "fields of the flat-topped hill." It is an archaeological site that is the most extensive Stone Age site in the world and contains the oldest known field systems in the world. Unfortunately we did not get to walk too much of these fields because of the weather. We also drove around, saw some gnarly cliffs and kind of just planned our next few days. Speaking of depressing from an earlier post, my friend was telling me how the cliffs were known for their suicides. Depressing! The day ended with TV watching and general relaxing.  


Things I learned. Ireland, particularly in the North, the wetlands are covered in what is known as bog. I would say bog looks like black tar that has been solidified. But driving around, you don't see much of it because it is covered by fields. I would say they were the type of fields that on a beautiful day you would run through like in the movies. Bog is basically millions of years of deposited plant life compressed together. So what happens is that people dig it up, dry it out and use that to burn for fires. How greenly efficient is that? I thought that was pretty cool to help planet earth. 

Side note from Kevin- I read your blog and found it quite entertaining, in fact I got my sister to read it too.  The whole bog and turf cutting isn't eco-friendly at all, it's a fossil fuel that burns and emits emissions which isn't too good for the environment as far as I know... 

There is also a musical bridge that we only stopped by once but drove by three times. Apparently when you roll a rock across the bridge it plays musical tunes. We found clips on youtube and I really wanted to try it. Next time right? 

Anyway, on my third day in Ireland we went to the Cliffs of Moher. My friend Lyndsay had recommended them as she had spent a summer in Ireland. The selling point was that they were featured in the 6th Harry Potter movie and so I kind of had a general idea of what they looked like and I was like "I'm a little tired of museums, I can see some nature." Kevin never been to the Cliffs himself despite his university being not far arranged for us to go. From his house, we drove two hours to Galway which is kind of a young, college, beach town (a total party feel running through) and we caught a tour bus from Galway to the Cliffs. Before leaving the car, we were deciding which items to take or not take. With his jacket in hand, Kevin looks at the sky and says "it should be a nice day, I'm going to leave it here." and returns his windbreaker/rain jacket to the backseat of the car. Luckily I took the sweatshirt he let me borrow with us. 

So my mistake. I was thinking that they might be more environmentally friendly since they weren't chopping down ton of trees for burning wood and were using other materials that were abundant but didn't serve any real purpose. Oops. 



Along the way, the tour guide does his job and tell us about the area and the history and so on and between stories we listened to traditional Irish music. Kevin proceeds to tell me that the people in the south are more into the traditional music. Everyone he knew from I think Clare county except for one plays traditional Irish instruments. What are traditional Irish instruments you ask? Pipes, flutes, bodhrans and harps. So I said "Oh, I didn't know harps were traditionally Irish." Kevin stops, looks at me and asks me "Isn't your favorite beer Harp?" (Harp is an Irish beer by the way). And I respond with "well yeah." And he proceeds "The Guinness logo is a harp. How have you not noticed this before? You didn't see that there was a pattern?" And then I stopped and could only laugh. How did I not notice the blatant signs that harps are traditionally Irish? DUH! I laughed about it the entire duration of my trip because after that, I saw the harps EVERYWHERE. I could even get little harp earrings if I wanted to! But I think the reason I found it so funny was I felt like I was in the shoes of the other people that I'm usually with and often find myself asking them "how have you not noticed that before?" It was a very humbling moment that I shall forever appreciate.

Depending on the tour bus that you take you can either stop at some caves of a birds of prey area. We stopped at the Aillwee Caves. The Aillwee Caves are some of the oldest in Ireland but were only found quite recently when a dog ran into the caves and his owner ran after him. Apparently the caves were used by bears who would come in to hibernate because the only remains they found at this time were of bears. No human remains had been discovered. Our tour guide proceeds to tell us that Ireland does not have bears, they all died out on the island. And I leaned over to Kevin and said "I didn't know you didn't have bears" and his response was "I didn't know we EVER had bears." (There are also no squirrels in Ireland).

Correction from Kevin-And apparently we do have squirrels in Ireland, two types in fact! So that was news to me as I've never seen one here, although judging by Google they seem to be in other parts of the country. So I don't know if you want to alter the blog then or not, but thought I should fill you in on those two tiny things! 

Finally we get to the Cliffs of Moher. It's a little rainy, more sprinkling and as we notice the weather Kevin says "I don't know why I didn't bring my jacket. Never trust Irish weather." And I appropriately gave him the sweatshirt he let me borrow since he was kind of nursing a cold and temperature wise I was ok. The cliffs are 8 kilometers long which is about 4 miles I believe. They are beautiful! However, the mood is a little dampened by signs saying "Need to talk? Call us at....-Samaritans." I can only assume it was to prevent suicides.

We walked the appropriately labeled paths with the railings since its Ireland everything was a little wet. If I had better balance, I would have walked along the cliffs that were off the protected path but with my bad balance and the muddy, slippery path, decided against it. Then as we decided to turn back, it started raining. Not the light "oh its sprinkling, it might start to rain" that I had been in the last few days but the rain came down in big, cold raindrops and we walked to jog back to the gift shop or the general enclosed area to wait until our tour bus left. We looked at coffee table books and little Irish facts.

The bus took us past a lighthouse which was really pretty and then to a small town called Doolin. I had soup to warm up and after we ate, of course the sun was out so we sat outside to enjoy the sun and dry off a little bit. I don't know how we got into the subject of naming objects but he had very strong opinions of naming objects that weren't people or pets but it only went as far to cats and dogs. I then told him about our office and naming Clare (the plant) and how she was part of the office. I didn't mention the birthday balloon or the pictures of her, I think he would have thought we were too crazy had I mentioned them. Anyway, he believes that the naming of objects is an overly American idea and as he previously said I could name his car, decided against it. Sad day.

The day ended with us going to Supermacs which is an Irish fast food chain but partnered with Papa Johns. It was good and had skinny fries which I hadn't seen much of here. On the way home, we talked about how the day was a bit "Irish" which really is what I wanted. And then it dawned on me, I hadn't seen a rainbow yet. Then, as luck would have it, I saw a rainbow and was completely happy. That was the ending of a really good day.