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There and back
Oct. 12th, 2016 06:58 pmSo I went to Ireland and came back, fought off the horrible Jetlag monster and am still staggering from the battle, returned to work to the laughing realization that, Boy, am I glad I went on vacation, because I missed something of a clusterfuck that had been waiting to happen for years. Years.
In short, Ireland was: sunny, cloudy, rainy, windy, warm, hot, cold, and lukewarm. Except for all the green -- and Ireland indeed is very green, compared to Canada where lawns and farms and wilderness everywhere are bracing for the Great White that is looming over the distant horizon, waiting to pounce when the winter comes roaring in -- and the mountains -- because we have no mountains here, only meteroiditic hills scraped bare by ancient glaciers -- it felt oddly very much like home.
The people were reserved, but open; standoffish but warm; quick with companionable smiles and quicker to help out, especially when our little rental car (already gimpy, it seemed, by a bad patch job) got a flat tire in what was a Whoops, I sent us down the wrong road middle of bumfuck nowhere on the next-to-last day of our trip there.
Tour guides at tourist sites gave us the jaded script until they realized that we were still there long after everyone else had gone, genuinely interested in the history of the place and wanting to know more. Bartenders teased us about torturing ourselves when we tried to say goodnight, but we had to leave for an early day the next morning, and it was the dude on the bar stool nearby who kept us there for another drink because he had a creepy story to tell us about a fishing boat coming in without a crew, one day, but all of its crew were found alive and well, sleeping in their beds at home. Farmers taught us about their tradecraft, fishermen sent us to the best fish and chip place in town, and friendly sheepdogs nudged at us wanting to be petted for all of five seconds before trying to lure us to the gate so that we could open it for them, because they wanted to go out and do their jobs.
We drove just over 1800 km through Ireland. We walked, hiked, or climbed between 8 to 10 km every day. We swam in the Atlantic and waved at concerned surfers in bodysuits, reassuring them that we weren't crazy, just Canadian, and the water wasn't that cold.
We loved every minute of it.
Each place we went to, there were signs with the polite request that we leave nothing behind and take nothing away, so we didn't, but somehow we ended up with a few shirts to give away as presents, a toque with a delicately and unobstrusive shamrock that I'm going to keep, a certificate to prove we know how to properly pour a proper Guiness, and more than 2,000 pictures between two cameras (most of them mine) that I'm dreading sorting through.
And, oh, God. All the stories. Worse: all the story ideas.
In short, Ireland was: sunny, cloudy, rainy, windy, warm, hot, cold, and lukewarm. Except for all the green -- and Ireland indeed is very green, compared to Canada where lawns and farms and wilderness everywhere are bracing for the Great White that is looming over the distant horizon, waiting to pounce when the winter comes roaring in -- and the mountains -- because we have no mountains here, only meteroiditic hills scraped bare by ancient glaciers -- it felt oddly very much like home.
The people were reserved, but open; standoffish but warm; quick with companionable smiles and quicker to help out, especially when our little rental car (already gimpy, it seemed, by a bad patch job) got a flat tire in what was a Whoops, I sent us down the wrong road middle of bumfuck nowhere on the next-to-last day of our trip there.
Tour guides at tourist sites gave us the jaded script until they realized that we were still there long after everyone else had gone, genuinely interested in the history of the place and wanting to know more. Bartenders teased us about torturing ourselves when we tried to say goodnight, but we had to leave for an early day the next morning, and it was the dude on the bar stool nearby who kept us there for another drink because he had a creepy story to tell us about a fishing boat coming in without a crew, one day, but all of its crew were found alive and well, sleeping in their beds at home. Farmers taught us about their tradecraft, fishermen sent us to the best fish and chip place in town, and friendly sheepdogs nudged at us wanting to be petted for all of five seconds before trying to lure us to the gate so that we could open it for them, because they wanted to go out and do their jobs.
We drove just over 1800 km through Ireland. We walked, hiked, or climbed between 8 to 10 km every day. We swam in the Atlantic and waved at concerned surfers in bodysuits, reassuring them that we weren't crazy, just Canadian, and the water wasn't that cold.
We loved every minute of it.
Each place we went to, there were signs with the polite request that we leave nothing behind and take nothing away, so we didn't, but somehow we ended up with a few shirts to give away as presents, a toque with a delicately and unobstrusive shamrock that I'm going to keep, a certificate to prove we know how to properly pour a proper Guiness, and more than 2,000 pictures between two cameras (most of them mine) that I'm dreading sorting through.
And, oh, God. All the stories. Worse: all the story ideas.
