Vacation Day Three-That Coyote Had It Coming

What an eventful and long day! I’ll just jump right in.

I got up early to pack, eat breakfast and try to get out to the airport to pick up my rental car for the rest of the Ireland trip by 10 a.m. Breakfast was nice, and relaxed. Another morning of “black and white pudding,” which I’m still not sure I want to know what it is. Kind of reminds me of the “Name That Meat” contest from Meatballs. I liked that for a second day in a row, they were playing Mel Torme, Nat King Cole, and Tony Bennett music softly in the background. Throw in Sinatra and that’s a full house. If (and hopefully when) I have a family (who will all of course be much younger than me, and probably will have to wheel me around if they haven’t killed me for my life insurance by that point-ha! You lose-my heart condition makes me uninsurable-snap! So I’m protected against my kids and wife killing me for my insurance, which is nice.), I picture myself sitting in my big chair in the evenings trying to unwind while listening to this kind of music, while the wife and kids play in the other room. Kind of pathetic, I know, but I read that’s how Tony Randall did it. When he was 85 or whatever.

Ok, this has already gotten off track.

The point was that I enjoyed the breakfast music.

Sidebar-COOL JERK! Uh huh huh!

Back to the story…and…go.

I had to take another cab out to the airport because my hotel wasn’t anywhere near the 6 euro shuttle van stop, and I wasn’t about to try to drive on the wrong side of the road back into Dublin proper. After spending half an hour with me trying to figure out where to go, I finally had to go to the airport and ride the Avis shuttle back to where I was first dropped off. Both of these guys were chatty, and the Avis guy got into a really animated dialogue about Guinness beer and how its made and how it doesn’t keep its characteristic quality very well when exported.

So after two and a half days in Dublin, dealing almost exclusively with travel-related and hospitality industry workers, I now feel qualified to characterize the entire Irish population. From what I can tell, they’re FAR more engaging, friendly, and fun than those English stiffs across the Irish Sea. Ever noticed how all English guys have some fancy boy name like “Colin” or “Tony” or “Ian” or “Reginald”? Nice names, guys. They go well with your skirts. That pretty much sums it up right there. An entire people who would break like a twig. Other than the handful of exceptions they produce every now and then-Churchill, Nelson, Cornwallis, Mountbatten, Lawrence, Thatcher, or Elizabeth I-those guys are soft. And they’re very “color inside the box” about everything. Not the Irish. The Irish never met a stranger, they’re exceedingly accommodating, they care about other people, they love life and family, and you just can’t get them down. Wipe out more than a million of them in a famine and they’re still singing songs and drinking pints. Send their economy down the tubes and they’re still singing and dancing. Oh, yeah, they like to drink. A lot. Did you know that? They wear their emotions on their sleeve-no Brit passivity here. Everything’s out in the open. They cherish their history, and they love their nation. These people are Cajuns, with worse teeth and clammy weather. They’re immensely more enjoyable than the dour, Spock-like sticks-in-the-mud over in England who’re just SO SUPERIOR to everyone else. Too bad their economy’s in the tank.

Once again, we return to the story. When we were last here, Chris was telling us about what happened when he got his car. Lets listen.

I did notice on the way to the airport, inscribed on an 1800s railway bridge, the slogan “The Cause of Labour is the Cause of Ireland.” Nice going guys. Who, exactly, is going to invest in capital with that attitude? Ireland has one of the highest minimum wage levels in the euro zone. Its reputed to have a great deal of bureaucracy and regulations. What it did have in the 80s and 90s was a huge skilled labor force ready for jobs, and a government that seemed willing to incentivize investment. But after the bust, those jobs went elsewhere, like to India and Poland. Now “Labour” is emigrating or on public assistance. I’m not going to point any fingers, but….

Alright, I got my car and a GPS unit, and headed out to the Rock of Cashel (which I’ll describe in a bit). Its in the town of Cashel. Unfortunately, there’s about a million towns called Cashel in Ireland. Who knew? Basically, when I asked Mr. GPS for directions to Cashel, it sent me to one in the wrong county. Once I finally figured this out, I was in the middle of BFE, and would have to drive about an hour through narrow, winding, two-lane country roads to get to Cashel. Ordinarily I’d have been furious with myself about this, but not today. I really wanted to see some of the country, and this was a perfect opportunity. Most of the drive was through agriculture areas and small farms. Every time I got out to take a picture, I caught that feedlot smell. Oh joy. But the Irish countryside is delightful. Rolling hills, hedge rows, and grass so green its like you’ve never seen that color before. It struck me that I’ve never seen the color green as vivid as when the sun comes out in Ireland. You can tell why its called the Emerald Isle. What I can’t figure out is where is that little bastard Rumpelstiltskin and how can I get my hands on some of his leprechaun money?

Finally arriving in Cashel about an hour late, I can see the incredible Rock of Cashel on the road into town. From there it looks like Camelot in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (“Its only a model”). But it looks splendid. The Rock of Cashel is both a rock and a castle/cathedral site. The rock is basically a limestone outcropping that dominates the surrounding country. This provided a perfect site to place a fortress or castle back in medieval times when weapons systems basically consisted of throwing something destructive at the other guy or sticking him with a pointed object. Being higher than the other guy and hiding yourself behind a thick wall constituted the strategic deterrent system of its day. So ancient Irish kings built a castle around the ninth century on the Rock of Cashel and ruled from there. In the 1100s, for reasons the tour guide didn’t really explain, the king turned the site over to the church. They promptly started building a cathedral on the site, and later extended the cathedral to include a fortress for the Archbishop. Apparently back then the church felt it appropriate to run off and slaughter people if they wouldn’t accept Christ (such acceptance, of course, being signified by paying extravagant taxes, err, tithes at pain of imprisonment, to finance these people’s art collections and “lifestyles”.). Some people must have got angry enough from time to time to fight back, prompting the need for a really good hiding place. Today we would call that the country club. Cromwell’s people sacked the place in the 1600s, then rounded everyone up, locked the door, and burned the place down. Nice touch. Especially from a guy named “Oliver.” The church subsequently restored it, but abandoned it by the 1700s. Its not a complete ruin, but it lacks a roof, which tends to make it more difficult to preserve the site. Various storms have taken their toll on the place, but most of it remains intact. One final point, it was freezing out there. The killer winds from yesterday followed me up to the rock. The winds literally were pushing people around. It wasn’t too cold temperature-wise, but the winds were tearing up everybody, including me. It was like being offshore in January.

The town itself is fairly small and depends almost entirely on tourism. I had an interesting lunch at a place called Café Chez Haas, consisting of yet another goat cheese salad, and an excellent “fish cake” with red pepper, tomatoes, and cous cous. I notice that I’m eating more bread than usual. The Irish diet somewhat resembles the Argentine diet: lots of potatoes and beef, not so much green vegetables, though vegetables are more readily found (primarily carrots and other root vegetables…the Irish are great diggers). Anyway, its not so much the bread as the butter. Irish dairy products, particularly butter, is just really good. The bread is just kind of a butter delivery device. I’ve further noticed how many restaurants make a point to advertise that they serve locally grown produce, meat, fish, cheese, etc. They’re not quite as holier than thou about it as Austin, but its definitely noticeable.

I’ve also noticed in my travels here that every little town has retained its commercial district, and there’s no WalMarts or Walgreen’s or Home Depots to be found. These towns resemble a time warp to 1965, when every American town had a thriving commercial district comprised of locally owned business. The good thing about that is local money circulated locally, and small businesses could thrive and concentrate on personal service. Your pharmacist took great interest in you because you weren’t just a customer, you were his livelihood. And the hardware guy, and the auto mechanic, and the appliance guy. These days, we have lower prices (maybe) and certainly better consumer products, but service is non-existent. The sales clerks know how to ring up purchases, and not much else about the things they sell. They certainly don’t know you. And your money goes off to Bentonville, Arkansas or some other who cares place, instead of staying in town where it gets respent, over and over. And where it provides jobs that pay more than one cent over minimum wage. Ireland proves that its possible to have real local commercial district even in small towns. Of course, I’m sure they have all kinds of sneaky laws drawn up by teams of solicitors and other bruiser types that keep out all the American chains.

Enough sermonizing.

Oh, and I found out Ireland is politically “neutral.” Which essentially means it can free ride off of the US and NATO for defense expenditure. It also means that Ireland won’t fight against evil in this world, like the Taliban or Saddam Hussein or Kathie Lee Gifford. But will Ireland fight for its right to party? That is the question.

After seeing the Rock, and hiked on the brief “Tipperary Walk” over to the unmarked and for all apparent purposes completely and totally abandoned Hore Abbey. This is another ruin, of much smaller dimensions, sitting out there through the ages. The cemetery was overgrown, but had tombstones dated as late as the 1920s. The government had no markers or anything else on the site to indicate what it was or what happened there. It struck me that this was remarkable. This place had absolutely no graffiti, no beer bottles, no gum wrappers, no carved hillbilly initials, none of the trash or human destruction that you see in nearly every American historical site. Had this been East Texas, some hicks would have used it for a meth lab. This reinforces how the Irish value their history.

Oh, another little Irish idiom I’ve heard several times now as a greeting at various tourist sites is “You are very welcome to [insert name of destination here].” Its very Jane Austen. I kind of like it. “You are very welcome to Juliet Street.” Uh, not really.

From there it was on to Cork, Ireland’s second largest city. Like Lafayette to New Orleans. I checked in for the night at the excellent and friendly Garnish House B&B, where the proprietress immediately started attacking me with scones and tea as soon as I stepped foot in the door. Its like she wasn’t going to be satisfied until I took my tea and scones dammit! While pleading for a chance to put up my luggage and get settled in my room first, I ran into an older couple from Boston (I keep saying “older” like they really are older. Soon, I’ll have to accept that these people aren’t really older than me, they just have more mileage, or I’m not being realistic about how I look). Anyway, we all had a great time talking about Texas and the fires and the drought and the heat and everything, when the guy asked me if Rick Perry “is the real deal.” He’s a Boston liberal and is convinced Obama is going to lose, and wants to know what Perry’s like. Remembering Jon Stewart’s description of Rick Perry, I responded that he’s your worst nightmare. He makes George W. Bush look like a big old softy. Perry wears cowboy boots, carries a gun, vetoes bills for the fun of it, and was an Aggie Yell Leader. People will not vote for anyone else for Governor. The guy asked about the 230 people who’ve been executed, and I replied “don’t forget about the coyote.” I explained the story of how Perry shot a coyote not too long ago when he was out jogging. But I offered that the coyote had it coming. The Boston guy looked forlorn. You are very welcome.

A young woman who I think was named Julia showed me to my room. She’s from Newcastle, England, making her a Yorkshireman (or woman). I immediately thought of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch (“I used to dream of living in a corridor!”). She sounded like it too. She said she was working temporarily in Ireland until she could save money and move on to somewhere else. She and some boyfriend flew out to San Francisco once, bought a cheap car, and drove it all the way to Boston. Her favorite American places? Yosemite and the Pacific Coast Highway between San Francisco and LA. Good choices. I mention that little factoid because you have to admire someone living hand to mouth like that in their youth. Also how the whole “foreigners are stealing our jobs” thing isn’t just in the US. People move everywhere to find work. That’s capitalism.

Around that time (5 ish or so), I noticed waves of young people walking up the street. Turns out the B&B was right across the street from the University College of Cork. Later that night as I headed downtown for dinner and to find an internet café to write yesterday’s post (again, you are very welcome), I noticed what seemed like 20 bars and pubs all buzzing with these kids, on a Tuesday night of all things. As I walked back to my room, around 2 a.m., they were still all out stumbling around in the streets, and a line of taxis as far as I could see stretched down the main street taking them home. Good Lord, what kind of college students are these? I used to study in school, at least on Tuesday nights. This so-called University College must be like Florida State. Forget the books, where can we find three-for-one shots?

Before that, however, I gave in to the innkeepers tea and scone demands and may I say, I did a bad, bad thing. Man were those good. I say “those,” as in I wolfed down about three scones, and some sort of soft chocolate bread pudding. Oh, along with butter and jam. But oh was that good! I had high tea at the Dorchester Hotel in London once (no I am not a girl…there was a girl involved…you figure it out). This was better. None of those boring old micro fish sandwiches (get it? "micro fish"? like the old "microfische"? Ah, I slay me!) or cucumber rolls to have to pretend to like. The pastries were better here than there. Yes, I got sticky all over my face and hands too, like a two year old, or Homer Simpson. I’m not proud, but I’m an American and that’s how we roll. All pretentions to my “low carb diet” are withering fast. I guess tomorrow I’ll have a dozen donuts. Man, I’m turning into Augustus Gloop on this trip. Watch out ladies! The Killer is coming home.

I did get in a little workout before dinner though. Yeah, I ate all that scone goodness, then had dinner. It was at the Soho Restaurant, and consisted of “volcanic rock” duck breast and a salad. Its some sort of Polynesian thing. They take a volcanic rock and keep it heated in their oven all day long. They pull it out, salt it, and bring it to your table. Your job is to take the raw (actually, its seared a bit on the outside) duck, and put it on the rock throughout your meal. You cook it to the desired level. The rock stays hot enough to cook throughout the whole meal, which is kind of interesting. It’s the most low-fat duck I’ve ever had. Very tasty.

OK, that pretty much does it for today.

Next-to Bantry House and Killarney.