Trip to Ireland 2008

Part IV

Monday, August 18th

Risking such things I hold dear to me like my life, my reputation, my ability to trust food ever again, I elected to eat a full Irish breakfast at the Crofton “There’s a Strong Possibility You’ll Die in Your Sleep” Bray Head Inn.  As I waited, I was nearly blinded by the light that came from my life flashing in front of me.  As I wondered if I would at least make it to the parking lot before the morning food buried me in death, I drank the smallest glass of orange juice I’ve ever faced.  It was literally a shot or the same volume you would use if it was mouthwash or if you were preparing a bath for a flea.  The food came and I ate it like a lad with nothing to lose. 

I went back to my room and my vitals seemed okay.  I grabbed all of my belongings and while I walked down the long dark hallways, “Hotel California” started playing in my head.  This melodious mental incident was uninvited and freaked me out.  As I made my way through the maze of hallways and doors and stairways and stench, I began to pick up the pace.  I couldn’t help but wonder if I would be trapped in this haunted time bomb of a hotel, a time bomb whose fuse was lit 130 years ago and would burn for eternity.  Once outside, I breathed in a mixture of air, freedom and relief.

I then drove through the Wicklow Mountains to a well-known monastery named Glendalough.  I wandered through old ruins and cemeteries.  I then decided to do a 5-kilometer hike that took me up alongside a series of mountain river waterfalls.  Due to the excessive rain, the falls were wild and uncouth like their artificial relatives that reside in water parks. 

I continued my soggy, rain-ridden journey through a forest where I was greeted by two deer.  One stopped and kept checking me out.  Dirty deer!  In addition to my creature-universal charm, I think it was due to the fact my pants were exactly the same color as their coat.  After carefully studying the deer’s body language, I was able to come up with this translation, “Is that my good friend Slim the Deer?  Why is he wearing a black jacket and holding an umbrella?  Why is he standing upright on two legs?  Why do my droppings look like Coco Puffs?”

This pensive deer eventually moved on and I entered thick, dark woods and climbed up a small, steep path that had been turned into a stream.  At the top, everything opened up and I was gifted with supersonically good views of Glendalough’s Upper Lake.  I walked along a cliff, passed by a well-behaved group of horned goats (rams maybe?) and descended to my point of origin.  

Back in the car, I drove south to my next stop, Kilmore Quay, and checked into my B&B.  Kilmore Quay is a very small, peaceful fishing village in County Wexford and provided more of the quiet nourishment that my American soul desired.  A more tangible nourishment was soon found at the great restaurant of Silver Foxes.  During my wonderful meal, a strange bug dropped out of nowhere onto the window sill next to me.  Stranger was that it looked like there as another bug attached to the back of it.

Grossed out by this potential scene of bug sex, I smashed this bug entity.  Grosser still than this insect porno was this white fluid that exploded from the bug/bugs.  I then ripped off a small piece of my napkin and placed it over the bug(s) like people do in movies (with other humans, typically).  I didn’t do this so much out of respect for the dead as I did for the hope I could put this vile and bizarre event out of my head and get on with my meal. 

I then pursued a therapeutic stroll around the small village and went back to slumber.  Tomorrow, we chat again.

Tuesday, August 19th

Once awake, I grabbed another enemy of the heart breakfast.  After settling the bill and packing my car, I made a brief stop at a small toy store to buy a desperately generic GI Joe type of action figure for my buddy Matt.  Matt is a crazy big fella that builds and adores toys.  Before I left, he requested not only a toy from Ireland but a rock.  The second ingredient of his request would be achieved shortly after I placed my figure in my car and drove west along the sea towards Hook Peninsula.  Matt’s mystical rock was discovered in a small beach in the little village of Cullenstown, I believe.  You have no idea the great joy it gives me to have a friend that asks me to procure a toy and rock for him before a journey.  Only a brilliant mind is capable of such requests or a cave baby.

As I drove out onto Hook Peninsula, I made a stop at Tintern Abbey.  This abbey was built by Cistercian monks about 1000 years ago.  The highlight of this magnificent slice of history was an entertainingly awful educational video in one the abbey towers.  The funny thing about the video’s location was that it was in a room that was hard to find and vaguely described to me by a woman in the reception area:

“Somewhere in the tower, you’ll see a door that looks to be locked but isn’t.  Just open this door and you’ll see another set of stairs that leads to another closed door.  Open that and enter the room.” 

She didn’t tell me what was in this room or give me any reason to seek it out.  Usually, museums are very clear on all of the areas visitors can go and why.  Maybe Tintern Abbey simply wanted to reward visitors worthy enough to find the quasi-hidden chamber with pure delight.  Or maybe Tintern was under some legal obligation to show this terrible video but was ashamed of it so they crappily hid the video hoping visitors wouldn’t find it but could claim it was on display if the video’s producer asked of its whereabouts.

What was in this room was further proof that the best comedy is born from people that don’t mean to create comedy.  I found the door she spoke of and walked up the stairs to the other room.  I spotted a television monitor with a green button.  As my hand approached this correctly colored button, I looked around.  The room was empty.  The moment was right.

I pressed the button and was given perfection.  On the screen was a dorky-looking bookworm of a guy who pretended to be researching something at his desk.  He obviously spent some time laying out some important looking books although I was so distracted by the most ridiculous and fake monocle he wore that my mind registered little else.  With the acting talent of a pile of sticks, he displayed a sense of surprise once he saw me and greeted me with an accent that was either English or an Irish guy pretending to be English.

Like so many things in life, the greatness of this video was achieved by the little things.  A perfect example was the detectable and subdued excitement he gave off throughout the whole video.  The thought of portraying a historian on camera was making him giddy and it was making me psyched.  Another was his falling out of character by pulling out the monocle, talking for a while, a cut and then back to him talking with the monocle in place.  And speaking of cuts, they were terrible.  They would fade out awkwardly and come back to an unnatural reentry into the topic at hand.  Since this was a one-camera shoot with no other content between cuts, you technically didn’t need any cuts.  Clearly, they were only there because he either rambled on a sleep-producing tangent or forgot what he was talking about.  Either way, I thanked God for their presence.

And what did he talk about?  I have no idea.  Not just because the content was staler than death itself but because I was too busy treasuring the man’s aura and the poor quality of the project as a whole.  He could have been divulging the secrets of women, speed and burritos and I would have never known.

I left the abbey a stronger man and decided I was ready for Europe’s (and probably the world’s) oldest lighthouse that resided at the tip of Hook Peninsula.  Once there, I climbed along the rocky shore.  I came across several “blow holes” that were preceded by warning signs.  Although a term that sounds like unsavory slang for a certain human place, the signs referred to these often grass-obscured holes that ranged in width from 3 to 6 feet.  Most of them were about 25 feet deep and had ocean water on their bottoms during high tide. 

At the bottom of one of the blow holes, I spotted a beer keg, clearly the result of some young toughs and a drinking session. 

“Hey Jimmy, I’m done with my keg.  Watch me chuck it into this stupid blow hole!”

A crash is heard.

“BLOW YOU, HOLE!!”

I drove on past Duncannon and to the ferry of Ballyhack.  In terms of driving, I couldn’t help but think how Irish roads provided its drivers with so many near collisions.  The roads are tight and wild.  Little room exists for errors in this arena.  My small bit of comfort was remembering I have an airbag although I would hate to use my airbag since it probably hurts.  I bet it feels like the winning blow of the most severe pillow fight imaginable…like if someone taped a pillow to a Louisville Slugger and just let it rip into your face.

An eight-minute ferry ride took me to County Waterford where I drove west to the seaside town of Dungarven.  A large, 198-year old brick structure known as the Cairbre House would be my sleep camp for the night.

I was greeted by a friendly o’fella named Brian that showed me my room and made me some tea.  As I sipped and savored, he marked out on a map and gave me an overview of practically every restaurant in the large town.  He then left the room and returned with a menu for every restaurant he just described.  Not only was it a large number of menus but the menus were real menus you would get at the restaurant, not just a paper handout.  Did he go to each of these restaurants and casually steal each menu?  Was menu collecting a hobby for Brian?  A disorder?  It was a marvelously strange and welcome experience.  

I settled on the Mill Restaurant and was body slammed by an absurdly elite meal consisting of pork, squash, potatoes, fries and a dessert that could destroy the band.  It would not be an overstatement to say that deep, forgotten places of me were awakened by this meal.

With a stomach that was packed and stacked with delight, I noodled around Dungarven’s streets in efforts to take in the lovely town.  I drove home then to the Cairbre House (which, by the way, is Gaelic for Care Bear House) and watched an interesting program on the Discovery Channel about a Scottish guy that was attempting to break the overall time record of riding a bike around the world.  I thoroughly enjoyed this program and I invite you to do the same.  Good night.

PART V