Ireland all wrapped up

This is going to be long since we had no comps for the majority of the Irish Fest 2010. Here are some of the high lights…

Galway
         Love it. When we got there it was clear, and sunny, so perfect that everyone who lived there was outside and the white white irish men thought it such ideal tanning weather that none of them had shirts on. The sun reflecting off of their white skin was blinding.

         Day 2 was not so beautiful, the weather we were told was “Irish”…foggy and rainy, with a chance of sunshine for the optimistic. Being the wonderful planners we are, we had the whole day to spend outside in this glorious weather. We took a walking tour of the Burren in County Clare (beautiful farm countryside) saw flowers and cows and all things farmy. At the end of the walk we got to eat homemade apple pie (still hot!) with fresh cream from the farm next door. Needless to say, Gabe and I both approved of this day so far. Later on our way to the Cliffs oh Moher, the driver Paul told us lots of stories about the hookers and the hooker festival held every year. He then explained that hookers are the boats, not people. Phew. We also learned why all the streets are not straight and why they wind all over…it’s laid out how a drunk would walk ;) Later at the cliffs, it was foggy and rainy. But we trekked all over that darn cliff anyways and have the pictures to prove it

       a lil clip... in the beginning I was holding the camera (hence all you see is grass) then Gabe took it and since he's a few inches taller, he actually had a view

Killarney and County Kerry
        Love it…even more than Galway. County Kerry was the most beautiful part of Ireland we saw. Like some old lady from and English film with Rupert Grint in it said “it’s so f***ing green!” (Gabe, you know what movie it is)

        We went all around the Ring of Kerry, saw lots of villages, a little horse and a huge dog, saw a girl fall into a creek, and also saw a baby sitting at the bar…all good stuff. In Killarney we walked through the Killarney National Park (its huge) and later took a carriage ride through it with a lovely Irish driver who graciously explained many important features of the park to us (there are two types of deer in this park….male and female.) Gabe said he felt like he was in places from Lord of the Rings.

Cork
        We spent the first day in Cork sitting in a park and reading, before going to some pubs. The Second day we went to Blarney Castle (we took the long way….we missed the stop and so we stayed on the bus till it turned around and hit that stop again.) A friend had said it wasn’t a good castle to go to, but since it was the first castle we saw that was still standing; we gave it two thumbs up (other castles we’ve seen are as impressive as the forts in Grandma’s backyard.)

        The last night in Ireland we stayed in a Bed and Breakfast, which was cute and had the name Rose in the title =)
Pandemonium
        Sunday night (our last night in Ireland and right before we were headed to the airport to get my luggage) my wallet and everything in it got stolen, and since we were headed to the airport I had my passport on me. So that meant I had no passport, no credit card, no debit card, and no money (though I had very little of that anyway.) Let the pandemonium ensue.

        Two ladies at the hotel, lady with the red hair and Trish the manager were very helpful. Lady with the red hair (I never got her name) gave us her phone to call home to mom, so we could tell mom to cancel my cards. She also gave me a list of things I need to have before I go to the US embassy, and told me which bus to take there, and when it opened, and she was really just great. Trish the manager found the video surveillance of it all, and then walked us down to the garda (police) where we gave a report of it all.

       This all happened between 7pm and 9pm Sunday night. Fast forward to Monday morning….early Monday morning (think 4:30am.) We are up and catching a bus by 5 to get to the airport so that I could change my flight (my original flight was at 7:20 am.) Aer lingus doesn’t refund a ticket, so I had to get a new ticket. After walking between different airline desks and getting no help, we found a computer and booked a flight online. Then I left Gabe at the airport to catch his 12:30 flight, and caught a bus to the US embassy. Except the bus didn’t drop me off at the Embassy it dropped me of a 30 minute walk from the embassy. I walked for 15ish minute, before I had no idea where to go and so I got a taxi to take me the rest of the way.

         At the embassy, I was 3 euro shy to get a new passport, so I went to the bank across the street to try and make a withdrawal with Gabe’s debit card, it wouldn’t let me, so then the bank dude (will) said they could give me a money advance, but because of the time difference between Arizona and Dublin he couldn’t do it for about eight more hours. Joy. When I told him I was 3 euro short, he got his card out and withdrew 10 euro and gave it to me. With this in hand and walked back to the embassy and stood in 2 lines, and talked to 2 embassy people, and chatted with 3 ladies I was in line with. Long story short, in about 3 hours time, I had a new passport, and Bridget had given me 50 euro to get me by until I got to “where you need bein”, the lady in the white jacket gave me 10 euro to buy bus fare, and a security guard had shown me a back way to get to a bus that would take me straight to the airport.
        At the airport I had to get my luggage out of left luggage, I explained to the man I had no money but I would pay if he gave me an address, and so he gave me the address and told me I could pay later. When I went to check my bags (on my new flight, on a new airline so my baggage would have to be paid for), the Nigerian man who checked me in, let slide the 245 euro charge. After a day of running around, a million hail mary’s and litany of saints, and some Irish angels, I made it on my flight to London, and then to Vienna, and got to campus Tuesday evening in time for dinner.

A great many thanks and blessings to my Irish angels who got me out of the country.
          May your glass be ever full.
          May the roof over your head be always strong.
          And may you be in heaven
          half an hour before the devil knows you're dead.

(irish angels: trish, red hair lady, will, mr bald security guard, lady in the white jacket, bridget, and ngyijke...I am forever thankful)

Dublin

Friday Aug 13, 2010-
Flying over Ireland, it looked like a patchwork quilt of green, we had our heads craned to the window the whole last 30 minutes of the flight. The taxi guy who drove us to the city centre was very nice, minus the bikers he tried running over and the cars he barely avoided hitting. He was giving us lots of advice on where to go, and what to see. Unfortunately, we only understand about every fifth word he said. At one point he was talking about 'that singer Alicia Keys', but I haven't got the faintest idea how we got to that topic.

After dropping our bags off, we decided to go walking around for a couple hours (went to Trinity and saw the Book of Kells, and St. Steven's Green) after which we decided to take a 'lil nap'. Just a little one, we had no plans to sleep till 11 at night, but that's what we did anyway. Even then, the only reason we got up was because Gabe wanted food. And a beer. We followed the music down the street to O'Shea's, which has become our favorite spot to drink beer and listen to music.

All in all, a good birthday for Gabe I think...even if we slept through most of it.

Saturday Aug 14, 2010 (Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe)-
we got an early start, all thanks to that 8 hour nap the day before. We were showered, with a full Irish breakfast in our stomachs, and  ready to go by 6am (dad would have been proud). We did the touristy think, and jumped on one of those double decker buses to get us around. We jumped off at the Dublin Castle, St Patrick's Cathedral, the Guinness Brewery, the Jameson Distillery, and the Hugh Lane Gallery (nice art, but still don't know who he is though). I loved the Guinness Brewery with the 360 view of Dublin from the top (the free pint was also nice, especially after what they charged us to get in)

After much debate over whether to do a Literary Pub Crawl, or a Musical Pub Crawl, we decided to go on the literary one...mostly because we got directions to that one. Directions that were not too helpful as we ended up taking a round about way, and having to backtrack our steps a couple of times. The guys who led the crawl were great, very funny actors and entertaining at every moment. If you come to Dublin, definitely go on it. Favorite pub from the crawl, was O'Neills (lots of little rooms, very crowded, very loud, and very perfect.) We spent the rest of the night back at O'Shea's with good music.

Off to Galway tomorrow, assuming we get our asses on the right bus =)

Home in the 602

So this is my attempt to keep the fam bam updated on what im doing while living in Austria for the next four months, and traveling around Europe. We'll see if I actually keep up with it...

Gabe and I leave tomorrow morning for Ireland, and get there on his 19th birthday (August 13). We are hoping we don't kill each other in the 11 days we are traveling around the Emerald Isle together, otherwise he might just be sent back to the states in a coffin ;)

We Campbell's are not the best of planners, Gabe has a roundtrip ticket to and from Ireland, I have a ticket shipping me off to Vienna...and that's about all we have. We vaguely decided to go from Dublin to Galway to Cork and then back up to Dublin, and plan on stopping at whatever catches our eye along the way.

Here's hoping we make it all the way back to Dublin and that the adventures be numerous!!!