Ireland 2003 Log 5

Random Ponderings French dressing is not universal: apparently it is mostly oil based in Ireland and not red at all. To turn on the lights in Ireland, flip the light switch DOWN, not UP. To turn the plug outlets on, you must flip the switch on the outlet DOWN as well; otherwise your laptop will beep when the battery is nearly exhausted. Some showerheads operate on a completely different control than the tub faucet: the knob above doesn’t divert the water to the showerhead, but turns on and adjusts the heat for the showerhead. Having both the showerhead and the tub faucet on will cause the shallow tub to fill up rapidly during your shower. Mind the step getting out of a tub whose floor is 8 inches above the bathroom floor. Heated towel racks are nice but waste a lot of water as they are heated by constantly pumping hot water through the metal rack. If you are looking for a hairdryer while traveling, open the drawer near the vanity mirror, being careful not to try to pull it more than 3 feet from the drawer as the plug may be strung through the dresser. When you have insomnia, thinking about all the things you need to do does not allow you to get to sleep any faster and may actually prolong your insomnia. Erik’s friends are forgetful and will call us at 1:30am on his cell phone—cha-ching—there goes a dollar. Irish Road Signs “Caution Bad Bends Ahead” “Major Road Works Ahead” “NOW” (under a merging sign)" “Traffic Calming Ahead” “Speed Kills, Arrive Alive”

Ireland 2003 Log 4

I stayed up late last night and worked on homework quite a bit. One of Erik’s friends decided to call his cell phone at 1:30am. I kindly reminded him that we were in Ireland and said Erik would call him when he got back home. 5:30am (9:30pm at home) rolls around and Daniel and I are finally tired enough to go to sleep. Just an hour and a half later, we received our wake up call. We packed up and headed north towards Belfast in Northern Ireland. The weather here has been dry but very cold. Frost covered much of the ground and roads until just before noon. The weather allows for some different photo opportunities than if we were to visit in summer. Our first stop of the day was a service station where we grabbed breakfast. I was ecstatic to find Dr. Pepper there only to discover that it was a “sparkling fruit flavoured beverage.” Identical packaging and everything, but it tastes like black cherry soda and flat Dr. Pepper mixed together—YUCK! Back on our way, we headed towards the Newgrange Megalithic Passage Tomb. We arrived about 10:00am at the visitor’s center and took a short walk and a bus out to the main site. The monument at this place dates back 5000 years and was constructed as a burial mound. The stone-faced monument deteriorated over the years and its dirt mound structure eroded and faded into the landscape. In the 1700s, a farmer searching for large rocks rediscovered the monument. It was further unearthed and rebuilt to what is presumed to be very close to the original state on the outside. The inside passageway, however, was perfectly preserved including three small chambers with large rock basins. The chamber was also constructed so that the only light that ever reached inside naturally was during the winter solstice, about December 19th through 23rd. Also adorning the interior of the structure and around the exterior as well were megalithic carvings (carvings in large stones)(Go to www.knowth.com for pictures and more info). We returned to the visitor’s center for lunch and were off again. On our way, we saw several other small burial mounds, mostly in the middle of fields. Speckled across the countryside are numerous ruins of old castles and churches. We stopped at several of them for photo opps. Many of the ruined churches and abbeys were interspersed with beautiful headstones, sometimes 2 to 3 times taller than me. When we got on our way again, I fell asleep finally and slept for an hour or two. When I awoke, we were in Northern Ireland, pulling up to our hotel in Belfast. We arrived around 5:00pm and it was already pitch black. After getting settled into our rooms, we walked to find someplace to eat. On the way, Dad hit an ATM for cash, as Northern Ireland currency is Pounds and not Euros like Ireland. We found a decent place called “Apache Pizza” for dinner. The restaurant was adorned with photos of Native Americans and a few out of place artifacts. The menu also said “Little Sioux thanks you for dining at Apache Pizza.” Anyone else see anything wrong with that statement? Apparently the Irish have a thing or two to learn about Native Americans. Back to the hotel after dinner and everyone else who didn’t sleep during the day went to bed. So, once again, I am awake and on the computer. It is now 8:00pm and I still have time to get some work done tonight and maybe I will get adjusted to the time soon.

Ireland 2003 Log 3

Woke up at 4:00am this morning and could not fall asleep. Daniel fell asleep within a half hour and Erik within an hour, leaving me with my own thoughts to keep me company. All I had on my mind was all the work I had to do and the emails I had to send out in the next few days. Being gone during week 8 of a 10-week term leaves me with a little bit of work to do while on vacation. This is my last term for my undergraduate degree. Though I am excited to be finishing my degree, I am very nervous about “the real world.” The job market in Oregon and Washington pretty much sucks, so we’ll see how the job hunt goes. I spend most of my time at school working on group projects and my internship. I think I have actually spent more time this term with Chase, one of my really close friends (& classmate/ co-worker) than I have with Daniel. Mom keeps telling me that the real world will be so much easier than all the stuff I have taken on with full course loads, work, extracurricular activities, etc. I have decided that I will need to book lunch meetings with friends just to feel busy and involved still after this term. Anyway, I finally got to sleep at 6:30am only to receive a wake-up call at 8:00am. Got ready to go and went to our rental car (a LandRover Free Lander, a small SUV compared to American SUVs—we upgraded from a Ford passenger car as we would have all been holding our luggage to fit in it). We left to head into Dublin and found that the M1 (the main highway) had construction and a “diversion.” Following the diversion, we found a McDonald’s nearby and stopped for breakfast. There were only about 5 items on the menu breakfast AND lunch included. Left from there and almost made it back to the hotel before I finally convinced everyone that I knew the right direction to go to get into town. Finally made it into town, found a parking garage, and made our way to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells, dating back to the 8th century. We spent a bit of time there and in the Long Room, the library above where the Book of Kells is housed. This library was built in 1732 and houses 200,000 of the library’s oldest books and manuscripts, mostly leather bound and far older than the library itself. It is also home to a 15th or 16th century harp, the oldest in Ireland. (More info at http://www.tcd.ie/Library/Visitors/kells.htm) From there, we walked to the Guinness Storehouse at St. James’s Gate. The building has 5 floors chronicling the history of Guinness beer with each floor showing how Guinness came about and how it is/was manufactured. The first level has an inset in the floor with the original 9000-year lease on the land signed by Arthur Guinness himself in the 1800s. The 6th and 7th floors housed restaurants and bars. We decided to catch lunch there and the guys all redeemed their free pint vouchers. Though I like dark beers, Guinness is too bitter for me without having had a few other drinks prior to it. On the 6th level, you can look down the glass-paneled center of the building and see that it is shaped like a Guinness pint glass. If full, it would hold 14.3 million pints of Guinness. Left there and headed back towards the car. Took some pictures while we were about town and headed back to the hotel through traffic—a bit of a surprise for a Saturday evening. Back at the hotel, we napped again and ate in the lounge for dinner. Crappy service and no two items of food or drink came out at the same time. Daniel & I received our teacups first, then our muffins, then Mom & Dad’s sandwiches, then their Cokes, then our toast, and finally, after asking, we got our pot of tea. About 15 minutes later, Mom & Dad finally received their fries—after asking. The fries were horrible, too. Headed back to our rooms and Daniel and I have been wide-awake since. Sat down and got some homework done and am patiently waiting to get tired now.

Ireland 2003 Log 2

We woke up just in time for breakfast service at about 9:30am Frankfurt time, that would be 1:30am at home. A few hours later, we arrived in Frankfurt with an hour and a half before our 1:45pm flight to Dublin. We scoped out the terminal and found the proper line to get our next boarding passes. For some reason, Daniel & I did not get checked in for both flights while Mom & Erik did. The line took nearly an hour to get through, but otherwise the transfer was fairly relaxed. Another 2-hour flight (and almost 2 hour nap) brought us to Dublin at 4:0pm, just 15 hours after departure from Portland. So if it took 15 hours to travel and we went forward 8 hours, than that means we lost 7 hours of our day—no wonder it feels like I missed Friday altogether. Customs was unlike any other time that I had traveled. With the free travel among European Union countries, most passengers simply held up their passport and walked on by. We were one of three groups that had non-EU passports and had to wait in a very short line. The passport control agent opened our passports and noticed that I was born in Oklahoma—whereupon he began singing “OKLAHOMA” to me. He asked how long we were staying, stamped our passports, and we were off. Strangely enough, our bags were never searched. They are obviously a lot less stringent with security than the U.S. We took the hotel shuttle and checked in. Using our Priority Club card and making early reservations saved us about half on the room rates, costing us just under 100 Euros each. We went to our rooms to wait for Dad to arrive. I think we all fell asleep again and woke up just before 8:00pm when Dad knocked on our door. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant this evening. The food wasn’t that good, no matter how hungry I thought I was. The salad consisted of mostly toppings, a tiny bit of lettuce, and a shitload of dressing. Back to the room to watch some TV & try to get my body on the right time schedule.

Ireland 2003 Log 1

Today was the day of our departure to Ireland. I was supposed to take Daniel to work and then head to school. We were up until about 3:30am doing all of our last minute packing and other preparations for the trip. At about 6:00am, we received a call telling us the alarm at the camera store we work at was going off. Daniel got up and went to work and I was able to get a bit more sleep. Fortunately the 7 inches of snow we had yesterday was melting and no longer covering the roads. Erik & I had school from 10:00am to 2:00pm. I finished my group work a bit early and had just enough time to eat lunch with a friend before Dad, Mom, & Daniel picked us up. Dad dropped us off at the airport a half hour later and he headed north to Seattle to catch his flight (we had to book his trip separate since we weren’t sure if he would make it home from Italy prior to our departure). We boarded our flight to Frankfurt at about 5:00pm and we were on our way. To our surprise, the four of us got bulkhead seats and had plenty of legroom. For some reason, the flight attendants all thought that I was German, so with a bewildered look each time they spoke to me I had to say “English Bitte.” We had dinner on the flight a few hours after takeoff and then all dozed off for a bit.

Places I've Been

create your own visited countries map or vertaling Duits Nederlands And airports don't count... Last Updated: 08 March 2006 Aruba Austria Canada China (Mainland, Hong Kong, Macau) Croatia France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Japan Liechtenstein South Korea Switzerland Turkey United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland) United States (All 50 States, Washington DC) Vatican City Venezuela

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