July 12— We arrived in Dublin, Ireland, and found a cab driver who took us to a hostel where we overpaid for baggage storage on Bachelor’s Walk by the Ha’Penny Bridge and cab fare because we were exhausted and really didn’t know what to do with our bags. This was the cab driver that used “feckin” after every word. This seems to be a linguistic trend in Dublin at the moment because I saw decorative signs that used “feckin’” on them.
We had breakfast near the Ha-penny Bridge on Bachelor’s Walk. I had porridge and Bill had coffee. People were everywhere. Coming and going. Jumping on and off buses. Bicyclists riding right beside the buses. One guy got cut off by a bus and pounded on it with his fist. So much for our original plan of renting bikes and cruising around Dublin!
Instead, we took the hop-on/hop-off bus around the sites in Dublin. It was crazy busy, but we did manage to find the Temple Bar area, where we ate lunch at the older Temple Bar (1790s). I feckin’ love the music in Ireland! We also visited the Writer’s Museum, Trinity College where I saw the Book of Kells, birthplace of Oscar Wilde, Phoenix Park, Kilmainham Jaol, Prime Minister’s House (looks like the White House), and did some shopping.
We finally found our shared apartment with Clair (near Kilmainham Jaol and the Heuston Train Station) and her cat Mallo. Mallo wanted to jump out the windows, but he loved Bill and me and wanted to sleep with us. We couldn’t let him because we wanted the windows open and there were no screens, and, as I said before, Mallo wanted to be free. This apartment was located a little out the way, but after we finally got settled, it was a pleasant two-night stay within walking distance of the tour bus stop.
That night, we walked past the Guinness Factory to Arthur’s Pub, which we learned later was the favorite pub of Arthur Guinness, founder of Guinness Beer, thus the name. We had curry by the fireplace and a carafe of water with lemon. We sat next to a tables of twenty-something girls who were discussing their love lives, and, just for entertainment, we eavesdropped just a little. It made us remember dating years, and our circle of friends from that time in our lives.
July 13—We had lunch at the Temple Bar and again used the hop-on/hop-off bus to see the sites. We ate dinner at the Dolce Vita, which was near our apartment and the Kilmainham Jaol.
July 14—We frantically found the Dublin Castle because we had to catch our train to Limerick that afternoon, and nothing is done quickly in Dublin because of traffic. We used our last day of hop-on/hop-off and expressed our disdain for some employees because of slow service, unmarked stops, and changes in schedules that were not communicated. We did see the Castle, but we didn’t realize that better and more intact castles were ahead in Limerick, Bunratty, and Edinburgh. We ate at Chez Max, a French restaurant right outside the Dublin Castle, where we both had Salade Nicoise and Perrier. It was excellent and the owner, Max, a French man, ignored us until he discovered that we love Perrier and buy it at home. Then he swooned over us and made sure we had plenty of ice.
Bill took my photo next to a knight near the gift shop at the caste.
We made the 2 o’clock train to Limerick from the Heuston Station, although we had purchased a seat on the 3 o’clock, pulling our giant American suitcases and stuffing them into the baggage area. It was hectic and crowded, but the people were so nice and relaxed.
We met a girl going to the dentist in Dublin on the train, and we chatted with her all the way to Limerick until we met a drunk, surfing, half-American lucky spermer who makes his home in both New York City and Limerick. This description is terrible because he was a sweetheart. He told us about his escapades in NYC and how his parents keep footing the bills for him to go back and forth. He considers himself an American, he said, although he had an Irish accent and terrible teeth for a young attractive man. He said he was missing his dogs and cats on the ancestral farm where his aunt was staying to take care of them. Anyone who loves animals is a friend of mine so he got a free pass on his drunkenness, but like I said, he was sweet and respectful.
We found a cab outside the huge Limerick train station to Brenda’s house near Ennis Road. The house was immediately our home. We met two other travelers from Australia who were in Limerick for their daughter’s wedding. We had an interesting chat with them about the United States’ presidential election and life in Australia, and we were off again.
We decided to walk back downtown, about a ten-minute walk, across the River Shannon to an area called Arthur’s Quay, which is pronounced “key” and I kept saying “quay” like a stupid American. We found an Asian restaurant and sat outside and had hot and sour soup and water. We looked around at Limerick, a city much bigger than we thought of about 125,000 people.
We walked back to Brenda’s, and met the hip Irish lady who was like an older sister/mom. We loved her. Her dog Hugo was also our immediate friend and he made us feel at home. She recommended a restaurant called the Locke. Either her directions, or our sense of direction, were terrible because we couldn’t find the Locke. We managed to meet a man, probably several Guinness in the bag, who told us to take the “footpath” up ahead. We couldn’t understand his strong Irish accent and it was Bill who finally figured out “footpath” and the guy was excited, patting Bill on the back and saying, “Yes, sidewalk! Yes, sidewalk!” We had changed for dinner and I wore white pants. Of course, after dinner it poured down rain, so we took a cab back to Brenda’s. Dinner at the Locke was awesome and relaxing. We were easily getting used to the European custom of not tipping. I had oysters and a prawn salad. We walked by King John’s Castle on the River Shannon.
July 15—We got up early, went to the bus station at Limerick and took a bus to Tralee, home of Thomas Landers, Bill’s ancestor who came to American via Ellis Island and the Landers Outdoor World Sporting Goods store. We walked into the little town, found a pub for lunch (they made us smoked salmon salads—really good), chatted with the locals about the Landers family, and listened to more great American soft rock music. I forgot to mention earlier how awesome the music is in Ireland. They love soft rock. They could use my Spotify account because every song that I heard in Ireland was a favorite. No country. No rap. All Jackson Browne, U2, Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, Bruce Springsteen….It was just a huge jam session for me! We took a cab to the Landers Outdoor World, Tim Landers was not there, and we talked to the employees. They gave us a few key chains, and we bought water bottles for the girls, which seemed to have been their favorite souvenirs.
We took a cab back to the downtown area of Tralee, and we walked along the canal and saw horses and a windmill. We went back to the downtown area and visited the shopping area, which I am so glad we returned to that area because it was much bigger than I originally thought. I bought dish towels for Chloe, Rinny, my mom, and our friend Allison. I also bought a souvenir leprechaun at a little shop with “Tralee” written on it. We took the bus back to Limerick and had dinner at a seafood restaurant called Curragower Pub near King John’s Castle. It was rainy again, but beautiful along the River Shannon that night. We also went by an old cathedral. Then we went in an old Irish pub, took seats in a comfy room near the bar on couches, and listened to more music and people talking Gaelic.
July 16—We took another early bus to the Cliffs of Moher which were spectacular! We passed a links golf course and were very close to a course owned by…uh, some guy,…Donald Trump. Everyone was talking about it, and it was apparent that the Irish are not huge fans of our current president.
After the Cliffs, we headed back to Limerick via a town called Doolin where we sat outdoors and ate baked cod with a cream sauce and root vegetables. Beautiful blue sky, windy, like April in Ohio. The restaurant served food cafeteria style so we were worried about the food which can sometimes be frozen and heated up, but it was delicious, homemade from scratch, maybe one of my favorite meals on the trip so far. We learned when we returned home that our daughter had eaten at the same place when she was in Doolin, and she also thought the food was great as well.
We visited a donkey out to pasture, we tried to talk to a German lady and her children, and we took a photo of a beautiful peaceful stream before we headed to the “moon,” an UNESCO Global Geo Park. Next, we went to Bunratty Castle, which is intact, and Brenda later told us that her granddaughter, who obviously has a great imagination, thought the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz, lives there. She told Brenda that she saw the Witch looking down at her. The bummer to the whole trip was I lost my Ray Bans on the bus. That night, it was our last night in Limerick, we walked downtown and had authentic sushi. The people next to us literally ordered everything on the menu! It was hilarious to watch them eat one course after another. Bill and I were sad to be leaving Ireland. We loved it there. I missed seeing the Frank McCourt tour although Brenda said she had worked with him at the college. She said he was a wonderful man! (Always good to know that your favorite authors are also good people in real life!)
July 17—Early in the morning, we took a cab to the Shannon Airport for our flight to Edinburgh. We met an American couple (they were both lawyers) who knew Dean Hunt, the dean of Akron law school when Bill was there, proving the six degrees of separation theory is true. She worked in DC for the Security Exchange Commission (where Dean Hunt had worked) and was from the Akron area. We also met a Canadian couple, and the man was hilarious. He was loud and boisterous; I kept telling Bill ‘he can’t be Canadian!’ He called Dublin and London “shitholes” quite loudly and said to his wife, “There’s our luggage. They’re beating the shit out of it!” Bill immediately connected with this crotchety old dude…same raw sense of humor! When I asked him what he thought of Limerick, though, he said he loved it.
In our next adventure, our physical and emotional love for each other was truly tested. We left the train station with our huge American clunky suitcases. Fortunately, our Airbnb host, Irene, gave us excellent directions to our apartment, so we began walking in the direction of the apartment, toward Ryrie’s Pub, away from the Haymarket Station. We walked, and we walked, and we pulled these hulking damn American suitcases, thinking our arms would fall off, and it was hot that day. Hey! This was our only fight for the whole trip, but it was later that night, after walking back down past Haymarket and then to the Sainsbury grocery store past our apartment. Walking, looking for the apartment, the heat, and the giant suitcases were sources of the argument. This was the day that Bill needed “plasters,” the British word for band-aids, and it cracked us up. We met a nice older couple along the road to Gorgie and they encouraged us along the way to keep going. Our apartment was just past the Gorgie Farm..
When we finally arrived at Irene’s apartment, we were a little worried. The place was an old eighteenth century flat with a winding staircase up to the third, uh fourth in America, floor. Let me again mention our damned American suitcases. Okay? When we finally made it to the apartment, we were wonderfully surprised. Irene was as nice as could be and the apartment was totally updated, clean, and really quite big. New and sparkling appliances, clean and sparkling bathroom with a warm and strong shower, and a beautiful bedroom with fluffy blankets and comfortable mattress.
We learned later that the Gorgie area was at one time a different town –it was considered the country, and we were across from Gorgie Farm. It was eventually annexed into Edinburgh, but it was still about a mile from Haymarket which was another half a mile (at least) from the Caldonian Hotel–where we caught our bus every morning. There were Edinburgh city buses right outside our apartment, but Bill wanted to walk for exercise. We were successful in that goal. We got our walking work outs in!
We went back to the Haymarket area for dinner that night and ate Mercat’s, watched locals and tourists go by in the open-air section right by the sidewalk.
July 18—The next morning we purchased a two-day pass for the hop-on/hop-off bus and didn’t realize that the most amazing part of the trip was literally around the corner: the castle. We traveled to the Greyfriar’s Bobby area, saw the statue of the little Scottish terrier, and were literary breathless when we finally saw the castle overlooking the cliff. I wasn’t aware that it was going to be hanging there, looking like it might fall at any second! Gorgeous! They we continued on and again, were surprised to see Arthur’s Seat, (this one possibly named for King Arthur (Ard na Said—Gaelic for Height of Arrows, which is derived into Archer’s Seat and then into Arthur’s Seat) and not Arthur Guinness, on the other side of town past the Holyrood Castle, the Scottish Parliament, and Discovery Center.
We shopped the Royal Mile. Bill tried on kilts. He does have great legs, though. Still hilarious! They had them in his size. I bought a knight helmet at a store there, and we decided to go into the Mall to go to the bathroom. We needed exact change in British pounds and I about peed my pants trying to find 30 (not Euro or Canadian which were all mixed in the bottom of my travel purse) without my reading glasses! From that point on, I learned to put exact restroom change in my pockets for easy accessibility.
We both agreed that this fast-food sushi place in Waverly Station by the Princess Gardens looked good, so we ate there. It was cheap and good and a business prospect that is highly-needed in the US. We went to the Frankenstein Bar, and it was awesome. That night we decided we would make use of our contemporary kitchen at Irene’s, so we walked on to the Sainsbury grocery store and bought salmon, butter, the best cottage cheese in the world (very creamy) and vegetables. We couldn’t believe how inexpensive and delicious the salmon was. We slept great in our comfy bed with clean, crisp sheets.
July 19—The next morning, we once again headed toward the Caledonian Hotel for our bus stop. We detoured through the Caledonian –gorgeous in burnt orange and royal blue– to use the restroom and snap some photos. It was a little rainy, but we toured Royal Mile again. I went to the Writer’s Museum where I got photos of Robert Burns’ and Sir Walter Scott’s signatures. It was a relaxing place, tucked into a courtyard behind some shops on the Royal Mile. I would have missed it if I hadn’t decided to take a look at the courtyard. We climbed the cobblestone hill to the Edinburgh Castle and ate lunch at the world famous Witchery. At a table in the corner, I had oysters and Bill had a small but delish omelette. We had to have a snack right afterwards, but it was worth the experience.
July 20—This would be the best day of the trip, maybe of Bill’s life, when we got up early and headed to the Haymarket train station for the city of St. Andrews. It was everything he had dreamed of. We walked down the cobblestone streets toward the “Old Course.” We turned a corner and there it was—just like on TV, beckoning us. Even I, not a sports person, was taken aback. We met an Asian guy in an all-white jumpsuit with a group of guys just having a blast taking photos on the Swilcan Bridge. It was such a guy thing, but I understood it to be similar to the Writer’s Museum or seeing Oscar Wilde’s birthplace (which I did, by the way, in Dublin). We ate lunch at the seaside seafood restaurant with a view of the Old Course, water rippling in front of us in the all glass building.
We walked to the Castle, the ruins of the Cathedral (where we chatted with an older couple about their white West Highland terrier), and hopped in and out of shops along the main street. We had cake in the coffee shop where Prince William meet Kate Middleton. I managed to replace my Ray Bans in a shop (for a very good price) and Bill met a man with a whippet (dog) who was moving to Australia for a change of pace. We knew the trip was winding down, but we really enjoyed this day.
One of our favorite things to do when we travel is talking to people. Anyone. Anywhere. No time schedules. No stresses, just per human to human, talking about their lives and their country.
That is when life is good!
We caught the bus, which would take us to the trip back to Edinburgh, where we walked back to our apartment. We decided to eat closeby because we had walked a lot that day, so we went to B and D’s Thai, a cozy restaurant nearby, and we chatted briefly with an older couple who lived in Edinburgh.
July 21—We lugged our huge American suitcases to Haymarket Station (we finally realized that we didn’t have to go all the way to Waverly Station) and caught a high-speed train to London via Victoria’s Station. We met a woman on the train who told us about the Scottish healthcare system, her daughter’s school, Brexit and the Scottish referendum, and her own educational achievements. She was a little very proud of her country and her achievements, but she was eager to talk about her country, and it made the time go quickly.
Also on this train, my new Ray Bans dropped under the table and an older couple, who were getting off before us, made a search under the table and found and returned my one-day-old-replacement Ray Bans to me. God bless this woman for her thoroughness. She cracked me up the entire trip because she had packed her husband a lunch, spread a big cloth napkin over his lap, and proceeded to take his food out of this insulated bag for him. I guess it was adorable, but a little old-fashioned?
When we got off the train near the Tower Bridge and headed out of the station, we didn’t know it, but this was where the trip was going to get interesting—and challenging.
Again, with our giant and cumbersome American suitcases, we tried to use googlemaps to find our flat. Our Airbnb host, who seemed to be a PITA (pain in the ass) via our email exchanges, proved that he was truly an ass. When I asked him for directions to the flat, he replied “Use googlemaps.” He was the exact opposite of Irene in Edinburgh.
Through the help of people in London –and a very friendly young mother with her baby in a stroller who led us to the apartment—we found our flat in Wapping High Street right along the Thames. The view was great of the Thames and the Tower Bridge, and the apartment itself was roomy and modern, but dirty. The countertops hadn’t even been wiped down from the last tenant, but Bill and I are troopers, so we made the best of it.
Going back to our arrival, the doorman at the apartment was obviously put out by Airbnb travelers, and he made his discern known. My phone was dying and in Europe, wifi is a necessity. We arrived about an hour later than we planned because we had no directions and again, googlemaps didn’t help because we didn’t have wifi. The doorman said to call Robin, our inconsiderate ass of a host, but my phone was down to 15 percent. I tried to search for his number, but every push of a button took my power down one percentage. I asked the doorman for the wifi password, and he refused to give it to me.
I knew that my next strategy would be crying. Finally, with Bill asking questions about getting in touch with Robin, and my loud answers about my phone dying, the doorman said he would call Robin. Robin arrived and his first comment was “No working phone in the UK, huh?”
I was proud of my retort to his arrogance. It went like this: “I have a working phone. It is a little difficult to call someone without wifi and the doorman wouldn’t give me the password.”
We made the best of the bad situation with Robin, and we found a great local pub called Ramsgate where we “became regulars” because we ate there two nights in a row. The first night, when we were walking there, we met a young Czech couple who were headed there as well. We started talking to them, and, as it turns out, they had spent the summer before in Cleveland for their honeymoon. They told us they had loved the breweries, the water parks, and Cedar Point. Small world after all.
July 22-We decided we would do one more hop-on/hop-off and see London. I have been to London twice before, but Bill had not, but we stayed together to see everything. We managed to get right to the front of the gates at Buckingham Palace (our selfie is on the website), and Bill marveled at the military showmanship at the changing of the guard at 10 a.m. It rained in the afternoon and we were cold, so we basically stayed on the bus and looked at the sights, talking again to fellow travelers, many Americans, many from the Midwest.
We got off the bus for lunch near the Tower of London and had some really terrible, watery, mushroom soup. It had no flavor. England has a bad reputation for food. Yes. We came back cold, exhausted, and hungry. This was the night the bathroom door locked, but being creative, we figured out a way to make it work overnight. (Secrets only Bill and I know.)
JULY23-This was the day that made us ready to go home. After Robin arrived to let us in the bathroom, and we missed our early start, we missed the British Museum. I wanted to get in quickly and see the Gutenburg Bible and the Elgin Marbles. I guess I have another excuse to go back to London.
By the time we made it to the British Museum, the line was around the block and they said it was about a two hour wait to get in. I made the best of it and got souvenirs for the girls there. We walked, looked in shops, and grabbed some food, discovering Pret A Manger! We also decided to forego the Beatles tour because of our late jump. We thought we might make the Thames River cruise included with our bus tickets, but we couldn’t print the voucher (I don’t routinely carry my printer with me when I travel), but the best part of the day was the relaxing meal and people at the Dickens Inn, in St. Katherine’s Docks, owned by Charles Dickens’ relatives, where we each had a curry dish.
This year it added to my interest in teaching Charles Dickens (I taught “A Christmas Carol” before our winter break), as did seeing the birthplace of Oscar Wilde (I taught the “Importance of Being Earnest”), and St. Patrick’s Cathedral where Johnathan Swift (I taught “Gulliver’s Travels” and “A Modest Proposal”) was a deacon.
JULY 24-The worst part of traveling, in my opinion, is missing the pets. Every dog that I saw reminded me of Farley, and every cat was either Frrrp, Tweaker, or our new baby Reggie. We were ready to come home. On our way to Victoria’s Station, of course lugging those giant suitcases, we met our friends the Czech couple who wished us a safe flight. We did take the quick shuttle to Heathrow which was worth the little extra money. It was direct, easy, and fast.
We loved our trip, but like all good trips, we were ready to come back to our quiet lives in Ohio.
