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It’s a kind of tradition for the PSU program at UL for the faculty member to prepare a turkey for her American students over the holiday. UL does provide a free Thanksgiving lunch all day for their American students, but our students like the idea of a more intimate, ‘family-style’ celebration with their peers and close friends. Apparently, our understanding of the concept “intimate” was quite different. For me, that meant twelve students and me. For them, “intimate,” meant 28 people. When you’re talking turkey, that’s a big difference.

I firmly believe that these students are adults, and I wasn’t going to be responsible for planning this entire dinner and cooking everything. So I asked if someone in the class would be interested in coordinating the event. Luckily, Alyssa volunteered for the job and she did wonderfully  in creating a sign up sheet for food, making sure we had enough variety to meet every one’s tastes. My job was to arrange for the Village Hall as our locale, to obtain and cook the turkey, and (I found out later) to bring copious amounts of gravy.

I emailed Pat, last year’s faculty member, about a week before Thanksgiving to get some tips on a good place to get a turkey, how long it would take me to get one, etc. He told me he went to a butcher ‘over by Super Quinn,’ which is a grocery store about 20 minutes walk from campus. I set out the Friday before Thanksgiving to order my turkey, but I couldn’t find the butcher! I thought when he said ‘by’ Super Quinn, he meant in the same shopping complex, but it wasn’t there. Super Quinn is also by a roundabout, so I went down three of the four streets: couldn’t find it. Ultimately, I decided just to go into the grocery store to ask them where it was when I had an epiphany right inside the door: there, on the wall, was a big sign announcing: Order your Holiday Turkeys Now! I would just get it from Super Quinn.

So I went up to the information desk to ask how I ordered a turkey. The women explained that I would need to go back to the butcher and choose what kind I wanted, how big, etc. and then determine the date and pick up time. I would need to pay a 10 Euro deposit at the cash register and I could be on my way. Sounds easy, right? Wrong.

The butcher was incredibly friendly and helpful. He sat down with me and began asking what kind of turkey I wanted. I looked at him dumbfounded. “What do you mean, what kind”? I asked. He started rattling off different kinds of turkeys: did I want: organic, free range, free range organic, smoked, etc. etc. etc. Never having cooked a turkey before, I had no idea there were so many choices. Finally, I just said “regular.” He kind of laughed at me and began looking at the sizes and prices. Then he asked me what size. I told him I needed to feed about 25-8 people, and he said the largest they had was 10kg so I would need TWO turkeys to feed that many people. Two turkeys! I didn’t know how I was going to fit one in my tiny apartment over, let along cook two! I asked about getting a turkey breast instead of another whole turkey, but he explained it was actually more expensive for a breast than for a whole turkey. “A turkey will run you E6.99 a kg,” he explained. Now, I’m not always the best with math, but my mind started doing calculations immediately. “One 10kg turkey at E6.99  per kg is…. and I have to buy two, so that’s… 140 Euro!” I whispered to myself under my breath, as my eyes widened in realization. Oh my gosh: we’re talking about $200 for two turkeys. This will be the most expensive Thanksgiving ever.

My butcher was still talking to me, even though my eyes had glazed over with how much this was going to cost. I came to when I realized he was talking about delivery dates. He pulled out a sheet, and I heard him ask, “Now what works for you? December 17, 18, 19?” I snapped back to reality and corrected him. “Oh no, no, “I explained with a smile on my face. “I need this for next Thursday.” His jaw dropped. “Thursday?” he sputtered. “THIS Thursday?” “Yes,” I explained, the smile leaving my mouth. “For Thanksgiving. Is that going to be a problem?” He contineud to look at me in disbelief. He said he didn’t think it was going to be possible. He said even IF they could get me a turkey, it would be too small. He said he’s have to call the headquarters in Dublin to see if it could even work. I felt my stomach plummeting to my shoes. Uh oh. THIS was going to be a problem.

He called the Dublin office but of course, no one was available to answer his question. So I gave the Super Quinn butcher my name and phone numbers and he promised someone would call that night or Saturday morning at the latest. By now, it was late afternoon and beginning to get dark, so I decided to go back home and wait for my call.

No phone call Friday night.

No call Saturday morning.

By 11am Saturday morning, I was in a mild panic. Here I had promised these kids a Thanksgiving dinner, and now there was going to be no turkey. I decided I would head into the city immediately and go to every butcher shop I saw until I found one that could get me a turkey by Thursday.

I took the bus in and was dropped off on Williams Stree in Limerick City, which is unusual. Usually the buses drop you two blocks over on Roches Street, and you pick the bus back up to go home on William Street. But it must have been Fate that day, because immediately outside the bus stop was a butcher: Hogan’s meats. I walked in, waited for a a few women to finish their business, and with trepidation in my voice, asked the butcher if there was ANY way I could get a turkey by Thursday. His answer: no problem. Yay! The very first place I stopped I had my turkey. I was relieved.

He explained he had delivered one that weekend but it was very large, so he wanted to warn me that my turkey might be quite big–14-16kg. I explained that I needed to cook for 28 people and he said this should be the perfect size for me. We didn’t talk price, because I no longer cared HOW much this thing was going to cost; all I wanted was to make sure I had one. He didn’t want a deposit. He just took my name and told me to come back Thursday morning at 8:30am to pick it up. I was in heaven. I practically skipped my way to the Milk Market to finish my Saturday shopping.

Thursday, however, was a whole other adventure.

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After we left St. Paul’s Cathedral, Greg and I headed down the embankment to the Tower of London. We arrived at the ticket booth at around 3:15 to discover the attraction closed at 5:30 AND tickets cost 16.50 BP per person–our most expensive outing yet. We decided to go for it anyway; we were so tired we didn’t think we could do more than two hours anyway. So we purchased our tickets, joined the masses of people entering and exiting main gates, guarded by the famous “Beefeaters,” and made our way directly to the Crown Jewels. The jewels are housed in their own part of the Tower complex (the entrance is underneath this clock tower), and visitors have to go through an elaborate system of rooms, lines, video productions, and a two-foot thick steel safe door before they are herded quickly through the exhibit itself. Of course, you are not allowed to take photos of the jewels, so once again–I got nothin’. There are some images available on the web, but they do not do them justice. Any visitor to London MUST see them in person for herself.

After being herded through the complicated mazes and hoops to get to see the crown jewels, Greg and I made our way back out to the courtyard and determined we would visit the White Tower which holds an armory museum. There were ornate displays of pistols, rifles, and spears, but our favorite item was a set of Henry VII’s armor, seen here. Methinks the king doth protest his virility too much? We also stopped in the beautiful Tower chapel on our way out.

By the time we exited the armory, it was getting dark. We wanted to visit the famous “Bloody Tower” where all the famous prisoners were kept, including Anne Boleyn; however, since it was near closing time AND Halloween, there was a line extending outside of the building with people waiting to get in, so we decided to spend our time in touring the remaining towers and battlements. We were able to get some great photos of some of the White Tower and battlements,  the famous Tower Bridge on the Thames, and Traitor’s Gate where they used to bring in all of the Tower prisoners by boat.

We were so exhausted from our day (Leicester Square, Tate Modern Museum, St. Pauls’ Cathedral, Tower of London) that we had to sit outside the Tower to rest awhile before we could even begin the travel back to our hotel (ah, old age). Once there, we crashed in our room for a while then ventured back out for dinner and home again for an early night’s sleep. Just eight more hours to prepare the next big day in the ‘citay.’

On Saturday, we had another full day planned. We started off visiting Westminster Abbey, another of my favorite sites in London. It is the place where almost every single monarch has been crowned since William the Conqueror in 1066. Since it’s a church, that’s right–no inside photos. But we were able to get this perfect, very “British” short of the Abbey when we arrived. We toured the Abbey, especially the famed “Poet’s Corner,” which holds the resting places of such famous writers as Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spencer, Percy Shelley, Charles Dickens, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Also buried in Westminster are several English kings and queens: Edward the Confessor, James II, Henry V, and Mary I and Elizabeth I who, ironically, share a tomb room together even though there were terrible rivals during life.

After leaving Westminster, we traveled to the Tate Britain Museum, where we saw the Francis Bacon and Turner Prize exhibits. I absolutely loved the Bacon exhibit, but those Turner Prizes… I feel like I can talk art with the best of them, but I didn’t understand any of them.

We then traveled to the Imperial War Museum in the south of London to see the new Ian Fleming/James Bond exhibit that had opened in honor of the new movie. We got to see original manuscripts of several James Bond novels, saw photos from Fleming’s life, learned about his background in the British service, and even saw props from specific films. The building itself has a fascinating history, as it was the original site for the famous Bethlem Hospital, commonly known as ‘Bedlam.’ We had lunch in the cafe, toured the WWI and WWII exhibits, and Greg took some excellent pictures of the building, including this one of the ceiling.

As the museum was closing, we made our exits and decided to head back to the airport for our flight. Our travel back to Limerick went smoothly, even if we didn’t get back to my apartment until 12:45am. The following day, Greg and I went to see the new Bond film in Limerick–we recommend it! Before we knew it, his visit was over and we were back at the airport again on Monday morning. It was a busy visit and we had a great time.

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Greg and I went to London over Halloween this year while he was visiting me in Ireland. We didn’t plan for it to be Halloween; things just worked out that way. My students at UL told me this was probably a good thing; apparently–like every other holiday, it seems–Halloween is big at UL. Students prank each other by throwing rotten eggs, they play practical jokes, and they party hard–as usual. The strangest prank they told me about was ‘ketchupping’ someone’s door. You smear ketchup all over someone’s door so that when they come to go to class, they get it all over them. I don’t understand it; it’s just what happens.

So after our eventful trip to the airport, the rest of our travels were uneventful. We arrived in London around 10pm and safely made it to our hotel. As I mentioned in my previous post, I always expect too much from my London accommodations because of the high prices you have to pay for even moderate hotels and B&Bs. It’s all about location, location, location. So, based on the recommendation of Sally’s Mitchell’s guide to doing research in London (I am an academic, after all; I have to do my research and I listen to other experts in the field), I chose the mid-range Langland Hotel B&B in the heart of Bloomsbury (a neighborhood I tend to gravitate to because of its proximity to the British Library and its historical literary associations with Virginia Woolf and British Modernism). I had excellent luck with this resource during my last research trip to England in 2006; based on her recommendation, I had a very successful, quiet, and cheap stay at the University of London, right around the corner from the library and Euston Station.

We didn’t have much of a plan for what we were going to do in the next two days other than go to the Tate museums. The Tate Modern was having an exhibit on Mark Rothko, one of my favorite Modern American painters, and the Tate Britain was hosting a Francis Bacon exhibit (one of my favorite British painters) as well as the finalists for the annual Turner Prize in Art and the always present acclaimed Turner collection (which I think is going to come to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. in a few years–the only time this collection has ever left Britain).  As soon as we arrived at the airport, I had an epiphany: we could go to the theater. It’s funny how living in rural New England makes on forget that there are things like professional theater, musicals, and experimental art out there in the world. I never even thought about the possibility of going to see something like Wicked or The Lion King–two musicals I’ve been wanting to see for years–when we were in London. But as soon as we arrived at the airport, i saw signs everywhere and determined that was what we would do the following evening. I knew you could go to Leicester Square in the mornings and get half-priced theater tickets, so that’s what we planned to do.

We had a bit of a rough night at the hotel because there was a group of six college students staying there are well; they came home late and had to be buzzed in by a very loud doorbell by the night manager. Our room, which was en suite, was just outside the shared bath for our hall, however, and right underneath the stairs, so we heard a lot of traffic. After a good English breakfast–complete with beans and a fried tomato–we headed out to Leicester Square.

It was a beautiful day, sunny but cold, and there were not many people about yet. However, when we arrived in Leicester Square we saw a long queue outside of the Odeon Theater. This was odd; people waiting in line for a theater at 9:30am? When we looked up, we saw a huge promotion poster for Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond film, and we realized we were looking at the theater where the film had actually premiered just two nights before. These people were in line waiting for the very first showing–imagine: the opening of a James Bond film. In London. We were tempted, but we decided that we would see the sites and then determine whether we were up for a film in the evening.

We went to TKTS, the non-profit ticket seller on Leicester Square, but they didn’t have any tickets for the two shows I was really interested in. There shops after shops all along the square purporting to sell discounted tickets to almost every show imaginable, including the ones I wanted to see. Tickets for Wicked were as low as 18 BP per person, but we decided that (a) we would be too tired to enjoy it, (b) it was too expensive, and (c) we hadn’t packed theater clothes. So, after the whole trip out of our way to go to Leicester Square, we decided to bag the whole idea and head over to the museum.

After about 2-3 hours touring the Tate Modern, we walked along the Thames, taking in the sites like the Globe Theater, Millennium Bridge, distant views of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and found an English pub called “The Anchor” for our lunch of traditional fish and chips. It must have been a school holiday, because London was packed with traveling Brits that day. I’ve always visited the city in the summer, which is what I always considered the height of tourist season, but I’ve never seen as many people at sites as I did on Halloween.

After lunch, Greg decided he wanted to explore St. Paul’s Cathedral more fully, so we crossed the Thames on the Millennium footbridge and went for a tour. The bad thing about touring all of the churches in London is that although you pay a high admission fee (10 BP per person, which translated into about $32 total for our two hours), you are not allowed to take any photos within the actual building. And this is a beautiful building; many of you will remember it as the site of Prince Charles’ and Princess Diana’s wedding in 1981. The ceilings are painted with elaborate murals;the pulpit is ornately carved wood. There are gold fixtures everywhere and gigantic marble sculptures. No pictures. Sigh. All we were able to get were some detailed photos of the exterior which you can see here and here.

The really fun part, though, is that they were having rehearsals for a BBC broadcast that evening for best British youth chorister, so we were in St. Paul’s all afternoon listening to talented young performers sing hymns. The acoustics were amazing.

Your ticket allows you to tour the main floor, the crypts, and the galleries, which are walkways up within the rotunda and even further above along the rooftops of the cathedral. So, Greg and I climbed over 120 stairs to get to the first gallery–the whisper gallery–located at the base of the famous dome of the cathedral. From our perch above, we could look down on the BBC rehearsals, see the layout of the church floor more clearly, and conversely look up to see the details of the ceiling murals more clearly. The acoustics are so designed that you can whisper on one side of the dome and have a person on the other side hear you perfectly. We decided to continue up to the next gallery, which brought us out on the outside of the cathedral dome, above all of London. We took several pictures of the city, the river Thames, and the square surrounding the cathedral. Greg took an excellent picture of the famous Tower Bridge as well. There was even another gallery further up by the steeple, but by this point I was already having thigh flashbacks to my visit to Bunratty Castle, so Greg went up alone and took even more pictures. I recommend it to anyone who can make the stairs. I believe there were over 350 steps from the floor of the cathedral to the highest gallery–and you had to descend the same number as well. Not for the faint-hearted. Or weak-legged.

After we descended from the galleries, we went into the bowels of the church and visited the crypt where many famous Englishmen are buried (note I say EnglishMEN here; I don’t think I saw ANY women’s graves in the crypt. What’s up with that?). We saw the tombs of: Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Sir Christopher Wren (architect of St. Paul’s and much of Oxford U), and John Donne–17th century poet and Dean of St. Paul’s.

We exited St. Paul’s at around 3pm and had to make a decision: what to do next? We were still close to the embankment, so I insisted Greg see the Tower of London. This is one of my favorite places to visit in the city, and I recommend it to everyone. But more on that in the next post.

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Greg flew over to Ireland for a visit in late October, and this was his first trans-Atlantic flight. One of the big things we discussed before I left for Ireland was what we were going to do on his visit: did he want to explore his first European country, or did he want to take advantage of all of the cheap, short flights to neighboring countries? We went back and forth in our discussions, but we finally decided that we would try to schedule a trip to London for a few days while he was here.

Even with the present oil crisis, there are amazingly cheap flights within the EU. Ryan Air and Aer Lingus, both Irish airlines, frequently post Internet sales with FREE tickets. That’s right, people. You read that correctly. FREE plane tickets to countries like Italy, England, France, Germany, Holland, etc. All the passenger has to pay are the taxes and fees. But the real secret is: these aren’t actually the best fares. You can purchase tickets to these countries for as little as five Euro each way with NO taxes or fees. That means you can fly from Ireland to London for as little as 10 Euro–about $15. And that’s what we did. I purchased two tickets on Ryan Air for Thursday, October 30-Saturday November 1 for 20E. There were additional hidden fees, though. For instance, since we were not EU citizens, we had to check in at the airport instead of online, so that cost an additional 20E. And since we were paying with a credit card, which charges the airline a 3% booking fee, we had to pay an additional 20E. So all in all, it cost us 60E for the flights, but that is still only less than $90 for two round trip tickets to London. Somehow, that still feels a lot cheaper than two round trip tickets from Boston to London, so I was satisfied. Of course, it was when we got to London that all the costs came home to roost–$270 for two mediocre nights in a London B&B, astronomical admissions fees for all of the sites and museums (the most expensive ended up being the Tate Britain Museum, which translated into over $50 for two admission tickets to the Francis Bacon and Turner Prize exhibitions–and that was only one of THREE things we did that day, not including transportation costs and food as well).

But of course, since this is me we’re talking about here, there was drama getting us to the airport. I had to teach Thursday afternoon until 4, and our plane was departing from Shannon at 7:50, so it was imperative we catch an early bus from the university to the city in order to get the 5:25 bus to the airport. Everything was going according to plan: we were packed and at the bus stop by 4:15. But, true to Irish form, no bus. No bus at 4:30. No bus at 4:45. By now, there were probably over 50 people at the university stop alone, not including the likely back up at every following stop. It was also at the peak of Limerick rush hour, so it would take much longer than the normal 20 minutes to get into the city. At 4:45 I had to make a decision; even if we’d caught a bus at that point it was highly unlikely we would make it to the station in time. So, I called a cab. Even the taxi driver was concerned on the phone about whether we’d make it to the station in time or not. It took him 10 minutes to pick us up in front of the Sports Arena, and then he announced we were going to pick up another passenger down the road! Now this was the first time I had had to share a taxi, and we were under pressure to get the station in time, but our driver assured us we would make it. So we agreed. As we sat in the silent taxi in stopped traffic, I covertly glanced at the dashboard clock over and over again, watching the minutes tick by, counting up all the money we would lose if we couldn’t catch the bus to the airport: the $20 in bus fares we’d already purchased online, possibly a $60 cab ride to the airport if we missed the bus, $90 in missed flights if we missed the cab, $270 in uncanceled hotel reservations. I tried to keep it together. I don’t think I breathed, however, until the taxi drove up in front of the station–at 5:18. We had seven minutes to spare. So even though it was a stressful start, we were on our way.

By comparison, the trip to the airport and the flight to London were uneventful; after that initial trip to the Limerick bus station, everything else seemed so easy. We arrived in Gatwick airport, breezed through immigration, bought train and tube tickets right outside out gate, walked to the train platform where a train arrived almost immediately, easily made a few stops on the tube, walked a few blocks and BAM–there was our hotel. Our room was fine, but one always expects more for the price one pays in London.

This just goes to show how true that old adage is: life is a journey, not a destination (I think Ralph Waldo Emerson said that).

Frankly, I’m getting a bit fed up with with the journeys.

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First of all, I am not a drama queen. But.

Things just happen to me, I swear.

So Greg arrived in Ireland the morning of October 24th. He crashed from his jet lag on Friday, and we spent Saturday, in traditional Irish style–in the rain–at the weekly Milk Market where he fell in love with cheese and pastries all over again (Don’t even ask him how many carrot cakes he ate that week. Well, go ahead and ask him). On Sunday, we decided we would take a bus out to the neighboring village of Bunratty to see the castle and tour the folk park, a 26 acre reconstruction of 19th century Irish village life. I had already been to Bunratty–twice–for dinner and sightseeing, but both times I arrived too late to tour the big attraction. So Greg and I made plans to spend our Sunday afternoon there.

There are hourly buses from the Limerick bus station to Bunratty, except between 11:30 and 2:30, where there is a two hour gap (so you can see where I’m going here). Greg and I got up, breakfasted, and headed out to the UL bus top on campus to catch the bus into the city. We figured that if we caught the 10:15 bus, we would arrive in the city around 10:45 with plenty of time to mosey over to the station and pick up the coach. Even if the UL bus was late–as it was wont to do–we built in plenty of time to make it to the station. After all, if for some reason we missed the 10:15, there should be a 10:30, a 10:45, or even an 11am. Right? Wrong. My first big error in judgment: it was Sunday.

We arrived at the bus stop and immediately encountered a group of my students who were headed to Cork for a local Halloween festival (which immediately sounded way cooler to me than my stupid trip to Bunratty, but then again, I clearly didn’t do my research–on any of this). We chit chatted for a bit until I noticed someone had taken down the bus schedule normally posted on the shelter. One of my students heard me comment on it and said, “Yeah, and some guy just came by and said that there won’t be a bus here until 11:30!” Greg and I looked at each other. “Uh oh,” I said. “11:30? That can’t be right. We’ll never make it into the city in time to catch our bus.” By this time it was only 10:30am.

After waiting for another FIFTY minutes for the bus to arrive, Greg and I started talking about how we were going to rearrange our plans (Keep in mind, now, it never even occurred to me to call a taxi. It just did. Right now. As I was writing this post. Doh.). We decided we would still go directly to the station in case we misread the schedule and there was another bus to Bunratty before 1:30. There wasn’t. So after spending a few minutes at the station, we decided to explore the city a bit more and take some pictures since it was such a beautiful day.

We walked down Mallow St. and in and out of some alleys, taking pictures of local monuments and churches. Like many old Catholic towns, there are a lot of churches in Limerick, like this one on O’Connell Street and this St. Michael’s, which you can get a peak of down a narrow Limerick street here. I’m going to have to start taking pictures of all of them before I head home in a month. We walked down to O’Connell Street, the busiest street in the city, and were shocked to find street workers all over the place. They were hanging Christmas decorations all along the street. It was only October 26th. I had heard that Christmas was big in Limerick, but this was REALLY big. Apparently, they have a beautiful Christmas tree lighting ceremony later in the month, and I’m looking forward to being a part of that. I’ll try to take some good pictures and post them to my flickr account.

We continued to walk down to the river bank and we took pictures of swans swimming in the Shannon river, a local nightclub, and King John’s Castle in the distance (which I STILL haven’t made it to. Cathrine, that means you’re it.). By that time, I was starting to get hungry so we decided to grab some lunch (sadly, American fast food was the only thing open on a Sunday, so Subway it was),  and then it was time to head back to the bus station to catch our bus.

Bunratty Castle itself is an imposing structure originally built in 1425 as a fortress for the O’Brien clan, kings and later earls of Thomond or North Munster. The castle fell into complete disrepair by the 20th century until it was renovated in 1954 by the current Earl of Thomond and then donated to the people of Ireland upon his death. The castle is furnished was traditional medieval furniture and trappings, and guests can tour virtually every room, including the ramparts. The castle is surrounded by a 19th century Irish village, replete with thatched cottages, real livestock, and human reenactors who demonstrate 19th century cooking and other crafts. The castle also hosts a medieval banquet every evening, which my students are dying to attend. We’re trying to see if we can get a group discount package for when Plymouth State University’s president visits our program in early December, but it is pricey.

On our arrival at the castle around 2pm, Greg and I spent a large part of our time touring the castle, taking pictures of the interior and battling our way with other visitors on winding, one-way stairwells. Medieval castle architecture remains a mystery to me; I had no sense of what floor I was on, how the rooms where laid out in relation to one another, or even how the building itself was structured. By the time we exited the castle, my legs were shaking from so much stair climbing, and I paid for my inquisitiveness with thigh soreness for the next two days.

We spent the remainder of the afternoon touring the folk park and taking some beautiful pictures, some of which you can view here. It was a beautiful, cool fall day and a great opportunity to be outside and enjoy the weather and countryside. The folk park itself is breathtaking. There are photogenic moments every time you turn around, and I was sorry I was unable to bring my mother to visit when she was in Ireland. We walked through the entire park, taking pictures of the local school house, cottages, farm houses, mills, the manor house (which wasn’t open to the public at the time due to renovations), and even local animals (chickens, sheep, ponies, etc.). We had a great afternoon.

After we finished in the folk park, we headed across to the street to the Blarney Woolen Mill and Waterford Crystal shop for some early Christmas shopping. Little did we know (once again, things just happen to me), it was their annual Christmas sale that day, so the place was swamped with people. You could hardly move to look at scarves, sweaters, throws, or other souvenirs, and I barely had a chance to look at any crystal. I got close enough see some prices and to be nervous that I would knock down entire displays with my backpack, so that was enough for me.

We timed our bus pick up perfectly for 5:50 and proceeded to head back into Limerick for the night. Daylight Savings had occurred the night before, so it was already getting quite dark by then. We were tired and happy to be on our way home. However (again, remember my opening), our bus ended up stuck in traffic because of a children’s football (soccer) tournament letting out at the old rugby stadium in town (They have built a new, huge rugby stadium elsewhere in the city, Thomond Park, which opened in October while I was here. The UL staff tried to get us tickets to a game, but were unable due to the new stadium’s popularity.). Our driver even tried to make a detour, only to get stuck again in the middle of exiting parents and vehicles. What should have been a 20 minute bus ride back into the city ended up being a 40 minute bus ride. Then (again, remember the opening of this posting), we changed buses and walked to the Williams Street stop where we catch our bus back to UL only to find another coach broken down at our bus stop. A giant flatbed tow truck arrived, and about 50 bystanders watched in fascination as they lifted this heavy bus onto the trailer, chained it down, and towed it away. This all took another 30 minutes, during which time NO buses arrived to take us back to the university. By the time we ended up back at home, it was already after 8pm, dark, and we were hungry. As we walked back to my apartment, Greg observed to me, “Why does everything have to be so hard?”

Exactly.

Related items

• Talking Turkey, Part I
• London Calling, Part Deux
• London Calling
• More Trains, Planes, and Automobiles
• Patience

For those of you (you brave and happy few) who have been anxiously waiting for a blog update, my apologies. As the number of photos saved on my hard drive keeps growing, I decided I needed to look for another alternative for storage. Which led me to flickr.com. My friend Cathie used flckr for her Spain pictures, so I thought this would be a good option for my growing portfolio. However, as those of you who know me will already know, any time I try to do something with technology it usually means I have to do everything twice. So I uploaded photos, deleted photos, and then uploaded again, only to have to go back and reformat everything. So, my apologies for the delay.

In the meantime, if you’d like to look at some of my recent photos while I prepare my latest blog updates, you can check them out here: www.flickr.com/akmcclellan/.

Enjoy.

Related items

• Talking Turkey, Part I
• London Calling, Part Deux
• London Calling
• More Trains, Planes, and Automobiles
• Boys, Buses, and Bunratty

Because Limerick is not exactly a tourist town, it is rather difficult to plan organized activities for visitors like bus tours. However, in some of my snooping for my mother’s visit I found two options: one through the Irish Rail system which offered a bus tour of Bunratty Castle, the Burren, and the famous Cliffs of Moher for a pricey 50 Euros, and another smaller company, called Barrett Tours, moderately priced at E27. When I was in Oxford while in college in the early 1990s, I was fortunate enough to discover a small mini-bus tour company run by a group of Oxbridge grads. I took every tour they offered and had a great time. I loved the small group atmosphere, the personal attention, and the detailed information they were able to give me, not only about the various tours I took but also about Oxford life. So, I quickly decided to go for the small underdogs. And I wasn’t disappointed.

Barrett Tours does day tours out of the Limerick Tourist Information Centre, which is easy to access from the local bus from the university. They have coaches ranging from 15, 25, 31, and 50 passengers, and they do day trips every day of the week to popular spots like the Cliffs of Moher, the Waterford Crystal Factory, Adare and Kilarney, etc. There was even an overnight tour that took you through the Ring of Kerry, one of the most popular tourist areas in Ireland. However, we were hindered quite a bit in our choices because I teach Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. So we decided on a tour of County Clare and the Cliffs of Moher on Monday when we wouldn’t have any other conflicts.

We’d been so fortunate to have such beautiful sunny weather on Sunday when we ironically ended up stuck on campus watching the mini-marathon, but Monday we weren’t as lucky. We woke up to the traditional gray Irish sky and a light rain falling. The Weather Channel predicted intermittent rain all day, so we made sure to wear our rain coats and pack the umbrella as we made our way into the city. We got into town way too early, so we decided to get out of the rain and grab a cup of coffee, but surprisingly there are NO coffee shops or cafes on the few blocks of O’Connell Street on our way to the Information Center, even though this is the busiest street in town! Our one option was McDonald’s, so, yes, Mom and I went to McDonald’s to grab a cup of coffee, expecting it to be the normal, delicious Newman’s Own/Green Mountain coffee we’ve come to expect at home. Needless to say, once again we were reminded that nothing in Europe is like home. The coffee was bitter and expensive (3 Euro for a cup of McDonald’s coffee!), so we threw it out and continued on our way.

We picked up our tour bus, a small 15 seater minivan at the Tourist Information Center along with a young Irish couple. Our tour guide, Richard Barrett, was co-owner of the company with this wife and originally from the UK. We left the city center and made our way to Bunratty where we had to pick up two more passengers who, as luck would have it, were Spanish and spoke no English. I quickly found myself availing of my scant high school, college, and grad school knowledge of the language to try to assist the two women with when we had to be back at the coach, how to order their food for lunch, and where the bathrooms were, all the while trying to answer their excited questions that, no, I’d never been to Spain, and yes, I learned to speak Spanish in the U.S., and explain to them that my knowledge of their language was quite limited!

Our luck held out, weather-wise, for quite a while as the tour began. It stopped raining, so even though the skies were gray, we had good views of Leamanagh Castle, a ruin in County Clare. From Leamanagh Castle, we traveled on to Caher Connell, a 2000 year old Ring Fort. There was a video about the history of the fort and living conditions back when it was originally constructed. One of the most amazing features was its stone walls, many of which were constructed with the rocks stacked vertically rather than horizontally, as we’ve come to expect in New England. Sadly, many of these walls are beginning to collapse, so great care has to be taken to preserve this amazing historic site. I was fascinated by an eerie looking tree growing out of the stone wall; it reminded me of something from a horror movie or a film by Tim Burton–unearthly, especially with the light in the background. One thing that contributed to that feeling was a recently discovered burial site outside of the ring fort. Archeologists had discovered a two thousand year-old skeleton just outside the ring fort the month before we visited. My favorite thing about the fort, however, was the new friend I made. I tried to bring him back with me, but Richard, our driver, said there was no room for him in the coach!

Our ‘good’ weather continued as we made our way further into the geographic area known as “The Burren.” The word ‘burren’ in Irish simply means “rocky lands”, but it also reminds me of ‘barren.’ Through years of strong winds and erosion, the nourishing topsoil eroded revealing the gray limestone rock pervasive throughout this part of the countryside, giving the land with a strange lunar-like appearance. Here we saw a 6,000 year old burial tomb known as the Poulnabrone Tomb. Ancient Celtic peoples would cremate their dead and then bury their ashes underneath the portal-shaped tomb, imagining it was a gateway to the afterlife.

We left the Burren to head into Blackheath on Galway Bay, where we could just make out the famous Aran Islands. I wanted to take a ferry out to visit the main island, Inish Mor, but Mom was too nervous about the rough Irish Seas and drowning on her vacation. Our loss. Instead, we had to be satisfied with distant views over the cloudy water. Blackhead was a treat, however. The weather cleared up to allow for a few glimpses of the sun on our short stop to take photos of the bay and the rocky cliffs along the coastline. We had some amazing views of the cliffs down to Galway Bay, with waves crashing against the rocks and beautiful green water. My mother, who is often not too steady on her feet, freaked me out by moving a little too close to the edge of the cliffs, which you can see have no fences or boundaries.

I can’t remember if we stopped in Doolin for lunch at Gus O’Connell’s Pub before or after Blackhead, but it was a quiet yet frequent stop for tour buses and tourists. Doolin is known for its famous caves; however, we did not stay to explore them this visit.

We finally arrived at the big ticket item for the tour: the famous Cliffs of Moher. This was the one tourist site my mother had chosen to visit before arriving in Ireland. She made me laugh at an email she sent when we were planning our visit together: “The Cliffs of Insanity!” the subject line shouted. Apparently, the Cliffs of Moher was the film location for the Cliffs of Insanity in my favorite movie, The Princess Bride, and I didn’t even know it! This new knowledge made me even more excited to see the cliffs again, even though I had previously visited them in 1997 with my friend Nainsi on my first trip to Ireland. The tour had scheduled an hour and a half to explore the cliffs and surrounding environs, which should be plenty of time to get those oh-so-perfect photos and breath-taking shots, right? Well, that good luck we’d been using to cash in on good weather so far that day finally ran out. We arrived at the Cliffs of Moher in a steady downstream of rain. Looking at the challenging stairways to the tops of the cliffs, my mother quickly realized that she wasn’t going to be able to make it to the top to see the Cliffs in full. I was so disappointed for her; this was the one thing she’d wanted to see. So, we walked together, in the pouring rain, about halfway up the path to a observation station, at the base of two diverging stairways which took you to two different views of the cliffs. We took a few pictures of the amazing views which you can see here , here, and here, and then, because the rain was so bad and it was becoming increasingly dark, I walked her back to the (mercifully) covered tourist information center where I left her to peruse the gift shop while I trekked back out in the rain to the top. The rain was coming down so heavily, however, that I was unable to get any more pictures, and by the time I returned to join Mom at the information center, my pants were completely soaked through from the rain running down the front of my raincoat. By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, the fog had moved in so quickly that the Cliffs were completely obscured. You couldn’t see anything but white. So we were very fortunate that we took the initiative to take photos immediately after arriving rather than waiting to see if the rain abated. We returned to the coach after waiting in the coffee shop for an hour, to drive back to Limerick, tired and wet. All in all, a good day, I think, with lots of good pictures, even if I did get drenched.

The rest of our week was filled with teaching conflicts and bad weather. We had planned for an all-day visit to the neighboring village of Adare, voted Ireland’s prettiest village, for Friday, Mom’s last day in Ireland. However, we once again woke to torrential downpours and decided to cut our losses, do crossword puzzles all day, and watch a movie. Now that’s the kind of vacation I know and love. I was sorry to see her go at the airport on Saturday morning, but her visit made my life here all the more real. As my friend Cathrine always says, there’s nothing like a visit from your mom to make everything seem concrete. I’m happy we shared this trip and these memories together. As always, it was a grand adventure, full of comedy and mishaps and lots of love.

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