The End (maybe?)

The last of my posts. Unless you want to hear about what I did on the farm, or the progress I'm making on getting my niece and nephews to love me more, I won't have anything good to say. Although compared with the excitement of Russia I'm sure this will pale in comparison. Alas, bear with me? Yes, do, Ireland was still good craic (craic being pronounced crack, and being Irish for fun).

I was in Ireland for 7 days and spent them all with Caoimhe, who is wonderful. We toured an old jail in Dublin, in which I learned a bit about how shit the British were to the Irish and that the jail design system we have now was basically what the Victorian's came up with (minus the orange jumpsuits) with the one person/cell, and the basic architecture. The next day we went on a PaddyWagon tour, as Caoimhe lives just outside of Dublin, on the East coast, which is lovely, but the West coast is the coast to see, and the PaddyWagon tours go there, provide you with a tackily painted van to ride in, Irish guide to tell you trivia and bad jokes, and a hand full of other tourists who, in our case, include loud Americans, one of whom did some Irish step dancing for us! We saw the Cliffs of Moher (which may or may not have been the Cliffs of Iinsanity from the Princess Bride) and the Burren (sp?), which is desolate and unfarmable land which have little walls going through them, made by hungry Irish whom the British decided needed to do something to earn soup during the famine, they weren't just going to give it to them!

The next day we toured the old Jameson distillery, which due to Caoimhe's quick volunteering skills, also included a comparison taste test of Scotch, Jameson Whiskey, and Bourbon, along with a shot of Jameson and whatever mix you wanted. After this rather nice start to the afternoon, we wandered the streets for a while and met up with Paul-- just back from a vacation in Spain and clearly in withdrawal from not spending nearly every waking moment with me. Once Paul had got his fill, he went home and we met up with some of Caoimhe's friends and her sister for dinner at Pizza Stop (a nice restaurant where Caoimhe's sister Niamh had seen U2 once, woooo?) and then to a bar near by. My body still confused about what time it was had me nearly sleeping by 1am, so we called it a night and headed home. The next day Paul had decided to show me around some sights of Dublin, which if I remember correctly were St.Stevens green and a restaurant that used to be run by the Harri Krishnas. Sadly the Harri Krishnas were not to be found at the restaurant, but were found on the street a few blocks away chanting. The best part of the chant being "Dali Llama, Llama Rama". Caoimhe's camogie team was playing the the championship game for Dublin, so the 2 of us headed there to cheer them on while Paul went home to pack for his move to England. The game was great to watch-- fast paced, easy to follow and Caoimhe's old team won! Which lead to going out to celebrate with them afterwards, and having a good number of people ask me if I was her sister. (Which in Japan I understood as all tall blond people must be related, but found surprising in Ireland). and of course stopping at Tamangos, the local club of fame/shame.

On Saturday we got up early and caught a bus to Cork, to meet with Niall. Niall being Maeve's friend who volunteered to show me around town along with his girlfriend Marie. We watched the Gaelic football match at a local pub, ate some great dinner and then pub hopped the night away. We visited Sober Lane, The Castle and The Slate. The highlight being at The Castle, where there was a group of (rather drunk) men singing Irish songs/ballads and "You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling". People were surprised to learn that Canadians do not normally sing at bars, hence the novelty of this for me. Wanting to get some more Dublin time in, we left Cork early the next morning, saying goodbye to our wonderful hosts to spend an afternoon wandering Dublin one last time and then a relaxing night at Caoimhe's, mostly spent playing with her kitten named Ziggy.

Sadly my time in Ireland had come to and end, and after an early morning to get to the airport, 3 movies to get to JFK, 2 1/2 hours in JFK, and then another hour to Toronto, plus driving home, I finally made it back to my home sweet home. It feels good/strange/sad/exciting/everything to be back, and no one really believes that I'm here for good. It's the first time I've been in Ontario for the fall in 6 years (!) and I'm really looking forward to it. To pumpkin pie, fall fairs, changing leaves, Canadian Thanksgiving, working on the farm, just being with my family and so much more. And that's it. I have plans to see Metric in concert, a Margaret Atwood book reading and a film festival movie along with babysitting in the near future, but the late future remains a mystery. If anything good happens I'll let you know. Otherwise, so ends the blog of Joy in Japan.