There has been much talk of Fabio in our lives recently. Why is an Italian model invading our Irish vacation?
...Over 4th of July weekend, our family celebrated at King's Dominion Amusement Park, and as we waited in line for various roller coasters, we reminiscing about our past trips to Busch Gardens, Disney World, etc. And while I'm mentioning Busch Gardens, does anyone remember when the model Fabio rode in the very front of the newest ride, Apollo's Chariot?? And that a bird smashed into his nose...
http://www.ultimaterollercoaster.com/news/archives/april99/stories/040199_01.shtml
Well...we named our rental car Fabio after similiar events. Model Fabio got himself an f-ed up nose on a roller coaster and our Toyota Fabio got himself an f-ed up nose on a gravel hill in Glendalough. Note: we had been in possession of this car for LESS THAN 4 HOURS, and had successfully driven straight through Dublin, on the other side of the road, narrowly "missing" a small tap of our sideview mirror with another car's sideview mirror. Things were going well for us. At this point in our first day of travels, we were jet-lagged, had to pee, Kate was hungry and we both just wanted to get out of the damn car and enjoy some green grass. We had finally found our way to the street where our B&B was located, but unfortunately, the hand-drawn map our innkeeper had emailed us wasn't cutting it. We just couldn't find the "Big old oak tree" noted on the map amongst the many other "Big young oak trees" growing along the road. So Charlie was turning the car around for the 7 thousandth time to try and find the inn's gate, when we hear gravel crunching and some popping sounds. Oh no.
Charlie negotiates the car down the little hill and we hop out to assess the damage. Not surprisingly, the rental office hadn't given us their best car (I wonder why??), and our little Toyota Aventis has nearly lost it's entire front bumper. Seriously, the thing was hanging on by a few little latches. We decided to do our best to pop it back in, find our B&B and ask them what we should do.
In the end, we decided to hang onto the car, and for the first week, we'd have to stop about once a day to pop the nose back into place. At one point, as Charlie is laying on a pair of pants, in the middle of the Irish wilderness, trying to pop the undercarriage back into place, he came up with the perfect name for our car: Fabio.
On our longest day of driving, along the West Coast, we picked up some tape to basically tape the bumper to the body of the car. And wouldn't you know, the bumper stayed in place for the rest of the trip, an the nose didn't even come un-popped from the hood for the duration of the trip. We managed to turn him back into the rental office without incident, or fees, and just like that, Fabio was no longer with us. Not that we were sorry to see him go. The car had several idiosyncrasies that made it not at all user friendly, and was pretty dinged up. And the front left tire lost a lot of air b/c of all the parking we had to do on the sidewalks.
RIP, Fabio.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Back in "the states"
Just a quick note to say that Kate and I are back in America. I didn't blog much on our last week in ireland (because we were driving all over creation and internet was sparse) but I'm sure we'll get around to it this week. Pictures to come soon!
Monday, July 19, 2010
Our speed is winding down...
We are about to embark on our last full day in Ireland! In the last 3 days, we have driven cross-country, biked our way around Inishmor (the largest of the Aran Islands) and walked all over east Dublin trying to find the entrance to the Guinness Storehouse tour. And had Italian food 3 times...I think we're a little homesick for our own food(o: Today we are going to see the Book of Kells (more on that later) and maybe even a Riverdance show(o:
Friday, July 16, 2010
Brief Post...
Hey all! I know we're a little behind on posting, but it's been a crazy and fun 3 days.
We took a river boat Cruise today! We also saw a play tonight called "Free Fall" which was really fascinating. My head is still working through that one. It was very similar to the Movie "Momento"
Anyhow, gotta run! We're taking a trip to the Aran Islands tomorrow bright and early and we need to get up way sooner than we're used to. It'll be about 7:30 local time which is 2:30am Harrisonburg time!
We took a river boat Cruise today! We also saw a play tonight called "Free Fall" which was really fascinating. My head is still working through that one. It was very similar to the Movie "Momento"
Anyhow, gotta run! We're taking a trip to the Aran Islands tomorrow bright and early and we need to get up way sooner than we're used to. It'll be about 7:30 local time which is 2:30am Harrisonburg time!
Dingle Part 1: The lost Coast
So a very popular thing to do when touring Ireland is to go around the “Ring of Kerry”. It’s pretty much a drive around a rather large peninsula that takes about all day. It’s supposed to have lots of pretty scenery ect. I wouldn’t really know because we didn’t go.
We planned on going there after touring the Dingle Peninsula (a smaller one just north of Kerry) But Dingle has a magnetic charm that sucked us in. The town of Dingle sits in a small bay, surrounded by mountains. There is a fresh sea breeze from the Atlantic, but not too cold. Unlike most Irish towns, it didn’t seem too cramped and there was always a view of the mountains no matter where you were in the city.
There is also a resident Dolphin in the bay, nicknamed “Fungi”. He’s apparently been living in Dingle since 1983. He’s sort of the town mascot and you can see statues of him around town and sometimes hanging off buildings. I didn’t see him myself, but other tourists we talked to did while they were walking the coast or riding in a boat.
The first night there we stayed at a place called the Greenmount B&B. It was the quietest, nicest place we’ve stayed at so far! The rooms were nicely decorated, the bed was comfy, the bathroom had a shower AND and tub (rare in these parts to see a tub) we had a couch, some chairs, and a dining table. Now the coolest part is that the B&B was constructed so that EVERY room faced west. This was important for two reasons. 1. You got to see the sunset everynight. and 2. The B&B was built on a hill overlooking the whole town of Dingle. Very very awesome.
So we put our stuff down and decided that it was time to eat. Our Innkeeper suggested a few places and we were so hungry we ate the the closest place we could find, Ashe’s. This was the best dinner we have had so far in Ireland!!! I had the Salmon and Kate had Dingle Lobster, both of which were caught in Dingle Bay! OMG, this food was SOOOO GOOOOD!!! We decided to celebrate our day of driving with a bottle of wine which was also quite amazing.
After that glorious dinner, we decided to find some great Irish Music. Now, I’ve read in our tour guide that Dingle is famous for its great Traditional Music and we certainly passed a number of places that had it. I was feeling really picky this night though and I wanted a nice place to sit and listen. (most of the time you need to stand at the bar since the places are packed) So we eventually found a cute little bar that had a odd assortment of musicians. There was a Harpist, a guitarist, a banjo player, a wooden flutist, and an according player.
In most of the Trad sessions we’ve been to we’ve noticed that there is always a band leader. In this case it was the according player. He was a old sailor looking guy with a beard and pot belly and boy could he sing! He was belting out some obvious irish favorites while old ladies were singing along with their eyes closed in the back of the bar. When the group took a small intermission, he got up and promptly collected all the empty beer glasses from everyone in the place and returned them to the bar. It seems our band leader was also the bar owner!!!
Soon after the next set begun, Kate and I struck up a conversation with a mother and daughter from Holland. Little did we know that we were about to get 2 great new friends! More on that later....
We planned on going there after touring the Dingle Peninsula (a smaller one just north of Kerry) But Dingle has a magnetic charm that sucked us in. The town of Dingle sits in a small bay, surrounded by mountains. There is a fresh sea breeze from the Atlantic, but not too cold. Unlike most Irish towns, it didn’t seem too cramped and there was always a view of the mountains no matter where you were in the city.
There is also a resident Dolphin in the bay, nicknamed “Fungi”. He’s apparently been living in Dingle since 1983. He’s sort of the town mascot and you can see statues of him around town and sometimes hanging off buildings. I didn’t see him myself, but other tourists we talked to did while they were walking the coast or riding in a boat.
The first night there we stayed at a place called the Greenmount B&B. It was the quietest, nicest place we’ve stayed at so far! The rooms were nicely decorated, the bed was comfy, the bathroom had a shower AND and tub (rare in these parts to see a tub) we had a couch, some chairs, and a dining table. Now the coolest part is that the B&B was constructed so that EVERY room faced west. This was important for two reasons. 1. You got to see the sunset everynight. and 2. The B&B was built on a hill overlooking the whole town of Dingle. Very very awesome.
So we put our stuff down and decided that it was time to eat. Our Innkeeper suggested a few places and we were so hungry we ate the the closest place we could find, Ashe’s. This was the best dinner we have had so far in Ireland!!! I had the Salmon and Kate had Dingle Lobster, both of which were caught in Dingle Bay! OMG, this food was SOOOO GOOOOD!!! We decided to celebrate our day of driving with a bottle of wine which was also quite amazing.
After that glorious dinner, we decided to find some great Irish Music. Now, I’ve read in our tour guide that Dingle is famous for its great Traditional Music and we certainly passed a number of places that had it. I was feeling really picky this night though and I wanted a nice place to sit and listen. (most of the time you need to stand at the bar since the places are packed) So we eventually found a cute little bar that had a odd assortment of musicians. There was a Harpist, a guitarist, a banjo player, a wooden flutist, and an according player.
In most of the Trad sessions we’ve been to we’ve noticed that there is always a band leader. In this case it was the according player. He was a old sailor looking guy with a beard and pot belly and boy could he sing! He was belting out some obvious irish favorites while old ladies were singing along with their eyes closed in the back of the bar. When the group took a small intermission, he got up and promptly collected all the empty beer glasses from everyone in the place and returned them to the bar. It seems our band leader was also the bar owner!!!
Soon after the next set begun, Kate and I struck up a conversation with a mother and daughter from Holland. Little did we know that we were about to get 2 great new friends! More on that later....
Our Average Day
So we’ve kinda settled into a routine here. It goes something like this.
9am Wake Up
9:30 Eat at the B&B
10am Shower
10:30 Pack all our bags
11am Depart the B&B
11-4 Do something fun in the town we’re at.
4pm Depart for the next town
7ish Check into the next B&B
7-midnight See the town, eat dinner, go to a bar, see some great live music
12:30am Go to bed
To pass the time on the road, Kate and I usually sing funny songs and change the lyrics and play our Ice Cream Punch buggy game! (see facebook pics for details on how that works)
Favorite songs include:
“I fell in to the burning ring of Kerry”
and
“I like it, I love it, I want some MOHER of it!”
In fact, our entire trip to the Cliffs of Moher was spent by replacing every song I knew with the word “more” with “Moher” (pronounced the same) In fact, I didn’t realize that just about every contemporary christian song has the word “more” in it.
“Moher love, Moher power, Moher of you in my life!”
“Moher than all I want, Moher than all I need, your love is Moher than enough for me!”
“Moher of you, and less of me....” ect.
Needless to say, we’re having a fun and dorky time here in Ireland...
9am Wake Up
9:30 Eat at the B&B
10am Shower
10:30 Pack all our bags
11am Depart the B&B
11-4 Do something fun in the town we’re at.
4pm Depart for the next town
7ish Check into the next B&B
7-midnight See the town, eat dinner, go to a bar, see some great live music
12:30am Go to bed
To pass the time on the road, Kate and I usually sing funny songs and change the lyrics and play our Ice Cream Punch buggy game! (see facebook pics for details on how that works)
Favorite songs include:
“I fell in to the burning ring of Kerry”
and
“I like it, I love it, I want some MOHER of it!”
In fact, our entire trip to the Cliffs of Moher was spent by replacing every song I knew with the word “more” with “Moher” (pronounced the same) In fact, I didn’t realize that just about every contemporary christian song has the word “more” in it.
“Moher love, Moher power, Moher of you in my life!”
“Moher than all I want, Moher than all I need, your love is Moher than enough for me!”
“Moher of you, and less of me....” ect.
Needless to say, we’re having a fun and dorky time here in Ireland...
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Massive Update from C-Dawg
Ok this is going to be kinda random. Really random. In fact, if you want a better picture of what Kate and I have been up to, please check out the pictures here.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/album.php?aid=2192501&id=31208752
I'll work on adding some really detailed descriptions later tonight. So onto the random.
Cork was kinda nutz. We had fun watching the world cup there, but otherwise it was just another city, but one with a ton of Europeans and nothing going on between 5-9:30. See Kate's post for more on Cork.
So then we headed out west to Killarney. The drive went pretty quick since there was a new highway that went straight there from cork. We decided to hit up Killarney National Park and a Wicked Victorian Era Mansion. The Mansion was about one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It was donated to the park system with pretty much everything still in it. Sadly we don't have much in the way of pictures since you weren't allowed to take them. But it was amazing. See pics for the outside shots. I with we had more time to check out the park. We didn't get to really explore it since we were short on time. Something to do next time!
So we departed there and decided to head straight to Dingle, a town on a Peninsula off the west coast. This is the first time on our trip that we didn't have sleeping arrangements made already so we were hoping that we'd be able to find something once we got there. Luckily, you can't throw a stick around here without it bouncing off a B&B, breaking in half, hitting 2 more B&B's, breaking some more, then landing in the parking lot of 10 other B&B's. (some streets have only B&B's on them, it's crazy)
On our trek out to Dingle we discovered a great beach in the middle of no where!!! We had some fun with the pics there and got some much needed stretching done. Then off to dingle we went!
We we finally got there we were able to find room at a place our guide book recommended. It happened to be the nicest place we've stayed so far. Little did we know how awesome Dingle was. We ended up staying there for 2.5 days and had a blast! Total highlight of our trip so far! But you'll have to hear about it some other time. Sleep calls! Check out the pics for more info.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/album.php?aid=2192501&id=31208752
I'll work on adding some really detailed descriptions later tonight. So onto the random.
Cork was kinda nutz. We had fun watching the world cup there, but otherwise it was just another city, but one with a ton of Europeans and nothing going on between 5-9:30. See Kate's post for more on Cork.
So then we headed out west to Killarney. The drive went pretty quick since there was a new highway that went straight there from cork. We decided to hit up Killarney National Park and a Wicked Victorian Era Mansion. The Mansion was about one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It was donated to the park system with pretty much everything still in it. Sadly we don't have much in the way of pictures since you weren't allowed to take them. But it was amazing. See pics for the outside shots. I with we had more time to check out the park. We didn't get to really explore it since we were short on time. Something to do next time!
So we departed there and decided to head straight to Dingle, a town on a Peninsula off the west coast. This is the first time on our trip that we didn't have sleeping arrangements made already so we were hoping that we'd be able to find something once we got there. Luckily, you can't throw a stick around here without it bouncing off a B&B, breaking in half, hitting 2 more B&B's, breaking some more, then landing in the parking lot of 10 other B&B's. (some streets have only B&B's on them, it's crazy)
On our trek out to Dingle we discovered a great beach in the middle of no where!!! We had some fun with the pics there and got some much needed stretching done. Then off to dingle we went!
We we finally got there we were able to find room at a place our guide book recommended. It happened to be the nicest place we've stayed so far. Little did we know how awesome Dingle was. We ended up staying there for 2.5 days and had a blast! Total highlight of our trip so far! But you'll have to hear about it some other time. Sleep calls! Check out the pics for more info.
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