Trip Tidbits (09-14-19)

Six weeks is a long time for 4 people to travel together, but here’s why it worked so well…. 

Obviously we are great friends, and the 4 of us are interchangeable, you might say.  Many times Paul and Julie will work on something together (usually route planning or cooking) , while Mike and I sit back and smile...

...and just as often the two guys will go off on their own, talking technical stuff or whatever, while Julie and I hang back or hang out.  

And of course, Paul and I went off on our own at times, and left Julie and Mike to their own devices.  The 4 of us have a very natural flow and are pretty easy going.

  Overall, we saw many incredibly beautiful things, from ancient cathedrals to scenery beyond imagination. 

Our outings varied from museums to live music to hiking, but one of the keys to a great trip was that we had enough time to just chill out and relax.

We saw lots of old stuff…. I mean really old stuff… Europeans are justified when they laugh at what Americans consider old.  There are countless buildings and ruins here that date back to the 1100s and earlier.

You know the history is old when the Vikings were the invaders…. In the year 1050.

Some of the buildings still in use today are so old, the plumbing is on the outside.

Each of the countries we visited had some definite differences from what we are used to in the U.S.

In Scotland, for instance, the only choice in salad dressing is “on the salad” or “on the side” . There is only one dressing, although it does vary a little based on location.  Chips are fries and crisps are chips, which wasn’t too hard to remember.

Also, they don’t put ice in their drinks.  If you ask for ice, they look at you funny, but are happy to oblige by putting in a cube or two….no more than that.

I was very happy to have fresh seafood on the menu, until I read the word “whole” in front of the word “fish”.  Being unsure, I meandered past someone’s table, and yep, sure enough, there was the fish on their plate, staring at them.  No thanks.

Google was our friend, as there were many times we couldn’t figure out what a menu item actually was until we did a search.

When you are done with your meal, you have to ask for your check.  When you owe for lodging, you have to ask for the bill.  Never once did anyone ask us for money. At first it was annoying, but then we got the hang of it.

We gave up trying to pronounce Gaelic names, and sometimes gave up on the English version as well…usually some garbled mess came out of our mouths. 

There were other things we used google for as well….we googled things such as the instruction manual for the washing machine that we couldn’t figure out,  how to change a setting on the car, or what does the clothes dryer mean by “water tank full”?

The money, bills in particular, vary in size, and of course, look different from what we are used to seeing- that caused Paul to leave a $20 tip at dinner….his excuse? It looked like monopoly money!

Time and date required a constant calculation. Europeans write their dates Day/month/ year, instead of month/day/year, and everything is in military time…yes, in theory subtracting two hours shouldn’t be rocket science, but it was sometimes hilarious trying to figure it out.

It was quite a while before we consistently tried to get in the correct door of the car. Mostly one of us would look up and ask “who is driving?” as a gentle reminder to go to the other door.

Driving in general was a bit of a challenge for a while. TURN RIGHT, THINK LEFT could be heard frequently from the passengers. Scotland had many single track roads, but Ireland did not. While Ireland certainly had the better roads, what they didn’t have is shoulders…ever.

The signage is different  from what we are used to, and at times, interpreting a sign was a fun pastime…

There were many times we laughed out loud at things we heard…

-On the hiking trail:  “ I hope we don’t have to go up as far as we are going down”

-At the dock, a conversation between the ticket taker and someone trying to board the ferry: “Do you want to go to Inis Morn?”  Her response: “yes, but maybe tomorrow, not today.” Huh?

-By the ferry captain, in his safety spiel  “ follow us, we’ll be the first ones off the boat”

-at the rail station, over the loud speaker “ North bound service will be delayed 20 minutes due to bad behaving trains”

Our accommodations, for the most part, were pretty good- we really enjoyed the self cater places, where we had the whole apartment or cottage to ourselves.  That made it easy to cook our own meals, and pack lunches when we didn’t want to eat out.

It was nice to have guys who are mechanically inclined, as their tasks included fixing a fan, installing light bulbs, and sharpening knives (using a nail file).

Still, most places were pretty good, some not as good as others (at one place we were the dog sitters while we were there!).  Our mantra was “we’re only here for a few days” sometimes said with a sigh of regret, sometimes with a sigh of relief.  Our place In Doolin stood out from all the others- it was an incredible space, extremely well laid out and equipped.

From a practical standpoint there were several things that made the trip easier:

Topping the list is T-Mobile.  With Mike and Paul’s phones, and my ipad having T-Mobile service, we had signal almost the entire trip. That made navigating and communicating extremely easy.  We used Whatsapp to text back and forth by creating a group name, and while in the cars, the walkie talkies proved to be invaluable (once, we found ourselves in a crowded city, looking for a grocery store- it was very quick and easy to say “lets get the hell outta here”).

It was impossible to split every bill 50/50, so I took on the task of tracking who owed who how many pounds/euros. That way we could adjust who paid for groceries etc and kept things reasonably even. At the end, the Porters owed the Swains $8- not too bad!

Mike and Julie, having traveled more than us, gave us several great ideas on what to pack. We bought a set of bags to keep clothes separated, which made moving them around simple and neat, and made it easier to organize so that we didn’t have to bring in all our suitcases every night.

The other thing we brought was a top sheet.  I would never have thought to bring that, but almost none of the places we stayed provided top sheets, just duvet covers, which can be too heavy and hot.

And then there was First Class.  We flew First Class, and traveled on the train First Class.















 I think traveling domestically, I wouldn't care as much about the benefits of First Class, but with a long flight it was really nice to have the perks- Our seats made into beds, we had plugs for our electronics, a pillow, 3 blankets and we were fed on a regular basis.








 There was an actual menu to choose from, and the food was served on real plates, and the wine in real wine glasses.

Overall the trip, for Paul and I, was much less stressful, and a lot more fun, because Mike and Julie did a large chunk of the work in the planning and booking, and we completely appreciated it.

As I said, the 4 of us mesh very well, and have never had a bad time together:

Northern Ireland (08-20-19)

After 3 very enjoyable weeks in Scotland, it was time to fly off to Belfast. Our flight was at 7 am, which meant getting up at 4:30 to get to the airport on time. 

The morning was a tad stressful- security took longer than we expected-as did getting our baggage checked in. Looking up at the board to see what gate we needed to get to, we saw our flight was flashing “final boarding”. 

Ugh. Mike and Julie had gone ahead of us, so Paul and I had to sprint to the gate. At least we made it!

The flight was only 35 minutes,barely time to catch our breath.

We had booked a cottage at the beach for 3 nights, and thoroughly enjoyed walking the beach collecting sea glass in our spare time.

Our plan for our first day completely fell apart, as we all know sometimes happens. We piled in the car to take a scenic drive along the coast, with our first stop being a rope bridge that connects an island with the mainland.

Or, I assume that's what it is. When we arrived we discovered that use of the bridge is a timed entry system, and the earliest we could cross it was in almost two hours.








We decided to leave it to the thousands of other tourists who were waiting their turn. Continuing our drive, we arrived at Giant's Causeway- a natural, seaside rock formation. Or, I assume it is. It was so packed with people that they were shuttling people in from a parking lot 2 miles away. Again, we passed.

Just a little further down the road we stopped for lunch at a beachfront seafood restaurant and planned our next move while we ate fish and chips.  

It turns out that it was the site of some filming for Game of Thrones.

Decision made, we left the coast to drive up to Glenariff Forest Park and walk one of the trails.

The reviews of the waterfall there call it spectacular- I guess everything is relative- but we enjoyed the walk, anyway.

Part of the reason we wanted to visit the Belfast area is because some of Paul's ancestors lived here in the 1800s, so he and I explored on our own the following day, while Mike and Julie explored one of the oldest pubs in the area.







We were looking to find either grave sites or whatever records we could get at the archives, but had no luck.

Area where Paul's ancestors lived

We did find the area where they lived, and noticed that in this area, many of the towns begin with “Bally”: Ballynure, Ballycastle, Ballygalley etc. It turns out that Bally means “place of” -so sort of like a town but not quite.

Originally our plan was to head northwest to visit another area of Northern Ireland but we decided its too far to drive for just two days, so we are headed to the Republic of Ireland sooner than planned (Northern Ireland is part of the UK, The Republic of Ireland is not).

The Edinburgh Experience (08-15-19)

Along the way to Edinburgh: We stopped at the William Wallace Memorial in Stirling.  Sir Wallace (Braveheart, as played by Mel Gibson) was a defender of Scotland, and rose to power in the late 1200s.

At that time, Stirling was the only gateway from the south to northern Scotland. In 1297 King Edward I sent troops to squash the rebellion headed by Wallace, but they had to get across the very narrow Stirling Bridge to reach them.

 It was expected that they would easily trounce Wallace and his small army, but Wallace's troops cut them off as they attempted to cross the bridge, dividing the army in half and slaughtering over 5000 men.





Eventually Wallace was betrayed, brought to England, found guilty of treason, and put to death. That is the extremely short version of his story :)

Edinburgh in August is a hopping kind of place.  The crowds are amazing, and kind of fun- for a few days, anyway.












In addition to the month long International Military Tattoo, there is an enormous book fair and a festival called " the Fringe".

Our flat was smack dab in the middle of the action, which was awesome, because we had turned in our rental cars, and navigated the city on foot, which is very easy to do in Edinburgh.

Quite a few of the roads were closed off, and temporary pubs and cafes were everywhere.

First on the agenda was a tour of Edinburgh castle.  Mike and Julie have seen it, so we were on our own.

Although some of the castle was left looking like a castle, much of it has been transformed into a museum.

With so many places to eat, we decided to eat most of our dinners out, instead of cooking- our first night we kept it simple and headed to the Hard Rock Cafe.

Back when planning our trip, one of the first things we did was decide when we would be in Edinburgh, so we could buy our tickets to the Tattoo.

The venue is outside, at the castle, so we were lucky it was a nice night.

A tattoo showcases military music, and Edinburgh has one of the best in the world. There were performers from many different countries, in addition to Scotland.

My favorite is usually the pipe bands.

After an hour and a half, the concert ended with fireworks.

The Fringe Festival began in 1947, the same year as the "invitation only" Edinburgh International Festival.  Performers who weren't invited to that festival invented their own, and it has grown over the years, so that now there are more than 32,000 shows over the course of the 3 week festival.










Naturally we had to see a show! Most of the performances are short, and very inexpensive.  Some are outside and some are in small pubs or theaters. We chose to see a comedian, in the afternoon.  I can't say we understood all of the humor, but it was entertaining, and now we can say we have done it.

On our final day the weather was iffy, so we checked out the Museum of Scotland.  Admission is free, which is nice.  I found it huge and a bit confusing, but I did discover that backgammon was around in 1717, since Mary, Queen of Scots gave this set to one of her companions.

Bowling is also a very old game- these artifacts date to about 1640.  The original way it was played is different though.  Two or more men would choose a spot 2-3 miles down a road, and throw a bowling ball until it hit the target.  Whoever did it in the fewest throws, won.  The pins came into the game a few years later.

The last thing I wanted to do before leaving Scotland was try a cask ale.  These are locally made, but are nocask carbonated and are served at about room temperature. It was pretty good.