Ireland Day 8 – “Our bags are packed; we are all ready to go….”

We are leaving for Sweden today around 1800 and our last plans for Ireland is to buy some good old fashion souvenirs.

But before that, we head out looking for some to eat, finding it hard to find some place serving anything else than breakfast and ending up at the same place as last night, Gertrudes, with the same waitress working. What can we say; it’s a good start of our last the day in Ireland.

Nothing more happens today, we just walk around doing some shopping, Danne bought a Irish teddy bear for his son Max, and Andreas bought a whiskey for his brother as promised. Then we head back to the airport. Funny thing tough, this is the third time we take taxi to or from the airport, and we have always paid around 25 euro, today we paid 17… something doesn’t really add up. But hey, as long as it’s the right side of the scale who are we to complain?



The flight home went without any problems; it was the usual uncomfortable Ryan air flight back to Västerås where Andreas father was waiting to drive us home.

Till next journey begins… see ya and take care.

Ireland day 7 – Go weeeeest! No… east (I was thinking of a Pet shop boy’s song)

Damn, you sleep well in those beds at the Old Mill hostel. Last night ended with us in bed, completely naked, reading books too each other and just catching up after that dreadful walk up the mountain. We pack our belongings, which for some odd reasons seems to add up as we go along, and head for downstairs for some breakfast. On the menu there is toast and jam - what a shocker. Andreas refuses to eat, there has been way too much sugar and empty carbs – so he has a gum instead. The gum diet is born.



We put today’s destination into the GPS and we are of on the N5 going east towards the Japanese garden as we promised Tobbe we would go and see before returning the car and head back home. (Tobbe’s note: have to feed my metro-sexual side as well right?)

After a three hour painful journey on the roads of Ireland we find ourselves back where we first started, Dublin. It’s about a 20 minute drive down to Kildare – and after some bad turns we find our ways safely. This place is actually two in one as it is Europe’s biggest Japanese garden AND The Irish National Stud Museum.



It costs you €10 to get in – and after explaining to Daniel that it COULD be worse, that there could be a bunch of girls in the group going on about where this and that would look beautiful back home he finally agrees to tag along – OR that it could be books we were paying to watch (internal joke, see above…. Hehe). There is actually a guided tour at this place, but we decide to do it in our own as the tour doesn’t start in another 40 minutes.



The garden looked nice, but not at all as big as it sounded in the book, but it was a nice walk around looking at plants and horses. There were a small café at the venue and we decide to have some chocolate before turning back to Dublin. They had some really tasty smoothies and some excellent sweets to chew on (so much for the no sugar diet).







After missing the freeway exit to go to Hertz for returning the car, we agreed it would be better to return it at the airport. And so we did, and they actually allowed us to with out any trouble – even though we had wrote “Sweden Rules – IRL roads = LOL” on the back of the trunk. She passed it by with a smile, and that was that… Even Tobbe’s foot prints on the front window got passed, yuck!

Have you seen the Pepsi Max commercial when a guy jumps into a taxi and tell the taxi driver to go to the airport and he starts telling a monkey, that’s doing the driving? That’s how we felt trying to tell the taxi driver where we wanted to go. After showing him two maps, and giving him three alternative addresses and him speaking to the taxi office, he finally gets it.

Our hostel “Ashfield House” is located very central and turns out to be quite a nice one – although a bit expensive (€24/each). We check in and ask for some directions to some place to eat – and an ATM as cash is running out for all three of us, isch. We find this restaurant Gertrudes which is hidden in a back alley and has a lovely waitress working this evening. Yuuuuuuum. Andreas has some kind of Irish stew which pretty much reminds us of what we have back home – and Daniel and Tobbe has a burger with chips, sweeeeet.

The plan was to hit the cinema, yeah – AGAIN, but after finding out that they only show crappy movies we head back to the hostel to turn in early as we are all pretty tired.
Andreas actually gets back out to get some live music and perhaps some pictures of the night life – cant wait to find out how they turn out.

Andreas note: I found a nice pub with a guy playing classic rock songs on acoustic guitarr... NICE.. I hung a round for a while before heading back to the other guys.

Ireland Day 6 - Westport, there and back again…

After a really good nights sleep at the so far nicest hostel (which isn’t to say much by our standards) we woke up only to have Daniel calling us over to the window. Sometime between 00:00 – 08:00 someone parked their car next to ours, and they had done a pretty bad job at it! It really has to be seen (we got pictures) to understand exactly how bad they parked! Damn hippies!





We are sitting in the kitchen of the hostel, trying to figure out where to go next. There are many places to see, but none that really catches our attention. We ask the hostel keepers and their best advice is to go and take a walk up a holy mountain named “Croagh Patrick”. When she says it might be tough towards the end, you really couldn’t believe her. Seriously, can’t she see we are three guys in our best years – heavily trained? After a great breakfast at a small café we are back out on the road again.



You know that mountain we mentioned earlier – we went there - you know how she said it might be tough at the end? IT WAS. Crap. The first thing Daniel does, is going about with how he will get to the top in 45 minutes – right – it toke us one hour to get to what we THOUGHT was the end destination only to find out that its twice that, and much worse than so far!





The mountain top is positioned about 780 meters above the sea level – and you have to walk abiiiiiit further than that to reach it. The walk is being done by women and men, as well as youngsters and really old ones. The trail was steep at most places and mad up by sharp rocks and loose gravel that rolled under your feet, witch mad it hard to walk on. The worst must have been this guy who walks barefoot (!) to honor his dead friend. RESPECT! In fact, we had shoes – and our feet hurt so badly once we got down. The only good thing about it being a long walk is that it numbed your pain as you went on.



Half way up people had written their names in the grass on the sides of the hill with some white stones – name of loved ones and countries etc. We thought it was quite nice and obviously we had to do something, so we wrote “FLEN” – only we wrote it 20 times smaller and not in the valley like the others… hehe.

The last way up the mountain was really though, as we had to stop several times – only walking 20-40 meters a time and then having a rest. The trip was totally worth it though as once at the top you find yourself being in direct level with the lowest clouds and the view is just spectacular. The sea, the mountains across, the valleys and little cute buildings…. It was wonderful.
There was also a grave and a place to pray and there were be also a small church. The story of this mountain is that St.Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, picked this place for his 40 days fast and it was on this mountain he reputedly banished venomous snakes from Ireland.





We found a good spot to have our little picnic; we had brought some diet coke and water, along with a creamy desert we bought at the breakfast place. Could never have tasted better than after this walk!



We sit and have chat and rest for a while then we begin the long journey back down. The first part was fun as we could slide through the rocks loose rocks, like in the movies – a bit risky but that’s how we like it. RISKY! (hehe) The rest of the walk back down isn’t as funny as Daniel had hurt his knee, Tobbe had now two blisters and Andreas had ripped his jeans and destroyed his shoes. But hey – we like to live dangerous right?

Btw, it toke us about 2 hour to get to the top and one hour down. Danne says he would have made it in 45 minutes if he didn’t have to wait for the rest of us. Doubt that, but hey, if he is up for a new try, then go ahead.

***

Once back down again we decide to get some food ASAP, and not repeating the same mistake as yesterday of waiting to long. We head back to Westport and catch the restaurant right besides the hostel we stayed the night at. The dinner was delicious! Best so far by miles, even if the pizza last evening was good too.

After writing our phone numbers on the plates of the desert with the jam from the cheesecake, we paid and left only to head across the street and back to the hostel. After a quick chat we decide to stay the night here in Westport seeing as we are pretty tired of seeing old ruins and churches and figures that if we stay here for the night, we could manage a long drive tomorrow, going back east to Dublin. This is planned to be a four hour trip according to the hostel keepers, so we probably have to add another 3 or 4 hours on top of that. They must really drive like mad mans over here – even compared to us, and at least we got good roads in Sweden!



Having some time to kill we go to the cinema complex only 40 meters from the hostel and decides to see Shrek 3. This is even though we know the cinema will probably be crap, seeing as they have been so far – and we aren’t talking about the movies here… apparently there might be business in introducing air condition to the Irish once we get back home.

Ireland day 5 – Limerick and Cliffs of Móher

Before we left Cork we visited St Finbarre’s Cathedral, a big impressive building with lots of spiky spires, grinning gargoyles and rich sculpture on the outside. We paid an entrance fee and went inside. The building was as impressing on the inside as on the outside. We’re not at all religious in anyway, but those guys sure knows how to build houses.



We are on our way to Cliffs of Móher, a coast line that rise to a height of 203m. It’s entirely vertical and the cliff edge is abrupt. Sounds like something we’d like to see! It’s taken us most of the day to drive north on the west cost from Cork so we hope it’s worth it and that it doesn’t rain too much once we get there.



We got the best service so far in a small town called Ennis. We stopped to get some gas and as soon as we pulled up to one of the pumps, a woman (we think) started filling up the car. We could just sit back and relax – Tobbe managed to get a few seconds of sun, sitting on a nice little stone wall.



Ok… wow… what a view. The Cliffs of Moher was really fascinating to see, these high cliffs going straight down into the blue swirling ocean. There was a hard wind blowing and we had to literary hold on our hats or they would have been blown of, you had to lean into the wind to be able to walk forward.








On our way to Galway, we stopped by at “Aillwee Caves”, a cave system that goes about 600m into the mountain and was at some point inhabited by a bear (so they said anyways…). It was a nice setup with a tour guide and fancy lightings but the cave itself wasn’t really that much to see. With your entry ticket you also got free samples of their locally made cheese in their little farm shop. It was really pretty neat from a guy’s point of view – and even though we might have wanted to buy a bunch of the stuff they offered (including the personnel) we didn’t feel like carrying the dead weight and the cheese might go bad and nasty before we get back home. Tobbe bought some marmalade and jam for his mother though… such a sweetheart (yes HE IS!! YES HE IS!). At this time Daniel was getting really cranky, think 5-year old cranky, as we hadn’t eaten since this morning. After bumping the car, hitting the rear mirror against a stone wall we figured it was due time to have something to eat – which later should turn out to be VERY well needed since we had a lot more driving to do before this day was over…









Being very hungry we were now feeling desperate to find our nightly hostel AND a frikkin parking spot. Finding parking lots in Ireland seem to be very hard at all times – and once you find one you end up having to walk half the town to get to the place you wanted.
This time we found the hostel pretty quickly – even though parking seemed to be a bigger problem we decided to call the hostel to check if they had any beds available – PROBLEM. The whole town was fully booked – all the hostels and bed and breakfast was just out of beds and we had to find a new town to go to in search for a bed, oh, btw… the time is now 21. We were all feeling rather tired by now, so we decided to find a pizza place, we found a place called New York Pizzas and had a HUGE lunch/dinner and semi-breakfast- tasted rather good, but nothing at all like the American pizza’s you are used to.

Trying to find some place to sleep we got in to a little bit of a trouble – after circling Galway basically calling every hostel and bed and breakfast, we manage to find a hostel in Westport that would be open for another two hours, so we had to haste to the place thinking it would take us 45 minutes to drive there, as the hostel owner had said it would. We felt quite worried when we got half way and found that it had taken us over an hour to do so! Thank god for the GPS and that this town was actually awarded the tidiest town in 2004, we manage to find the place and a parking lot very quickly. Old Mill Hostel, a lovely hostel, can truly be recommended.

Irleland Day 4: Kilkenny Castle and Cork

Early start, waking up after a well needed sleep at the comfortable Kilkenny Tourist hostel we went out for a quick breakfast, Tobbe and Danne had their eye’s sighted for the nearest McDonalds – soon to realize that everything just isn’t quite the same as home (things like having sun, broader roads etc.). After a quick visit in the morning rain we found ourselves pretty much back were we started this morning, near a small café that serve wonderful bagel. Bagels are the kind of stuff you rarely find at home, but should.



The first sightseeing of the day was located not too far from the café - Kilkenny Castle. Here we took a guided tour thru the castle by a man who had obviously belonged to the décor for quite some time now. Let’s just say this – the guy didn’t get the job because of his humor, but he sure as hell knew what he was talking about. This guy could probably write TV shows like “The story of our life’s” in his sleep… and they’d probably be as interesting as the stuff he had to say. Loved the scenery though, and the receptionist was nice. (Daniel disagrees as he says Sara is the only one for him…obviously)

***

After the tour we quickly moved back through the rain to the car for a quick exit of Kilkenny (which apparently used to be spelled with two l’s – as in kill). The show must go on, and it was time to move further south.
The first sight, sorry… the second sight - third if you count that receptionist - for the day is going to be Kells Priory. If we are able to find it that is. Tobbe and Danne are reading the map like crazy in the front - trying to find the right directions. It’s a maze down here let us tell you, all this while I’m taking a moment to write some for blog in the back of the car. Oh – hang on, there – we seem to be on track now. Here’s the ruin I read about – be back in a jiffy for some updates!





Mom’s and Dad’s - sorry having to inform you that we have just converted and will join the monastery and will be staying here for a while.

***

OK – plans changed since we humped a sheep and got booted out of the place! What the h*ll? We even had to shave our heads, this won’t look good.

The Priory was a big and nice ruin surrounded by green hills and large trees…. and a lot of that little plant that will “burn you” if you touch them (our English skills are failing us at the moment). The Priory was built by monks and used as a monastery during the 12th century.
We also visited the Kilree Round Tower and High Cross, a 29 m high tower erected (hahahaha… that word is on every grave stone down here, sweet!!!) to mark the grave of the Irish high king Niall Caille, whom supposedly died drowning while trying to rescue a servant. (Who are they kidding, he was obviously doing his forth line of coke – god rest his soul.)

***

While driving we listen to the radio and the breaking news today is that during the morning, a stone staircase at the National Museum in Dublin collapsed and injured 11 people. This could really well have been us, as we had planned a trip to this place – yesterday. Thanks the gods we went to Book of Kells – and paid those eight euros to see, no wait, to smell those books, thank you Andreas for that.



I must say, driving on these narrow serpentine like roads thru green forests, surrounded by green hills, going past small villages and fields filled with sheep and cows, and as in a place near Dungarvan, a big “mountain” suddenly appears among the clouds, it sure is very beautiful scenery here on the east side of Ireland. Note for next time would be to actually grab a backpack and go hiking through these parts of Ireland.
Talking about the roads, we can’t fail to mention in what crappy conditions they are. We’ll be sure to take some pictures of that and post later…



On our way towards Cork we saw a sign where it said “Fota Wildlife Park”, and hey, that sounded fun so we stopped by for a quick visit. We had to go back and forth for a while to actually get there, but we eventually managed to find the place in the middle of no-where. There were lots of animals in the park, such as cheetahs, kangaroos (that were not caged in btw), tapir, several different monkeys, peacocks and other kind of birds. There were also lemurs there and Tobbe started singing the song from the film Madagascar, reminding us about some funny stuff from it. We bought a round-way ticket for a “train” to take us around the park, but we ended up walking half the distance anyway because the driver was going way to fast so walking made it easier to see all the animals. It was a bit unexpected to find such animal life on Ireland. But it was fun to watch – especially as the animals were moving around so freely.








Tobbe’s GPS isn’t really working as it should right now, so we have to relay on our map reading skills… man we are in trouble! Feels like sitting beside Collin McRae! Right now we are going into Cork but we can’t really find our way here – there is supposed to be a hostel worth staying at – and if we can find it in time we might be able to catch something to eat and a movie afterwards… BTW… the GPS seem to be working again. WOHO!!



Damn this city is hard to dive in. I think this is the third time we pass this block... come on guys!! Oh, did I mention… we already went by the place we are looking for, but Danne “forgot” to turn or something. So now we are trying to circle back to that place but the traffic is like the way I don’t like my breakfast...- jammed.



Ok – time is running out, we have to leave the hostel or we will get a fine, or something… let’s break it down to you what happened yesterday.

Hostel – check
Chinese food – check, it was good – but not quite like home … hehe
Cinema – Die Hard 4 – Note to Ireland, AIR CONDITION!!!! SEATINGS!!!... jeeesch
Trying to find the hostel by night – Mission impossible, ended up in grabbing a cab – going about 300meters, paying 6 euros! This place is a freaking maze!
…talk to ya soon…

Ireland – Day 3: Lets hit the road Jack….errr

After breakfast we made a quick exit from the hotel – Tara Towers – by taking a cab to Hertz Rent-a-Car. After some trouble with VISA cards and insurance matters we manage to pick up a Fiat Punto (haha) that only Daniel is allowed to drive due to his age and insurance issues (not that it matters to the rest of the group).
After a shaky start for Daniel he manages to find the pace rather quickly on the road as we hit the N7 that leads to Cork County.





As Daniel reminds us that we were suppose to do some sightseeing as well, not just drive from A to B so we find this place called Dunmore Caves that is a very old and cool cave that was believed to have been worked as a shelter during the attacks of Vikings (us that is). Quite surprised when they started talking down to us Vikings on how dumb “we were”, we soon let them know the REAL story about the cave. Seems to us that they have been ignoring the facts, making up stories for too long and that somebody needed to put the facts straight for once! Lets face it, to everyone else it is quite obvious why the men would put the – and notice now – the women, seniors and children in a cave in a country full of pubs!!! Jeeeesch, what morons…







By the way, Irish women are really pale and not so keen on the eye if you know what we mean…

***

We find our way to Kilkenny where we find a nice hostel to stay at as we hit the movie screen and watch Fantastic Four 2. Worth mentioning, the brewery in town makes Guinness, not Kilkenny.

***

Andreas and Daniel has now planned a whole bunch of stuff to do for the rest of the week, and I have been promised to go see the Japanese garden, greatest in Europe they say. The rest is up to them now as we will turn off and hit the bed with two other unknown species…

Ireland – Day 2: Shopping spree and R.E.M

Captains star log – stars are aligned just perfect. It’s going to be a wonderful day with lots of sun and nice surprises…

The plan for the day is to go down to Dublin centre and feel the flow of the town. Watch some stores, parks and museums… yeah you know –adult stuff…

After a steady breakfast at the hotel consisting of toasted bread with jam, yoghurt and some suspicious cereals we felt ready to take the cab down town. Riding the car it really hits you how narrow the roads are down here – just like England – and it occur to us that soon we will have to ride these roads ourselves as the plan is to rent a car and drive around in the country… as if driving on the left side isn’t hard enough…

We tell the driver to drop us off on some street with lots of stores and the driver’s first question is if we want “quality” or “cheap stuff”… we, of course, laugh at him telling him we are Swedish super stars that require real quality stuff. I think he was kidding with us considering where he dropped us off…
Dublin centre has it uniqueness for sure – with its old buildings, crafty signs for stores etc. – but it’s not like you’re blown of your seat you know… Prices seem to be pretty much the same as if you’d be in Stockholm by the way – it’s not like it’s so much more expensive as they let you believe.



After spending an hour or two at a shopping centre we head for the park and the first rain hits us. Maaaaan – like, where the hell did it come from anyways? We decide to get out of the park and head back to the shopping centre for some food. We go for the fast food as Andreas and Daniel goes for the lamb with chips I go for the curry chicken. We are all delighted with the food and decide to head off to our first “adult matters” – the national museum of Ireland it is!

National Museum of Ireland - we are talking medieval here – lots of old swords and jewelry and really not much else to say about that. It was in fact, quite boring if you ask us. The museums here are pretty close, it’s not like you have to take a cab or anything – and we decide that the next stop will be Books of Kells at Trinity College. Andreas begged us to go, and it took a lot of convincing and moaning before we actually let him. Once there we get informed that it will cost us 8 euros a head just to get in! Hellloooo, museums should be free?
Once again we let Andreas convince us to get in – only to find out that we get 10 minutes of “quality time” (notice the quotation marks here) looking at old war advertisement and recruiting posters (which btw was pretty funny though) and books of ufm… bullsh1t stuff… oh well, at least we gave it a chance!



After torching some books in pure protest over the overrated entry costs we suddenly stumble across the Star Wars Death Star in the middle of the city! How weird is that? We waited for Darth Vader for two hours, but I think Daniel scared him away with one of his sounds (think Chewbacca), so we went on to this next place that turned out to be a lot longer walk than we had first thought.



Oh – and by the way, did I tell you it started raining again? Probably like 10 times over this period – and now all of a sudden, as if god wasn’t doing a piss poor job already with the weather (literary) he was for sure bringing on the heavy artillery!
Our Swedish umbrellas was no near to stand up to this rain as winds was just too hard and we ducked for cover, from both the rain and the on going traffic, we passed bridge after bridge after… well you get the point just trying to tell a story that isn’t there to tell… and suddenly we were there! This place was so worth it as we went from hall to hall watching firearms, stories of old generals and other stuff we men tend to like. Or how about those 2 ton artillery - HELL YEAH! Semper fi!... or something…

We decided to take a cab back to the centre as time was running short for the R.E.M. concert. We grabbed some Chinese fast-food – it tasted crap - and then we head for the Internet Café around the corner to wait for the ambition to the R.E.M. – Time went by and Tobbe grabs a cab back to the hotel as he didn’t have tickets to the concert and Andreas/Daniel goes to take the line…



(Andreas note: The concert, that wasn’t really a concert more an invitation to a band rehearsal was FANTASTIC, they tried their new material on us - and I for one loved it - and they also mixed in some old songs, like the Auctioneer - from their first album - my favorite song! It was so well worth the trip all the way to Ireland).

Ireland – Day 1: Journey has begun

Oh dear lord o mighty - we barely made it to the airport. There were times we certainly didn’t think we’d make it AT ALL. Seriously (…no…) - if anyone knows - could you please let us know if Andreas baby sister made it back alive? We are sincerely worried for her… and everyone else on the roads in Sweden! :)

***

Its 21:14 and we have just hi-jacked the airport – well - their Wi-Fi at least. Those bastards had the frikkin decency to rob us out of 40 SEK for thirty minutes – then they charged you for the time it took to register! Helloooo…. News flash, internet is supposed to be free *deeeewdes*? Like, totally!
People are starting to check in now – and so will we.

***

Arrival at Dublin Airport – surprise surprise, its raining – like, what the hell? Well this is going to be FUN.
Damn – just realized we’ve forgotten our golf clubs. Which apparently are the ONLY reason you’d want to go to Ireland – except of course for the kilts, scotch and the Jewish museum of Ireland in Dublin?

After standing in the taxi line for an hour we got a 30 minute drive to the hotel – check in – and run down to Statoil at 1 o clock to buy some food. Pringles, juice, coke and cookies have to do the trick!

Time to catch some sleep – over and out from Dublin, Ireland – the country that god decided to take a constant piss on!