the beginning of a surprisingly good gastronomic adventure

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(im writing this a good few days late, cause the internet sucked at our various hotels)

woke up and had a slightly better breakfast, this time it was a continental buffet, but cause no one ever goes to Tullamore, especially when the distillery is closed, they made the food round 8 when breakfast opened, and then we ate it at 915. so the fried eggs, with the yoke somewhere between sillyputty and and dried two part epoxy. there was also white and black pudding, but dont be confused by it being called pudding, cause its not pudding at all, by the time we ate it, it was much more like a hashbrown than any kind of pudding ive ever seen.

we had to leave early so as not to get a parking ticket, and we went to Kilbeggan, which is another town round there, nothing is really that far away in Ireland, for our first distillery tour.

thats outside, inside was kinda kewl, apparently they have been brewing for quite a while now, its been producing Kilbeggan whiskey since like the 1750s ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilbeggan_Distillery ). the parts we wandered through were, like the Guinness factory, not an actively operating distillery, though the modern Kilbeggan distillery was visible, we were wandering through the old distillery, with the big gears and pumps still turning by the 250 year old water wheel. the place was pretty cool, we wandered around by ourselves reading the pamphlet they handed out. it was all pretty standard distillery stuff. but it seems like the owner/operator was a really nice guy, the workers were allowed like a 2 shot a day allowance, on top of their salary, their sheeps/cows could graze on the distillery lands for some 5 pounds a year (which wasnt much at the time) he would sell them coal on credit for the winter months to warm their home, and everyone generally liked him. then again he was producing the whiskey, why wouldnt you like em?

we ent up infiltrating a group of other Americans over for the football game, and at the end got a taste of the whiskey with them, and then on the way out, seeing as we still had the tickets, i got an additional taste upstairs. the Kilbeggan that i got was their standard stuff, and its alot more peaty than Jameson or Powers, or the Tullamore, i liked it, it was prolly a step closer to scotch than most Irish Whiskeys, but still had the depth of flavor that irish whiskeys have.

i drove out of Kilbeggan, practicing my skills at a manual transmission car, despite a rocky start, i could handle the car pretty well, but once we got into a city, i couldnt handle the stop and go traffic, so we switched back. and made our way to Galway, via Athlone.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlone )

unfortunately when we got to the town there wasnt much to see, the castle in the center of town that i had intended to see, was closed for renovations. there was also a bar around the corner, which was established in 900 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean%27s_Bar ). this bar wasnt all that cool honestly, inside it was full of crap, not interesting historical crap, but kitsch crap that a bar might accumulate over the years, no real theme, just stuff. i dunno that fact that its 1100 years old is worth something, we had a Smithwicks before setting off again for more castles.

now as one might imagine, country roads (which was the kind we were on to find piles of rock) in Ireland are rather small and unkempt, a two lane roads, are designed for 2 cars to drive on, and thats it, no shoulder, no creeping ferns and hedges, 2 cars.

so coming around one turn, another car came about, and we dipped off the road to avoid a collision, and promptly popped the rear passengerside (leftside) tyre (tire).

luckily we were all of 250m away from a petrol station (gas station) when this happened, the tyre (tire) was barely flat when we pulled into the place. we popped the boot (trunk) and pulled out the jack and wrench, however we were unable to operate the nuts, so we called our rental agency who sent out a service vehicle. he showed up in about 45 min, and pointed out there were caps on the lugnuts, and there should be a tool for removing them, there wasnt. we attempted, but since the tool was absent (we didnt even know there was a tool) we couldnt do shit, he pulled em off with a needle nose pliers, and changed the wheel in about 7 minutes. he told us to get a real wheel in Galway (our destination for the night) and set off.

we still had more castles to see, we wandered into athenry castle ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenry ). it was a classic irish townhouse, there will be more of them, read the wiki, im too lazy to talk about it, here are pics

we got into galway dumped the car, dumped our stuff, and looked for food. i found a tapas restaurant, that sources all its food from ireland.

we opened with

goat cheese on bread, with pickled sweet peppers. then i ordered arroz con pollo y chorizo, but they didnt have any chicken, cause they ran out, but i guess when you are getting freerange, chickens from across the river, and not from Tryson, you can run out. anyways, my meal came with the house red wine, but i ordered an Estrella Galicia anyways. the food was fan-fucking-tastic. it wasnt all that expensive either, when we were eating in Dublin we were paying about the same price for food that was just, OK.

after this we went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

country roads, and tiny towns

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a late morning, with the awesome guesthouse breakfast, and then we made our way to the airport to grab our car. of coarse that whole process took too long, rental car agencies like the DMV are places in the universe where the borders between our realm and HELL seems to thin. anyways we got our compact, diesel, right hand drive, manual transmission car, and started our journey.

i navigated while my pops drove. this route we didnt stop off anywhere to see stuff, we drove a rather slow and meandering route, much of it on 2 lane blacktop (though by with, in US standards it would be more like 1 lane with shoulders). at one point we got kinda lost, but its Ireland, and tiny, so we just continued till we hit a bigger road that actually appeared on the map.

we got to Tullamore (a very small town in the middle of Ireland http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullamore ) in the mid afternoon, unfortunately the Tullamore DEW experience (fancy giftshop and tiny museum thing) was closed, until the 7th, which is kinda lame, cause we are still in Ireland, just not in Tullamore.

anyways, the biggest part of the day was the drunk Irishman we ran into, my dad an i had thai food, and then went to a bar about 250m from our hotel. the place was old and characterful, full of locals, and my pops n i sat next to an Irish guy who noting our accent, asked if we were in country for the football game, and from there we ent up talking to him a bunch.

first off this guy seemed real drunk when we started talking, and despite his having another 4 Guinness over the course of our conversation, he didnt get particularly more drunk, my dad claims its because "Guinness makes you as drunk as you wanna be" anyways, i had 2 glasses of Tullamore dew (and a Guinness), ive had it before, but i dont remember much, i notice now, with a deeper repertoire to draw from, that Tullamore is alot sweeter than the Irish Whiskeys ive had, it was aright, i wouldnt say any better or worse than the Jameson or Powers i usually have, but different.

anyways talking to this guy was fun, we talked about all kinds of stuff, how Ireland got to the economic state it is in now (the same as the US, basically predatory loans and a mortgage crises) his job (insurance salesmen) and the differences between the US and Ireland, and because of his drunkness we went over stuff a few times, but it was entertaining.

after this we went back to our hotel, i farted around on the internet, and went to sleep, to rest up for the "day of driving" the next day.

FOOTBALLLLLLL

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didnt do all that much this day. we woke up, had the breakfast (hard boiled eggs and toast) at the guesthouse, and then i wandered around Dublin just a lil bit. there was a big shindig with one of my nerd-ventures across all their stores, and i made my way to the local store in Dublin, to see whatsup. after that i went back to the guesthouse read my book, and then we made our way to the FOOTBALL GAME. you know, we pretty much game here to Ireland to see this Notre Dame vs Navy american football game. the game was not particularly entertaining, mostly cause Notre Dame stomped Navy, it was kinda sad, the final score was somethin like 50-10.

we were sitting in the nose bleeds, and here are some pictures

being that high up was pretty cool, cause we could see everything.

the stadium serves Guinness, and its actually cheaper than the Carlsburg, or the Budweiser, so obviously we went with the Guinness.

after the event we made our way back to the guesthouse, napped, ate delicious Malaysian food, and then went to sleep.

really old rocks

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day tour day, a ive never been drastically effected by jetlag, but considering we went to sleep so early, and have taken subsequent many naps, ive been falling asleep early, and waking even earlier. anyways, i woke up at 430, took a shower and then we headed out for the bus tour which started at 8, so we had a while to wander around the bleary eyed Dublin.

the tour consisted of about a dozen people, a gaggle of aussies, a super hawt belgian girl, an older lady from Sao Paulo, and a couple from New Jersey here for the football game. first the tour took us to Trim, to see Trim Castle ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_Castle ) it was a pretty kewl old castle, the beginning dating back a good 900 years. as most castles started this one was only a series of rings and basic wood palisades, and then it just kinda organically grew into a large stone castle, with further skirt walls and whatnot. this castle was actually used during Braveheart, the town of York, where he was put on "trial" and then drawn and quartered. it as built up a lil bit with period buildings and populace too.

after that we went to the Hill of Tara ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_of_Tara ). the Hill was capitol of the ancient celtic peoples, at the time it was built up with palisades and buildings n whatnot. the First wave migration showed up round the stone age, and they settled around the hill. later on in the iron age some more celts showed up, and were integrated into, the older preexisting settlements.

The high king of Ireland (the thing is there were always 4 kings one for each province, and one of em, the biggest, baddest ass was the high king) lived here in Tara until 600. Around that time is when Christianity rolled in and took over.

When the anglo-normans showed up by 1200, the high king was abolished. And Tara fell out of favor

after this we made our way to to a really big hill, upon which the 5500 year old Loughcrew Cairn was ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loughcrew ). now burial cairns are mounds where they toss bodies, and practice druidic nature magick stuff. from what it sounds like all of these things date back to the stone age, people of note, the duids and clan leaders and whatnot, would be interred here for a mourning like period. and then theyd be pulled out, burned and have their ashes put in there in a clay pot permanantly. not only was this a burial chamber but it was a sort of spiritual focal point, the druids would come here during astrologically pertinent times (solstices, eclipses stuff like that).

as i said, this was on top of a big hill, and it was rainy, so it was pretty traditionally irish, what with the stone age piles of stone, the green grass, the rain, and the sheep. there were sheeps all over the place, and they werent all that concerned about people coming through. it was pretty cool, those sheep were prolly descendants of the sheeps that were there when the Hill was in use.

next was lunch, which was at a restaurant who our tour guide was "good friends with" of course. the food wasnt particularly special, so ill skip to the next bit of our tour. we went to the town of Drogheda, which was pretty unimpressive, except for the relic bits. this guy, Oliver Plunkett, this guy was from a rich Irish family, joined the church, became a catholic big wig, being trained in Rome n everything and was ultimately caught by the English, and hung drawn and quartered cause you know, he wasn't bout no renunciatin. But his head was snatched by his followers and returned to Ireland, and ultimately ent up as a relic here in a cathedral.

that right there is the documents validating that

that is indeed his head. other than the church (which was rebuilt in the 1920s, so it was lame, and i actually didnt take any pics of it) the only other thing of note in the town was

St peters cathedral, the cathedral where many catholics took refuge when cromwel was Rampaging through the area, however it proved not to work, he locked them in, and burned the place down. It was rebuilt, and ultimately sold to the episcopalian church.

after this we went back to our guesthouse, napped more, and eat some Italian foods, and went back to sleep.