A Celtic Holiday

October, 2017

My Leprechaun Side

“The ship that will not obey the helm will have to obey the rocks.” Old proverb.

“I am the helm.” Me.

Day minus 2 of my trek to the emerald island and the peat bogs of Scotia Land.

I have assembled the necessities. Passport. Electron conversion devices. Digital camera obscura. Talking machine with international calling plan. Internet engine, Wi-Fi hot spot enabled. Shoes impervious to heather and peat moss. A thirst for Irish whiskey. Some leftover euros and pounds from the last trek. 

Plus the intangibles. Spare clothing. Clean socks. And an app for my phone on Scotland. This would prove to be quite valuable.

Somehow this quest for knowledge seems hollow compared to the last when I took buses, trains, and subways to the airport with a one way ticket to adventure in Copenhagen and no thought beyond the next train station, youth hostel, and plate of-well, let's see what?

Oh, well. He also finds who follows. Ships follow charts to adventure. Not just rocks.

So. I am part of a tour. A package of events and stops at four star hotels with spas. No youth hostels with coed dormitory rooms. No side trips to quaint provinces. No nineteenth century coed spas built on Roman ruins. No talking to Libyan students on their way home from Sweden or Irish doctor and nurse couple who want to nurse me through my bout of flu. Just tourist traps. Carefully filtered for our consumption. And a driver. A driver! Someone to, like, bring me around places? How continental!

How American. Europe Carpaccio. No. Europe Velvetio. Ha! I’ll better that by one and a half!

Well. Ireland is beautiful. Dublin. Kinsale. And the castles on the glen. I can see, and learn, and experience. Maybe bump into someone interesting in the pub. Even if it includes a trip to the Blarney Stone. God, how awful. I am not kissing a fucking rock.

Well. If she has red hair and eyes as green as the emerald seas and a temper to challenge the north wind... I'd think about it.

Ireland, here I come.

Friday the 6^th

First, and last. selfie

Sitting on Aer Lingus flight 130 at Bradley gate 7, having taken my first, and last, selfie. Did I get here smoothly? Of course not! Hey. It’s me!

It all started last night. I was mostly packed and just double, triple, quadruple checking what was there. Enough clothing? Check. Meds? Check. Toiletries, tablet, chargers? Check, check, check. All set. I got my passport, took superfluous cards out of my wallet, and fetched some euro and sterling money I had left over. It wasn't much. I think a leprechaun was listening at my window.

I wanted to see Death by Fatal Murder at the Bradley (playhouse. Not airport) so I headed up to Putnam. I will miss all the shows so I wanted to see dress rehearsal. (Be sure to catch a show.) The leprechaun must have heard me singing an Irish ballad and followed me. They're sneaky, that way.

I got to Putnam early so I could get something to eat at the local pub, well, bar and grill. There was no corned beef on special, so I got the fish. Irish people eat fish, right? Or is that the English? Or leprechauns? Anyway, it was good.

The play was hilarious, of course, but don't take my word for it (hint, hint.) After, I talked with Steve about what sound and light stuff we want to spend the theatre's money on next. The answer? Lots! I think I saw Seamus lurking around the amplifiers. (The leprechaun has to have a name. Seamus is as good as any.)

This morning I got up, puttered around, and got rid of refrigerator items that couldn't survive the devastation of the next two weeks. I decided to wear the clothing I had on, so I washed them while I took a shower. When the wash was done, I went to put it in the dryer. There were gobs of paper on the few items in the wash. Huh? I must have had a piece of paper in my pocket. Then I saw it. My wallet was in the washer. Shoot. I had already taken most stuff out of it, so it was just a nuisance. Damn Seamus! Retrieving the wallet, and some cards that had fallen out, I noticed that my credit card was missing. It must have fallen in the bottom of the washer and I hadn't noticed it.

Nope.

Did I leave it on my bureau while I was purging my wallet?

Nope.

I must have taken it out when I checked in online. Surely it's  by my computer.

Nope. This is getting monotonous. Where was the last place I used it? The horror slowly dawned. The Courthouse Bar and Grill in Putnam, Connecticut! Reluctantly, I called them, not sure what I wanted more: To find out that my credit card was there or that it was not there? The clock was ticking and I had to go soon. Tick, tick. One moment... Tick. Yes, it's here, safe and sound! Tick, tick, tick...

I looked at the clock. My clothes, and my wallet, were still drying. I calculated the trip, half an hour to Putnam... An hour to Windsor... I could maybe, kinda, sorta make it to the airport... I wanted to be at there by 4:00 for a 6:00 take off, International flight and all. That would mean leaving at 2:30. I could make it. Maybe. What are you doing to me, Seamus?

How's 2:45? That's when I finally got out the door. It'll have to do. I got to Putnam, got my card, and used the GPS to make sure I had the best route. It was what I expected, though Gypsy (remember Gypsy? GPS-y? My GPS girl buddy?) kept putting me in the left lane of a highway and then telling me I had to take an exit in the opposite lane in half a mile and in Hartford traffic. She was mad that I hadn't taken her on any cross country camping trips lately. Not you, too, Gypsy. Seamus is bad enough! I’ll take you out on the town later!

I got to the airport about when I wanted. The trip was less than an hour with only a few slowdowns from traffic. Then to park. CT Long term Lot 4? Full! Lot 3? Full! 1? Ditto! Don't even think about the LT Garage! It's Friday afternoon, for crying out loud. The business hacks should be back from their cushy alcohol fueled conferences by now. Why the hell are all the cheap parking lots full, anyway?

And back away from the airport I drove. I had passed a valet lot that boasted $5.00 per day. That's about equal to Lot 4! But I was in the wrong lane, of course. I thought I saw a lot 5 on my way in. Yup. There it was. So I turned down a side road toward it. And drove. And drove. I remembered parking around here once. What I found was some security lot and an employee lot. Grrr. I'm sure I heard high pitched giggling. Seamus!

So back to the valet lot I went with bells on. Or shamrocks. There's a vacancy! I got in and found a place, even. I got the shuttle and made it to the airport around 4:40ish. Now, navigating the swarm! Aer Lingus had no lines. Promising. I dropped off my one bag (with free check in) and proceeded to Security.

It was mobbed, of course. There was a sign that said, "Wait time for this ride is 15 minutes." Someone in green was lurking behind it, snickering. OK, fuck you too, Seamus. I can live with it. I didn't have a TSA Fast Pass, unfortunately. But it went fast enough. Though the voyeuristic scanner saw something on my right ankle. It was roughly shamrock shaped. Suspicious. Checking manually, the TSA agent saw nothing there. I think it was the leprechaun. I know he kept moving the Full sign around all the Long Term lots on me. It’s just like him.

I'm on board now…, safely on my way...  I'll be in Dublin around 5:00AM…, 12:00 midnight here…, er, there…, which is what you will be once I am where I will be…, which will be here for me... And you will be where you still are last midnight…. Not tomorrow’s midnight…. 

This is confusing. Why do I travel? And the Irish stewardesses are cute in their green uniforms. Though I keep seeing something green out my window…, on the wing…, through the corner of my eye…, SeaMUS!

So now I can ponder a bit. Last night I took everything out of my wallet that I thought I didn't need. I won't be shopping at the Ireland BJ's, after all. My Visa card is in a separate pocket, so I didn't even check that it was there. True, I should have had two cards, but I didn't. I was going to take a few hundred dollars cash to change into local currency, but that would be pocket change. I'd still need my credit card. When I washed my pants, I didn't have my keys in the pocket so I just assumed all of the pockets were empty. 

Tick, tick goes the karma clock.

If I hadn't washed my wallet in my pants I would never have noticed that I was missing my Visa card. I would be OK in Ireland, since everything was paid up, but in Scotland I'd be sleeping in the Loch! So, maybe that leprechaun was doing me a favor, after all.

Thanks, Seamus!

Addendum

I got into Dublin Airport (or Aerport) around 5:00AM local time and deplaned OK. I found my way to the luggage belt and waited for it to spit out my bag. Since I was arriving a little later than the rest I was supposed to wait by the belt. OK. I'm good at waiting. I've got the gold in waiting. Wait I can. And must. And waited. Nothing and nobody happened. I got some euros for a Franklin at the currency exchange. I tried texting Kathy. I waited. I called. I got sent to voice mail. I tried calling the driver. It couldn't connect. I emailed him. And waited. I went outside and found a taxi stop. I texted to the fairies and told them where I was. The fairies were uninterested.

Rinse, repeat for about an hour. I asked some nice people if I was dialing right. You have to add 00 in front. OK. I got a 'no such number' crap. I asked someone else. He dialed the number on his phone. I suspect he was part leprechaun. No matter. It went through. I got Mike, our driver!

After several calls and calls back we determined that his driver already picked up the group, so I must have missed my flight and come in late. No, I said. My flight came in about 10 minutes after theirs. I was supposed to wait by the belts, which I did, dutifully. He said they were only supposed to do one pickup. So I asked what and where was the hotel. I'd take a cab. 

Then he said he'd get me. Just get a coffee and he'd be there in 20 minutes. While waiting I was wondering what had happened? I did what she said. Why didn't they wait? This seemed a little uncoordinated, to say the least. Or I just didn’t have all the information, which is pretty much what uncoordinated means, really.

Driving was a trip. They drive on the left in Ireland, too. But on the way I found out that Kathy, the tour guide, was late. Her plane was delayed and hadn't landed yet. The people that were picked up before me did not include Kathy, so they didn't know to look for me. Mike said they were clueless. Ah. That explains everything. Kathy hadn't been there to wait for me. The whole thing seemed pretty disorganized. Mike was only supposed to do one pickup today. I gave him a good tip.

This would never have happened if I had flown into Dublin with no plans at all! After all, you can’t fuck up if you have no idea what you are doing to begin with! Words to live by. I know I do.

Saturday the 7^th

Ha'penny Bridge

Oscar Wilde's Dublin

A valuable skill.

 

Seamus struck again!

I finally got to my hotel and waited for the others. My room was not available, of course, so I sat on a couch in the lobby. After a while I decided to go out for a walk. I got out my camera and took a few pictures and walked around the block. On my way back I stopped for a cup of coffee and a muffin. I am sad to say it was a Starbucks. That was the only place here. So, I ordered my muffin and coffee (just coffee, please. With cream.) When I reached for my wallet, it wasn't there. I had enough in change to pay my bill, and I hoped that I had left it at the concierge of the hotel, unlikely as that seemed. I was hoping.

Yup. Unlikely. I try to keep my wallet in my front pocket while traveling, but sometimes forget and put it back in the back pocket out of habit. That's what I must have done. Strange. The sidewalk was not crowded at all. I don't remember anyone bumping into me. But there it is. Pickpocketed on the streets of Dublin in broad daylight on a sparsely peopled street. I've got to admire his skill. And green wastecoat.

I only lost about 50 Euro and some pounds, but also my credit cards, driver’s license, and parking stub for the long term parking. But not my BJ's card. Take that, Irish thieves! I've still got a couple hundred in my money belt and my health cards. Enough to get by, since all expenses are paid for this week. But next week, in Scotland, I'm on my own. Do they have leprechauns in Scotland? Obviously.

The staff at the hotel lobby was very sympathetic and let me use their phone to call my bank. I cancelled the credit cards and asked for new ones to be sent to the hotel. No problem. You'll get them in 8 to 10 business days. Huh? When Seeth's wallet was filched in France he got replacements overnight. No way. 4 to 7 business days. Tops! And Monday is a holiday.

Forget it. I'll be in Scotland by then begging tuppence on the streets. I had $200.00 in my money belt and not enough sense to have put one of my two credit cards and my driver’s license in there, as well. Next I had to call the parking lot to make sure I could get my car back with no ticket. I couldn't get through. The call wouldn't connect, even though I put 001 in front of it like I'm supposed to. I also couldn't call at&t support, either. Finally Kelly let me use her phone and I spent a good half hour with at&t support until we got the right occult combinations of phone settings and voodoo magic to make it work. 

The car lot said not to worry. If I can show when I left they will accept that. I have the trip itinerary which shows my starting flight and the stamp in my passport. That will do. Well, one worry assuaged. If I survive till then I can at least get my car out of hock. If I have any money, that is.

When everyone in the group finally found each other we went out for a walk by the river Liffey. I, of course, was preoccupied with my predicament and kept having an internal debate whether I should just cut my losses and go home next Saturday. I'd lose my money on the airfare, though I could probably get my money back on the youth hostel and castle in Scotland. But why let a street criminal ruin my vacation? went the other side of the debate. You both have good points, went the internal moderator. Now shut up while I enjoy Dublin.

I was waiting for the sun to rise in Oregon.

We crossed the Ha'penny bridge and went into an older, cobble-stoned section of the city called Temple Bar. It was quaint, filled with people and street performers, and no cars driving the wrong way. I could just see James Joyce prowling the streets. And Handel rushing by. Hey, Oscar! Buy you a pint? We stopped at a very old pub for a quick one. Now, at this point we had all been up for almost 24 hours already. I sipped my Guinness and declined a shot of Powell Irish whiskey, though I took a sip of someone else's. Yes, it is smooth, and, yes, the Guinness tastes better in Ireland. But my 62 year old constitution was not dealing well with sleep deprivation.

It was a lively place and we sat at the bar talking to the bartender, Richard. He let me pour my beer. Kathy asked for a Bud Lite. Kathy! You're in Dublin! Don't insult the locals. They are Irish, after all.

Once done, we went back outside and kept milling around. It was around 5:00. 9:00 AM west coast time and I thought it was high time for some mooching. Hello! Hi, Kristin! Guess who just got pick pocketed minutes after arriving in Dublin?! After a sob story, I got to the point. So, Kristin, old pal, old buddy. Friend, daughter dear and light of my-Oh fuck. Can you spot me a grand? Ya, sure. She would wire the money from Western Union to Dublin. I could get it when the one in a post office opened on Monday.

She got back to me shortly and said that I could pick up the transfer at any Western Union in Ireland. There was one open nearby. Is that enough? For now. Next week I'll probably need more in Scotland. There's a good girl.

My mood improved, the debate about going on to Scotland ending in the affirmative. And my sleep molecules were overwhelming my blood. I found the WU and got my cash. The gang was heading back to the hotel and stopped at a pub for dinner. I met them there and had the fish and chips, which I was able to pay for. Yay, I'm fiscally solvent!

Finally, I'm back to the hotel and my room on the seventh floor, exhaustion overtaking my senses, including my sense of balance. I'm still a little bummed about losing both my credit cards and driver’s license, mostly because that was poor planning on my part, but that happens to countless people every day. It could have been worse. There were no knives involved.

I have now been up for 31 hours. Good night, fickle world.

Not funny, Seamus!

SeaMUS!

Sunday in Dublin

After 31 hours awake you'd think I'd sleep like the dead all night. Nope. I woke up at 11:30, wide awake. At first I thought I had slept for 14 hours and it was the 11:30 in the morning. Around 1:00 I was desperate. There was a vending machine around the corner; I'd get a bag of chips or something. Oh, look. It sells Guinness! Maybe a beer will put me to sleep. This machine took only room keys and mine didn't work for some Seamus related reason, I don't doubt.

So much for that sleeping draught.

Anyway, I finally fell asleep and woke up around 10. More or less refreshed. Breakfast was typical European. Your standard fare like bacon and eggs, baguettes, and oat meal. Plus baked beans. Cheese and cold cuts, and lots of fruit and yoghurt.

The day was spent touring using a hop on-hop off bus. We visited Trinity College. Went to the Book of Quells library. It was crowded, so we didn't go in. We went by Oscar Wilde's house. There was a park there with his statue. I wanted to see it, of course, but no one else was so enthused, so I figured I'd come back later. I never made it. Next time. We drove by lots of other places I would have liked to visit, the Natural History museum, St. Patrick's cathedral, but I was at the mercy of the tour guide. Next time I'll come alone or find a more like minded traveling companion.

We learned that Dublin at one time taxed people by the square foot of glass in their windows, so the Georgian houses had diminishing windows on the higher stories. Robbing light, it was called. One of the buildings at Trinity College had walled up their windows entirely, turning them into niches. They were empty, but I thought they should have added statues of saints flipping off city hall. Or at least a leprechaun or two.

A European Breakfast

Next we went to the Guinness brewery. Oscar would have understood. So would Seamus. It's an immense place. The tour was fun and ended with a pint in a glass lined observation deck overlooking all of Dublin. After a stop at the Jameson distillery, where the tours were just ending, we went to the oldest pub in Dublin, The Brazen Head, for a night of Irish food, folklore, and music. That was a lot of fun. The story teller was engaging. He told stories of leprechauns, banshees, fairy meeting places, and the trouble mortals get into by them. Christianity didn't make it to Ireland until Patrick's day, so there are still a lot of the Celtic beliefs mixed in even today like the fairy Hawthorn tree that caused a roadway to be rerouted. The locals wouldn't let them cut it down. That's just asking for trouble. Everyone has their Seamus!

And we had a couple of musicians leading us in songs and making fun of us when we messed up the chorus. You're all like children, one said. When someone claps past the end of the stanza you go, He did it! She did it! Yes, we are children. Or should be.

We walked home through the Temple Bar, old city. It's not what it seems. Temple was the name of the man who owned the land and bar here means land by a river. The Liffey, to be precise.

We're leaving tomorrow and won't come back to Dublin. I feel like I've hardly seen it.

Monday the 9'th

A long day driving. Our driver picked us up around 9:30. Then we drove west. We had a break in Galway. Not much to see there. A cathedral. A quaint downtown. I ate shepherds’ pie at a gazillion year old medieval pub. I also learned some etymology. 

There was a king of this province named Lynch, which is the name of my Irish ancestor. Now, he had a son who committed a crime by killing a Spaniard. I don’t know the details, but the penalty was hanging. Everyone expected him to disallow it. He was the king, after all. No, he said the law should apply to everyone and insisted that the sentence be carried out. On the scaffold the hangman refused to do it. The king said he would do it himself but the townspeople surrounded him and wouldn't let him near the scaffold. So he took his son back to his castle and hanged him from an upper window. 

And that, boys and girls, is where we get the term lynching. Ah, my ancestors!

Now back in the van. Driving on the wrong side of the road. In the rain.

It was a long drive from Dublin. We stopped at Kylemore Abbey for a bit. It was raining and part of the entrance included a Victorian garden. We decided not to go in, but just look around the grounds. And I found a very nice leather wallet with Celtic designs on it in the gift shop. I figured the next pickpockets might appreciate it, so I picked it up. 

On our way further west, Pat, our driver, gave us some more language history. Do you know where the saying, saved by the bell, comes from? Nope? Well, in poor Irish communities when someone died the family couldn't afford a proper funeral. So the undertaker would put the body in a casket and bury it. About a week later he'd dig it up and retrieve the casket. Sometimes there would be scratches on the inside of the casket. They realized that the body had not been dead, so they tied a string to the little finger and ran it up through the earth to a bell. If they heard the bell ringing they knew the person wasn't dead and dug him back up. He was saved by the bell. That meant they had to listen for the bell 24 hours a day. The person who had to sit through the night was working the graveyard shift. Interesting, if true. I know the bell tied to the dead part is true. But I don't know about the origins of the expressions. Why not?

And then off to our haunted castle: Abbeyglen Castle in Clifden. This place is very nice. Downton Abby nice. Peat fires in the fireplaces nice. Pleasant sitting rooms nice. We had a champagne reception in the bar before dinner. We met a couple from San Francisco on their honeymoon. Andrew and Andria. Cute.

Dinner was excellent. I had the baked Camembert cheese with fruit compote, leg of lamb, and baked pear with pecans while the piano played classical music. Carson, we will have brandy and cigars in the sitting room. Very good, my lord.

Well, a shot of Jameson by the fire as a nightcap, anyway. I chatted with a couple from New York who were visiting relatives.

No ghosts. I guess they're extra.

Abbeyglen Castle in Clifden

Tuesday the 10'th

Checked out of the castle this morning. If there were any ghosts here, I didn't see them. Must be extra. The weather is threatening to be...weather. Overcast with sun blearing through once in a while. It was like that all day. Except when it was raining. Then it wasn’t.

The road not taken took us further west, through Limerick and the rocky, boggy, peaty western Ireland. Christianity didn't reach Ireland until the fifth century, so they retain a lot of the old Celtic ways. Ways of life as well as ways of belief. We drove by the fairy tree the good folks of Clair would not let the highway department cut down. It delayed a road from Limerick to Galway for ten years! It's nothing special. We heard a story about a man who wanted to build an addition on his house for his kids' bedroom. He could put it on either side, so he picked one. He was told that that side was a fairy crossing. The fairies ride through there. Well, he built it on that side, anyway. Foolish mortal.

Once done his children were moved into there for a bedroom. That night they heard the sounds of horses’ hooves on dry ground. Now, the ground around the house was soft. Not good for hard travel on horseback. The children reported this strange occurrence the next day. Nonsense, said the father and ignored it. That night, the same thing. The children were terrified by the sounds of horses running on hard ground. The mother decided to sleep with the children that night. Well, after that the man moved the addition to the other side of his house. Sounds pretty unlikely to me. Though I'll be sure not to upset any fairy overpasses, just in case.

We passed some marginal areas with pools of standing water and little teepees of thatch and reeds. These would have been used during Viking times when marauders would swarm across the land and these could be used as shelters to hide. There were also tunnels that could be used to escape. Pat said that the people living there were small, less than four feet tall. Also, the clothes they wore were similar to the standard Leprechaun dress we see in graphics today.  Waistcoat. Buckled hat. Vest and the like. This may have been the origin of the little people who are quick and can disappear. Not sure about that one. Maybe. Real life has a way of becoming legend. Legend becomes myth. And myth becomes satire, until it becomes real life again.

We came to the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast. Very majestic with a nice climb around in the stiff wind. I walked along the cliffs to the edge of the park and onto private land. It looks like the end of the world. The end of this world, at least. Leering cliffs with towers and castles looking west. What comes from yonder? What goes there?

The next stop on our shuttle heavy day was Bunratty castle and folk park. This was a 14'th century castle and looked it. Narrow helical staircases built left handed so any invaders, who were most likely to be right handed, had the disadvantage fighting their way up the stairs. Large rooms, some with fire pits in the middle and smoke holes in the ceiling. Tapestries on every wall, for pleasure as well as heat retention, and small bedrooms with four poster beds or beds set in wooden boxes. Anything for warmth.

Outside the grounds had many buildings: farm houses, blacksmiths' houses, sheep pens, merchant buildings, and such that would be around the reigning center. It was much like a model village like Sturbridge Village. Only no interpreters.

And now on to the Malton hotel in Killarney. We'll be here for two nights, so no long treks by coach tomorrow!

One of my traveling companions, Kelli, had been in Killarney five years ago and remembered a pub she liked and wanted to find again. She remembered that it had red doors and the bartender was very tall. After settling in we trekked out through the old streets in search of Kelli's pub. There are 75 pubs in Killarney. We had our work poured out for us.

We ate at Murphy's Pub. The food was good, I had the muscles. But it wasn't the right place. We continued wandering around the streets listening to music and browsing gift shops. Kelli asked a few people if they knew of this mystery pub with its Irish red door. That’s about all she remembered of it. That and the tall bartender. Finally, she got a lead. Someone knew the pub we were talking about, though the door was black now. We had passed it on our way in, not far from Murphy's. It's called Courtney's and is very cozy inside with peat fires on the hearths and a bar both welcoming and ancient. We had a few pints. And they said that Kelly's bar tender is still there, he's the manager and will be in the pub tomorrow night. We know where we're going tomorrow.

A nightcap of Jameson's and off to fairy land until the morn.

Wednesday the 11^th

On the trail through the Ring of Kerry

 

 

Peat Bog Country

Joanne, Kelli, and Mary.

And an Ass. A Mule is there, too.

Wednesday found us traveling again. Not as much as yesterday, but our destinations were spread out a bit. We headed to the Ring of Kerry, a scenic drive around County Kerry in the southwest. There are lots of emerald hills, emerald bogs, and emerald valleys making up the emerald Isles. And sheep. Emerald sheep. We stopped for some photo ops here and there. People were selling stuff like Bridged crosses woven from grass (emerald grass.) One man had a donkey with a Pomeranian perched on top. They were best buddies and stayed together all the time.

At another stop we got to see a sheepherder demonstrate his art. We didn't have reservations but our driver, Pat, knew another driver who let us join his group. This was phenomenal. He had two collies that he controlled by voice and whistle. And he could control them independently by pitch, so each dog understood its own commands. He had the dogs bring the five sheep down the hill to the front. Then he had them scatter the sheep again, then separate out two, and then one. He had complete control over the dogs and they had complete control over the sheep. The way he controlled them with whistles reminded me of Yondu's arrow in Guardians of the Galaxy. Though this guy could do a lot more with his two arrows.

We saw a house that Charlie Chaplain owned in Waterville. His statue is downtown. In another town there was a monument to Charles de Gaulle for some reason. The locals call it the de Gaulle stone. On our way we stopped at a few sites overlooking the ocean. Pat said the first transatlantic flight originated from here, predating Lindburg by ten years. That was news to me. Also, Marconi built a transmitter around here. History and technology. All in one!

The big attraction of the day was Killarney National park. We hiked up to Torc waterfall and a little bit around there. And then to Muckross house. We had a guided tour of the house, which was quite impressive. Definitely more Downton Abbey. It's hard to describe other than opulence steeped in money flavored with arrogance. Until the original owner went bankrupt. It was sold to a few other people, one of them American, and finally given to the people of Ireland as a national park. I wonder who deserved it more?

Lots of etymology surfaced here, along with some quaint customs. The drawing room was originally called a withdrawing room. It was where you went to withdraw from the hectic pulse of the rest of the house. By the sides of the fireplace were two stands with a movable board attached. The ladies could stand by the fire and shield their faces from the heat. That would have melted the slather of white makeup they wore, which included beeswax, lead, and other toxic pigments. Men also wore makeup. Both were probably hiding small pox scars. The guide told us the expressions, Saving face, and, Mind your beeswax came from this practice. Maybe.

The library was traditionally a boys club, but the original lady of the house insisted that it be open to all. That's OK. The men just went into the billiards room where they could smoke cigars and drink brandy. Any woman who dared venture into there had her reputation scorched for life. No husband for you! Of course, the ladies had their sitting room where they could play instruments and do needlework. I bet they would rather have been in the billiards room. 

Queen Victoria made a visit once. She gave six years notice so they could prepare. They did major renovations, created new gardens, ordered elaborate furniture from Italian craftsmen, etc. Queen Victoria was afraid of fire and insisted on sleeping on the ground floor. They added a fire escape to her waiting room, just to make sure.

The family was bankrupted partially due to these expenditures. They were expecting a knighthood out of it, which would have more than made up for their expenses in the Queen’s honor. Unfortunately, Prince Albert died shortly thereafter and Victoria went into seclusion, so the knighthood was forgotten.

Downstairs, in the servants' zone, was quite different. Also much like Downton Abbey. The bells to call the servants ran along one wall. Each bell is different and gives out a different sound so you could tell if the call was for you or not. Also, if you heard someone else's bell, you could tell them. Very efficient.

Then back to Killarney. We went out to find Kelli's bartender, since we now knew where he was. But, alas, he had left already. That will give her something to look forward to next time.

 

Peat fire in a pub in Killarney.

We found Killi's Pub, but no Tall Bartender.

The Muckross House

Quiet Street in Killarney

 

 

Torc Waterfall in Killarney National Park.

 

Thursday the 12'th

Today we went to Blarney. That was quite beautiful. The castle is fascinating to climb through. It has the typical left hand spiral staircases, small bedrooms, and huge halls with fireplaces you could roast a cow stuffed with a peasant in.

The Blarney stone, alleged to be part of the Stone of Scone and of druid origin, is at the top of the castle. You have to lie down to get your kiss. I didn't. Kiss on a first date? What do you take me for?! Besides, if I was desperate enough to kiss a rock I should be hit in the head with one.

The grounds were even more interesting. There were caves with tunnels in them. Some leading to the castle and providing an escape route. Some closed up and going no one knows where. There's a poison garden filled with murderous vegetable curiosities. Deadly Night Shade, anybody? Tobacco? Poppies? Or a little Absinthe, perhaps?

                 

Cliffs of Moher

More Cliffs..

Cliffs a Plenty.

Oooh! Rocks!

And Cliffs.

Boring Cliffs...

I get it Already. Cliffs!

Bunratty Castle and Folk Park

There was a ring of Druid standing stones called the Seven Sisters. There are actually nine there. A king of Blarney once had seven daughters and two sons. He went to war with a neighboring kingdom. He won the war but his two sons died in the battle. On his way home he had his men knock over two stones.

Blarney Castle

Blarney Stone and Administrative Assistant.

Left Handed Helical (Spiral) Staircase

         

They're Serious about Protecting Indigenous Pucas.

This is the River Below the Blarney River

There were fairy rings, witches stones, and waterfalls. There is a confluence of two rivers here, the Blarney and the Martin. During one period they drained a peat bog. The resulting lowering of the water table required them to reroute the Martin. Under the Blarney River. You can see one bridge over the Blarney and then a tunnel much lower with a river running through it.

     

An interesting feature in this part of Ireland is the palm trees. You wouldn't think that palm trees would grow in Ireland or any part of Europe, but they do here. It's because of gulf stream. It's just temperate enough to support this tropical tree. Scotland has them, too.

Then on to Kinsale and the hotel Acton. We weren't going to be here long. Just one night and then back on the road. There's a local beer here called Murphy's that can only be found in Cork County. It's like Guinness but not exactly. It was good with fish and chips. That night we went on a ghost tour.

It was delightful. We met at a very old pub, Tap Tavern, in the ancient section of Kinsale. One man named Mark started us off in the tavern at a well dating back to Viking days. He was supplanted by another actor, Sean, who took us through the rest of the tour with Mark popping up here and there dressed as a prisoner, ghost, or something. It was sufficiently misty and foggy to maintain the mood. Along the way, while telling tales of prisoners and wars, Mark would jump out of walls and corners dressed as various characters from history and legend. A French prisoner at the gaol. A shrieking spirit on the graveyard.

            

   

Then came Sheila. We had to get into a graveyard of a church where a fisherman named Seamus had once pledged his love to a red haired beauty. To do so we needed a redhead to stand by the gate and implore Seamus to let us in. There were no sufficiently scarlet redheads in our group so he took out a garish red wig and gave it to me. I had to be Sheila.

They didn't know what hit them.

So, in my best Monty Python cross dressing voice, I implored my fisherman to let us through the gate to see his red haired beauty (there's plenty more where that came from!) along with several other lewd gestures, like rubbing my left leg against the bars of the gate. I got laughs. It got better.

 

After the show, Sean, asked me if I had ever been abroad before. I said, I'm not telling. We chatted a bit. He liked my performance, as did several of the other guests. I said after 25 years of community theater, I have no shame. I asked him if he chose me because I looked like an accountant or someone he could embarrass like that. He said they always chose the friendliest looking person. That was a nice compliment. The night was a lot of fun.

Friday the 13'th

We spent little time in Kinsale, so I did not get a chance to see much of the city. It's a little seaport that reminded me a bit of Victoria. We had a long drive to Dublin. We did manage to stop at a castle in Killarney. This one had been auctioned off and given up on back when bankruptcy was all the rage among the aristocracy. Now it was owned by the town and had been refurbished and opened to the peasants.

We stayed at the Dunboyne Castle Hotel (and spa!) between Dublin and the airport. I wanted to go into Dublin and try to find the Oscar Wilde park. I convinced the gang to come with me by bus. Only €3.30! They all agreed to come with me to the park before finding a place to eat. I must be having a good influence on them
.

We took the bus to Trinity College and walked the couple of blocks to the park. It was dark by now and the park closed so we could just barely see Oscar over the fence. Pictures pretty much produced no more that flash illuminated streaks of rain. But I got to be there and pay homage to an inspiration of mine. Thank you, Oscar.

I should mention my traveling companions, since I know them a little better now. There's Kathy, the organizer of the trip and leader of the Meetup travel group. I did not know any of the rest, who were Joanne, Mary, and Kelli. Joanne became my drinking buddy. We were always up for a Guinness or a Jameson. Since I was the only man in the group I think they thought of me as their pet. After Sheila the teasing ramped up a bit, especially from Mary. If it makes them happy. It's their vacation, after all. How long till Edinburgh?

I asked Kristin to wire me money in Scotland so I can get some Sterling. I've still got a few hundred euro, so I don't need that much. Kelli said I might be able to request a replacement license on line. I'll try that today, though I don't know what I'll pay for it with.

And the beat goes on.

Saturday the 14'th

Travel day. I said my goodbyes, hugs all around, we'll get together to look at pictures soon, Guinness on me, in the lobby of the hotel. Mike brought me to Dublin Airport around 12:00. I told him about my wallet going AWOL. He was surprised it happened in Dublin. Me, too. He was a friendly guy. He said Glasgow was a dirty city, unlike Edinburgh, which is beautiful. I asked him what people think about Brexit. The Republic of Ireland is not part of Great Britain, so it doesn't affect them as much. Of course, Northern Ireland is, so they have questions to answer. Like, How are they going to stop people from just coming to Ireland from the EU and walking into Northern Ireland? Good question.

Mike said nobody really wants Brexit. If they ran the referendum today it would never pass. They will have to find a way to undo it. Otherwise they may see Scotxit, N. Irexit, Gebraltexit... Though there is a lot of racial hostility in England. As usual, people are taking out their grievances on the wrong people.

At the airport I ran into the rest of the crew. Their flight wasn't that much later than mine. We could have all gone to the airport together. You know that awkward time when you bid farewell, hugs and kisses, to somebody after a wonderful visit, then you bump into them again? We had friended each other on Facebook and everything! Meh. Joanne and I went off to a free Jameson tasting while the girls did some girly thing. It's not alcoholism if you have a drinking buddy.

Kristin wired me money to Scotland. There's a Western Union in Edinburg not far from the youth hostel. And now the plane's about to take off. Scotland, here I come!

The flight was about 50 minutes. Just barely up and down. I had 15 some odd pounds from my last trip, which was enough to get a bus to city center and put down a deposit on my room key. I am back in youth hostel country! I'm at the Cowgate Hostel on Cowgate Street just down from the Royal Mile. Building 104, flat 6, room 2, bed A. Except that bed A was occupied. Well, there was crumpled sheets and a towel on it. Bed F was empty, and on the bottom. No mountain climbing. It is now mine and I will defend it with Scottish perspicacity to the death! Not my death, of course. That would be bad form.

There was a Western Union nearby so I got my allowance. It came out to fewer pounds lighter than I thought, though enough for the week, I think. I've got euros and dollars free if I get strapped. Across from the Western Union was a kiosk for the ghost tours. Ooooh! Cool. The one I wanted was full tonight, but available tomorrow. I'll be in Roslyn Chapel but can get back by 6:45 when the tour starts.

Right now I'm finishing up fish and chips at The Malt Shovel. Ya. That's its name.

Sunday the 15'th

       

I must have been exhausted from all the running around last week. After pub food and a couple of pints I went back to the hostel and crashed. I woke up around 11:00. I needed the sleep but also wanted to get to Rosslyn chapel and back for the ghost tour. I've got time and no itinerary to speak of, so let's see what Edinburgh has for me today, shall we?

Just made it to bus 37 for Rosslyn chapel. It took forever to find the stop. I knew it was by the Walter Scott memorial on Prince St. I asked someone for help and he said it was along here and took me through some bus stops. He was named Robin and he was very friendly, but in the end we didn't find the stop. So I found a hole in the wall place for my beans and black pudding breakfast and reconnoitered. Plus found free Wi-Fi to look up the Edinburgh bus system. Robin had explained the bus system so I was better able to understand it. I found bus 37 but was now unsure if I was on the right side of the road, what with the backward driving and all. Eventually I found it just as the bus I wanted was at the stop and managed to catch it.

Rosslyn Chapel is amazing. Built in the 1400's by William St. Claire and never finished after 40 years of work. He employed nothing but the best craftsmen from all over Europe; masons, quarrymen, carpenters, etc. He had them build a town, called Roslin, to house them. When he died work stopped with the chapel only about one third done. Mostly gothic in architecture, flying buttresses and all, it's a beautiful specimen. Inside it's incredible. Every inch of the building is covered in intricate carvings. Most of Christian symbols. Many of tributes to the St. Clairs and some of pagan origin, such as the green man or the dragons gnawing at the roots of the Yggdrasil tree. The St. Clairs were of Norse origin.

There's one lintel portraying the seven virtues. On the opposite side is its counterpoint, the seven deadly sins. Only greed and charity are reversed. Either it's some odd symbolism of the ambiguity of behavior or a prophecy of Donald Trump. The vaulted ceilings depict various flowers and stars. The beautiful apprentice column, which so infuriated the master that he murdered him, stands by the alter.

This is a common story that exists in other great buildings, as well. Underneath on the right of the alter is the crypt that Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu descended into... and into a recording studio 300 miles away. The magic of Hollywood. There are crypts under Rosslyn that have never been open. And the St. Claire's connection with a 150 year extinct order of wealthy knights us not impossible. Though the rest is probably just the moss of legend that collects on notoriety and mystery.  The Knights Templar people try to say Roslyn was built with the layout of the Temple of Solomon, even though it is the exact same proportions to another cathedral in Glasgow. They conveniently omit this inconvenience. And let the magic of fun conspiracy theory pay for the considerable upkeep of the building.

Under Henry VIII the chapel was despoiled and abandoned along with all things Papist. For 200 years it sat in the weather; windows broken, water and snow freely blowing into the exquisite but naked interior, sandstone sucking up water and providing a rich base for mold. I can't abide such barbarity. Whether it's done to churches, Soviet WWII memorials in Ukraine, statues of dictators, Civil War memorials, Roman ruins in Syria, Buddhist statues in Asia or any other monument to any other god, emperor, battle, cause, or holy day. Vandals behave that way. There are more Vandals among us than civilized folk, I'm afraid.

The chapel was rededicated to the Episcopalian faith and a nod from Queen Victoria insured its place on the map. Various restorations were done along the way, some doing more damage than good, but there was never enough money. Until Dan Brown and the Da'Vince code. Funny that one precious monument built to a belief was saved by another belief. The human spirit continues to build things out of the intangible. Let's build some more. When we are building grand monuments to wonder and reverence we are not making war. It costs less, too.

Dinner was at a pub in Roslin Village. Haggis ravioli soup and roast beef. The soup was just ravioli in a cream sauce with sprouts. It was very good. The return bus was just pulling up as I left the pub. I've been having good timing today.

The ghost tour was unlike the one in Kinsale. This was a historic and folkloric tour. We started on the Royal Mile just up from the hostel. We walked down a close, or old narrow street. Before Victorian times there was no sanitation anywhere and people were obliged to curb their humans by means of a chamber pot. At night, when the bells of a local church tolled, everyone would open their windows and shout, Mind the loo! and flush. You had to make sure you were in doors by then. And another bit of etymology. If you were stumbling home from a pub at night having imbibed a generous helping of ale, and you tripped in the cobble stones and fell flat on the ground, you were said to be shit faced.

From there we visited the old Parliament where union with England was approved in 1707.

The Marquis of Queensbury had played hard to get so he would be bribed into the vote. Once properly greased, he had another problem. A mob blocking the entrance to the building. So he had all of his servants squeeze in and form a wall to let him pass. Except for one boy who was home turning a pig on a spit over the fire. Well, the Marquis had an illegitimate son who was chained up in the basement due to madness. He would eat rats and anything else that got in his path. He noticed that the manor house was empty so he started pulling at his chain.

When the Marquis got back, dinner was not on the table. He went into the kitchen to find his son turning the spit and tearing off chunks of flesh and eating it-except it wasn't the pig. It was the kitchen boy having been roasted alive. This was bad for the Marquis, so he went back to the seat of government later in the week and drafted a law saying that it is legal to chain up a cannibal in your basement, as it is to this day. Jurisprudence. It's not for the faint hearted. Or cannibals.

We walked through the most haunted cemetery in Scotland. It even has a Poltergeist that likes to scratch and bruise people. Bloody Mackenzie. He had been a judge who liked to sit by the condemned's cell and watch them being tortured before the execution. He condemned around 30,000 people. Oh, and the legal coming of age was eight years old. Old enough to hang. It is estimated that this cemetery has 300,000 bodies buried in it, many of them plague victims buried in pits. In rainy weather it is not unusual for bones to pop up out of the ground. They just push them back down again. It's not the resurrection yet! Get back there.

Grave robbers would dig up fresh corpses to sell to the medical college. Sometimes they weren't dead. One woman had been buried in all her jewelry. They took what they could but some of the rings wouldn't come off the swollen fingers. So they cut them off. Pinky, ring finger, middle finger. The woman started screaming. She had been in a coma for almost a week. The pain had revived her. She lived another ten years. This prompted them to run string through pipes to the fingers of the buried in case they woke up interred, like they had in Ireland. Their panic would ring the bell. Sometimes the winds of Edinburgh would ring the bell and they would dig up an actual corpse. They were a dead ringer. More etymology.

We next saw the site where once stood a prison/public entertainment complex. Kind of a Disneyland Alcatraz. People brought there would be imprisoned and then hanged or beheaded, your choice. Though beheading could be a messy job since the executioners were always drunk to blunt the thought of what they were doing. The blades were likely pretty blunt, too. They often missed.

The townspeople eventually, and remarkably, got sick of the spectacle and took to spitting on the threshold of the prison. When it was demolished they put in markers where the boundary had been and a rose for the threshold. This is the only place where it is legal in Edinburgh to spit on the sidewalk. Good to know.

And those were just within a couple of blocks.

Next the real spooky stuff.

Edinburgh, like all ancient cities, has a gruesome past. And we saw some of it. David, our guide-by the way, our guide was a ghost from five hundred years ago. He had been the exchequer to Mary, Queen of Scotts and had been brutally stabbed to death and thrown down a flight of stairs because the King thought they were having an affair since they spent so much time together doing all those numbers and stuff. Mary forbade them cleaning up the blood to show what a brute her husband was. It is there to this day.

Anyway, David brought us down to an apartment that had been rented by some musicians in the 70's. They had felt odd in the room and once heard a woman's voice imploring them to get out on a tape recorder they had left running. They primed themselves at the local pub and took sledge hammers to the back walls, which they found most disturbing. They found another stone wall behind it with a fireplace in it, more wall, then an arched doorway that had been stoned in. This second layer of stonework was 700 years old and was part of a road that went from the Royal Mile to Cowgate.

This was how most of the people in Edinburgh lived. In stone vaults off narrow streets running down from squalor to stench and dampness to death. The vaults and streets had been walled in and vaulted over in the 1880's during Victorian times when Edinburgh was modernizing and eager to forget its past. The busy traffic of High St, etc., was bustling away above us but the street we were in was noiseless. Perfectly soundproof.

There were ghosts in the streets and vaults. Annie, who had been accused of witchcraft. That was enough to get her tortured for a confession, then burned alive. Some people claim to see her on these tours. Once, one woman was uncomfortable in a vault and left her group for the street. She saw Annie at the end of the road. She unwisely maintained eye contact. Annie walked all the way down and stood right in front of her. She ran out and up the stairs to the unhaunted street above. Edinburgh's paranormal society found psychic hot spots along the way. Someone removed a couple of stones in one of these and found bones behind them, which we saw today. It's very hard to get the city to approve opening up additional vaults since a busy street runs just above them. They have to consider engineering concerns like weight distribution and paranormal stress.

Further down we came to a vault where a more wealthy family lived. Back then most people lived together, regardless of station. He had been accused of witchcraft. For a man, if he was, inevitably, convicted, his whole family, in this case wife and two children, would also be tortured and executed. His 'interrogation' consisted of a cage and a rat placed over his stomach. A torch was placed on the cage and the rat took the only recourse, that being to claw down through the man's stomach. The wife had her arms and legs pulled out of their sockets while the children watched, after which the same was done to them. Some visitors have felt or seen the children. They have come back with dolls to leave for them.

Homelessness was a crime, so the city's homeless slept in the vaults during the 1800's. Nobody wanted to venture out at night and risk getting caught. That would mean everybody in the vault being dragged out and hanged. Grave robbers, who were finding it harder to rob graves, would go into the pitch black vaults and, if they found someone sleeping on the ground, throttle them in their sleep. Six pounds was about four month's honest wages, after all.

It was spooky later when we were back on the street with its noise and bustle. David pointed out where we had stood underground where Annie, the family, and countless homeless had died. Just a few feet beneath us. Down there it was pitch black and pitch silent. Up here civilization marched on, oblivious.

On our way out David told us of a local pub called the Banshee Labyrinth, which is built into some of the vaults. I stopped by for a pint and to collect my thoughts. Will people someday dig up our secrets and wonder at our barbarity?

Better make it another pint.

            

Monday the 16th

An early start for basically a traveling day. I ambled up to the bus station and bought a ticket to Tarbert. That required a transfer in Glasgow, then north by Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, around a deep sound and then south to Tarbert. All for 24 pounds. The storm was supposed to hit today, so I figured it would be a good day for sitting on a bus. The weather was mixed. Rain. Clouds. Sun. Wind. Calm. More rain. Now I'm on the second bus from Glasgow and it's just overcast. No wind, either. Just a lead grey sky with a copper-bronze burnish. Not too bad.

I got to Tarbert around 3:00. It is a small fishing village. Quiet. With a castle built be Robert the Bruce in a gazillion years ago overlooking a rich waterway leading to the sea. I walked around and discovered that most of the few things they had to offer were closed on Mondays or, in the case of restaurants, didn't open till 6:00. I attached myself to a pub for a pint or lost count while waiting for the dining room to open and charged up my tablet.

Dinner was nice. Potato and leek soup and steak pie. I haven't seen steak and kidney pie anywhere yet. I hoped to see some in the hinterlands of the highlands. Maybe later.

I got a taxi to my hotel at Stonefield Castle. It's too dark to explore so I am exploring the bar with a peaty scotch. Tomorrow I will be able to explore a bit. The storm is forecast to still be active and the seas choppy, so the ferries to Islay are cancelled until 12:00. That means I have to take the 1:00 which doesn't stop at port Ellen. I'll have to take a bus to my hotel.

               

Her hair orange as the lichen that clings upon the way.

Time now to unwind and dedicate myself to poetry.

Well, it's no Rabbie Burns...

The Lady of the Loch

I met my love at the loch, with a face sparkling like a day in May,

Green her eyes and a strong breeze curled upon her cheek,

Her hair orange as the lichen that clings upon the way,

And her face serene, her demeanor soft and meek.

I spoke to her, "My love. My joy. My terror, if you can never be mine then me I give to thee,

To the sprites that live in your hair and the smiles that play upon your moody brow,

To the curl of mischief above your winking eye, and the endless joy there, pure and free,

Make love to me as only the love of May can be, both chaste and pure and reckless as a Bacchanal."

Of such is the loch in May.

I met my love at the loch, with a summer aura about her, the gay jig of youth matured into the waltz of summer sun. Endless. Eternal. Time's gift to mortal man,

I took her in my arms and cast myself into her warm breezes and felt the solemn highlands gently close about me, hypnotized and lost, a prisoner of thy creation,

"In gladness thee I take," said I. "Though thou it is who me possess by your wild will and fickle discretion,

"Grant me your grace and I will grant you my soul. Let us drink the summer elixir and breathe its inspiration."

Of such is the loch in August.

I met my love at the loch, while the bold sun turned his thoughts to war with the south and the leaves curled with arthritis, her giggle of youth turned steely, her cheeks invited frost,

The girl of feckless youth, now cold, with thoughts no youth can suffer,

"My love, turn not your thoughts of love for me away, kiss me that we may forward go as kin, whatever be the cost,

Though be ye wild and endless as the stars and none can own you, for certain, none dares try, for you are tougher."

For such is the loch in November.

I met my love at the lock, hair streaked silver, eyes burnished shields. The war upon us, as plain as plain,

She, who danced and played and bore her children as glad and fierce as any highland wildcat, the glint of mischief replaced by the glare of adamant at the waning of the clock,

"I am here, my 'For Ever,' when the storm rages and the loch exchanges its placid slate face for the turbulent rage of hurricane,

"Remember me fondly, and spare a stormy kiss for your betrothed. You, whose power reaches the throne of God and whose tempest lashes all, she who laughs loudest and fights hardest. The Lady of the Loch."

For such is the loch in February.

I met my love at the loch. She is the loch and the loch is she.

Tuesday the 17th

Stonefield Castle is very picturesque. It overlooks either a loch or a sound. There are both around here. The morning ferries were cancelled due to the hurricane, so I'll go around 1:00. Right now I'm waiting for a taxi to the ferry.

I may get a little short on pounds, quid, pence, whatever. I've got both greenbacks and Euro, so I don't think I'll have to take another trip to the Kristin well. Just the currency exchange.

The storm is pretty much passed now. We didn't get hit here. Don't know about the coast.

I'm on the ferry now. The taxi directly to the terminal was only a few pounds more than if I had gone to the bus stop and then taken a bus here. Plus the driver told me about a new scotch distilled by the port I will be pulling into. It has an unpronounceable, unspellable, unthinkable name. Bring it on! And the round trip fare was only thirteen pounds. One less than the taxi.

The announcer just said something that sounded Norse. I hope it wasn't plans to invade England. I'm doing that next week.

I got into port Askaig with no time to spare. I would have liked to visit the Bunnahabhain distillery (that was the unpronounceable one,) but the busses stop running at an ungodly hour. The last one left in 15 minutes. Port Ellen is quiet to the point of comatose. It's a pretty town with beaches and a harbor that looks as if it had been punched out on a press. I had dinner at the hotel of cream of leek soup and fish pie and am now contemplating an early retire.

Adieu.

       

       

Wednesday the 18th

After the Laphroaig tour I got a ride back to port Ellen from a New Zealand man named Raymond who had been on my tour. I got my bags from the Islay hotel and walked the couple hundred steps to the ferry, which was conveniently not there. Huh? Double checking the schedule, which I thought I had already double done several double times before, I saw that there is no afternoon ferry from Port Ellen on Wednesdays. I was sure I had verified that, too, since I had noticed that the schedule was demarcated by days of the week. Well, trying to follow schedules on the postage stamp cell phone screen can be a challenge. Or maybe I can't read a calendar, let alone a ferry schedule.

OK. Not a problem. Nothing is a problem if you've got nutrients, oxygen, and shelter. Check. Well, money's kinda handy, too. Kinda check.

Let's take another look at that postage stamp ferry schedule, shall we? Yup. No ferry from Port Ellen for the rest of the day. But there is one from Port Askaig at 15:30. 15:30, let's see. That's in the future from now! The future is where I want to be!

Hmm. But I'm not at Port Askaig. 15:30 will arrive at me whether I want it to or not. Not so Port Askaig. It stubbornly just stays there, 20 miles away. (They like to use English measurements as well as metric. Though I wonder which one they hate more.) So, time to check the bus schedule. There are numerous busses from Port Ellen. Some of them in the future. Not all of them go to Port Askaig. All of them go to 15:30, though. None of us can avoid that. I just need one that gets to both time and place together. Oh, look, one of them goes all the way to Port Askaig leaving here at 14:32. Dare I check arrival? I dare. It arrives at Port Askaig at 15:10. Whew! Right time. Right place.

The ferry arrives at Kennecraig at 17:25. Of course, that's not my ultimate destination. I'm staying at The Queen of the Loch hotel at Balloch on Loch Lomond. There I'm on better territory. I want the Glasgow bus from Kennecraig that runs regularly. There's one at 17:59. I will be in Balloch at 20:31. Easy as steak and kidney pie. Now that my time and space navigations that would baffle Magellan were done, what to do? I had two hours to kill. Two hours. Two hours. That's just about two pints of-

There was a small bar I noticed the other day. I thought maybe I'd have an arm bender and collect my thoughts. It's not far. Hell, everything is not far from everything in Port Ellen. So I tippled in and beer belied up to the bar. I figured I'd get a Guinness and sit down at a table in the back. There were a few chaps having a dram or a pint. I started up a conversation while waiting for my pour, so I stayed at the bar.

The folks I talked to were very nice. I can't really recall all we talked about. The hurricane. Sports. Our histories. Where we were from. George, with a beer and a shot at his elbow, asked me about my stay, how I liked Port Ellen, where was I from, etc. Another man asked me about Trump. I rolled my eyes as the conversation rolled into politics for a wee bit. No fights, at least. We talked about world events and local niceties. We decided that most people are fairly decent and would spring for a daily bread and a tankard if given a chance, politicians be damned.

George told me about his time in the navy, as is the want of old men in a pub everywhere. How he would go into foreign towns and pubs and find the people to be descent souls. Someone else razzed me for being a foreigner, as is the want of all men in a pub everywhere. I smiled and agreed. Yup. I'm a yank, which is the right response from a foreign man in a pub everywhere. We got along famously, or at least locally which is what a pub is for.

I mentioned my motor scooter accident and how lucky I am to be here and how it has changed my priorities and I realized something. I'm a dead man. Three years dead to be exact. I had never thought of it that way before. My heart was weighed. And found… Well, I slipped a lead feather onto the scale to jinx the system. Now I am back. I'm living on sacred time. I saw the abyss. The garden is better.

As 14:32 approached I finished my pint, thanked my new friends, and said I had to catch my bus. Otherwise, I'd be sleeping on the beach. Several said to come back if that happened. They'd take care of me. They were sincere, as is the want of good people everywhere.

I got my bus about ten minutes later. I'm on the ferry now. A couple of dolphins just breached the water out the starboard side.

This is peace. This is life.

Thursday the 19th

The bus to Balloch was uneventful. The hotel was all paid up, so I didn't have to Shetland pony up any boarding fee. The next day I got my bearings and headed to the loch. There was a one hour cruise that looked interesting. They showed us some of the mansions of the aristocracy; the landed gentry who went broke about a hundred years ago and had to watch their Downton Abbeys turned into hostels, hospitals, and private clubs. Robert the Bruce had a hunting lodge here and owned much of the land. Today he'd be Robert the Realtor.

I learned what makes the highlands high. In the middle of Loch Lomond is a string of islands. These islands mark a ridge where two large islands collided about five hundred million years ago. What's above is the Highlands of Scotland. Geology. It's where we live.

There was an epic battle in a glen nearby between competing clans MacGreggor and Colquhoun. One committed an atrocity against the other and vice versa. Though the MacGreggors were outnumbered, they managed to outflank their enemy, taking a page from Alexander the Great. The battle became a slaughter. But the Colquhouns got their revenge. By whining, er, petitioning the court about this and several other supposed/actual atrocities attributed to the MacGreggors which were much worse than the supposed/actual atrocities committed by everybody else, they got the MacGreggor name proscribed by James VI. It's great what spin can do. They had fake news back then, too.

On the cruise I also met some interesting people. Polina, a Russian tour guide from the Baltics border near St. Petersburg. with her group of Russian tourists. There was a group from New York, too. We compared notes, made suggestions, took each other’s' pictures, and told Polina to be sure to visit the US. We don't bite.

After the cruise I walked around the loch. There is a nice park here with Balloch Castle in it. I stopped for a coffee and a bite and watched the water. A few crows and seagulls languished around. Some fool decided to tear off pieces of his hot dog bun and toss it to the birds. Soon there were about forty of them murdering about, along with a few swans and a cousin of Nessie. Just then my sausage roll was ready. All those beady, birdy eyes turned to me. Eep.

With a few hours left before my bus, the 18:31 to Glasgow, I had fish and chips at a restaurant. Not too many places were open. Around 18:00 I headed toward the bus stop. By this time it had started drizzling and I had close to a mile to hike, maybe a wee bit less. I got there and found no sheltered bus stop. Just an unsheltered bus sign. Checking my bus to make sure. 18:31. OK.

18:31 came. 18:31 went. Several other military times came and went. Alright, what now? I had gone through this already. Single, double, triple, quadruple checked and everything. This time I lit up my handy cell phone flashlight app to quintuple check the schedule. Bus to Glasgow. Saturday and Sunday, 18:31. OK. Monday thru Friday, 18:31. OK. I knew I had it right this time!-wait. There's a sinister lower case 'a' next to the 18:31 entry! That's never good. My eyes drew in horror to the key. "a, Fridays only." Of course it is! Should I expect anything less?

The next bus is at 20:31. Sure. Like I'm supposed to fall for that one. And what's its problem? It only runs on Whitsuntide Hallowe'en Saturdays or something? It assured me that it was legit. Sure. Legit this.

On my way back to Balloch I contemplated buying a personal jet. And while I was at it, I noticed something I had seen yesterday but did not heed. From the bus station toward Balloch is a paved sidewalk. About twenty yards up it turns off into the trees. There are no signs. I didn't know where it went and hadn't wanted to get very lost, so I stayed on the road, since I knew where that went and exactly how lost I would get.

Very quickly I was walking in the grass by the roadway, the sidewalk having given out. I knew this was suspicious, but still didn't want to leave a road I knew for one not even marked. Same thing today when I retraced my step to the bus stop. There were no signs saying where the path went, after all. Nothing like, This way to Balloch. This way to certain death. This way to Heisenburg death. I was soaked, feet squishy from loch water, and had waited for a nonexistent bus while leaning against a bus schedule that mocked me. Why not walk down the unlabeled, spooky road in a dark Scottish town?

Well, it was lighted, actually. And much sooner than by my original route I was standing within site of the Queen of the Loch hotel. Funny how life opens itself up to you only after you've made a fool of yourself. I should be used to it by now. Oh well. I was just going to grab a pint in a pub and turn in tonight once I got to the hotel in Glasgow, anyway. And they have pints here, too! So no loss, no bother. Cheers.

I'll leave at 20:31 to arrive at Glasgow Buchanan bus terminal around 21:13. It's about 20 minutes’ walk to my hotel, that is provided my feet are scheduled to walk today.

And for the record. No. I wouldn't take a cab. Just because.

Friday the 20th

Today I did my first, look right first, before crossing the street. I may be going native. Buy the way, who do I hafta declare clan warfare on to get nae but a wee bit o' service in this haggis hut, anyway? Ach, or some such unpronounceable Scottish grunt. I did forget and put my wallet in the back pocket once. Maybe I should sew up my pickpocketting pocket just to be sure. Or I'll get an empty, cheap wallet overlain with the words, Bite me, and keep it in my back pocket all the time. Maybe I'll put a Watchtower in it.

The youth (sic) hostel I'm staying at is an old church. Don't worry. They deconsecrated it before I got there to desecrate it. First things first. It's cozy and my room is pretty full. I do have a lower bunk, though.

I'm not too far from the old Glasgow town. I'm currently outside an exhibit of heavenly beings near Glasgow Cathedral, waiting for it to open. It's in St. Mungo's Museum of Religious Life and Art. Yes. St. Mungo, patron saint of Glasgow. I'm sure there's an entryway to the Ministry of Magic here somewhere. By the way, at the haunted cemetery in Edinburgh there were several inspirations for JK. There was a Neville Longbottom, a McGonagall, and a Thomas Riddle buried there.

St. Mungo's is quite interesting. I'm in a gallery of religious images. Instead of segregating them by origin in the traditional museum style, they have many commingled. Ganesha. A Bodhisattva dedicated to saving all souls. An urn depicting Theseus and the Minotaur. Stained glass windows of Old and New Testament characters. Australian, Nigerian, and Egyptian images. Virgin and child. A modern mural from a Scottish fishing village. I like the juxtapositions of diverse cultures and their shared vision. It brings everything together.

The next room was on religious life. It covered the stages of life from Birth, Youth, Coming of Age, Sex and Marriage, Health; Hope; and Happiness, Religion as a Profession, Divine Rule, Spreading the Word, Persecution, War and Peace, and Death and the Afterlife. Again, showing examples from Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Sikh, China, Hindu, Zaire, Massai in Kenya, Bengal, Totem Poles, New Caledonia, Egypt. You can see how each group celebrates these unique, and sometimes horrifying, human experiences.

Glasgow Cathedral is immense. And it reminds me of St. John's Episcopal Cathedral in Manhattan. Both cathedrals give the impression of weight. The columns are massive. The arches bear down, arch upon arch upon floor upon bedrock. St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue looks light by comparison, its columns delicate, frail even. It could lift up and float away. This building looks massive, rooted, a part of the ground. Whereas St. Pat's appears to be striving for heaven, this one clings to the things of this world. The two opposite poles of spirituality.

I made my way to the river Clyde. I was looking for an old city like they have in Edinburgh. I found the general area, but not much antiquity. The city of Glasgow has been knocked down and built up several times.

There's a park by the river. With memorials to Nelson and James Watt and football fields and green grass. There is a glassed in conservatory that had been part of the 1880 exposition. It's called the Peoples' Palace and contains tropical plants and a museum upstairs.

The museum covers several aspects of Glasgow life. There's a section to World Wars 1 and 2. There's a section devoted to living conditions. Several experiments in housing were conducted in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The tenement house was invented in the 1800's, which would later be brought to New York. Living conditions were never good. Of course, neither were social conditions. There was a temperance movement in the early 1800's. The curse of the working class and all that. More etymology! One display claimed that, "To take a refreshment was respectable. To take a good drink was not. To take a good bucket was beyond the pail."

I'm learning all sorts of things this trip.

I'm sitting in front of St. Mungo's Cathedral, trying not to laugh. Well, maybe Mungo wouldn't mind that much. After all. Mungo was his nick name. It means, Good friend.

Saturday the 21st

The bus from Buchanan Bus station to Glasgow Airport costs £7.50. A few days ago the bus from Edinburgh to Tarbert, with one transfer, cost £24.00. A thirty minute ride vs a six hour ride. What a racket.

At Glasgow airport gate 23, waiting for the Dublin shuttle. It's late. I don't have much time in Dublin, so I hope it gets there soon. It's 25 minutes to departure and the plane is not here yet. At least I managed to pick up a bottle of Laphroaig Four Oaks scotch in Duty free. Might as well burn up some pounds while I'm here. I don't think I'll be able to get any Jameson in Dublin. There's a limit on how much of anything you are bring into the country. Either one or two liters.

Delayed. Till 12:10. My flight to Bradley leaves at 14:40. Two and a half hour later. The flight's about 45 minutes, so I should make it. Just watch it, Seamus.

Gate change! Red rover, red rover, go to Gate 24. Not only that but there are humans there. They said my connection would be no problem. We'll see...

My boarding pass for the flight to Hartford said the gate closes at 12:55 but the flight leaves at 14:40. An hour and forty five minutes? That seemed unusual. But then I realized that I had to go through customs and America security. Declarations, the shoe shine scanner, no porno scanner, though. I went through its less voyeuristic cousin in Glasgow. They also let my scotch through, so I was still in the security zone, whatever that is.

An uneventful six hours later and I'm in Hartford. I explained my dilemma to the lady at the valet parking, showed her my itinerary, and she wrung up the price for two weeks and a day. Just about one hundred greenbacks. All in all I've got one hundred dollars, one hundred fifty euro, and twenty pounds left over. Now I have to get a replacement drivers license.

But it's good to be back home... Nice... Familiar... Peaceful... Plain... Boring... (...)

Where should I go next?

Addendum

I got a temporary driver’s license at DMV the following week. They will send me a permanent one in the mail. My credit cards came, so now I have to make sure to update them everywhere. I had called at&t since my bill had not been paid. I needed them to give me an extension, which they do.

I’m pretty sure I left Seamus in Dublin. We’ll see…

 Addendum-More

I send Kristin a check for some amount to pay for the cash advances and hotel reservations she spotted me. Before I put the check in the envelope, Seamus asked to place in a note of his own.