Sayonara

Okay, it's time for sayonara. Go on, Yankee, break my heart...

Now that my liver and I are on speaking terms again, it's probably safe to tell the tale of the end times:

We rumbled down to Galway from Westport, stopping for a mid-day pint in Clifden. Galway presented the most significant rain of the trip, and made our short walk from our guest house to the tourist center of the town both wet and cold. We barely made it to the Quays, which was an old church that tried to fool us by hanging a toilet seat from the cathedral ceilings and apothecary bottles behind the bar. A waitress handed me a paper napkin with which to towel off, and we warmed ourselves with pints and oysters that we forgot to pay for. (Al took us back the next day to pay for them and apologize for the dine n' dash. Who knew, til then, that Al had scrupples. I was a little crestfallen, actually.)

We drank more and read the papers in Tir Non Nog, around the corner, where Mike and I enjoyed giant bottles of Bulmer's cider. They had a huge aquarium behind the bar, filled with fish you'd swear were actual living, swimming things. Should you happen upon the Tir Non Nog, be sure to ask the bartender if the fish are real.

Later that night, we walked around in the rain and my liver rebelled, conspiring with my slight cold to take me out of the evening's final pint.

Day 8's Round Round-Up:

• 1 at Mannion's Bar, Clifden
• 1 at the Quays, Galway
• 1 at Tir Non Nog
• 1 at Busker Brown's
• 1 at Murphy's
• 1 at Maxwell McNamara's
• 1 at Fox's Bar
• 2/3 at P.J. Flannery's, across from our guest host, while yr faithful correspondent lay his weary head as those other fools imbibed another.

The next day we did some shopping -- the first significant such in 9 days -- and then drove to the Cliffs of Moher. On the way there, we had great smoked fish and good Guinness at the Irish Arms Hotel in Lisdonvarna, then stopped at the nearby smokehouse to buy more fish. (Should you need smoked salmon, readers, seek out the one called Schnarsky: he bought the bushel.)

The Cliffs of Moher are some big ol' cliffs, which must have belonged at one point to Moher, or perhaps were discovered by him (or her). Probably there was information that would nail this down in the tourist center, but a bus of small wrinkly people had just let out, so we just walked up the cliff. Mike was very speedy, so I never quite got the right angle on him to heave him into the sea.

Another pint and the rerun of the Grand National race -- everyone was betting on it -- at a bar in Gort whose name is as lost to me as the name of the winning nag. The Grand National is a kind of steeplehorse race -- of the 40 horses and jockeys that start the race, only 9 finished. Lost of slow motion footage of horses and riders falling on their heads.

We spent the evening rambling 'round Galway, but the bars filled up with kids so we headed back to P.J. Flannery's, where we spent our last Euros on Fat Frogs. Nice craic, there at Flannery's, though.

Round Round-Up, Day 9:

• 1 at the Irish Arms Hotel in Lisdonvarna. Al has the t-shirt.
• 1 at unknown bar in Gort
• 1 at the Bunch of Grapes, which wins the day for best pub name and for hospitality
• 1 at Richardson's
• 1 at Fibber Magee's -- first frog of the night, surrounded by wee Irish lasses sporting their pelmets.
• 1 at M.T. Pockets, which loses the day for best pub name but gains points for their deaf patron's display of Irish Sign Language, which I'd read about in the paper the day before.
• 3 at P.J. Flannery's

Round Round-Up, Day 10:

• 2 bitter and sad excuses for Irish stout/ale at the airport bar, on the other side of duty free.

Now, then: when shall we go a-roving again?

This was our happy ever-after, so motherf*cker kiss the ground.

The Ghost of a Smile

The official song of the 2006 Uisge Baugh Debauch:

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

"The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth"

Once - the dogs have quit their barking,
"Son," my neighbor said to me,
"Know the emptiness of talking blue
The same old sheep."
Run - I'll do no more of this walking
Haunted by a past I just can't see anymore anymore.

But let me tell you,
I have never planned to let go of the hand
That has been clinging by its thick country skin
To my yellow country teeth.

Far - Far away from West Virginia,
I will try on New York City
Explaining that the sky holds the wind,
The sun rushes in and a child with a shotgun
Can shoot down honeybees that sting.
(but this boy could use a little sting!)

Who will get me to a party?
Who do I have yet to meet?
You, you look a bit like coffee
And you taste a bit like tea.

How can I keep me from moving?
Now I need a change of scenery.
Just listen to me:
I won't pretend to understand the movement of the wind
Or the waves out in the ocean or how
Like the hours
I change softly
slowly
plainly
blindly

USA

Well, that was fun.

We are home and safe and jetlagged. I mean to fill in the details of our final days in Galway at some point, and I'd like to return to some previous posts for small edits and corrections and prettification, but I'm a wee bit tired for it now. Instead:

Behan Explains the Difference Between Poetry and Prose
Our guide on the Literary Pub Crawl in Dublin told us that, on a trip to Canada, the playwrite and consumate drunk Brendan Behan was asked by a reporter to explain the difference between poetry and prose. It's not a very sophisticated question, and I can't find much internet sourcing to back it up, but here's Behan's answer as our Rowan Atkinson-esque tour guide told it, to the best of my memory and reconstructive efforts:

There once was a young man of Black Rock
Who worked for Castor and Pollox
He took a long walk
Along the Dollymont Dock
Where the water came up to his ... knees.
"Now that's prose," said Behan, "but if the tide had been in, it've been f*cking poetry!"

Update: Al found a more authoritative version here, though the author of the page is just as skeptical of the quote's authenticity as we are here:

"There was a young fellah named Rollocks
Who worked for Ferrier Pollocks.
As he walked on the Strand
With his girl by the hand
The tide came up to his knees.
Now that's prose. If the tide had been in, it would have been poetry."

Goodbye, Ireland -- you were swell. See you in the next life.

The Auld Triangle

Day seven took us from Donegal to Westport, which apparantly is Ireland's version of Ft. Lauderdale -- lots of elderly folks looking for an early buffet and a quaintly over-decorated inn. Still, the drive was nice -- very scenic with mountains, ocean, green, and spray-painted sheep.

Today, we've come to Galway, which seems much more promising.

Mike posted a picture in which the three of us are hoisting pints, two of which are green. The drinks actually belong to Al and Mike, but Mike -- in that way he has -- refused to be photographed with it. So I'm trying to smash the glass into his face feed Mike's drink to him, as he pretends he's drinking my Guinness. Those drink concoctions are the RAGE here in Ireland -- they are a combination of 3 alkapops (alcoholic sodas) and taste something like ungelled lime Jell-O. You can get one from any of your better Irish bartenders by requesting a "fat frog."

Wesport bronzed Lenin's head, much as Waterford bronzed Ghandi's. Once bronzed, Lenin's head swelled to a giant size -- you can never tell how a person will react to bronzing.

Round Round-Up

• 1 at unknown bar in Donegal -- your correspondent wasn't paying attention
• 1 at Lovelle's in Westport
• 1 at Matt Molloy's
• 1 at John J. O'Malley's
• 1 at a weird hotel for old Irish Kenny Rogers enthusiasts in Westport -- once again, not paying attention
• 3 at James O'Grady's Jade Garden Chinese Restuarant (I may have misread the sign on that one...)

We're on our way ack to the states in less than two days. If there's time to post about Galway tomorrow, I'll do so, but from the looks of the nightlife here, I'll make no guarantees.

Cheers, friends...

Sitting on Top of The World

Someone must come the the aid of Ireland's sheep! Throughout this country, a person or persons unknown has been tagging innocent sheep with graffiti. Now, I often find graffiti interesting and perhaps even artistic in urban settings, but it has no business on living creatures. Many of the sheep we see are marked with red or green paint, no doubt marking the animal as being the turf of "T-Bonz" or "MacCool." Shameful. Pity the poor rural farmer who will need to sandblast his livestock..

Day six took us up to the northern coast of Ireland, a vantage point from which you can see Scotland. Here, we toured the Giant's Causeway and, more to the point, the Bushmill's Distillery. Bushmill's is a nice contrast to the Old Jameson tour, as where Jameson's tour focused on the old ways of doing things, Bushmill's is a modern 24-hour factory, pumping out the aqua vitae as you tour. The smells were fantastic, particularly in the mash stage, when the steam emitted smells like warmed Grape Nuts cereal. I plan to start distilling Grape Nuts tout suite.

We stayed the night in Donegal town, where one pub we visited (Caffarti's) was attended by an 87-year-old barman, a third-generation owner-operator of the pub. (Al speculated that he was probably reticent to turn the place over to his 62-year-old son because "kids today think they know everything.")

Round Round-Up, Part Sex!

• 1 at the Bushmill's Distillery
• 1 at Dom's in Donegal Town
• 1 at the Scotsman
• 1 at S. Mac Caffarti's Tircohaill Bar
• 1 at Donelly O'Dowds, where we enthusiastically rooted for Ireland in a junior world cup game agains England until a fellow patron kindly pointed out to us that this was a rebroadcast
• 2 at the Olde Castle Bar

Frequent visitors to this site may notice that productivity was low on Day 6. We can blame this in part on the concentration and strength of our imbibing the night before in Belfast, but as I've developed a very minor throat-tickle, I worry that I may not be able to match the quotas established in our first few days. We hope to run our enginges at a moderate speed on Day 7 so that we will have full power in the boilers for our Friday and Saturday in Galway.

Mike'll have your pictures, then.

If I Should Fall from Grace With God

Day 5 brought us into Northern Ireland, leaving from Dublin and driving north to Belfast. We traveled through Drogheda, a town savaged by British forces in 1649 when the town raised up a rebellion against Oliver Cromwell. Sir Arthur Ashton, the leader of that rebellion, was, according to my guidebook, "bludgeoned to death with his own leg." Now, I maintain that the ankle bone by itself would make a better bludgeoning tool than the entire leg, but Mike makes a case for using the knee joint as a kind of nunchuku. Al would prefer the humurus bone, but then he's a scuker for irony. Anyway, we're all anxious to try these techniques on Joel when we return home.

We then stopped in Lisburn, because the three of us have always been fascinated with Lisbians. We did some much needed laundry there, and I nearly ran off with some curry chips.

Befast was quite lively for a Tuesday night, and we met many characters in Fibber McGee's tavern, including a guy called Des who tried to interest us in a giantic block of hash. We had to explain that we were only here for the booze. I also had the Mike-like experience of making fun of Riverdance to a fellow from Northern England who later told me he worked stage crew. For Riverdance. There's an interesting game you can play in Belfast where you try to sort out the parts of the pub that are original and the parts that were put in to replace the parts that had been bombed. Still, despite what we heard from many in the Republic, the Befasturians were quite friendly and welcoming.

Despite our late start and a low round count, Belfast put us deeper into our cups than any night previous.

Round Round-Up, Part Fif:

• 1 at Eg Bar
• 1 at the Globe
• 1 at the Royal Crown Pub
• 1 at the Hotel Europa Bar, part of "the most bombed hotel in Belfast," though everyone we saw there seemed quite sober indeed
• 4 at Robinson's/Fibber McGee's -- Fibber's was so crowded, we bought our pints at Robinson's and brought them into the back door of Fibber's.

The Old Main Drag

We spent Day 4 in Dublin, utilizing a double decker bus tour to take us to the Guinness storehouse. There was much singing of Smiths: If a double decker bus crashes into us...

The Guinness plant manufactures an interesting liquid that invigorates and strengthens one's constitution, somewhat like an energy drink. We sample varieties of this concoction at every opportunity.

We finished the day with a Traditional Irish Music pub crawl, which was quite a bit of fun. We've since learned that only the native Irish get to call it "fiddely-ay-di-ay" music. A six foot tall bartendress with clear Viking roots nearly threw Mike across the bar for saying so.

The night before, we'd discovered Guinness 39, which was one of the boutique versions of Guinness that the brewery releases every six months. It was much smoother and creamier than standard Guinness. Everything I loved about Guinness, without the bitterness you'll sometimes find in the bottles or less caring pubs in Americay.

Round Round-Up, Part Feur:

• 1 at the Gravity Bar, eight stories above the streets of Dublin atop the Guinness Storehouse
• 1 at the Brewery Bar, two stories down from there. Here, Al and I sampled Guinness Foriegn Extra Stout which is Bizzaro Guiness 39 -- vile, bitter, and heavy on the alcohol content.
• 2 at O'Neill's, where we'd stopped on the Literary tour the night before. I say 2, but a barrister appropriated one of mine, while his friend clipped my chips.
• 1 at Oliver St. John Gogarty's, where the pub crawl began
• 1 at the Ha'penny Bridge Inn
• 2 at Isolde's Tower
• 1 at the Porter House Brew Pub
• 3 more back at Gogarty's.

For the sake of my parents and in-laws, I should note that the above occured over 14 hours, and none of us were in sorry shape at the end of the night.

The two fellows at O'Neill's were quite good company, even if their besottedness depended a little on our charity. We're due to meet them back at O'Neill's at 2pm on the Saturday after the Brewers win the World Series, whenever that may be.

Big City

Day three took us from Waterford (pictured on the fried map at left) to Dublin, where the rivers run brown with Guinness. Or at least that's what we're telling Mike.

Sunday presented challenges in the realm of the gastrointestinal. Since our diet has largely consisted of stout beer, pork fat, and eggs, it was quite a puzzle to figure out what was causing such distress. Ultimately, we guessed that it was the white toast that accompanied the full Irish breakfast that had made us to gassy and loose.

We took the Dublin Literary Pub Crawl last night, ending after many laughs and many pints at Davy Byrne's bar, which features prominently in Joyce's Ulysses, which I take to be some kind of book. We had a nice long chat with a mixed group of US expats, Dutch, Hungarians, and Australians, and Al again led us Moses-like to a place we shouldn't have gone -- an after-hours niteclub out at the Dublin races. It took us two drinks to realize that we were older than our fellow patrons by a good 18 years...

Round Round-Up, Part Threux:

• 1 at Lil Doyle's, along the N11 on the way to Dublin
• 1 at the Tara Towers hotel, where we're staying in the SE part of Dublin
• 3 at the Duke, waiting for the Literary Crawl to begin
• 1 at O'Neill's, across from Trinity College
• 1 at The Stand
• 4 at Davy Byrne's (no relation, Joel)
• 2 at Club 92

Streams of Whiskey

Day two took us to Middleton and the Old Jameson Distillery, then onto Waterford.

At left, you see one of the gigantic copper kettles that were once used to make whiskey. Or it's the teapot of a the world's most enormous leprechan. Depends who you're asking.

At the Distillery, we learned how whiskey was traditionally made, as well as the negative effects of American prohobition on the Irish economy. Mike took some great pictures, including the sign advertising the particular tool you see here.

After the tour, Al volunteered to taste test various whiskeys, which allowed the Distillery to recognize Al as a certified bungflogger.

I'm happy to report that Mike's driving-on-the-left accuracy has risen to 96.4%, which means he's as pure as Ivory soap.

Round Round-Up, Part Deux:

• 1 at the Old Jameson Distillery, though Al had more.
• 1 at the American Bar in Waterford
• 3 at McLoughlin's Bar, Waterford, while watching Muenster beat Perpignon in rugby, which is like American football only more vicious and homoerotic
• 1 at Plan B, where we had "dinner" in Waterford
• 7 at T & H Doolan's, Waterford, while listening to what at least two of us felt was "traditional Irish music."

In Waterford, we strongly considered going to a museum between pints, but we worried that we might learn something, and that might cause us to reconsider our priorities. It all seemed like a lot of work, and better left alone.

Ghandi in Ireland: A little-known history
We learned on Saturday that Mahattma Ghandi, whose head was the size of a raspberry scone, once visited Waterford. While there, he was involved in a bar fight with Dali Lama IV over which of the two luminaries had the smarter tunic. Ghandi, we learned, had hands the size of canned hams, and delivered mortal blows to the Lama's noggin and breadbasket. While Lama IV lay both at his feet and at death's door, the Amish and Quaker townspeople of Waterford shackled Ghandi's mammoth hands to a brick wall and bronzed Ghandi's tiny little head. A plaque in T. H. Doolan's pub in Waterford commemorates the occurance.

Late last night, Al led us Moses-style to a place that puts garlic mayonaise and cheese atop their French fries. Recovery continues apace.

Navigator

Day two of the trip, but day eight for Mike who, as in the movie Memento, is experiencing the trip backwards.

<Left> First round in Chicago. We had drinks with limes in them, as we were all worried about getting scurvy on the trip over the ocean.

I should have said yesterday that we were in Cork. We're now writing -- 9am local time -- from Middleton, while we wait for the Old Jameson Distillery to open.

The keyboards here are confusing -- the @ is where the " should be and they have weird £s as in £ebanon or fa£afu£. But things are getting €asier as I g€t us€d to it.

Had a full night's sleep last night, with full Irish breakfast afterwards. Stay clear of Schnarsky's backside.

<Left> Mike, just after the anaconda popped out of the overhead bin but before Samuel L. Jackson restored order to the plane.








<Left> The sun never sets on the Ogden Empire. We enjoyed this while eating a plate of egg mayonaise at the Wine Vault.






Round Round-Up, Part Deux:

4 at the Wine Vault in Cork.

By the way, the University of Lawsonomy sign is in need of repairs. Please have that taken care of before we return, okay?