RED SHOE GALLERY Episode 6 - The Truth about Ireland

Unfortunately, we didn't get a whole lot of photos in Ireland (Galway and Kilkenny), as we were still in the throes of our broken camera dilemma. Because of the lack of interesting architectural and cultural photographs, however, I thought I'd provide you with a glimpse into what the Red Shoes *really* spent their time doing in Ireland.

You may notice the "10 pack" of cigs in the photos. Yah... they actually sell 1/2 packs of cigarettes there. And there's enough 2nd hand smoke in every pub to choke a horse. So the answer to your question is "hell yes! we smoked our brains out in Europe." We're over it now.

As they say... "when in Rome..."

RED SHOE GALLERY Episode 5: Prison Biatches

The Red Shoes travel west to Ireland. The photos here of of the infamous Kilmainham Gaol (Gaelic for "Jail") in Dublin, Ireland. The jail operated from 1792 to 1924 and for just one afternoon in March of 2006 when the Red Shoes were so wrongly incarcerated here. The Gaol held men, women AND children, many of whom were famous Nationalist of the Irish Republic. The leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were all executed here and memorials were erected in the exact spots of their deaths (mostly via firing squad). I've got to admit that it gave me a pretty freaky, eery feeling to be standing literally 2 feet from the spot where men and women were executed in such a ghastly manner. In addition to the political revolutionaries, they hosted a LARGE number of petty thieves, because during much of the Gaol's operating days, Ireland was in a huge depression, a.k.a "The Great Potato Famine" and the accounts of food theft (turnips, potatoes, loaves of bread) were astronomical. The conditions of the jail at the time were horrendous due to over population. There was hardly a deterrent to food thievery at the time because the people of Ireland were so starving and desperate for food that if they got caught and landed in jail for 1-3 weeks, (an average length for stealing a turnip or a loaf of bread), at least they were guaranteed 3 square meals a day. I don't recall who it was but some high up political hot shot who supposedly dedicated his life to improving the jail's physical environment commented that when he went to assess the jail's conditions, could not make his way through half of the facility because he was quite literally "wallowing knee deep in urine and feces". No joke. Some interesting notes about the photos. I actually didn't include a picture of the original quarters of this jail because it was dark and our crappy disposable camera didn't have the flash to handle it, so the photos you see are actually of the new "Victorian Wing" which was significantly more modern in comparison. You may recognize the photo of the full view room because apparently this wing has been used numerous times by Hollywood in movies such as "In The Name of the Father" and in music videos by Sinead O'Connor among others.

This was definitely one of the highlights of our touristy endeavors. Drake and I are both kinda oddly intrigued with prison stuff (movies, songs, documentaries, stories and especially those adorable outfits they wear!), but of course the history of it was pretty facinating as well.

Also - don't forget that you can double click on all of these pictures (throughout the blog) to get ot full size.

Henry the VIII's Privates

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be crude, but really, this entry is really only about one thing: Henry the VIII''s privates. So... we're in the Tower of London, which had all sorts of cool historical whats-see-do's-its and what not, but what really struck us was Henry the VIII's armor. I mean, I wasn't around in that time to psychoanylyze and pass great critical judgement on him (like I do to folks now) but my first impression, upon seeing this "historic" site was... " YOU'VE GOT TO BE (*%#$_%#*@) KIDDING ME! HA HA HA!" Okay, so the photo truely does not do it justice but I kid you not, this guys umm... hmm... ball armor? was the size of a gymnasium. I wanted to scream, "Hey Henry - ego problem, much???" but you know... the guy was like 100+ years dead so I figured he couldn't hear me, so instead I just made some judgements in my head that I will likely apply to all men for the next oh 5-10 years or so and eventually may go away... but probably not. Let me put this into perspective for you, since the photos really don't do it justice. We have a man in steel plated armor. Great. Fantasic. Good for you. Then we have the armor that protects his what-see-calls-its, which you know... should be like... normal size? NOO!!! I kid you not, this thing stuck out like... a good two feet, or three. Looking at it from a profile view was the funniest thing I've seen in years. And all we could think was... "ah man, Henry, if you're that insecure (cuz you KNOW he was playing a huge part in constructing his own armor at the time), you need not be KING!". So, the Tower of London was cool. We got to see Henry the VIII's balls magnified to the n'th degree. We should travel more often.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

For those fello AB FAB fans, you will understand why Harrods was an absolute MUST see. Seriously, I never had even the most remote interest in London until I became freakishly obsessed with the BBC Masterpeice, "Absolutely Fabulous". After that, it was Harvey Nicks and Harrods, "all the way, babes." And of course, those who know Drake even in the slightest, know that she has three serious passions in life: 1) puppies, 2) beef, and 3) shopping. So shopping at the 5 story high super mall (for lack of a better word) was quite possibly a dream come true for her. This establishment was opened in 1849 and it has since become one of the many grand sites in London (and other locations). It literrally takes up an entire block, and is swimming in over priced, trendy-urban-sucker fare. My personal highlight was not the strip mall of restaurants avaiable for our dining and drinking pleasure, but the sincerely surreal toy store on the 5th level that happened to be the lucky retailer of this kid's toy Hummer vehicle, at the humble price of 22,000 pounds, which roughly equates to $38,645.00 And I have the photo to prove it. This was a TOY CAR, ladies and gentleman!!! Granted, it did run... sorta, but it was meant for children between the ages of 6 and 12 to run around the street at a whoppin' 10 miles an hour. I could have and should have puked in my shoes when I saw this, but you know... didn't want to screw up the RED SHOES for future photo opps and all.

So we browsed through Harrods; don't think we actually bought anything, which is a small miracle in and of itself, but we did purchase a cool cashmere scarf a few days later for 16 pounds or something that the owner told us was selling currently for 65 pounds in Harrods. :) Drakey is a girl that can shop her arse off... but she's always been a great bargin shopper!!!

The Tower Bridge

The following photos are of the Tower Bridge in London. The Tower Bridge is said to be the most famous example of a bascule (swing bridge) style bridge in the world. They started working on this in 1886 and it was not completed until 1894. The photos pretty much say the rest. The first is obviously a photo of the bridge from across the River Thames and the other two are close ups while crossing the Bridge on the hop on-hop off bus. I was amazed at how intricate it was.

Trafalgar Square

Ahh... Trafalgar Square; an ideal, Mary Poppins approved, place to feed the birds. Trafalgar is one of Britain's most famous squares, and host to the famous Admiral Nelson's Column and four enourmous lions guarding it. It also hosts the equestrian statues of Charles I, and George IV, in additon to countless other war heros and the like. We unfortunately only had time to just drive by, but it was a pretty spectacular site.

High in the Sky

The top photo is of the London Eye. From the top of the Eye, you can see up to 25 miles in each direction with views over some of the world's most famous sights, including St Paul's Cathedral, the Palace of Westminster and Windsor Castle. The Eye is 135 meters or 443 feet high!!! I have an aversion to both heights, and of things that go round and round so I begged Drake to allow us to skip this tourist stop, to which she reluctantly agreed, but it sure was cool to photograph!!!

The other is a photo shot from across the River Thames. You can make out part of Big Ben in this shot. Kimmie was over earlier today and told us a story of her own tourist blunder when she was in London a few years back. She emerged from the Tube stop and the first thing she saw was Big Ben. Not realizing immediately what it was, she exclaimed to herself, "WOW! A GIANT CLOCK!!!". It wasn't until she had travelled the entire city and returned to the Tube stop that she realized what it was. :)

Do you have an interesting dumb tourist story? Please share!!

Therapy...

This blog entry is entitled "therapy". 'Nuff said about that.

These are both members of the British Royal Army, one guarding the Queen of England at Buckingham Palace (horse) and the other a guard resident at the Tower of London. We seemed to be the only people respectful enough to take photos from a distance of these guys, as we witnessed a number of large crowds of wacky tourists standing 2 feet from them, cameras cocked and loaded, pointing at them with their fingers, doing gang symbols, making funny faces and laughing hysterically while the poor soldiers were unable move, much less react. They had to remain completely stoic and statue like. I can only imagine what goes through their heads all day as they repeatedly minute by minute get treated and exploited as if they were not living, breathing human beings.

A freakishly knowledgeable person recently told me that the new pop artist, James Blunt, was a former member of the British Royal army. Lucky for him, he's made enough cash to pay for his future lifetime of therapy.

Don't forget to double click on all the photos to enlarge to actual size.

When in London...

When in London... do as the Muslim do???
Well... hell yes, when it's colder than a witches tit outside. This is a photo of me riding on the top floor of the double decker "hop on hop off" bus in London on Day 1 of our adventure. Neither Drake and I had slept more than 3 hours in the past 48 hours, our body temperatures had dropped to sub zero, and my survival instincts were on full red alert. The first two days we were in London it was between -4 and -6 degrees Celcius, which I think equates to about 26-28 degrees F. In addition to the cold, it started raining cocktail size ice cubes in the afternoon. I had left my ice pick under the bed again, (sigh) so it became fairly treacherous to make our way through the city, what with the ice cube build up and all. We had a marvelous time regardless, being forced into pubs every few minutes for shelter and Irish coffees.

Westminster Abbey

The following photos are of Westminster Abbey in London. This is considered to be an architectural masterpiece of the 13th to 16th centuries, and I certainly would not disagree. The larger photo is a shot of the front entrance to the abbey. You should be able to double click on it and view it in actual size. It is also taken with our *real* camera so you'll notice a drastic difference in quality to the shots previous posted and many of those to come. All of the photos from London were with the original camera and luckily all salvaged. The smaller shots are of the nave in the front of the building. I would recommend going back to the large photo once you've looked at the other three and you can make out where these are located exactly on the building, which gives you a great perspective. The detail is astounding. We were not permitted to take photos inside the abbey, but you can probably imagine how magnificent it was just based on the outside architecture alone. Over three thousand people are either buried or memorialised in Westminster Abbey, including medieval Kings and Queens and English writers and poets like Chaucer, the Bronte sisters, Tennyson, Lewis Carroll, Dylan Thomas, and oh so many more. I nearly had tears in my eyes while exploring the "poets corner" as they call it. Drake, of course, was buzzing from seeing the tombs of Elizabeth I, Mary Tudor (a.k.a. Bloody Mary). We think that the oldest tomb we saw there dated back to approx. 104 AD. I will attempt to get the photos posted more quickly over the next few evenings, now that I can actually stay awake past 7 or 8pm. Hope you enjoy!

RED SHOE GALLERY Episode 4: Runnin' from Molly

In Dublin's fair city, where girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone. As she pushed her wheelbarrow, through streets broad and narrow crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!

Chorus: Alive, alive oh! alive, alive oh!Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!

Now she was a fishmonger, and sure twas no wonder, for so were her mother and father before. And they each wheeled their barrow, through streets broad and narrow, crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!

Chorus: Alive, alive oh! alive, alive oh!Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!

She died of a fever, and no one could save her, and that was the end of sweet Molly Malone. Now her ghost wheels her barrow, through streets broad and narrow, crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!

Chorus: Alive, alive oh! alive, alive oh! Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh"!

Molly Malone is the most photographed woman in Dublin. It's no wonder, as she looks like a real hotty to me. :) The above photo is me and my red shoes racing Molly and her big wheelbarrow through the streets of Dublin. You see, the thing is, I'm a freakishly odd and slow runner with a curious propensity to propel my legs out and around my butt rather than just straight back (notice the heigth?) that my friends enjoy making vicious fun of. So, I did a few quick calculations in my head (the usual stuff involving physics, the wind, the rotation of the stars and some advanced algorithms) and came to the following conclusion: a chick in a dress who happens to be made of solid stone (very heavy) lugging a giant wheelbarrow? Slow runner or not, the odds are in my favor here. So I challenged her to a race and thus propelled myself through the streets of London singing "cockles and muscles, alive alive oh!" From the photo, it looks like I've got some momentum on her, but well... sadly, I actually lost. and then Drake hid from me.

More RED shoes and other various photos to come soon. It's 6:30pm and I think I'm ready to go to bed now.

RED SHOE GALLERY: Episode 3 - Shut up and Drrraaaaannkkk it!!!

That's right! "Just shut up and drrrraaannkk it" as most of you know is among one of my favorite things to say. And let me assure you that I'm a girl that practices what I preach.

We came upon this wall in Dublin, and I was immediately inspired. So we popped into the nearest pub for a pint, which fortunately for the Irish (and all those who visit there) was just next door.

If you notice, my red shoe is there in the right hand corner to lend it's artistry and inherent good looks to this lovely wall image thingie. My red shoes played a huge part in our being able to hit 64 pubs in 2 weeks as they got me the few short kilometers between pubs blister free, for the most part in a straight line, and in good time. But more importantly, they didn't try to steal my beer.

World Travellers afterall...

PUB COUNT: "The last mosquito that bit me had to check into the Betty Ford clinic" (Patsy Stone - ABFAB) and that about sums that up.

Yesterday morning, we arose at 7am London time, departed our B&B and headed for the tube, thus beginning our 19 hour journey home.

We set out on this European holiday with a few goals in mind: 1) to gain some valuable life experiences and culture, 2) to get a history lesson into nations sooooo much older and more steeped in history than our own country, and 3) to taste as many cask ales and whiskeys as humanly possible.
In short, our trip was everything we had anticipated it to be and then some. We're happy to be home, but sincerely had the best 2 weeks ever, and can't wait to do France and Italy on our next go around. And thank you to everybody who posted blog comments along the way. It was great to hear from everybody and defintely kept us from getting homesick.

I wanted to jot down a few lasting impressions and stats for ya.

DRINK: First and foremost - let's talk drink, shall we? 64 (YES - 64 pubs in 2 weeks), 46 unique ales and a handful of whiskeys and ciders later, we're going both into detox and on a diet!! Before you all start arranging interventions and sending emergency AA contact #'s to us, I should probably reveal (to be fair) that we had a few rules governing our pubbing conquests and believe it or not, there was actually only 1 or 2 times that we even achieved so much as a good buzz during our whole trip. Rule # 1 was that we limit ourselves to only 1 beverage per pub. Some pubs (on our super duper pub-an-hour days) consisted of a half pint beer only or sharing a whiskey on ice. Rule # 2 was that we never repeat a pub stop (this rule was broken twice, but for good reasons) and # 3 was that I would refuse to drink any traditional "BEER" or fizzy yellow artificially carbonated thing that we get here in America. It was exclusively cask conditioned (or "real ale" as the Brits call it) ale or in Ireland, nitro-cask ale.

I think its fair to say that we definitely got a great feel for Ireland and UK pub life. Many of the pubs we went into were over 200 years old, some still had remaining semblances of the previously popular (pub/grocer combo) complete with antique spice boxes as a backdrop to the top shelf of whiskeys. The one thing I noted that was consistent through all was that they all had these remarkable ceilings. No cancer-causing (oh - hell, can you name a single product that either doesn't cause or help prevent cancer these days?) asbestos, or putrid yellow smoke stained ceilings in these pubs - no sir! The UK (and Ireland) takes their ceilings very seriously.

IMPRESSIONS: Well, there were tons of lasting impressions but one thing I particularly wanted to point out was how incredibly impressed I was with London's underground system and the general organization and logical flow to everything that exists in the UK. Europeans just get it. Things are logical, not excessive or wasteful, and have a rhythm and flow to it. Truly, it made America seem like the land of borrowed ideas morphed into a state of senselessness. To all those who said that our visit to the UK would leave us with a renewed appreciation for what we've got here in the States - well, no disprespect intended, but at least where we're concerned, you've got it all wrong. Neither of us got that impression at all. If anything - it had the opposite effect.

Now for the London Underground, or "tube" as they call it. What were we thinking getting rid of the Monorail proposal? My god - the subway system there is seriously no less than a thriving subterranean metropolis with multiple layers of rail ways going in every possible direction. It is seriously the most effective approach to public transportation I've encountered. It wouldn't have shocked me in the least if I heard an announcement that said "all passengers travelling to the moon, Jupiter or Mars, the train is now leaving from platform 3." Cheers to the UK for getting that right too!

FOOD:

If Drake had a personal chef to prepare for her all the things she loved on a daily basis, we would definitely have to hire a Brit. The Irish and the Brits eat exactly like Drake does. Ample dosages of beef, potatoes and fried food. And just like Drake - miraculously, they don't get fat!!We had enormous breakfasts every morning complete with eggs, bacon (or rashers), sausage, toast, hashbrowns, fry bread and baked beans. These "full English or Irish or Scottish breakfasts" (they are all the same) also came with tomatoes and mushrooms but we had them "hold the veg - we're on holiday." And if that's not enough to get your metabolism kick-started, these are all accompanied with 3 or 4 mugs of sugar. Or tea, I guess. But mostly sugar and cream - with a splash of tea. Did I mention that we're going on a diet?

FAVORITES:

City/Country? So it came as a slight shock and disappointment but in all honesty, we would be liars if we said that Ireland was our favorite country. I don't know about the rest of the country, but Edinburgh, Scottland had it ALL OVER Ireland and England. The main deciding factor was not that the city is absolutely adorable and full gothic architecture everywhere you look, but the Scots are just amazingly friendly, jovial people. We had so many more pleasant encounters with the locals in Edinburgh than we did everywhere else. We loved Ireland and England, but Scotland won us over.

Pubs? Oh - now that was a tough call but there was a gorgous pub in London called the Garrick Arms where we sat and had whiskey sniffers by a roaring fire, warmed our toes, played some Gin Rummy, and declared it our favorite pub.

Ale? I'm going to have a separate blog entry in a couple days where I'll list every single pub we went to (w/ photos of all of them) and every single ale I tried complete with a rating system, but for now, I'll reveal that the highest ranking ale was by York Brewing company (a small brewery open only 9 years old) called the Yorkshire Terrier Bitter. It was the hoppiest beerI had, which immediately won me over, but overall a great smooth bitter w/ a good malt backbone.

Site? We liked them all (except for the Dungeons of London - oh god, what a complete waste of time and money), but Westminster Abbey was just truely awe-inspiring. Not only is it an incredibly gorgeous spetacle but to be walking amidst the tombs of some of the greatest historical figures, politicians, artists and writers in the world's history is an experience never to be forgotten and certainly not to be taken lightly. The significance of it all was not lost on us.

Tourist Blunder? The greatest tourist blunder made was involving a pub stop, of course. It wasn't a huge blunder but rather an Irish misnomer (and there were many). Drakey sidled up to the bar in Kilkenny, Ireland and said to the bartender in her most confident tone (after reading Dad's blog note about ordering half and halfs), "yah - I'll have an arf and arf." And yes - she really did say "aarrrfff and aaaarrrrfff". The guy seriously looked at her like she had just made a b-line from some pre-historic looney bin and into his bar. I was laughing so hard I nearly pissed my pants the minute the words came from her mouth, but the bartender dude just said... "sorry???" which means "excuse me" or in some cases, "what the f*ck?" in British. The pubs in southern Ireland actually don't carry Harps on tap, which we found a bit odd, but most bartenders had never heard of Snake Bites, Velvetines (drake got tons of weird expressions when she explained that she wanted a Guinness float on her Cider) and apparently in some cases, Black and Tans. This was not nearly as interesting or even blunder like, however, as an incident that one of the Scottish Churchill family members related to us about how he tried to get on a City bus in Las Vegas one time with a cigarette and the bus driver told him that he couldn't smoke on the bus and so he attempted to put his cigg out in the very American, new age looking glass box ash tray with the slit on the top next to the bus driver. "Umm... SIR... THAT'S WHERE THE MONEY GOES!! GET OFF MY BUS!" Now - that was funny!

SIGHTING?
Funniest thing we saw? Whiskey flavored condom vending machines in the women's bathrooms. Sorry, Brian, I was all out of pence and couldn't purchase you any of these fine souvenirs. 'Nuff said about that.

Soon to come? THE RED SHOE GALLERY! - we'll be taking our shoddy disposable cameras in today to have the photos transferred onto CD. The Pub and Ale Chronicles, and a letter to our President, Georgie W. Bush, asking him for a reimbursement of the money we lost due to the 1.67 exchange rate thanks to him and the astronomical debt he's created for this country.

Pub Crawls

We're in London now after a great time in York. It's my birthday and we've had a splendid day. We are staying in South Kensington this time around and have spent most of the day in the Picadilly Circus/Leicester Square area. We did a pub crawl this afternoon and just got out of "We Will Rock You," the musical based on the music of Queen. Yes, Kimmie, they sang Bohemian Rapsody and it was pretty cool. You all know that I'm not much of a musical girl but when in Rome....

Off to celebrate some more. Hope the third time at thirty continues to be this cool.

Haggis, Neeps and Tatties

PUB COUNT: 48

SHOUT OUTS: Thanks for the advice on St. Martin's Cathedral, CVH. We'll be there!

We are currently in York, England, but I wanted to finish up with our experiences in Scotland first. The 2nd night out was a riot. We made friends with a bloke called "Daniel" who we kindly referred to as "Super Brit". We also partied with a Scottish family, The Churchills. The Mother (or Grandmother - we really don't know) Scot was the highlight of our evening, as she sang Jim Morrison songs, told dirty jokes and then at the end of the evening leans over to us and says in this very intoxicated and thick Scottish accent - "we're going on a puuuub crawl! - Do you Americans know what a pub crawl is?" We felt like we were in an episode of ABFAB.

We truly loved Edinburgh. We finished up the Royal Mile on our second full day and saw Holyrood Palace. The Old Town is definitely our favorite although the Georgian New Town does have a bunch of great pubs. We must have walked at least 5-6 miles every day and if it weren't for the cultural experiences in the pubs, we'd be supermodels when we got home.

We're doing a bit of York today and then off to London for our last day (and to celebrate Drakey's birthday!!) tomorrow. Today we did the Jorvik Viking Museum and although it was cheesy and largely geared towards schoolchildren, it was pretty neat to be in the site of an archeological dig. We have also walked the Shambles and seen the Minster Cathedral. The set up of York has changed remarkably little since the medieval times and it is very cool to be walking around in the town with the small rambling streets.

We're growing a bit homesick (well - we really just miss the puppies) and look forward to our reunion with them in a few days.

I'll leave you with one last observation:

The Brits do pubs, the Irish do pubs, and the Scottish? Well... they do Pizza Huts.

Snow in the Highlands

PUB COUNT: 41

Greetings from Scotland!! I'm typing on the tiniest keyboard ever made. Or at least it seems that way. And come to think of it - everything here in the adorable city of Edinburgh is miniature, from the bathroom sinks to the girth of the stair case steps to the size of the mittens, gloves and hats. Fortunately, I was born of small-head stock, so I was able to purchase a very cool Scottish hat that Drakey (big-head stock) is insanely jealous of.

Beginning with a 4:20am wake up call and a 6am flight, we arrived here in Edinburgh bright and early this morning. We were too early to check into our B&B (though we tried) so we were sent to stroll around town for a couple of hours in search of a breakfast joint. We must have spanned a 5 block radius in every direction looking for someplace to get a bite and EVERYTHING was closed (even at this point - 8:45am). Verdict? The Scots sleep in LATE!!! Finally, we stumbled upon an adorable French restr. where we both had traditional French breakfasts, to the likes of which I won't even attempt to pronounce, or even describe. But it was delicious!

This afternoon we toured the Edinburgh castle complete with POW barracks which were disturbing, creepy and amazing all at once, and the crown jewels of Scotland. There was some other stuff in between, but I'm just capturing the highlights here. I guess I would have to say that the view from the Castle was perhaps the most splendid of all. You could look out onto the entire city of Edinburgh, past the sea/straight clear through to Norway, some 500 miles away. Amazing.

The architecture in "old town" Edinburgh is the most spectacular I've seen in my lifetime. Or at least to my taste. I told Drakey today that this was hands down the best shopping strip ever, with the backdrop of 15th-18th Century gothic architecture, 1/2 off and "clearance" sales in every shop and real cask conditioned ale to be had at every pub break on the block. If Seattle were like this - I'd be down with shopping every day!!!

Overall, it's been an amazing day. We had some meat pies for dinner and are currently killing time before the Ghost Walk through the hidden and buried city of ancient Edinburgh. And of course - more pubbing.

I LOVE SCOTLAND!!!! and Ireland and London... but I *really* love Scotland. Mom/Dad - interesting in moving???

Last note: it's FRICKIN' freezing here. It snowed an &£*&load yesterday and so all the streets, walkways, etc. are icy and snowy - which makes for a great photo, but a treacherous walk.

Hard Time and Hard Spirits

PUB COUNT: 31

First and foremost - it's snowing BIG GIANT snow here in Dublin City. Who knows how long it will last, but they say that this is the first serious snow they've seen since 1981!!!

So... anybody of any importance in Irish history seemed to have done some hard time in jail/prison - specifically, Kilmainam Gaol. So naturally, Drake and I spent some time in jail today with the ghosts of hardened criminals and political revolutionaries. This paticular jail operated from the 1780's - 1910, spanning 3 generations of bread and turnip thiefs, including a fair share of women and children. During the great famine (you know the one), it is said that folks would deliberately land themselves in jail for survival purposes alone because at least you were guaranteed 3 square meals a day there.

We rode the "hop on hop off" bus today to get an overview of Dublin. Our tour guide was kind enough to sing tradional Irish songs to us like "Cockles and Muscles" which of course, I sang along with. The Irish take their singing very seriously here. Did I mention that I *love* Ireland???!!!

Our second stop was at the Jameson Distillery where I was chosen as one of 4 volunteers to do a whiskey taste test of popular Irish whiskeys (Jameson, Paddy and Powers) against an American whiskey (yes - Jack Daniels, of course) and a Scottish Scotch (Johnny Walker). I will not reveal which one I chose as tastiest. That would be invading my secret thoughts. The distillery was really quite impressive. The Irish refer to their whiskey as "the spirit of Ireland" or the true name in Gaelic translates to "the water of life."

Next stop was Trinity College which was founded by Queen Elizabeth I. She founded this college to accomplish three things, as explained by our tour guide. 1) to convert the Irish Catholic to Protestant, 2) to civilize the Irish, and 3) to "make manners on them". She failed in all three.

Last night we went back to this pub called "The Pale" where we met our friend, Paddy, and listened (finally!) to some real Irish bar music. The highlight was when they sang one of my faves called "Whiskey in the Jar".

Other side notes on Ireland: The reason for all the colorful doors is because during the reign of Queen Victoria, she asked the Irish to paint all of their doors black to honor the death of her husband. The Irish, not liking to be told what to do, all painted their doors the colors of the rainbow... every last one of them different. It also aided the gentlemen stumbling home from the pubs to recognize which house was theirs. :)

In London, the most popular food is Indian Cuisine. Specifically - chicken tikki masala (the most commonly ordered dish in London). In Ireland - it's hands down Italian food. There is literally an Italian restaurant on every street run by real Italian folk.

They refer to Cider here as "the mad juice". I love it!

Lastly - for those wondering about the fate of the Red Shoe Galleries - the answer is this:
YES - the red shoe galleries will be delivered! We bought a few cheepo disposables in Kilkenny and have been stocking up on Red Shoe momments. Unfortunately, you won't see anything until we return to the states and get these developed onto CD ROM, but they will be there.

Tonight - we take the long anticipated Literary Pub Crawl. Tomorrow morning, we depart at 6:25 (lift off) for Scotland.

Hope everybody is doing well!

Cheers...

A Pint and a Fag

PUB COUNT: oh hell - we've lost count and i don't have my journal on me, but about 30 or so.

SHOUT OUTS: Alex - hey little dude - keep an eye out for post cards and leprechauns coming your way.

We arrived in Dublin this morning, turned in the car (which was treacherous) and had a lovely conversation with some gentleman in a pub that explained to us that the recently passed smoking ban in the pubs in Ireland is just blasphemous because "In Ireland" - says Paddy, "a man in a pub always has a pint and a fag. That's just the way it is." Despite all the criticism from Kilkenny folk, Dublin has been nothing but friendly and helpful so far; perhaps offering the most craic we've mustered up so far on our trip.

We hit the Guinness Brewery tour today, which was pretty impressive to a beer connesseiur like myself. The best part, however, was the picturesque scene 7 stories up in the giant, circular "Gravity Bar" overlooking the city and crowded with people from all over the world all simultaneously enjoying a pint of the black stuff. It was like some surreal stout commercial.

Off to take a rest before dinner. This will be our first meal outside of a pub since London. I'm damn tired of sausages and mash, though Drakey has been quite enamored with the Irish stews here. The plan is to head back to our new "friendly neighborhood pub" tonight for some traditional Irish music, and then a super busy day tomorrow hitting all the touristy sites. We'll try to check in tomorrow, but if not - you'll be hearing from us next from Scotland.

Castles Galore

PUB COUNT: 26 (but the day is yet young here)

SHOUT OUTS: Jaime and The L'Hommedieu's are right. We need to get a disposable camera and just suck up not having the quality of photo that our $400 camera would have given us. We're just being stubborn and just a wee bit bitter (more Erin than myself, of course, since I am by nature delightfully cheerful and optimistic). The Red Shoe Galleries shall live again!

Monica, we tried to visit the Tower when we hit St. Canice but it was closed until April. We were on the verge of tears when we found out as Erin and I were so very much looking forward to climbing up the obviously spiral staircase for roughly 5-7 stories up in the light offered only by the few arrow slit windows that appeared in the sides. No better way to cure a fear of heights, I'd say. We are staying at the Kilkenny Hibernian Hotel, the best hotel in town. We just discovered this morning that our towel rack is heated! Nothing but the best for this Irish princess.

You would have been proud of us, Joan, as we also added wine to our extensive repertoire last evening. We purchased a bottle of Peter Lehman's, no less, and enjoyed it in our hotel room over a lovely game of cards after our bath in our jacuzzi bathtub. The wine is very much international here with an emphasis on French. Hard not to have beer and whiskey in Ireland though.

Lindsay, thank you for letting my boychild show another dog what's up. Don't mind Scarlett's apparent disinterest as she been working on some hypotheses for matter transportation for the last few years. We're thinking of purchasing Kilkenny Castle so that the petite ya-ya's can frolick freely on the lovely expanse of lawn. You can come stay with us too, steaming bm's included.

So, we are having a lovely time here in Kilkenny. We've visited all of the historic abbeys and castles and I even had enough time to give Erin a wee bit of religious education. She now knows how to cross herself when entering a Catholic church. She was doing it entirely backwards, the work of the Devil to be sure, but is now firmly on the path to salvation. We do still have some work to do since outside one church, Erin tried to dip her fingers into a natural basin that was in the wall of the church that was filled with nasty algae filled rain water, whilst under the assumption that it was holy water. But cheers to her for trying!

This will be our last post from Kilkenny as we leave for Dublin tomorrow morning. We will have some lasting impressions from Kilkenny to be sure. We may never have Irish coffee beverages again in the States as it can never reach the heights of the heaven that we have experienced here - rich, creamy, perfectly sweet - clearly inspired by all the saints in Ireland. We have also noticed that rather than being a land of Irish stew and shepherd's pie, the modern Ireland is one of panini's and lasagne. We asked a woman this morning who was raised here in Kilkenny where I could find Irish stew and she was hard pressed just to think of one pub where they MIGHT have some. We have since confirmed that they do and I will be found there this evening. Funny things also happen to your accent when you spend enough time in English speaking countries that have accents different than your own. Erin and I have surprised ourselves a number of times now when random things have come out of our mouths in a different accent. We shall be your most obviously worldly friends when we return.

Cheers, and we'll see you in Dublin.