Dave’s Ireland Travelogue

February 22, 1997 - March 4, 1997

Here I am in Dublin City, County Dublin, Ireland staying at the lovely Conrad International. It is week two in my three month stay on the Emerald Isle. I must say that I have enjoyed it so far. I’m here for my WinWin experience to help Brian McGeough of Ireland site IT implement a P-Centric windows NT environment. My American cohorts whom I’ve been sight seeing with on this journey are Sondra Arnwine, Mike Green and Bill McGinn. Mike and Bill are here for 2 more weeks. Sondra has another 3 days. Work is going rough due to trying to get my bearings and other factors outside my control.

I still don’t have a car of my own because the predominant car is a standard transmission, and I can barely maneuver a fork with my left hand not to mention having never learned how to drive a stick. I’m also going to be in this hotel for a while because I need to car pool with Mike and Bill, plus I haven’t had an opportunity to go look at my two apartment options. One is here in town, and the second is out past our plant in Leixlip.

Its been fun fumbling our way through Dublin trying to find out way to work. We took a completely different route to work last week until finally finding the one that works the best for us though it may not be the most direct, but like Magellan, we found a way. We also went out to a different restaurant each night. We have had the traditional Irish stew, Indian, steak, pub grub, and Burger King. Of course, there’s always room service. One of the things that has impressed me the most are the fries, and the fact that they offer them with everything. I may be easily impressed, but they’re really good. Not too greasy, and they’re thick like steak fries. The worst ones I had so far have been from Burger King.

What kind of Pearson would I be without including a weather report? The weather has been cooperating so far. With the exception of a lot of wind, and rain, the sun makes an appearance every day. It’ll pour down rain for a rew minutes, and the sun will be back out. Then it’ll hail (ok, it only actually hailed one time) then the sun comes back out. You get the idea. It’s kind of like Portland with an accent.

You get screwed on currency exchange pretty big and bad coming over here. $1.64 is equal to 1 Irish pound. It’s not bad if you just look at prices in Irish pounds, but if you constantly convert things in your head, it’s expensive to live here. Apartments, for example, are 200 to 300 quid a week! It’s still cheaper than staying in this hotel for a week.

I’ve been watching a lot of TV. At the hotel, we get 3 movie channels and 4 sports channels. I’m trying to watch rugby, hurling, and cricket. I still don’t understand all the rules to these, but I’m at least making some ground on rugby. I haven’t watched much hurling yet. (that’ll start being televised around St. Patrick’s Day I’m told) It’s a curious combination of hockey, lacrosse, and rugby. I’ve also tried to watch English basketball, but the courts are poorly lit, there’s very little defense, and it’s pretty much lacking offense as well. I’ve also watched English ice hockey, but the rink is poorly lighted, and there’s only been one game so far. The Portland Winterhawks could beat these teams. I watched a game last night between the Celtics and Rangers. Both Scottish soccer team, but Celtic has strong ties to Ireland, so everyone…well most people were watching. The Clets hadn’t beaten the Rangers in 3 years. Very similar to the Illinois/Michigan rivalry. Like Illinois, the Celtic team triumphed this night.

Last weekend, we did the city bus tour on an open air double decker bus. It was ok. We did a tour of Guinness Brewery along the way. Sunday we drove to the west coast. It’s only 3 hours to Galway City. It’s a bit of a college town. We were there on Sunday morning, so all we did was walk around a bit to stretch our legs and take some pictures. Then we almost caused an international incident when we pulled out of our parking space and started going the wrong way on a one-way street and almost got into a head-on collision. The driver of the other car got out of his car and walked over to Mike’s door, opened it, and asked in a perturbed tone if we were aware that this was a one way street. To which Mike responded that he was, in fact, aware now. (this was after we had made that brilliant deduction ourselves and pulled into another space to turn around.) Upon seeing Mike’s age and size, and hearing his lack of accent, he closed Mike’s door again and went back to his car full of college kids.

We then proceeded down the coast to the Cliffs of Moher. They’re the 700M high cliffs on the west coast. It’s a straight drop to the Atlantic Ocean where the waves crash against the rocks forming an off-white foam similar in coloring to the head on a Guinness. The winds whipped the foam into whirlwinds that lifted chunks of it into the air up where we were at the top of the peaks. On the heads of the cliffs were castles. One of them was close enough to walk around. The weather was perfect except for the wind gusts that almost knocked us over several times.

From there we continued down the narrow winding wall-lined country roads to Limerick. I don’t have much to say about Limerick because everything was closed here too. We arrived in town at precisely the wrong time of day on Sundays. From 2 - 4pm are the holy hours. Restaurants and pubs lock their doors during that time. If you happen to be inside, they lock you in too. However, they will serve you whilst you’re in. We had to eat at Burger King. Then we drove home.

March 6, 1997

The kids from Ireland took us out for a night on the town. We started at Quay’s (pronounced keys) pub in the trendy Temple bar area of the city to watch the soccer match between the Celtics and Rangers in the Scottish league. The Irish have strong ties to the Celts, and they have not beaten the Rangers in 3 years. One of the techs worships them and was quite overjoyed and over loaded. There were about 12 of us. They were all drinking heavily, dancing jigs, and having a good time. There was a live band playing an interesting mix of traditional Irish drinking songs (which everyone knew but us) along with songs from the 60’s and 70’s. There were many attractive women, but they were all smoking. How disheartening. The DeHaan scale is not the only one where smoking warrants an automatic -10. My lungs were burning, and I was having chest pains from all the smoke inhalation. Luckily, we left because pubs are only open until 11pm. After that, clubs open. We went to 2 places trying to get in, but due to the large number of us, we could only get in at Break for the Border, a country/western type bar motif, but luckily it wasn’t playing country music. There was dance music up top, and in the basement they had a live band playing 50’s and 60’s music with another dance floor. The cover charge was 5 pounds. I didn’t do any dancing because I’m gutless about asking strangers to dance. Plus, my chest still hurt from all the smoke. I felt like I was having a heart attack. The other kids we were with tried to make me do a tequilla shooter claiming it to be Irish tradition, "drink it or wear it," they said. "Pour it on me, cuz I ain’t drinkin’ it," says I. I don’t think they’ve ever had someone turn them down. I don’t think they had any trouble drinking it themselves, but I think I offended them by not joining in. But that’s ok, they offended me by trying to guilt me into drinking. Oh well, nothing new. It takes a while for drinkers to get used to me. I went to sit down on a couch for a while and people watch. One of the fellows from the IR TAC is an avid cyclist, so he’s going to take me biking over by Galway some weekend. I got home finally around 3am…and on a school night no less.

March 8, 1997

A beautiful, clear, sunny day. I got up to go look at the apartment complex I’ll be living in for the rest of my stay. It’s a luxury 2 bedroom pad fully furnished in a secured building near Christ Church. The rooms are small, but it’s still cheaper than staying in the hotel. It even has a washer/dryer. I also have my car finally. I went down to check it out, and the first thing I did was get in on the wrong side. It’s a red Toyota Corolla. I haven’t driven it yet. Perhaps tomorrow seeing as how I forgot to find out what time we were going to work together. I also went to the Ireland National Museum on Saturday. It was pretty good as far as museums go. They had Irish, Viking, and Egyptian exhibitions. The vikings settled Ireland, as you know. There was some violent shtuff going on back then. There were skulls with 20 sword and axe wounds in them. Nutty. It was too nice a day to chill in the hotel, so I went for a walk. The problem I have with my walks is that they are way too purposeful. I have no stroll mode. Then Mike, Bill, and I went out to dinner at the Chicago Pizza Pie Factory over by the front of Grafton Street at Stephen’s Green. It isn’t too bad, but as always, it falls way short of actual Chicago pizza. Then early to bed to get up early the next morning to drive North.

March 9, 1997

We pointed the Volvo north to the British controlled Northern Ireland. The border patrol consisted of Irish Garda and a British soldier that we could see. No stopping or passport check. They just waved us through. Then on to Belfast where we passed 5 armoured transports with manned roof gun turrets on their way out of town. We found a place to park down town and walked around. We took pictures of the Albert Memorial Clock tower that is part Big Ben, and part Leaning Tower of Pisa. We then headed back in towards the pedestrian shopping district and took pictures of the City Hall. (I don’t remember if I took any pictures of that one though). We were there before noon, so nothing was open again, so we headed back towards the car. On the way down the sidewalk, we saw up ahead a line of British soldiers patrolling through the shopping district with their hands on the triggers walking a few paces, and turning to scan behind and on the roof tops. We got down to them as the final man walked past. We were wondering what the protocol was when you encounter troops. We knew that it was illegal to take pictures, but can you say hello? That pressure was taken off of us though when the final man said "good morning". We got back in the car, and headed out of town past the great Belfast ship yards that created the Titanic.

We rolled on up to the northern coast to Giant’s Causeway. This causeway is considered unofficially the 8^th natural wonder of the world due to the basalt formations that are mostly hexagonal in shape. It looks as though someone went out and drove thousands of hexagonal poles into the ground. There’s a 30km trail that runs along the coast, but we didn’t hike it as much as I would have liked to. It was really something to see. There is also a myth about this causeway because it does look like it was man made. As the legend goes, there were 2 giants. One lived in Scotland, and the other in Ireland. They were each building this bridge between the two, but as they were about to finish it, the Irish giant heard that the Scot was much bigger than he and would try to invade Ireland. So he hatched a plan where he had his wife dress him up as a baby and invited the Scottish giant over so that when he saw the baby, the wife told him that he should see the father. The Scotsman got so scared that he ran all the way back to Scotland tearing the causeway up as he went. And that’s why it no longer exists.

From there, we drove on down to Londonderry. Here was wear the fun began. On the way into town on the A on the opposite side of the road, there were 2 armored cars that had pulled over a small red car and were pretty much blocking traffic. There were armored soldiers patrolling the brush on our side of the road and 2 military helicopters were circling above. As we continued into the city, the helicopters continued to circle as one came down really close over the top of our car and swept on down toward the river and looked like it was about to land just behind a car dealership on the bank. We parked in the center of the original walled city and ate at a not too good fish and chips joint. On the way out of town, we went through another military checkpoint, but I guess we looked enough like tourists to not even get stopped. We went through one last heavily guarded checkpoint and back into the Republic of Ireland and back to the hotel.

March 13, 1997

My first day of driving on the left side of the road was uneventful as I moved into my new apartment. It seemed natural to drive on that side of the road when sitting on the opposite side of the car. The apartment uses the parking lot of the Jury’s Inn. It was hard for me to find the first time. The place closes at midnight so if I don’t make it home by then, I park on the street. It’s not the best neighborhood in which to park on the street either. The apartment itself is a well furnished place with 2 bedrooms and a maid service once a week. They don’t do dishes though. Bummer. I didn’t get a dishwasher, but I do have a dining room table. This place is better furnished than my apartment back in Beaverton. I don’t get the good cable channels though. That sucks, but I have found some good channels for viewing though. There is one channel, Sky 1, that shows 4 hours of Star Trek on the weekends…both Saturday and Sunday. I live close to Phoenix Park where I can go running. It’s huge. There’s a zoo there that I hope to go to one of these days. There’s a pub across the street from my apartment on High Street called O’Looneys. I have to go there at some point. There’s a pub/night club out the back of my apartment called Mother Redcaps that’s open late and plays loud dance music. It has surprised me that it really hasn’t bothered me much at all. I work long enough hours to not be effected, I think. The beds are too hard, but I don’t spend much time in them anyway. I use the main bedroom to hold all my clothes, and I use the middle bedroom to sleep in since I have my cd player hooked up, and it seems to annoy my neighbors, at least the first night I used them to drown out the music across the alley.

March 27, 1997

Frank Engelman and Terry Toy's (the last of my American co-workers) last night in town was tonight, and it was one of my tech's birthdays. So I went out with Frank and Terry to FXB's Steak House, and then I headed over to Copper Faced Jack's to meet up with the birthday party around 10pm. They already had a good buzz on by the time I got there. This time, instead of trying to make me drink, they bought me a Ballygowan sparkling mineral water. I did take a sip of Guinness, and I remembered the main reason I don't drink - beer tastes horrible. It's an acquired taste that I don't care to acquire. I still had fun, but this club committed a heinous act of doing a medley of soul classics. I hate medleys to begin with, and when you do one with soul, it's worse. How can anyone cut off Sam and Dave, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Marvin Gaye? That's a jailable offense in Detroit. After that, I got dragged to the dance floor. It was here that I saw one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I had always heard about those club guys who go to the dance floor and just try to dance with a girl whether she wants them to dance with her or not (I had seen those SNL skits where this occurred but never in real life). This guy was like a

Top Gun pilot. No matter where Louise (one of our group) went, this guy followed her. It was obvious that she had no interest in him, but he didn't give up right away. It was a good 10 minutes before he finally

took off. Then the Spice Girls came on and I continued my boycott of them by leaving the dance floor. They're huge over here, but I had never heard of them before. I hope they haven't invaded the states yet.

I went back to our corner table and learned a little more about the Irish national sport of Hurling (not to be confused with vomitting where the only contest involved is that of distance). It is the second fastest game after ice hockey. I've seen a little bit of it on TV, and it is pretty interesting to watch. It is played on a grass field like soccer, but it combines aspects of Soccer, lacrosse, rugby, field hockey, and Polo. I also got a little history lesson about Ireland. Then I left around 1am.

March 30, 1997 (Easter Sunday)

Today was the day that the clocks sprung forth...er, forward. Of course, I didn't remember this until late in the day when I turned on the TV expecting to find Star Trek, but there was a Star Wars special that was supposed to be on at 5pm. It's a pretty pathetic life I lead when I set my watch by television. I wish I could just say that it's been since I moved here. But I digress. I got up and decided to hop on the road. I really don't even know why they bother to have road maps in this country. The roads aren't well marked...if at all. And even if you do see a sign, chances are that the street has changed names by the time you find it on the map. So what I'm trying to say is I got lost many times, but that's ok, because I did finally stumble onto a street that I both found the name of and found it on the map to get me where I needed to be. My destination was the Military Road. It was a road built by the British in 1798 through the Wicklow Mountains to flush out rebels who had taken shelter in the rugged terrain after an uprising. It forms a nice little 60 mile loop. I can't wait to ride it (as you know, we cyclists are in constant search of the perfect loop). It is narrow roads with some mild climbing and incredible scenery. I was going to say breath-taking, but the elevations aren't nearly all `dat (as the kids say). It could be potentially dangerous, but the same can be said of any stretch of road or trail I've ever ridden. Besides, I passed many riders out today. It was a great day. The sun came out shortly after I started driving, and it didn't go back under until I had made it home.

My first or maybe it was the 5th wrong turn took me by a small forest park that over looks the city. I can't remember the name of it, but I think I can recreate the wrong turn that I took to get there. There are little hiking trails all over the mountain range. Most of the area around the top is nothing but peat bog and big hunks of granite so you can see for miles. The colors are more varied than one might think, and with the sun hitting the out reaching rocks, it creates some interesting textures. I only hope that the pictures show it as well as it looked. As I was driving down one narrow road, I chanced to see a lough (that's a lake to all the non-Irish folk out there) hidden down among the hills and dales. There was a pull off spot with a as I crossed the road, I noticed a trail leading all the way down to the lake. So off I went. I just wish that I had worn shorts like I normally do when I go hiking. It was a beautiful 50 degree day. The trail didn't go all the way around the lake, but it went to the end. And I had it all to myself. There were other people that I passed on my way down, but no one came all the way back where I was. It was very peaceful. There were some muddy places, but nothing that I couldn't get around. That is until I lost my concentration on the way back up and missed a rock I was aiming for and planted my ACG's straight into angle deep muck. D'ohwell, they needed to be trail christened yet anyway.

From there, I headed to Glendalough (pronounced Glendalock), the place where St. Kevin set up his monastery. It also happens to be a monastic site with the best preserved round towers in Ireland. I have a

few pictures of those. It was founded in the 6th century AD as a center for monastic learning. I went on a long walk around the upper and lower lakes. Got some great pictures of the lakes and some waterfalls. Words can't describe most of what I saw. It was really busy today too. The combination of the terrific weather and Easter Sunday brought tons of people out to just bask in the sun on the large, green fields that

butted up against the yellow, brown, green, and purple rolling hills. Lots of tour busses were there as well. I heard accents from all over the globe. I spent my final picture trying to get a shot of a horse with one of the round towers in the background. [Round towers are found at monastic sites mostly, and they were built around the 10th century as bell towers and storage places for manuscripts. They are typically around 100 feet tall. Well, ok, that wasn't a terribly well organized report, but it was informational. And isn't that really the important thing?] After that, it was getting late in the afternoon, and I still had to find my way home. I think I only made about 10 wrong turns, but I still made it home before sun down. So on the whole I consider the day a success.

March 31, 1997 - My mommy's birthday

I rolled out of bed around 10am after staring out the window for a while at the nice unchanging blue sky and decided to go for a run. It was too nice a day to stay in and work all day long. So after a half

hour of stretching, I walked off towards Pheonix Park where I always go running. It is probably a half mile from my apartment, and I always walk there to warm up and preserve my knee. There are cross-country

trails all over the park. I don't recall the size of the park, but it is pretty vast. Normally, I just follow the one that goes straight from one gate to the other, but i took a different route today to check things out. There is a very tall white cross out in the middle of one field up on a mound marking the place where da Pope made a speech in 1979. From there, I surveyed the area, and chose my next path around the deer field. I soon found out why it is called this. As I came through a small grouping of trees, I saw an entire herd of deer just sitting in the middle of the field sunning themselves. I ran around them making sure I kept my distance. I couldn't believe how large this park is. After the run, I had to get some work done, so I headed up to the roof garden with laptop in hand. Unfortunately, the screen isn't good enough to be seen when it is that bright now. So, I had to spend the day in the apartment, but I kept the window open. I then waited patiently for the NCAA tournament championship game to be played between Arizona and Kentucky. I have to say I was pulling for the underdog Wildcats of Arizona (sorry Ryan). But NBCEurope, after televising all the other games, did not show the championship game! I couldn't believe

it. They started showing the Gophers/Kentucky game again, but they only showed the first half of that until Jay Leno came on. I waited until 1am to see if they would just show it late, but it never came on. So I had to come in this morning and read the Chicago Tribune Web to find out who won. It sounded like a great championship game too. I hope they show it some time soon.

May 3, 1997 - Saturday

With 3 weeks to go, a 3 day weekend in front of me, and a hellish 2 weeks of non-stop work behind me, I decided to kick back for a while on Saturday morning. I watched Freakazoid and the Adventures of Batman and Robin while waiting for the European idea of NBA coverage called NBA Raw to catch just a few glimpses of how the Bulls are doing and who they will have to face as the road to the finals gets more difficult. After watching yet another NBA show where the Bulls are pretty much ignored and mentioned as an after thought (and by the way, Chicago swept yet another first round opponent), I walked down to "C. Harding for Bicycles" on the Quays in the city center. It is a member of the Raleigh Rent-a-bike network that has depots all over the Republic. At first they brought up a Raleigh hybrid, but it didn't have any rat traps for the pedals, and once you get used to them, it's pretty darn near impossible to go back. When I mentioned I hoped to do some trail riding the owner of the shop said they have higher end bikes for rent at twice the price £16 per day. I said fine, so they brought me a Raleigh M150 M-Trax Chromoly rigid frame (no suspension) MTB with Sach's grip shift, Shimano's "A" group components, Weinmann rims, and Raleigh Special Products bar ends, seat, seat post, and bar stem. (for anyone who cares about that shtuff.) After I talked to the guy for a while about what I had been doing here all this time and that I was with Intel, he said that he had a corporate rate where I could keep it the whole weekend for that same £16. I said I'd think about it. (I was surprised at myself too.)

I took off from the shop and rode around downtown through the traffic on the route to be used for the Prologue of next year's Tour de France to be held in Ireland for the first 3 stages and starting in Dublin City. It's going to be a fast loop through the city. I wish I had had my road bike, but it was still quick on the heavier mountain bike. From there, I headed west to my favorite weekend hangout, Phoenix Park where there are many miles of trails on which to roam. I think I went on almost all of them. There was one that the Deer had chosen to use for the leisure that afternoon, so I respected their wishes and moved on. The bike handled well, but after about 90 minutes i started to bonk. I had forgotten to eat that day. I must stop doing that. I found a way to get myself home and refuel, but I didn't go out again that day. I just did laundry and watched tv (Romeo and Juliet was on. The version that we saw in high school..well, that I saw in high school. I don't remember the year of the movie. Olivia Hussey (what an unfortunate name) was Juliet if that helps) and planned for the morrow.

May 4, 1997 - Sunday

I remember reading once that humans tend to be drawn to natural boundaries, land and sea (coast), land and sky (mountains), dough and custard (doughnut shops...think about it.) I certainly illustrate this pull, and so I pointed the rental car south with bike in boot (it wasn't easy stuffing that in the trunk of the car. I'm so glad I have a truck.) and the sun shining through the clouds on a mostly clear Sunday morning. Oh sure, I could have just gone 15 minutes to get to the coast since Dublin is on the east coast of an _island_. But that would be too easy. Instead, I chose as my destination the Hook Penninsula on the southern coast where the oldest light house in Europe sits.

I took the N11 south where the posted 70 is more of a suggestion than a rule to the R733 west to Duncannon in County Wexford at the base of the penninsula. Just a 2 hour drive.

I parked near the church which was just letting out, and I changed into my cycling gear...No, it wasn't a Chippendale act or anything, more of a Clark Kent sort of thing minus the phone booth or the spin or whatever he does. I reassembled my bike, packed my pouches with rain gear just in case, and headed off in the direction I believed the lighthouse to be in. A pretty safe bet seeing as how it was a penninsula and all I really had to do was head south until I couldn't go any further. It was only a 10 mile ride, but it took an hour to get there thanks to the constant and gusty wind from the south buffetting me and not taking me to Margarittaville (sorry, that joke got out before I could do anything about it.). For those of you who are directionally challenged, that translates into the bane of all cyclists - the head wind. I'm glad I had the mtb because the road was horrid as only small narrow roads on the edge of nowwhere in a part of the country where sheep share the roads with automobiles. At least the motorist were curteous passing on the narrow road with no shoulders. At least the sun was ducking in and out of the clouds, and the rain was holding off as I finally arrived at the car park, well the grassy area where cars were parked, for the light house. the wind was driving the waves into the rocks. I took a lot of pictures of nothing inparticular and just sat upon the rocks for a while watching. I leaned the bike against a rock and it got blown over causing it to get the same scar that my other bikes always end up with (not to mention my legs) down the rear drive side triangle. The lighthouse was a black and white Norman lighthouse built somewhere around 1172. It held up well. Funny, but I didn't know they had radar back then.

The ride back to the car was easy with the wind behind and only took about 30 minutes. The sun was shining as I arrived back in Duncannon, so I was going to go down to the beach, but as I rode down the path to get there, my face was getting sand blasted, so I decided not to do that. So I just got in the car and headed for home. Once there, I went to see Return of the Jedi, and turned in early.

May 5, 1997 - Monday

Slept in. When I got up, it was raining. We were in for an all day soak. So I did some soaking of my own and took care of some laundry. The only thing on TV was the world Hockey championships. So I watched the US beat last year's champions the Czech Republic, then I watched as Sweden fell to Russia. (sorry dad.) I got sick of being inside, so I braved the cold wind and rain to go catch another showing of Return of the Jedi. Lots of kids in this show, but not too bad. That's what I get for going to a matinee. Just stayed in a chilled the rest o' the day. Caught a few movies that were showing. Ghost was one of them. I only caught the last half. It wasn't as hard to watch as I thought. Of course, it wasn't that great. I don't want to get off on a rant here, but why is it that when people choose to escape danger via a fire escape they go up instead of down? It seems to me that the chance to get away would be much greater on the ground. And another thing, Sam is responsible for the death of at least 2 people after he dies and yet he still makes it into heaven. How does _That_ work? And couldn't Denti Moore, sorry, Demi, come up with something better to say than 'ditto'? Ah f#@$ it. Who wants pie.

Friday May 9, 1997

A historic occassion indeed. I left work at 4pm. I don't have to be at work on Fridays because of my work schedule during the rest of the week, but often find myself there anyway until well after 5. The gang all went out to the Turk's Head in Temple Bar just down the street from my apartment to celebrate wee Deborah's birthday - one of our contractors. It was a fun night. There was dancing, and many I've spoken to today don't remember most of the night. The usual conversations took place surrounding myself and lack of the usual vices.

person1: What are you drinking?

me: Ballygowan (that's Irish Mineral Water).

person1: Want a beer?

me: No thanks.

person2: He doesn't drink.

person1: you don't drink!?

me: No.

person1: At all?

me: well, water, coke, orange juice. Enough to live, I suppose.

person1: Why not? Have you ever been drunk?

me: I don't like the taste and I see no point to it.

person1: you're missing out.

me: I disagree.

person1: No, you are.

me: NO one has ever been able to provide a compelling argument to support that position.

person1: It loosens your inhibitions.

me: That may be, but the use of that tool is unnecessary. I can do that without the aid of drink.

person1: do you smoke?

me: no.

person1: do you ahve any vices?

me: Yes. A very expensive one.

person1: drugs?

me: No. Cycling.

And the conversation usually ends about there.

For those of you out there familiar with the Dave Field, I would also like to let you know that it is alive and well, and operating near peak efficiency.

Saturday May 10, 1997

It was a rainy day, and I didn't get out of bed until 11am (early enough to catch the only NBA show they have here). It was rainy, but not too cold, so I went running. there's just something about running in the rain that I enjoy. I can't explain it. But the sun did show itself while i was out, and then the rain began again as soon as i left the park. I managed to re-injure my knee again. I think I found the root cause though. I remember finding in one of my Bicycling magazines in the medical Q&A a guy who described the same pain I get in my knee when i go running. It has to do with the knee cap getting pulled over to one side of the leg for cycling and more to the middle in running. I'll just have to make sure I try to keep it positioned better in the future.

I mostly watched the 3rd stage of the Tour of Romandy. A gent from the Mapai team by the name of Tokarov went on a 30 mile breakaway up a mountain to win the stage and the green jersey from Eric Breukink of Rabobank who seemed to blow up on the climb. Eurosport didn't televise the final stage yesterday.

Sunday May 11, 1997

It was raining again at 7am when I struck out for my weekend adventure to the Southwest end of the island to drive the Ring of Kerry which is a 112km drive around the Kerry Penninsula. It's about a 4 hour drive from Dublin to Kilgorlin where I began the quest for the Ring, but the sun started coming out the closer I came. The counties of Cork and Kerry seem to have the most traditionally Irish ways of life than Dublin which many of the locals refer to as a more European city now than Irish. The drive was uneventful except that I nearly tagged a horse that was just walking across the road in no particular hurry as i was coming into Limerick. It didn't seem to care that it was on a major road into town.

The first leg of the Ring follows the coastline of the Dingle Bay which faces the Dingle Penninsula where Ireland's #1 tourist attraction lives - Fungi the Dolphin. (I did not go see Fungi.) He is said to have healing powers or something. It's a dolphin thang. You wouldn't understand.

I got stuck behind a tour bus on a climb up one of the cliffs, so I took a short detour up a side road and did a little "muddin'" (was we used to say back in central Illinois) back to a railroad bridge to take a quick picture. It was more or less this point when it started to hail just a little bit. It stopped and the sun came out again just a few minutes after it had begun. Love that wacky coastal weather.

My next stop was on the western-most end of the penninsula. I saw a beach that I wanted to get to, so I found a small road that lead down to the tiny fishing village of Ballinskellig. I found my way to a dock at the edge of town but found I had litterally just missed the boat that goes out to tour Michael Skellig and Little Skellig out in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The Skelligs are islands of sharp rocks jutting out of the ocean where flocks of garnets live. The winds were very stiff, so they weren't going to be running any more boats until it let up, so I walked along the beach for a while and checked out a lone castle turret that was out on a small island...well, at high tide, it would have been an island. But I was able to get across to it by sacrificing my Nikes to the less firm sand in the middle of the shallow channel that I crossed. There were no markings explaining what the turret was or when it was built, so I have no history on it, but I'm sure I could make something up if asked.

From there I got some breathtaking views down through the valleys from Coomakista Pass at the South western corner of the penninsula. It was down through here that you find the stereotypical Ireland with Sheep and cows just meandering around on the road. The next stop I made was at the Staigue Fort nestled back on a narrow one lane road in a very green valley. Through the front opening of the fort, you gaze straight down to the sea. It is an Iron Age dry stone fort from the 17th century that was very well preserved. I pretended that we were under attack, but the other tourists didn't want to play I guess. So I sent them into exile, usurped the throne and began my rule....for the next 5 minutes. Then I hopped back in the car to go raid and pillage and things. (I've been told that Pearson was actually a Viking name. Cool, huh)

AFter that side trip, I passed through Moll's gap and into Killarney National Forest. This is where the famous Lakes of Killarney are kept. The National Parks people sure know how to pick locations. There were several little castle and abbey ruins tucked into the hills as I drove through there. My mouth was watering at the thought of riding this ring on my bike. I'll have to come back here some day. (Anyone feel up to climbing some mountains with me?...Trish?) Finally, i arrived at the jumping off point of Killarney with it's streets all abustle with tourists milling about.

It was at some point on the way back that I realized that I had once again forgotten to eat. So I had a quick meal and went to bed.

Two more weeks.

The final 2 weeks went by uneventfully as I kept my promise to not work more than 12 hours a day. Thursday May 22 was their last ditch effort to get me to drink which they were once again unsuccessful at. We went to Copper Faced Jacks for our final night out. I was given a card and a CD of Irish music. It was a fun night. Although trying to dance in that place was like being a reed in a mighty river. I didn’t have to attempt to dance to the music because we were all crammed together so close, I just let myself be moved by the throngs of people also attempting to move to the music.

Friday night we left work at 3.30pm. It was a beautiful day, but we went across the road to the Hitching Post Pub for a little post-work celebration. It was very smokey, so I didn’t stay very long. I caught a cab back to my apartment because I had to leave the rental car there at work.

The weekend went by without incident as all I did was do laundry and sit up on the roof with my discman and survey the scenery. It was finally a beautiful clear day. I didn’t tan very easily, but it was relaxing. I went to bed early and woke up every 15 minutes to see if it was 4am yet so I could catch a cab to the airport. Finally the time came, and 3 hops (and visit to my brother’s house in Elgin, IL to see my niece) later, I was back home in Portland in time to see the Bulls lose game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Miami Heat. My friends met me at the airport, and we all went to Rock Bottom Brewery to catch the game. It took a few days to get caught up on what had happened while I was away, and I still go for the gear shift with my left hand, but all in all, I re-inserted myself painlessly.