I got a great nights sleep 😴 last night and got up at 7:00 AM rested, refreshed and ready to explore Glasgow. The hotel has a complimentary breakfast buffet so I started the day by loading up on cheese and salami and fruit and yogurt and eggs and sausage. If you are the type of person who has a cup of coffee ☕️ in the morning and doesn’t eat anything until noon, you have no business staying at a hotel that offers a complimentary Full English breakfast.

After breakfast I started walking towards the University of Glasgow. Jan’s daughter, Kelly, did her semester abroad at the University of Glasgow and was kind enough to send me an email with a list of things to see and do in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Kelly encouraged me to tour around the campus of the University of Glasgow. After graduating from the University of Denver, Kelly spent a year as a CLC, Collegiate Leadership Consultant, for her sorority, visiting a new college campus every week. In Kelly’s opinion, the University of Glasgow has a top of the list beautiful campus. I walked for an hour in the rain ☔️ to get there but it was worth the effort. You were right Kelly, the campus looked like it is right out of a Harry Potter movie.

This is the inner courtyard of the University campus.

This is the University of Glasgow Chapel.

This is the altar. Directly behind the altar is a series of panels listing the names of the 742 students, alumni, faculty and staff who served in WWI and never returned. On both sides of the altar there is a series of panels listing the names of the 450 students, alumni, faculty and staff who served in WWII and never returned. Scotland lost two generations of its best and the brightest young men fighting these two world wars. The chapel was an amazingly beautiful and peaceful place to contemplate the futility and tragedy of the First World War and the Second World War.

After visiting the chapel I walked across the quad and explored The Hunterian Museum.

This is a great museum and admission is free. You know how much I like free.

The University of Glasgow has had a number of very distinguished professors over the centuries.

James Watt was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer and chemist whose Watt steam engine powered the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and also the rest of the world.

Dr. James Lister is known as the father of modern surgery. He pioneered the practice of antiseptic, or sterile, surgery. And he invented Listerine!

William Thompson, the Baron Kelvin, was an Ulster/Scottish mathematician, physicist and engineer who helped to develop the second law of thermodynamics which states that the total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time. I have absolutely no idea what that means, but it sounds important. He also invented the absolute temperature scale that bears his name, the Kelvin Scale.

After I finished touring the University of Glasgow campus I walked across the street to check out the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

What a beautiful building. They have an art gallery and a natural history museum all in the same building. As a bonus we got a 30 minute pipe organ concert.

The guy playing this enormous pipe organ really knew what he was doing.

The Kelvingrove was hosting a retrospective exhibit of Linda McCartney’s photographs.

Linda McCartney was Paul McCartney’s wife and a very talented photographer.

After touring the Kelvingrove all afternoon I walked back to the hotel through Kelvingrove Park.

Apparently Lord Kelvin is a pretty big deal in and around the University of Glasgow.

At the end of the day I was thankful I didn’t have to walk up those stairs to get back to my hotel.

This is Lord Roberts. It sounds like he was a pretty big deal in the British Army. VC means Victoria Cross. That is the British equivalent to America’s Medal of Honor.

A memorial for the Scottish soldiers who died during the Battle of Normandy in World War II.

A memorial for the Scottish airmen who died during World War II.

After I got back to the hotel I asked the guy at the front desk for a dinner recommendation. Kelly told me the Indian food in Glasgow is great, so I was pleased when the guy at the front desk recommended a nearby Indian restaurant, Bombay Blues.

The owner of Bombay Blues, GV, promised to serve me a fabulous meal if I would reciprocate and give him a fabulous review on TripAdvisor.

The first course was a garlic and cheese naan.

This was fresh out of the tandoor and it was so good.

The second course was a lentil soup.

The third course was a lamb biryani.

It was way too much food. But it was all delicious and I posted a great review on TripAdvisor for the Bombay Blues.

I hope everyone had a great Tuesday.

Goodnight from Glasgow.

This morning Dana and I packed up, policed the apartment to make sure we were not leaving anything behind, and then took a cab to the Dublin airport. Dana checked into her Delta flight from Dublin to Atlanta with a connecting flight to Denver. Dana has a one hour and forty minute layover in Atlanta and has been worried that this would not be enough time to gather her bags, get through customs and check in for her connecting flight to Denver. Dana and I were discussing this potential problem in front of the Delta gate agent. She reassured Dana that she had plenty of time in Atlanta to make her connection because she would clear Irish customs in Dublin and would also clear US customs in Dublin. What a brilliant idea. Do customs all at once at your departure airport as opposed to waiting until you arrive in the US and you are so jet lagged you don’t even know your own name and you can’t find your passport. I love the Irish.

I have had so much fun traveling with Dana and spending some quality time with her. What an amazing young woman she is and what a splendid daughter.

After I said goodbye to Dana at Terminal 2, I proceed to wander around the airport for an hour trying to find my terminal, Terminal 1. I could see Terminal 1 but I could not find a walking path to Terminal 1. I got desperate and almost took a taxi, but I finally pulled my head out of my backside, looked up and saw a sign pointing the way to Terminal 1. I need to start paying attention to what I am doing and where I am going.

When I finally got to Terminal 1 it was time for lunch. I have been eating some pretty exotic fare lately so I decided to dial it back a bit.

I almost never eat at the Golden Arches, but I decided that I couldn’t go wrong having lunch at the McDonald’s at the Dublin airport. Boy was I mistaken.

I ordered the Chicken Sandwich Happy Meal. I was happy until I took a bite out of the chicken sandwich. If you remember my adventure in Europe last year, I ate chicken almost every evening and got unbelievably tired of Euro chicken. 🐓 I trusted that Mc Donald’s would import their chicken from the good old US of A, where we use massive doses of growth hormones to plump up our chickens and use a toxic stew of chemicals to enhance the flavor. In Europe they prohibit the use of chemicals and hormones in food production. As a result, the Eoro chickens are skinny, scrawny and taste like cardboard. I am not complaining and I don’t want to sound like an ugly American, but the Euros need to do something to make their chickens edible.

After lunch I ambled over to the RyanAir baggage check station.

RyanAir is a bare bones, cheap as cheap can be, Euro airline. I think my one way ticket from Dublin to Glasgow was 48 Euros. That really is dirt cheap. You all have heard the old adage that you get what you pay for. RyanAir expects you to weigh your bag, scan your boarding pass, print out a label, affix the label to your bag and drop it on a conveyor belt that will hopefully take your bag to the plane on which you will be traveling to your final destination.

I was able to weigh my bag, no problem. I had my boarding pass on my cell phone and I had a very hard time getting the scanner to read my cell phone boarding pass. When I finally got that done, I printed off my baggage tag. The mechanical voice in the kiosk that printed off the baggage tag told me to affix the baggage tag to my bag but: “Do not remove the sticky!” What is a sticky? I have no idea. I tried to peel the paper off the sticky part on the back of the baggage tag but I could not get it to budge. All the while this mechanical voice is repetitively telling me not to remove the sticky. I finally figured out that there is no paper over the sticky part of the baggage tag, just sticky part. And you’d better not remove the sticky part! After I got my baggage tag on my bag and put it on the conveyor belt, I negotiated security and went down to my gate.

When you fly discount airlines in Europe they don’t have a lot of amenities, like jetways from your gate at the terminal to the door of your airplane. You walk down the stairs in the terminal and out onto the tarmac and then you walk out to your plane and walk up a set of stairs to get to the door of your plane. This would be no fun if it was cold or raining. ☔️

This is the plane to Glasgow. I hope it isn’t a 737 Max!

After a short one hour flight we arrived in Glasgow.

I took a bus from the airport and checked into the Radisson across the street from the train station.

They brought up this nice welcome basket 🧺. Isn’t that special.

I am going to grab something quick for dinner and get to bed as I would like to hit the bricks early tomorrow morning and explore Glasgow.

Before we leave Ireland in the rear view mirror of the blog I have an Irish prayer to share with you.

“May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face. May the rain fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand.”

I hope everyone had a great Monday.

Goodnight from Glasgow, Scotland.

We got up early and walked 15 minutes to the collection point for our Elegant Irish Tour of Northern Ireland.

Rowland, or Row, our driver and tour guide, and Mark, who is very grateful that he is not driving today.

Did you know that 8 million people lived in Ireland in the late 1840s, before the Potato Famine. Four million Irish men, women and children were driven off the land by the Famine and were forced to emigrate. The ships they sailed in were very small and were called coffin ships because so many people died during the sea journey. One million of the four million people who boarded the coffin ships died during the ocean journey and never made it to their destinations. They are called The Lost Million. The majority of the Irish immigrants came to America and settled in Boston and New York because the cheapest fares were from Ireland to New York or Boston. Ireland’s current population is close to 5 million people. Ireland has never recovered from the Famine.

A little bit of Irish slang.

ATM – Drink link. Your ATM card is you link to getting a drink.

Fun – Crack. As in: “Tonight we are going out to have a bit of crack.”

Giving someone a hard time – Slagging. As in: ” I am just slagging you.”

We drove through Belfast to The Giant’s Causeway.

The Giant’s Causeway is marked by the stacked stones at the top of this map.

We had such a beautiful day to tour The Giant’s Causeway. What stunning scenery.

The Giant’s Causeway is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Legend has it that the Irish giant Finn McCool built the causeway so he could walk to Scotland. Once he completed the Causeway he walked to Scotland. He quickly realized that Scotland was a bleak and barren land full of barbarians and quickly returned to the Emerald Isle. He then torn down the Causeway to prevent the Scots from using it to invade Ireland. Or it was created when two tectonic plates came together and pushed lava up to the earth’s surface forming the eerily geometric rock formations. You get to choose which story you want to believe.

We got a quick bowl of fish chowder at the pub next to the car park, parking lot in American english, and then it was back on the bus for our one hour drive back to Belfast and our Black Cab tour. The Black Cab Tour will be driving us around Belfast showing us the city. This tour concentrates on what the Irish call “The Troubles.” The Unionists and Loyalists are Protestants and are fiercely loyal to England. The Unionists are largely nonviolent while the Loyalists advocate violence to achieve their aims. Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England are affiliated, somewhat like the various states in the United States, and this affiliated entity is known as the United Kingdom 🇬🇧.

The Nationalists and Republicans are Catholic and are fiercely loyal to the Republic of Ireland. The Nationalists are nonviolent while the Republicans espouse violence to achieve their goal of uniting Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland.

Belfast had a majority Protestant Unionist/Loyalist population. Currently the population of Belfast is split almost evenly between Protestants and Catholics. The Protestant Loyalists have spent years and years violently discriminating against the Catholics of Belfast who hate England and want to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland. You guessed it. This has been a recipe for disaster. And this particular disaster of sectarian violence is called The Troubles.

July 12 is the anniversary of the day that William of Orange, a Protestant, defeated King James, the last Catholic King of Ireland.

We started on the Protestant side of the Wall separating the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in West Belfast.

This is a mural to honor Stevie “Top Gun” Mckeag. He was a Protestant hero and earned the nickname “Top Gun” based on the number of Catholics he gunned down during the most violent years of The Troubles. He died of a drug overdose.

Leading up to the July 12th Orange Day celebration the Protestant neighborhoods are covered with Union Jacks.

The Protestants build massive bonfires out of old wooden pallets and set them aflame at sunset on July 12th.

This is a work in progress that we saw near the Wall.

This is what the finished product will look like. This one is ready to set ablaze.

This is the Wall that runs three miles from the city center of Belfast to the foothills west of Belfast. This Wall separates the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in West Belfast.

After we visited the Wall, our tour guide drove us to the Catholic side of the Wall, where there are blocks of murals.

The ten faces in this mural are the ten members of the IRA who went on a hunger strike and died while in a Northern Ireland prison.

The current version of the Troubles started in 1969 and ended with a peace treaty brokered by the United States and signed by the Protestants and Catholics on Good Friday, 1998. Thirty five hundred people lost their lives during this twenty nine year period of time.

We had a choice of the Black Cab Tour or the Titanic museum for our afternoon in Belfast. I am glad we choose the Black Cab Tour. It was very interesting and educational

For those of you who are interested, this is the Titanic Museum.

Across the street from the Titanic Museum is the studio that does all the computer generated scenes for the Game of Thrones. Did you know that many of the live scenes for the Game of Thrones were filmed in Northern Ireland.

We got back to Dublin at about 7:00 PM and grabbed a quick bite to eat at a pizza place about a block from our apartment.

I had a cold beer.

Dana and I split a salad and a pizza.

It wasn’t a tasting menu but it was a very nice dinner. Dana and I are both pooped so it will be an early bedtime tonight.

Tomorrow Dana flies back to Denver and I fly to Glasgow. I will really miss Dana. She has been such a joy and spending this time with her has been such a blessing.

I hope everyone had a restful Sunday.

Goodnight from Dublin, Ireland. 🇮🇪

Sara left this morning at 6:30 AM. It has been such a joy and a blessing to have had the opportunity to explore Ireland with her. Goodbye Sara and have a safe journey back to Houston.

Dana and I sacked in and went out for brunch. Dana found a breakfast/brunch place called Tang. We walked in the rain for a half hour to get there but it was well worth the effort.

I had sunny side up eggs on a bed of sirachia infused hummus with a side of sausage and a side of Irish soda bread. It was one of the best breakfast/brunch dishes I have ever had!

Dana had avocado 🥑 poached eggs with chorizo.

After brunch we had about 3 hours to burn off the one thousand brunch calories we had consumed before we started the food tour at 2:00 PM.

We met Niamh our tour guide at 1:45 PM and the tour group spent 15 minutes introducing ourselves. On the tour we had an extended family from Manassas, Virginia, a young couple from Germany, and a young couple from Omaha, Nebraska, Deb and Dan. Deb is a school teacher so she and Dana bonded right away and gabbed throughout the entire three hour tour.

The tour included a stop at a restaurant for an appetizer and a drink, a stop at a second restaurant for a main course and a drink, and then a third and final stop at a restaurant for a drink and dessert.

As we walked to the first restaurant Niamh gave us a Cliffs Notes version of Irish history. Ireland has been invaded four times. First by the Celts, then by the Danish Vikings – this is where the Irish got their good looks and everything else that makes Ireland such a special place 😀 – then Ireland was invaded by the Anglo Normans and finally by the English. The Irish love the Danes, who doesn’t love the Danes, but they do not love the English.

Our first stop was at The Oak restaurant.

Everybody knows the story about the Lusitania, the British passenger ship that was torpedoed and sunk by the Germans during World War I. Nineteen hundred passengers lost their lives when the Lusitania sank. Lusitania’s sister ship was the Mauritania. A number of artifacts from the long ago decommissioned Mauritania decorate the walls of The Oak.

Dana and I had a big pot of mussels in a mushroom broth and a glass of Guinness for our appetizer course.

This is a picture of the row of tap handles at The Oak.

Niamh said that before Coors Light emigrated to Ireland young men in their late teens would drink shandy, a mixture of beer and lemonade, when they first reached the legal drinking age, which in Ireland is 18. When they got a little older they graduated to Guinness. Now they start their lifelong tippling careers with Coors Light and then graduate to real beer.

Next we went to Mulligan & Haines for our main course, Guinness beef stew with a glass of Guinness.

For our dessert course we went to Lundy Foot’s Bar and Lounge. Doesn’t sound like a place you would go for dessert, does it?

After we were seated Niamh gave us a demonstration on how to make a proper Irish coffee and then we all tried our hand at making Irish coffee. For those of you who don’t know how to make Irish coffee, I will give you the recipe. Put a shot of Jameson whiskey in a glass, put in a teaspoon of sugar, then fill the glass up to the top of the handle with coffee and stir, then put some good Irish cream in a shaker and shake, the put the spoon on top of the liquid in the glass and pour the cream over the top of the spoon so the cream forms a layer over the coffee and whiskey.

I think I did a pretty good job.

An Irish guy, Joe Sheridan, is widely credited with invented Irish coffee and after it became wildly popular, the Buena Vista, a bar in San Francisco, advertised that they invented Irish coffee. Joe Sheridan sued the Buena Vista and the court ordered the Buena Vista to cease and desist from falsely claiming that they invented Irish coffee, and give Joe Sheridan the credit he deserved.

I have a somewhat sordid history of drinking too many Irish coffees at the Buena Vista with some of you who are following this blog. And you know who you are.

To accompany our Irish coffee we had a slice of Baileys cheesecake.

Yum, Yum, Yum!

As we were walking back to the tour company’s office at the end of our tour we ran across this sign.

It is the infamous “Why Go Bald” sign. In Dublin you would meet on your first date in a pub. For your second date you would meet under the “Why Go Bald” sign. About 20 years ago the Universal Hair & Scalp Clinic went out of business and the City of Dublin wanted to remove the sign. Married couples from all over Dublin vociferously protested the proposed removal of this sign, claiming that it was an important milestone in their courtship. The City of Dublin relented and agreed to keep and maintain the sign in perpetuity.

We also walked by this hotel.

A number of years ago in the ballroom at this hotel there was a battle of the bands where unknown Irish bands could perform and hopefully get some interest from concert promoters or record companies. U2 played at this battle of the bands and were booed off the stage. They went to the bar at this hotel to drown their disappointment. They got drunk and rowdy and the manager of the hotel’s bar called them losers and threw them out of the bar and the hotel. Bono, the lead singer for U2, famously told the manager that one day U2 would be the world’s most most popular band, selling millions of records a year and playing concerts in sold out stadiums worldwide before hundreds of thousands of adoring fans. Bono told the manager of the hotel that when that happened he would come back and buy the hotel and the bar and fire the manager. The manager of the hotel had a good laugh at Bono’s expense and told Bono and his band mates to piss off.

Sure enough, five years later, U2 was the most popular band in the world and Bono came back to Dublin and bought the hotel and bar. I would like to tell you that Bono decided to be magnanimous and let the manager keep his job. But that didn’t happen. The first thing Bono did after buying the hotel and bar was fire the manager. As Paul Harvey used to say: “That’s the rest of the story.”

Dana and I had such a great day today. What a blessing it is to have an opportunity to spend time with Dana.

I hope everyone had a restful Saturday.

Good night from Dublin, Ireland 🇮🇪.

I found this monument across the street from the Cathedral in Killarney to commemorate the World Ploughing Championship that was held in Killarney in 1954. Can you imagine all the rough hewn farmers and their Clydesdales and Percherons descending on Killarney to plough all day and drink Guinness all night. That must have been quite a sight.

We woke up this morning, grabbed a cup of coffee and a fresh baked croissant 🥐 before we started the long hike to the train station.

We got to the train station and the ticket agent said that the 9:35 AM train to Dublin was full. Last Tuesday we purchased an open ticket to return today but we had to put in a specific return train and we listed the 1:40 PM train. The ticket agent said that all the trains were full to Dublin because there is a music festival there over the weekend. Another travel challenge.

We spent the morning walking around a beautiful park and then had a nice leisurely lunch. After lunch while we were walking to the train station I walked by this sign.

And you thought I was kidding about Dublin and Springfield being sister cities. I assume Mayor Davlin was responsible for this.

We made it to Dublin just in time to make our reservation at a great tasting menu restaurant. First course – tempura turbot with curry mayo.

Crudo – Some sort of raw fish soup.

Potato cube topped with a chicken skin.

Potato and leek soup. It is a lot of potatoes 🥔 but this is Ireland.

The best sourdough bread I have ever tasted.

Salad of peach, fennel, artichoke hearts, green olives and goat cheese.

Confit of hake with crab veloute and spring greens.

Agnolotti in Parmesan with fermented mushrooms and broad beans.

Ring of Kerry Lamb with baby leeks and turnip tops. Very tasty!

Bread and butter pudding.

Sara and Dana and I spent three hours over this meal. What an amazing experience.

I hope everyone had a great Friday.

Good night from Dublin.

I was surprised to see that they celebrate the Fourth of July in Killarney.

Wilm told us that a lot of people from Killarney emigrated to the United Stares and quite a few returned when they retired. So there is a very strong bond between Killarney and America.

Did you know that Killarney and my hometown, Springfield, Illinois are sister cities?

This is John. He was our driver for today’s tour of the Ring of Kerry.

This is a beautiful river valley just outside Killarney.

We stopped to take this picture at a little car park. This guy and his donkey and his dog were posing for pictures at the car park.

He was selling bundles of sticks. I don’t have any idea why anyone would buy a bundle of sticks from this guy.

Another guy was selling honey. I know two beekeepers who are following the blog, Jim Carahalios and Dale Brooks, and I decided to include this picture for them.

Beautiful views as we are driving around the Ring of Kerry.

There is an abandoned railroad that runs from Killarney out to the coast. They are trying to turn it into a bike trail. Brilliant!

This is the boyhood home of Daniel O’Connell. While other Irishmen were fighting the English with bombs and guns, Daniel O’Connell, an attorney, was fighting and beating the English in the Courts. They call O’Connell the liberator of the Irish people.

These circular stone forts are all over the Kerry Peninsula.

This is a picture of the inside of this circular stone fort.

This plaque helps explain the story behind this stone fort.

John decided to take us on a detour and drive us around the Ring of Skellig. The first stop on this mini tour was the ferry over to Valencia Island.

We drove up to the top of the island and the views were amazing. This is a view of the lighthouse guarding the approach to the island.

A sailboat on the water off Valentina Island.

Mark, Sara and Dana.

Pictures of Skelling Islands. George Lucas filmed scenes from one of the Star Wars films on these islands. He made a mess and didn’t clean it up so the Irish government said no more films on the Skelling Islands.

We stopped at a chocolate factory in the middle of nowhere. After they hooked us with a bunch of free samples we spent about 50 euros on chocolate.

We stopped in Waterville for lunch. For some reason they decided to do their Fourth of July on the Fifth of July. It’s the thought that counts.

This is me with Charlie Chaplin.

Apparently, late in life, Charlie Chaplin was living in Los Angeles and got sick of America. So he moved to Waterville. Waterville is a nice town but I think I would rather live in Los Angeles. What was Charlie thinking?

This is the very exclusive Hogs Head golf course in Waterville. What a beautiful setting for a golf course.

More pictures of the stunning scenery.

This picture looks like we are in the Caribbean.

The water is very cold but it is a beautiful day and the kids are in for a swim.

We stopped for ice cream and this little town had a tribute to Charles De Gaulle who enjoyed vacationing in the area.

The locals call this monument the Gall Stone, instead of the De Gaulle Stone. Get it?

We drove back to Killarney through the Killarney National Park.

Pictures of the lakes in the park.

We got back to our apartment, freshened up and went downtown for dinner. I had salmon and a salad .

And smashed peas.

The smashed peas tasted as bad as they look. If you come to Ireland don’t let anybody talk you into ordering smashed peas!

This is the Fourth of July Parade in Killarney.

Donald Trump was in the parade. They like him in Ireland because he owns a golf course here.

Guy on stilts. A staple in any Fourth of July Parade.

Bagpipers playing Yankee Doodle Dandy.

The University of Washington marching band.

I asked these guys to play the Notre Dame fight song in honor of my father who is a huge Notre Dame fan. The entire trombone section got so pissed they started to come after me swinging their instruments. I had no idea the Huskies and the Fighting Irish were such bitter rivals!

The Cathedral of St. Mary in Killarney.

I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July.

Good night from Killarney.

Today we had Wilm drive us around the Dingle Peninsula in his BMW 7 Series touring series sedan.

Wilm was a teacher for 40 years and has been a tour guide for the last 4 years. He was a great tour guide and we got a great guided tour of the Dingle Peninsula.

This is Inch Beach, a three mile long strand of beautiful white sand beach.

Now we are in the hills above Inch Beach.

This is an Ogham stone.

This is the translation key for the hash marks on the Ogham stone. These stone were used in ancient Ireland to make property boundaries and document transfers of land ownership. Wilm took us into a private estate that had the most extensive collection of these Ogham stones in Ireland.

A beautiful view of Dingle Bay.

This dry stone structure was a shelter for pilgrims who were on pilgrimage around the Dingle Peninsula.

This is an ancient Catholic Church that the Irish monks built as early as the Sixth century.

This is a picture of the ruins of the settlement associated with the church I described above.

This is for all you Rotarians. They have a Rotary Club in Dingle.

Ross Castle in Killarney National Park.

Lough Leane in Killarney National Park.

Sara, Dana and Mark enjoying a glorious day touring the Dingle Peninsula.

We had an Irish dinner at Brixin in downtown Killarney. We all had boxy.

This is my boxty. It is a potato pancake with stroganoff filling. You can get different fillings but this was their special of the day so I thought I would give a go. It was very good.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Wednesday.

Goodnight from Killarney, Ireland.

Today the plan was to get up, have breakfast, rent a car for Hertz and then drive on the wrong side of the road from downtown Dublin to Killarney. What do they say about the best laid plans? The helpful rental agent at Hertz upgraded us, free of charge, to a small SUV. I was concerned that this car would be too big to drive around the crowded streets of Dublin and the narrow lanes in and around Killarney. But I kept my mouth shut because I have never been one to turn down a free upgrade.

I got about six blocks from the rental car place when I heard a big thunk and realized that I had been in an accident. I felt like such an idiot. I was so freaked out about driving on the wrong side of the road and I was so intent on giving oncoming traffic a wide berth on the narrow and congested roads in Dublin that I drifted a little too far to the left and scraped the side of an oversized van that was parked a foot or so away from the curb. I took out the van’s rear taillight and side view mirror. There were two guys in the van and they were so nice. They worked for a cable company and the van was only three days old. We called Hertz and they said that the insurance I had through them would handle all of the damage to the van. I drove the SUV back to the Hertz place without a left side view mirror. Not easy.

The guy at the Hertz place told me that I had to drive 10 miles out to the airport and file a claim and get a new car. I told him that I was not able to drive even a mile away from the rental car place with both mirrors before I had an accident. How in the world did he expect me to drive 10 miles to the airport essentially blind on the left side of the car and get there alive. He assured me I could do it and with Dana and Sara sticking their heads out the right and left side rear windows, we made it to the airport.

I filled out the accident report and the nice young man who assessed the damage assured me it happens all the time and that I had insurance to cover the damage. He counseled me to forget about the accident and get on with my Irish adventure.

I will have to confess that by this time I was more than a little spooked 😱 by the whole driving on the wrong side of the road thing. The young man who assisted me at the Hertz lot at the airport warned me that the country roads around the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula were just barley wide enough for one car. When Sara and Dana heard this they decided that my driving days in Ireland were over. So we caught a cab from the airport to the train station where we took a train from Dublin to Killarney. After my third Guinness on the train I finally relaxed.

Sara worked her travel magic and booked us a car and a driver for two days of touring around Killarney. As they say, all is well that ends well.

This is our beautiful three bedroom apartment in Killarney.

Can you believe it, Abe has a barber shop in Killarney! He wants to stop in tomorrow and get a haircut and a beard trim.

We had dinner and then ice cream for dessert. Outside the ice cream shop these two guys were playing the heck out of a banjo and a guitar.

I hope everyone had an uneventful Tuesday.

Good evening from Killarney, Ireland.

Today we took a Dublin City bus out to Howth, a little fishing village about 20 miles outside Dublin. What a quaint town.

We took a hike from the parking lot above this lighthouse to the harbor in downtown Howth.

Sara and Dana taking a bench break.

This is the plaque you see on the left side of the picture.

This is the last part of the trail as we approached Howth.

We got to the harbor in Howth at about 12:30, just in time for lunch.

We started with a dozen oysters.

After that we had open faced crab salad sandwiches.

We also shared a bowl of olives.

The specialty of the restaurant is lobster served a number of ways. This is the board listing the various ways the restaurant served lobster.

I asked them how they prepared the Dublin Lawyer Lobster. They said that they take all the lobster meat out of the lobster, fill the empty body cavity with chopped up boiled shark meat and tell people it is real lobster. It sounds like a disingenuous way to serve lobster but they do call it Dublin Lawyer Lobster. Buyer Beware.

After lunch we did a walk along the cliffs outside Howth.

It is going to be a struggle walking the Camino with this spare tire! Yikes!

We got back to Howth after this hike and caught a bus back to Dublin. The bus stop was outside the Irish Olympic headquarters.

Did you know that hurling is a big time sport in Ireland. It is also an Olympic sport. Hurling is not what some of you might think it is. Hurling, the Olympic sport that is very popular in Ireland is kinda like field hockey. I went to high school and college with some Olympic gold medal hurlers. You would never mistake the hurling I participated in and witnessed in high school and college with the hurling they do in Ireland and at the Olympics.

When we got back to Dublin we put our feet up and then took a bus to dinner.

I had an Irish ribeye steak and sautéed mushrooms.

For dessert we shared a strawberry and rhubarb crumble with vanilla ice cream.

After dinner we took a walk on a footpath along a canal through an upscale neighborhood in Dublin. Along the path there were a number of sculptures. This one was particularly impressive.

I hope everyone had a great Monday.

Goodnight from Dublin.

This morning we went to Trinity College to see the Old Library and the Book of Kells.

We took a one hour guided tour of Trinity College. This is the bell tower on campus. It is a beautiful campus and right in the heart of Dublin.

After the guided tour of campus we did a self guided tour of the Old Library. George Lucas used this Library as a model for the Jedi Library in the Star Wars series of movies. Trinity College tried to sue him because he didn’t ask their permission. They lost.

Next we waited in line to see the Book of Kells exhibit. The exhibit was great but there was a cheek to jowl crowd around the display housing the actual Book of Kells. The historical importance of the Book of Kells and the work of the monks to create and preserve it is hard to fathom.

We then had lunch and then had tea and cakes at an authentic Irish tea shop. After that we took the bus to Kilmainham Prison. This is the prison where the Irish Patriots who led the Easter Uprising were imprisoned and eventually executed by the British.

This is the old section of the prison. The conditions were terrible, but the conditions in the town of Dublin were so bad that people would commit crimes so they would be sent to prison where at least they would be fed.

This is the new wing of the prison. The conditions in this new wing were much improved, but the prisoners still spent 23 hours a day in their cells.

After putting our feet up for a while we decided to have authentic Irish food for dinner.

Sara found Brannigan’s Beer Emporium.

I had Irish lamb stew and a Guinness.

Sara had fish and chips and a Guinness and Dana had a cheeseburger and a glass of water. This was a very authentic Irish pub. Half the people were drinking Guinness and the other half were drinking Coors Light. In the birthplace of Guinness, Mother’s milk to the Irish nation, why would any true blooded Irishman or Irishwoman go to an Irish pub and drink Coors Light? Please send me a comment if you can help me solve this riddle.

I hope everyone had a great Sunday.

Good evening from Dublin.