Vacation day one (and a half): Ireland

So, the time has arrived and I am finally on vacation in Europe with my dad!!

This whole thing started on Wednesday morning at 3:30 am when we got up to head to Skyharbor Airport in Phoenix. From Phoenix we flew to Newark (Direct TV makes the flight so much more enjoyable!). Then after a five hour layover, that included a little lunch and a ton of Arrested Development, we were on our way to Dublin.


While the hop from Phoenix to Newark was nice...the six hour skip to Dublin kind of sucked!! The seats were smaller and more uncomfortable plus there was no Direct TV. But, on the bright side the in flight entertainment was free...so I did watch Captain America and a ton of one off tv episodes.

So, what started out as an early arrival at the Phoenix airport turned into an early arrival in Dublin, Ireland. How early is early? Well the sun wasn’t up yet. Which, if you have never driven a car on the left side of the road (on purpose…because it’s the law) is a great time to be driving!  We dropped our bags at the hotel and off we went to see Cork southern Ireland and all points in between.  The drive to Cork was uneventful once we made our way through a gauntlet of roundabouts. Actually, the drive reminded me a little of the Midwestern United States in the fact that it was a ton of farm land and major roadways. Once we made it to Cork we sought out the tourist trap of all Irish tourist traps…Blarney Castle.


Along the way we realized that with the exception of of the mountains the drive was a lot like heading through Wisconsin (with more sheep...none of which appear in this picture).


About an hour outside of Cork the flow of traffic seemed to be slowing to pass a single vehicle. When we caught up we saw what the slow down was all about. So, for the second time in my life, as far as I know, I came across a Google Maps car.

So after acting like complete idiots while passing the car we finally pushed forward to Cork and then to Blarney Castle.


Let me say that once we got onto the grounds of Blarney Castle that was more of what I had imagined the countryside of Ireland would be like.

 The grounds to Blarney castle were amazing.  Serene rolling grounds with streams, gardens, groves of trees are the norm here. Like many landmarks in the states there’s a calm feeling you get as you approach. A silence, that seems to be equal parts amazement and respect, that none seem to want to break.  Not until you are in the shadow of the main tower do you begin to hear people talking to each other.

For those of you who have not made the trip to the castle let me lay it out for you like this. In the movies where you see all the stairwells to the castle battlements are wide enough for two guys in full battle gear to run up and down side by side…this is not that type of castle. The climb to the top is scary in the fact that the stairs at some points are no more than 6-7 inches wide while going almost straight up on a tight right hand twist. It really made me happy that I had done as much cardio training on the workup to the trip. As you make the climb you have the chance to step off into man of the side rooms like the kitchen, master bedroom and a few others. A luxury that dad was more than happy to take advantage of when they presented themselves. It was either that or induce a heart attack!. The payoff though was worth it. Once you reach the top you are presented with two gifts.

The first gift at the top of Blarney Castle is the chance to walk the battlements and get a 360degree view of the grounds and surrounding lands. The second gift is, if you are so inclined, to lay down flat, bend over backwards….and kiss the Blarney Stone.  Dad and I both engaged in that oldest of Irish tourist traditions!  Really , you climbed to the top of the bloody castle, why the hell not?

After making our way down we spent a few minutes walking through the poison garden. Where all the plants are deadly to either smell, touch or ingest. Good Times!!

After finishing up there we made the long drive back to Dublin and grabbed a bite to eat. A meal that neither one of us made it through without nodding off at some point.  So, food was eaten Guiness was drank and we were both passed out within minutes of getting into the hotel room.  Day one ended at 10pm with the plan of getting up around 8am the next day to drive to County Carlow and Duckett’s Grove Castle

My (planned) Summer Vacation

Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the large sums of money this will cost me.



My buddy Ryan called me up about a month ago to find out what my plans were for this summer. Seems he was going to be heading to Europe with his wife and would have a ton of free time on his hands while she did her scholarly things during the day.

His plan was that I schedule a summer trip to Amsterdam and meet up with them to finally enjoy the little European vacation we were supposed to have before our final year of college!

That trip was scheduled since he was studying abroad at in Sunderland, England. I was excited to go and started making plans only to be Euro-blocked by Illinois State University.  Seems that one class I would need for my major coursework was only going to be offered as a summer class...so Europe would have to wait.

If it ended there I probably wouldn't be dwelling on it almost 10 years later. But, the fun really can two weeks before I was supposed to have left for England. I got a call from the university telling me that there wasn't enough interest in the summer class so the four students who it really affected were going to be given the option of taking the class next semester along with the upper level class it was a pre-requisite for. Needless to say one can not properly get their shit together for a European trip in two weeks. Especially when you don't have a passport at the time!

With that I missed out on Stonehenge (the greatest henge in the world), all things Beatles, and a host of other bits of awesome. So, having been presented with the option to recapture a missed opportunity of my youth I said yes.

Actually I think my exact words were closer to F--K yes! But, why squabble with the details! So here I sit almost a month into the new year and it's time to work on a plan.

I think it's gonna go a little something like this:

1) Get passport -- Important first step in any travel plans that involve leaving the US

2) Find out exact dates that Ryan and his loverly wife will be in Amsterdam.

3) Figure out flight plans....

     3a) save almost all of my tax return money to help pay for decent flight package to and from

4) Start working on ideas for what to do when in Amsterdam.

     --While I think there is enough to do in Amsterdam I would also like to branch out a little using the city as my base of operations for the (hopefully) two week trip.

5) get my mind right to start working mad overtime to save up cash for this trip. I should also throw in a prayer for the US dollar gain some strength overseas!

So I am sure that this plan will grow and evolve as the year goes on. Would love to take a train ride into Paris for a day. But, at just over four hours and a few hundred bucks may have to settle for something a little closer. Amsterdam to Brussels and then Brussels to London seems to be about the same.

Plans come and plans go...but my homies stay eternal...wait...where did that come from? What I was trying to say is that while I hope and pray that this vacation comes to life in it's current form. I do plan on traveling somewhere this summer. So, if things fall through to Amsterdam for some reason maybe I'll just have to adjust my destination to London or someplace else, maybe later in the year when it's a little cheaper!!

All I know is that I am currently geared up the summer adventure I missed out on almost 10 years ago. In some way it will happen.