September 24, 2010 – Day Seven
It's is flat cold folks! I asked the girls what the temperature was and Amanda said, "I don't know...cold!" Cheryle said, "I can't convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit" Right! I keep forgetting about that. I just went to weather.com and it's 39 degrees. Burr!
Today we slept in (not much different than any other day), walked to the bay and went back into Kinvara to do a little bit more site seeing and shopping. It's so weird to see the bay in the morning versus the late afternoon. Apparently in a full moon (which we have right now) the tide goes out 17-20 feet. In a non full moon, the tide only goes out 5-10 feet. Yall would die! Docked boats are laying on the ground in the morning and floating in the bay in the afternoon.
We went to another coffee shop and bakery (What?? It's who we are), bought a few more souvenirs, ate lunch and came back home to read and nap (Zip it! That's who we are too!).
We went to Keough's for one more taste of their seafood chowder. Yummy! It's the best chowder in the village. We know because we've tried them all. We left Keough's and walked to O'Connolleys Pub for our last Irish beer and live music. It was a ton of fun!
A gent came up to us and asked if we were here to locate our ancestors. We said Cheryle was and he asked her sir name. She said Simon. His last name was Dodd! Get this, his mom and dad's names are Chris and Anne. Um...mom, dad...do yall have something you need to tell me? Do Chrissy and I have a brother named David? His friends call him Doddsky, so from here on out I'm claiming Doddsky as my new nickname!! Turns out the Dodds of Ireland are from Bray and there is a huge cross on top of a hedge (bigger than a hill, smaller than a mountain) called Dodd's cross of Bray. David's grandfather blew up the hedge with dynamite to put the cross in the rock. He almost killed himself. If that doesn't sound like a Dodd, I don't know what does! Also, they got the dynamite from the Irish military and had some left over after the cross incident so the Dodds stored it in a vault underground. In the 1960s the leftover explosives started leaking and the military had to be called to remove it! Another typical Doddism. David was so excited about meeting a fellow Dodd. He kept asking if we are all over Alabama and if we've taken over. I said "umm no, there's just two of us in Alabama." Then he asked about daddy's siblings. I think he was disappointed that there are only a few of us. Oh well.
I thought I'd end our adventure/vacation with some random thoughts:
1. The ketchup here tastes funny. It has kind of a brown sugar flavor. Yesterday in Galway City I found one packet of Heinz ketchup you would have thought I'd found gold in Galway! It was the only packet on our table so I began strip searching the other empty tables' condiment dishes. Sadly, it was apparently the only Heinz packet in all of Galway County. I guess I'll have to come home.
2. The music in every restaurant and pub, and on every radio station for that matter is all 80's and 90's all the time!! Today we heard the theme song from Free Willy (You are not alone by Michael Jackson) and more Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morisette than Lilith Fair.
3. Tonight Cheryle has all the sudden honed in on her Irish accent. It's really funny and strangely really good!
4. There is a government levy on plastic so if you want a plastic bag at the grocery store or when you're shopping you have to pay €0.22 per bag. Also, ice is rare. We kept asking for more ice in our drinks and they kept looking at us like we were crazy. When we went grocery shopping, we asked for a bag of ice. They had to go in the back, get a box of ice and open it to get one bag. It is crazy expensive so Amanda became the keeper of all that is ice. She would fill our one ice tray that had 8 cubes and was cracked at least twice a day. Every time she would make ice, she would say, you'll thank me for this later. We did!
5. We pronounced everything wrong! Every time, all the time!! Here are a few examples:
Correct Spelling: Kilmacdough
Phenetically: We would call it, Cat man do
Correct: Kill mac do a
Correct Spelling: Dunguaire
Phenetically: We would call it, Dung a ree
Correct: Dune gurr ah
6. Piecea was parked six rows deep at our hotel in Dublin due to the football game. Since we weren't heading out until later that afternoon, the ladies at the hotel said they would move our car to the front around 3:30. When we got back, the car hadn't been moved. Apparently only one person working at the hotel could drive an automatic!
7. We now know why Hillary told Cheryle why it's not nice to call people Tinkers! Apparently it's another word for homeless!! So there you go!!
September 25, 2010 - Departure
We're now at the Shannon airport with the exception of Cheryle. She flies back tomorrow. After lots of hugs, we left Cheryle, Piecea and Ireland. We got breakfast at the Shannon Airport and low and behold, there were buckets of Heintz ketchup packets. Now I can live here! : )
