Day 6: The Emerald Isle

Don't Believe Google Maps

Google Maps is often right, but not often enough to make it truly reliable. On this trip it's been wrong several times: it directed me to the wrong end of the street for my (ill-fated) car rental; it added all sorts of little intermediary steps to what should have been a straight road to Clonmel. But the most egregious is that it directed me to the wrong location, 150 km from the location I actually wanted.

Glendalough is on this list of the 10 most beautiful locations in Ireland. Google Maps clearly has it located a few km south of Clonmel, which is why I went there to Clonmel the first place. Unfortunately, it's really located in Wicklow Mountain National Park, south of Dublin. It didn't even give me a choice among several Glendaloughs. The Glendalough that exists on Google Maps (and I think there really may be a hill or something called Glendalough in the Clonmel area) is invisible to anyone driving by, or through or past, it.

Moss Covered Fences

Nevertheless, it was a very pretty drive from Clonmel to Youghal. It was my first encounter with scenery as nice as Scotland's.

Animals abutting the roads include sheep, cows, and horses

The weather continues to be sunny and clear, as you can see.

At noon I was in Ballymcarby, reading my copy of Dubliners and eating lunch beside a small stream. Like many of these small towns, there doesn't appear to be anything more to the town than a pub (or two) and a small general store.

Ballymcarby

Further on the road to Youghal

A shrine in one of the small towns, not the only one I saw on the way

Youghal

Youghal is a small seaside port village that once had a wall fortification. The small streets between the wall and the docks were a nice stroll.

Tower on Main Street in Youghal

Door on Ashe Street

Outside a Cathedral on Ashe Street

Cathedral on Ashe Street; Ireland has lots of cathedrals, and they're probably interesting (but to me they all look the same)

Door adornment on Ashe Street

Ashe Street Sign in Youghal

Old Fortification Wall in Youghal

Overlooking Youghal Harbor Area

Not Looking Seaworthy in Youghal

A Nice Place to Sit in Youghal (not downtown)

From Youghal I made my way to Cork.

Cork

I made my way to the B&B and now I feel a cold coming on. I drove downtown, anyway, picked up a box of grapefruit juice, and asked about live music. None of it starts until 9:00 or 10:00, and it's only 7:00. At night, downtown Cork looks like many other downtowns with pedestrian areas: bars, restaurants, sporting goods, etc.

I'm going to bed. Hope I feel better in the morning.

Day 5: Plans Gone Awry

Sixt Ireland

This was the place where I had made my car rental reservation. This was the news that I did not hear until I arrived at the rental location to pick up my car.

There was one guy left at the desk, on temporary assignment by the receivership until the last of the rentals are dropped off, and then he goes, too. He helped me make an arrangement over at Eurocar, which was nice of him considering he had just been fired. Of course, the new rental is more expensive and required a taxi-ride to get there. I plan on writing Sixt about it after I drop off the car.

That set me back about an hour.

Driving

I'd driven on the left side of the road in Scotland, so I wasn't nervous about taking the car out. Having the driver's seat on the wrong side is a constant reminder. I just drive slowly.

I planned my route to avoid major highways, which I thought would let me see more of "real Ireland". According to Google maps, my "blue highway" route was still only supposed to take two hours to get to Kilkenny, but it ended up taking me four. Combine that with my late start and my day was pretty much shot.

As far as seeing "real Ireland", I suppose I did see a little more, but really, except for a few rural fences and farms, a small lake, and a crafts village at a gas stop, there's not much real to see between Dublin and Kilkenny. Here's a shot of the lake.

Apparently, swimming is not allowed, but falling in is

Kilkenny

Kilkenny is noted for is castle and cathedral and a few smaller buildings. I tried to avoid them all, but everyone said I had to go look at the castle, so I went and looked at the castle (from the outside). It's a castle. History to be found on Wikipedia.

Meanwhile, Kilkenny has a number of rambling streets, some of them half-pedestrian, stuffed with shops with antiques or local crafts. These were nice. I picked up some earrings and a necklace for Tal.

Back street in Kilkenny

There are also malls and the usual stuff. I stayed only an hour. I could have stayed longer, if it wasn't already getting dark.


Sunny Weather

Speaking of ... things that have to do with the sky, I have had only lovely, sunny weather since last Thursday's drizzle.

Real Irish Music

I'm staying in Clonmel. My B&B host directed me to a pub three km out of town when I asked him about music. This was the real deal; no tourists, occupied by mostly the older folks. There were four people playing accordion, one person on penny whistle, and two or three people on bodhran. On each song, one or two of the older couples got up to dance (usually waltz).

I struck up a conversation with two senior ladies, and the next thing I know one of the bodhran players (2nd from the right) ropes me in for an Irish dance: something like a contra-dance, but simpler.

After the dance, which I performed well enough, they invited me to  sit at the table with them.

Day 4: The Disappearing Jews

The religious Jewish community of Dublin is committing suicide. Don't expect to find an Orthodox synagogue in Dublin ten years from now.

I spent shabbat with a few of the families who are left (but not for long). I can tell you what they told me.

Ten years ago the shul was packed for Yom Kippur, which means that over 600 people were in attendance. This last Yom Kippur they had 186 people.

The "Hebrew elementary school" is 45% Jewish; the Hebrew high school has 10 Jews in it, out of 200 students. And they don't learn much in the way of Jewish content, other than historical. No torah, no halacha, etc. For that you have to go to school in London or Manchester.

There are 40 or so elementary school children from the synagogue's families; there are ten or so teenagers. Where did they all go? They go to London or Manchester, or to Israel, or they leave Judaism. In ten years, less than a handful of families have moved in. In contrast, the death rate remains steady (say fifteen a year, so 150 over ten years) and young adults are making aliyah, leaving Judaism, or moving elsewhere. Of the several families I talked to, all but one told me that they were already planning to move out, and they named the month they were moving (so the plans were concrete).

This is the kind of thing Rachel and I heard about in the smaller communities in middle America; the kids all move to the bigger cities. In Dublin's case, the bigger cities are apparently in England.

The families were welcoming and generous to me as a guest in the community. The rabbi and rebbetzen had me over for dinner, along with several other guests. The rabbi had also arranged a place for me for lunch, and that family, too, were nice. All the food was scrumptious. I (re)learned to play Canasta with my lunch hostess (if you don't know, it's a rummy variant and that's about it; like all card games, it's better as a partnership game).

Sat night I went to another bar. The music was ok - covers of popular dance and rock songs - and I did a little club dancing. Not as nice as Thursday. Oh well. One girl turned down my request to dance, but another one (out with her mom on her mom's 60th birthday) danced with me for one song.

O'Connell Street, central Dublin, at night

First pub

Knightsbridge pub

The band

A giggle of girls wearing flashing bunny ears

Danced one dance with me

Day 3: Over the Cliff

Nearly every person I've met here would like to help me but can't. Here is a typical conversation I have had with no less than three bus drivers:

Me: Can you tell me where your left hand is?

They: Eh, me what, now you be saying, now?

Me: Your leffft haaanddd. Left hand. Left.

They: Well now, I don't rightly know, exactly. You'll be looking for Rathhamfordshire. It's a bit up onthemiddleofturnmumblemumbleoverandall that after donderson lingle.

Me: Not Rathhamfordshire. Your hand. Where is your left hand? Hand? You know (waving hand) your hand?

They: Capford is after Terenure be going right up that. Where you be wanting to go in there? Are you going to the Donderson lingle in there now?

Me: No! Your hand! Hand!

They: I don't know about the lingle. Hey Paddy (yelling behind him), 'taint lingle on t'other side of the tree behind the bridge by the mickey?

Paddy: Oh rightly now I believe it's so.

They: Fantastic, That's just the thing I be wantin'. How's old Cork castle doing now?

Me: ???

Fear the friendly Irish. They speak fifteen syllables when one will do, and, as often as not, none of them are of much help.

This morning's outing was to the coast. It took a dozen different people to finally settle on someplace nice on the coast that could be reached by a bus ticket, which I had already paid for (everyone always first suggests the DART trolley). That place was Howth.

Howth is a little fishing village similar to Whitby in Yorkshire. Howth is on a peninsula and connected to other parts of the coastline with a walking trail along a cliff (more of a steep hill, really). I exited the last bus stop and walked along the cliff (about an hour) back down to Howth. There's not much to do in Howth other then hike the trail, buy fish, or eat at a fish restaurant. A promising looking used bookstore and a farmer's market were both closed today, open only on the weekends.

A lovely walk. Not jaw-dropping: standard purple and yellow hardy flower on bushes sprinkled amid green, cream, and brown hills, under blue, gray, and white skies. Cliffs that are serviceable, but not spectacular or really approachable by foot.

That's looking down at a 70 degree decline

Now I'm home to rest before shabbat starts. Shabbat shalom.

Yehuda

Day 2: Rain and Pretty Girls

Flight to Frankfurt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes)

The flight was uneventful, though about forty minutes before landing they announced that there was a medical emergency on board and we should remain in our seats and keep the aisle clear. The movie was Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

I hate to give bad reviews; I give so many of them, you wouldn't know it.  I recognize that years of effort and millions of dollars go into these movies, just like the great amounts of effort and money that go into the games I knock. These are somebody's babies. But I also know that there are thousands of movies and games, and people need to hear honest opinions about what's out there. I know I do; I rely on it. So, though it pains me, I can't say that I recommend the movie.

The effects were good and the story was ok. The apes reminded me very much of Jackson's King Kong. Like the Star Wars prequels, the plot of this movie lead to an inevitable conclusion, occasionally at the expense of those who don't know the original.


One of the characters shouts the famous line from the original "Get your filthy hands off me you damn dirty ape!" and that's fine even if you don't know it's a classic line from the original. On the other hand, some background noise about a Mars mission was distracting and meaningless to me while I was watching it; only after the movie was over did I realize that this was supposed to be the lost mission from the original movie.

The human characters are painfully one-dimensional; in the case of the protagonist and his girlfriend, this drags down the movie down into b-movie mediocrity. The story takes a long time to get going; this is not always a bad thing. But here, combined with the predictability of nearly every twist and the one-dimensionality of the characters, I got impatient.

Throw in the usual problematic science effects:

• instant medical effects that should take much longer (expose the ape to IQ enhancement drugs during the afternoon and by nighttime they can work complex machinery they haven't seen)
• a misrepresentation of how those effects should manifest
• unbelievably perfect communication and memory among apes who were animals just hours before (and forgetting that all those other apes, that they freed from the zoo/lab, etc, never had exposure to the drugs and should still be acting like apes)
• storm-trooper like behavior and aim of the police, etc
• and other oddities (what were all those apes eating this whole time? who designs cages like that?)

and you end up with mediocrity. Good effects, followable story, some basic allegories about slavery and self-determination, but mediocre nonetheless. The movie might have been better as a ten minute intro to another movie.

Frankfurt

I had to walk two kilometers through Frankfurt airport to get to my connecting flight. The airport is devoid of local flavor; it's expensive luxury items and newspapers. I wasn't impressed.

The guy checking people in on the Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Dublin had some unusual tattoos on his wrist, the names of his wife and children.

I don't know: a Jew in Germany with a voluntary tattoo on his arm makes me uneasy ... moving on ...

Dublin Daytime

Dublin is surprisingly warm; I don't need my winter coat. This morning I made my way by bus to St Stephens greem, a lovely spot (it's the trees that do it: they make you feel cut off from the city) with a pond and ducks etc.

I sat down for breakfast and was swarmed with pigeons like something out of Hitchcock.

The sky is gray, and I imagine that that's often the case; the sun peeked out in the afternoon. It's easy to see how people in this climate yearn for the sun. It's not the gray or rain that bothers me, however; it's the damp. Everything gets damp, even under my poncho, and it stays damp.

I walked along some unimpressive expensive shopping district.

Perhaps the most distinctive element here is the number of people paid to hold advertising signs. Nothing impressive about the stores during the daytime.

Against all of my beliefs, I ended up taking a city tour bus: 16 EUR and you can hop on and off for two days. It helped me get my bearings. After driving around, I began to make some sense of the geography in my brain. I guess you shouldn't really need it, if you study the city map before coming.

I tried to go to IMMA (Ireland Museum of Modern Art), but it was closed. The cafe and bookshop were open. I passed by the literary and theater district and picked up a ticket for a play next Thursday. I got sneakers.

Dublin Nighttime

I went home to sleep and then went out to find the only kosher restaurant, open only on Thursday evenings and located behind the synagogue. Unfortunately, owing to a conflicting event, it was also closed. Still, I got to meet some Jews at the synagogue, which is always comforting when I'm among strangers.

I went back downtown to find music. And that's what's great about Dublin: music (and Guinness and Jameson's, to those who like that kind of stuff).

It was so easy to find live traditional Irish music. I stopped at one of the first pubs I saw and had a fantastic evening. I drank a ginger beer (alcoholic here, though they were non-alcoholic in Scotland).

I also met two beautiful women. One of them in particular I thought fetching. I sat next to her and told her she was beautiful, and then later I asked her to dance with me to the music, and she was happy to dance with me. Any guesses as to which one?

Too bad they're too young for me, even if they were Jewish. They are from France, also on holiday. The one I didn't choose spoke almost no English; the other one just enough to understand me when I asked her to dance.