Butch Fun Cars III?

Kymco People S 125.   2007.   Royal Blue.
Deposit this afternoon, balance and pick up next Saturday.

More later…

(Here’s the reference for the entry title.)

Ireland: Dublin (part 1)

2:28 pm, Dublin (at the hotel)

Made eyes at a couple bearish types at Pantibar and The George last night, but nothing beyond that.  Came back to the hotel around 1:30.  (Pantibar is named for an MTF transsexual performer, and I guess owner of the bar, Panti.  Part of the decor is red women’s and men’s underwear as light diffusers over the lampshades.)

My hotel room is a top floor garret room, with a single bed tucked into the corner.  A pretty lousy bed, truth be told: thin useless pillow, and a mattress that you can feel all the springs in.  The bathroom isn’t too bad, though, and there’s wireless, and ultimately, it’s a room in the City Centre area at not too expensive a price.

The view out my tiny window pretty much just shows the top floor of the building across the street, although I can also catch a view of the Spire.  The 120-meter tall Dublin Spire was erected in early 2003 as a replacement for the 138-foot Nelson’s Pillar, which had been blown up by the IRA in 1966 (possibly to commemorate the Easter Uprising of 1916).  It is a silver spike narrowing from about 10 feet at the base to 6 inches at the top.  The top several feet has white LED lights at night.

After breakfast, I took the tram back to Collins Barracks and visited the Decorative Arts wing of the National Museum of Ireland.  They have on display a reconstruction of a Viking longboat originally built in the Dublin area around 1042 and sunk (along with several other boats) in a Danish fjord some 50 years later.  The boat was reconstructed using period tools and techniques, taking 44,000 man hours to complete, and then it was sailed back to Dublin by a crew of 65, with stops at several locations along the way in Denmark and Norway.

The museum also has a display about the Easter Uprising of 1916, which led to Irish independence 6 or 7 years later.  Via other displays at the museum, it’s clear that such uprisings occurred every 20-40 years, going back into the 1700s and before.  Not that this tells modern American audiences anything about what to expect when occupying Iraq, oh, no.  (Basically, the local always want an occupying force out, and every generation will fight to get rid of the oppressors.)

Other displays include a look at Irish soldiers around the world, going back to 1550.  Much of it centers on Irish brigades in World Wars I and II, of course, but there are large parts about the Irish during English colonial days, the “Wild Geese” Irish expats serving in continental European armies in the 19th century, and the Irish brigades in the Boer War, the Spanish Civil War, and even the American Civil War (mostly on the side of the Union, but there was an Irish regiment out of Tennessee fighting for the South).  Interestingly, one ploy to strive for freedom from British rule in the 1860s was an Irish invasion of Canada (!) through Niagara, New York; the Irish beat the Canadian militia at the Battle of Ridgeway, but fell back to the States on rumor of British troops arriving.  Here is more info that you want about the event.

Other exhbits that I saw included Irish silverwork, Irish coins, and a some miscellany from the general collections, including a fabulous dress done by Charles Worth, founder of the first house of couture in Paris.  (I have a friend who studied couture in Paris a few years ago.)

Coming back, I wandered through the large pedestrian shopping mall that runs from Jervis to O’Connell, to the Spire.  Bought some souvenirs: three t-shirts, a mug and a shot glass, and some shortbread and chocolates; some for me, some for others.
I opted to not go to the Guinness Storehouse, when I found out that the tour was €14.  Half that would have been fine, but $20 was too steep for me.  I’ll probably be sorry later, and have to come back to Dublin someday. 

Shortly, I’m going to head out to the Archeological wing of the National Museum, on the south side of the Liffey.

Ireland: Killarney to Mallow to Dublin, and in Dublin (part 1)

12:25 pm, Killarney to Dublin (on the train)

Yesterday’s trip took us toward Cork, to Blarney Castle (and the Blarney Stone), probably the most famous tourist attraction in Ireland.  We drove toward Cork, then took the scenic route on the north side of Inishcarra reservoir, then into Blarney, where we had lunch.

Blarney Castle has large grounds, the castle ruins, a “rock close” (a garden path through some large boulders), and a manor house built a couple hundred years ago.  There are several stops and viewpoints around the grounds, explaining various history bits, including a cave with alleged tunnels to Cork, Kerry, and the lake; the dungeon, likely castle well, and kennel; the lake, where valuable gold plate was said to be tossed to keep it from the hands of the British (the lake was drained in the 1800s, but no sign of the plate was ever found); the lookout tower, and so forth.

Perhaps the most striking aspect was how small the castle actually was. A basement and an entry room; rooms for the Earl, his daughters, and the priest; a “family room”; a banquet hall; a kitchen no larger than my own; and a couple garderobes (privies).  That’s it.  Presumably any guards and staff were housed outside the castle, but the image of one housing dozens of people inside is completely blown away.

Being there in February, the manor house was closed to tours, the rock close was technically closed as they were building a new boardwalk for it, but by going up the exit steps, I was able to get in and see all I wanted to.  In truth, there probably should have been a reduced entry free, since perhaps 1/3 of the site was unavailable. On the other hand, one of the guidebooks showed the line to kiss the Blarney Stone in spring or summer, with people lined up solid all around the battlements and around the banquet hall below. In contrast, while I was in the castle proper, there were maybe a dozen others in there as well, such that I could go to any part and linger or backtrack as desired.  And since Mom and Grandma couldn’t negotiate much in terms of steps well, and were getting a bit worn down by all the driving, I don’t think we would have done much more there if it were available.

And yes, I did kiss the Blarney Stone.  With that added gift of eloquence, now you’ll never get me to shut up.

We returned via Mallow and Rathmore, then stopped at the Lidl (closer to a Fred Meyer, perhaps, than anything else in the Northwest; grocery store plus some other stuff) to get the making for dinner. I made pork chops, quiche lorraine (okay, baked a pre-made one of those), and beets, plus strawberry trifle cups for dessert.

Friday morning came a bit earlier, as I made oatmeal and scrambled eggs with bacon (ham) and bits of pork chops I had salvaged the night before, pre-cooking. And then a scramble (heh) to the train. The ticket to Dublin was €33 ($50, about the same as a ticket from Portland to Vancouver BC, maybe), purchased from the Irish Rail website; purchased at the station, it would have been €62!

The more I’ve travelled in recent years, the bigger a fan I’ve become of using public transportation — the El in Chicago, busses and subway in New York — but cross-country rail is a whole different level. But it’s been an enjoyable trip — except for the persistent rattle in something above the window next to me.  The cars are clean and modern, with little tables and even a food service cart coming through the aisle. (It’s also a faster trip than by car, I think, with only two stop between Mallow and Dublin.) Miles and miles of green Irish countryside going by, nothing much to see.

We should be in Dublin in 30-40 minutes, I think, and then I’ll catch a cab or bus to Lynam’s hotel on O’Connell Street, where I’ll be for the next couple nights. I’m going to try to start shifting my schedule back around the clock, staying up late tonight, sleeping late tomorrow, and staying up late and probably sleeping very little on Saturday night, so that I’ll knock out on the plane to Amsterdam and then back to Seattle. I’m scheduled back in Seattle at 2:30 pm. The aim being, then to wake up the equivalent of late morning on Sunday (like I usually would) and being back to something close to my usual weekend schedule, minimizing the jetlag coming back. We’ll see.

I’ve got the starts of a couple play sessions for this evening set up already, although how well they’ll play through remains to be seen.  (As is always the case with such.)  Being “fresh meat” in Dublin will probably help boost them to working, of course.  First one will likely be 6:30 pm or so.  A lot will depend on Internet access at the hotel or close by.