Paul and I woke up at 8:30, showered, and went to the airport to get a rental car. The plan was that Paul and I would get the car while the girls went to Mass at St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral (anyone know what makes a cathedral a "pro"?). Well, we got on a local bus (2 euro), and got to the airport in about a half an hour. While on the bus, I asked someone what time it was and he said, "8:00". I thought it was 9:00, so needless to say I was confused. It turns out that during that the night before was daylight savings. We all of the sudden had added an hour to our day.
When we got to the airport, we picked up a small 4-door Nissan, and drove away – yes, it was really that easy. It took about 10 minutes to get to downtown Dublin driving on the wrong (left) side of the road. We parked where I thought Catrina had pointed out to me on a map, but it turned out that she was pointing to the north side of the river, and we parked on the south side – so we had to walk about a half a mile up to the cathedral, but still made it in time for Mass. I came in at the point where everyone has to turn to the person next him and shake hands. The priest's accent was inaudible, so when this part came, Paul and I turned to each other and the people around us and said, "Pleased to meet you, pleased to meet you…" When Catrina and Laura found out what we had said, they explained to us that we were supposed to be saying, "Peace be with you." Again, the priest really didn't annunciate very well.
During Mass, we looked around and couldn't see the girls. When we got out, we walked around the Cathedral and still didn't spy them. A couple minutes later, they finally came around the corner. They had been eating breakfast. We asked what went wrong, and apparently they didn't know about the daylight savings change either, so when they showed up for Mass at 9 (which they thought was 10), no one was there, so they walked across town to another cathedral, which unfortunately was neither open nor catholic. So they then decided to eat breakfast in a café.
We walked the half a mile to the car and hit the road. The Irish countryside is about as beautiful as any I've ever seen – especially in the fall. Every shade of yellow, orange, and green were represented and the hills were painted in fire. We lost the main highway pretty quick (I don't know if it was because Laura got shotgun – or on purpose) and drove mainly through the back-country. We stopped in a small town and bought a CD that we hoped would be Irish. When we asked the girl at the music store to give us a CD that is by and Irish artist. She found one then we asked her, "Does it sound Irish?" She turned to her boss and said, "He's old, he'll know…. Is this music Irish-ish?" The guy looked at her with a don't-ask-me look on his face, "ish…." (meaning no). We bought it anyway and it was certainly only Irish-ish, but fun to listen to as we drove. (At least more fun than listening to all that American country music they play on their radio stations).
Paul, at some point along the way, said, "I want to stop at a farmers market." Well, when we drove through a city called Athy, there was a little farmers' market in the main plaza. I got a homemade loaf of apple bread that ended up being our lunch and we talked to some people who were standing near our car. I asked one of them, "What do you do for fun in this city?" He responded without hesitation, "Drink ourselves silly." Typical. We continued on.
As we were pulling into our destination city, Kilkenny, we witnessed an interesting phenomena that rang surprisingly familiar. Droves of people were walking all in the same direction with blankets and jackets –the young boys had a strange hybrid of lacrosse and cricket mallet. We rolled down the window and asked a passerby, "What's going on here?" and they excitedly responded, "It's the country finals! The Shamrocks verses Saint Martin's." Soccer? Rugby? Cricket? We had to know. "What sport?" "Hurling!"
Hurling? Were we going to go? Of course we were going. There was no parking, but our car was small enough to pull up onto a sidewalk (not our idea, we just did what everyone else was doing). We followed the crowds to a large stadium. We asked, "Which side do we have to sit on if we support Saint Martin's?" (I still don't know why we picked St. Martin's, but once we were there, we had become die-hard Martin's fans). The man in the ticket booth said, "Oh, you can sit anywhere, we're all friends here." True to what the man said, most people we asked said that they were neutral and didn't care who won. So, needless to say, when Paul would yell his heart out in favor of St. Martin's he got more than a few awkward stares. Of course the Shamrock's won (they were national champs last year after all), and after it was over everyone went onto the field as the captain, from the stands, lifted the shiny silver cup over his head and gave a Gaelic victory speech (It was actually English, but so hard to understand that Paul attempted to give a translation.)
After the game, we went to see the castle just as it was closing. After that we walked down the main street, over the river and to a restaurant on the corner. I got fish and chips as the TV above us reported the Shamrock's victory from earlier that day. I felt Irish just for a second. We made our way out of the restaurant and asked around until we found a hostel right in the middle of the town. When we paid, everyone pulled what was left of their money, and we had to scrape together coins from everyones pockets til we came up with the amount we owed. We were broke, happy, and heading home in the morning. Good trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment