Ireland - Day 7 - Rain

Got up at the O.W.L. and had breakfast with a busload of tourists. Then loaded up the car for yet another day of driving across this accursed isle.

The inn keeper had his wry wit this morning, urging us to drive into a gale to see the sights of Dingle. So we pointed the beast west once more, to drive out on Ireland's ding-a-ling and get rather soaked doing it.

The roads weren't bad at all, but the weather was. Clear, then fog, then rain, heavier rain, spattering rain, rain to the sidelike, and chili dogs.

I think I saw the Atlantic. Or maybe that was the deluge spraying off the hood of the beast. At least he was happy, getting a bath after all that backcountry work.

Trekked to the ferry at something or other. Waited 30 minutes for the ferry. Got on said ferry. This ferry was special. Which it better damn be for 25 euro one way. It had automated announcements. It said to run for your life if you heard the sirens blare, to either end of the car packed ship. I told the passengers if they heard it to make sure we took the car keys, because the full insurance through the rental agency covers everything except lost keys.

The ferry landed uneventfully, and we continued to Ennis in County Clare. There was a hurling championship on. Either there is a championship every week, or we have absolutely rotten luck. Neither would surprise me.

Of course we arrive 30 minutes before the match, when every blue and yellow Irish bastard for miles on end has congregated in the city center, as if drawn by a powerful boozenetic field to the pubs, packed like sardines and babbling like strangely colored penguins lining the streets.

Of course, they won. As I write this I can hear the monkeys in project mayhem blaring their horns as they circle the town, waving their flags, making known to all that their personal worth is based solely on the performance of the sports team that hails from the town they were born in.

From what I've seen of Ireland, their self-image is not too far off the mark.

The parking lot for the Old Grand Hotel was packed. We scheduled dinner at a place just around the corner for just before the end of the game, to try and miss the crowds. As we ate, a nonstop parade of cars decked out with blue and yellow and honking their horns incessantly passed through the window behind us.

The food was OK. Katy seemed to like hers.

As for the town - meh. Katy and I walked about town, and it seems little more than a shopping trap in a podunk county. A podunk county with a sports team. If you can call hurling a sport. It's irish football, which is like soccer rugby, except instead of a soccer ball each man has a club, and they carry and hit a baseball around the field. There are goalies. A goal is worth three points, a field goal 1 point. But they don't add. The score for the teams can be 3-9 and 5-0, and its a tie.

Katy says this wouldn't work in the US because calculating the score requires math.

After dinner, tried to catch some Irish music at the hotel pub. After all, they say that to meet the locals, you need to sit down at a pub and talk while Irish music is played in the background. So which is it, do you drink, listen to music, or listen to the Irishman? And what, may I ask, could I possibly have to discuss with an Irishman? The meaning of life? I'm pretty sure my answer is none of your goddam business and his answer is booze.

I don't even talk to other Americans unless I am forced to do so for work purposes.

I left the pub early (two minutes after arrival) because honestly, Irish pubs are not my scene and run against every introverted bone in my body. Scattered gaggles of drunk people with verbal diarrhea yelling at the top of their lungs in very small, packed rooms. This has been going on for centuries. Every night. Centuries. Every night. What the hell is wrong with these people?

I think I've figured it out: They're all homeless insomniacs. It's pub to work to pub to work to pub again.

And as for us: it's drive, then eat, then sleep, then eat, then drive, then eat, then sleep, then eat, then drive.

So who is more insane? Us or the Irish?

Can't wait to go home and have a real, forced vacation sitting at home while the government is shut down. Please, Congress. I really need this one. I could use about three or four weeks off, playing videogames and finishing up some projects at home while you bicker and argue.

Now THAT'S a vacation. Even if it is unpaid.

Lewis Black quote of the day: "The only thing dumber than a Democrat or a Republican is when these pricks work together."