I decided, after not really having a "real" vacation since 1979, to take Thanksgiving week off and get out of Atlanta. Since I'd started selling Celtic music, I figured I'd check out one of the Celtic lands, and decided in Ireland, not realizing that the trip would be both pleasure and business. So after deciding on this, and going through three months of making arrangements (meeting with Anne McCaffrey, meeting with the band members from WhirlyGig [I hoped]), on November 17, I winged away from Atlanta, cramped in a full airplane (I've just gotta win that big Georgia jackpot so next time I can fly either full-fare coach [and hope to be upgraded because the plane's full] or business class).

After finally getting into Dublin, I found the Avalon House, which became my "base of operations," so to speak. That, however, was only after finding a new supply of insulin as Delta had taken my old supply off the plane while we were in Shannon.

I met with Liam Donohoe, the leader of WhirlyGig that night, and we tried getting some "pub grub," but it seemed that our luck ran out, as when we entered each of four or five pubs, we found out that the food service had just stopped like five minutes prior. Oh well.

Sunday morning, I left for Glasgow, where I was to meet Donald Lindsay of Into June (no page yet). Because I'd been stupid enough not to bring anything warmer than a sweatshirt (and it had become soaken wet with sweat), I had asked if he'd meet me at the airport rather than in town, so that I could get something warm to wear. However, in the transit area at Dublin Airport, I found a duty-free shop which had a fleece jacket from Guinness which fit just about perfectly, so I bought it and was warm from then on. Donald did meet me in the terminal, and we ended up taking the train from the airport to downtown Glasgow. However, it was before we got on the train that I had a rather interesting experience:

As we were waiting for the train, there was a group of about 3 or 4 young men waiting with us. They saw my Martin Backpacker case and asked what it was. I explained it was my guitar. They wanted to see it. Fine. I took it out. Then, with the day being so windy, I asked why they weren't wearing at least sweaters, explaining that if their mothers had seen this, they'd beat their bottoms. This got them wondering, and I quickly tuned Packer up and played "Dominatrix." They couldn't stop laughing! I had a hit! Later, Donald told me how much of a hit I had: it seems these young men were from Aberdeen, where the people are more reserved with their emotions than in other areas of the country. For me to get them laughing . . . well, need I say more?

After spending the afternoon in the center of Glasgow walking around, we went to Donald's flat-to-be. See, he got married on December 8, 2000, and since I couldn't really stay with his family (they had cats!), we used his new flat. His mother came over a bit later with a full "Scottish high tea," which not only had tea, but vegetable soup, homemade bramble jelly, fresh-made raspberry juice, a fruit cake the likes of which you've never seen in the states, scones, oat bread, all homemade! Mrs. Lindsay, a thousand times over, THANK YOU!

That evening, Donald, his fiance (whose name I remember sporadically) and I went to a pub jam in Glasgow. There were a lot of musicians there, a lot of guitars, a bodhran, several wonderful voices, Donald with his weird looking pipes, and me, with Packer. I recognized a few songs as coming from America, but that was about it. In preparation for this jam, I'd gotten a copy of the lyrics to Dr. Jane's "Nessie, Come Up," which I performed a capella. The people in the pub were singing along with the chorus starting after the second verse, and everyone was joining in by song's end. THANK YOU, DR. JANE! The performers came up to me, thanked me for coming, and asked me to join them the following week. I explained I was only there for a day and a half, but that I'd try to come back when I could.

The following day, Donald and I went to Stirling to see Stirling Castle. The site is a very historical one, with roots back to both Braveheart and Robert the Bruce. One of the 4 buildings had been restored to the condition it would have been in at the time of its completion, and you could see what nearly 1000 years of the elements had done to the other buildings. The difference was absolutely amazing. The view from the parapets was even moreso. The drawback to going to the castle was that from the train station, it was a rather steep uphill walk, and with me being way too out of shape, I had to keep stopping. I did, however, find some interesting sites along the walk to the castle, and will post the pictures onto here after I get them scanned.

After an evening of rest and an early trip back to Ireland, I spent Tuesday mostly resting. On Wednesday, I did the only really "touristy" thing of my whole trip and took a city tour on one of those double-decker buses. It was a semi-inexpensive way to see most of the sites of Dublin town, including the outside of the Guinness brewery (the tour and gift shop were closed for renovations), the old seat of Irish government (which had been turned into the largest branch of one of the Irish banks), Trinity College (where I later went to see the Book of Kells), a lot of statues (pictures later), the other side of the River Liffey (I was south of the Liffey). Pictures coming.

I had arranged for a rental car for a couple of business appointments I had made prior to my flying over to Ireland, and picked it up on Thursday. It took me about 20 minutes to get used to driving on the left-hand side of the road, but other than the initial culture shock, it went pretty well. The roads were well taken care of, even the small roads between the little towns. I drove from Dublin to where Mike Freeman and Tania Opland live, to purchase 10 copies of the "MasterHarper of Pern" CD and to get one copy autographed by them for donation to InterFilk. Turns out they live in a very small out-of-the-way town called Inostogue, which is about 3 hours' drive from Dublin, but a lot closer to Kilkenny. He is British-born; she is American-born. They work on their music in a studio in their home (which I didn't get to see). (picture coming)

I drove back to Dublin through all these little towns (starting to notice, of course, that the names of some of them were looking awfully familiar, as in the names of places and characters from Anne McCaffrey's books) and got back to Dublin just in time for evening rush hour and DARKNESS. I did manage to get lost, but with a lot of help from pedestrians was able to get back to where I knew where I was.

On Friday, after breakfast, drove down to County Wicklow to meet with Anne McCaffrey. She and I had been irregularly communicating via e-mail and I'd asked if I could see her home. She invited me in for a "cuppa tea," and I had picked up some bread to bring her to say "thanks" for the invitation. Without going into major details, she lives in County Wicklow, which was a very pleasant drive from Dublin. The house is very simple outside, but inside it's gorgeous! After sitting at the famous "kitchen table" with a cup of tea, some of her friends, a beautiful Weimaraner (sp?) and a long-haired cat (and I didn't react to it!), I was shown "the house that dragons built." Although there had been a major case of Thanksgiving the day before, it didn't matter. There were paintings all over the walls (I got pictures of some of them) in the living room, books upon books along one hallway, and two wonderful 3-D renditions of Ramoth at two stages of her life. In the room where she writes the books, she showed me a device created for her which shows her the stars above Pern at any time of the year. As she says on her webpage, Rukbat is a real star out in the middle of somewhere, and an astronomer-type friend created this device to help her with the astronomy part of the stories.

After turning in the rental car and returning to Dublin, I did some shopping, including some stuff for Interfilk.

On Saturday, after taking the time to pack for the trip home (which I was looking forward to but at the same time not), I got a call from Liam Donohoe, informing me that one of the band's guest artists, Brian Fleming, had just turned 31 and was having a birthday party at a hotel pub then at his flat, and would I like to go . . . OH YEAH!! I was picked up about an hour later, and we first went to a really small hotel pub, where I met Brian, his mother and his girlfriend who, it turned out, was from New Jersey! After about 2 hours there, we retired to Brian's flat for the jam. There were a whole bunch of musicians there - see, it turns out that Brian is one of the premier percussionists in Ireland, was involved with the creation of the world's largest drum (according to the Guinness Book of World Records), and a lot of the invitees were both professional and semi-pro musicians of note in Ireland. The percussionists were in one room (that included Brian), the others were in another, which is where I ensconced myself. There were 2 violins, 2 violas, 2 Irish or wooden flutes, one ancient banjo, a bouzuki, 2 guitars and a mandola. Talk about hours and hours of music. I finally gave up the ghost at 3AM (and had to get up at 6 for the flight home).

The flight home was uncomfortable (like a sardine can in coach again), but when the flight finally landed in Atlanta, it took me something like 30 minutes to get from deplaning through baggage claim and customs to the MARTA station to get home. This on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Some quite points of note:

1. The people in Ireland are extremely friendly and helpful. I think southerners could take a few lessons from the Irish with regard to being hospitable. They were nothing but fantastic!
2. Rashers: compared to what I see my brother-in-law or friends eat here as bacon, rashers are something different altogether. They're thick, no fat on them, and absolutely delicious.
3. In Scotland, the trains literally run on time. You're not there at 3:02 for the 3:02 train, it's gone. You gotta wait.
4. On some Scottish trains, there is "beverage service" which comes through on something like a hot dog cart, save that these are taller and carry more stuff (but not hot dogs). The food is a tad pricey, but not by much.
5. Irn-Bru is a soft drink in Scotland. It's extremely addictive and it tastes good (in my opinion). More Irn-Bru (pronounced "iron brew") is sold in Scotland than all Coca-Cola products combined. And the Scots won't export it to the States!!
6. The taxi drivers in Dublin were on strike half the time I was there. Traffic to the airport got so bad that when I drove there to turn in my car, it took an hour to move 2 miles because people were having to drive their own vehicles.
7. However, there were two nice taxi drivers who helped me out in major pinches. One was the driver who helped me find replacement insulin (driving to 4 different pharmacies); the other was the driver Sunday morning who took two British guys and me back to the airport. Seems that the Aircoach bus had way too many people waiting for it at a stop prior to the stop where we had been waiting. This driver, driving his "limo" (a BMW something) saw us waiting and offered to take the 3 of us to the airport for 10 punt apiece. What he didn't tell us is that he'd be doing, in some places, over 100 miles an hour to get us there in time for the other gentlemen's flight. Ah, cheap thrills, fast cars, etc.
8. In Scotland, I had trouble understanding quite a few people because of the "thickness" of their brogue. I had to ask Donald a couple of times to repeat himself because I could simply not understand what he was saying. He was more than happy to do so, though.
9. In Ireland, people were really rooting for the Bore to become president. They didn't like the Gush at all.
10. Fish and chips are a major passion in both Ireland and the UK. The best place in Ireland for fish and chips is called Leo Burdocks. It's about a 10-minute walk from the Avalon House hostel. For 4.50 punt, you get a nearly-whole fresh cod (caught that day, cooked that day, you don't get the head, fins and tail) and real chips, which make french fries seem worse than tame by comparison. Better than anything over here, and better than what I had in Scotland.
11. I had to buy a hat to protect my head during the cold weather. Just so happens there's a great hat shop up the street from Avalon House called "Coyle's." The gentleman who owns/runs it was trained as a "fitter," which is more than just a hat-seller. He could tell my hat size when I entered his establishment. I ended up talking with this gentleman (and he was truly a gentleman) for nearly an hour about hats, his training (he'd been working in his field for 55 years), customer service (something I know all too well about), etc. If you find you need a hat, get it from him. As soon as I scan his business card, I'll put it up as a graphic on the page.

Copyright of the page text is October 31, 2004.

© 2000, 2004 sffilk@bellsouth.net

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