Generosity, helpfulness and willingness to brea the rules....found daily in Ireland.

When we arrived at the Best Western, Skylon in Dublin, we were several hours too early for our check in. Judy and I were greeted by a young lady named Aoife, pronounced, "E fa."  We allowed as how we were hours early but we wanted to either get an early check in OR store our suitcases until check in time. She quickly indicated she would check to see if we could get into a room early so we could take a nap. We had travelled all night and were exhausted. Aoife got us a quiet room and we were not charged one extra cent despite our being five hours early for check in.

Later that day, she helped us with bus information and helped us navigate the city through specific maps, directions and information about what to do, where and when. At check out this morning, Aoife was there and we were trying to get directions to our rental car company. She and the manager gave us the info and thought it made sense for us to leave our bags there because we would have to travel by the hotel on our way to Bangor. She was right...everything worked out well and when we arrived back she was tickled that we had made it and not got lost, nor had we had an accident. YUP, customer service is expected but how often do we not give or receive it?

We have stopped many a person on the street asking for directions to x,y and z and without exception have been given great directions, warmly and with a generous dollop of brogue, accent and flavor. Me: Do you know where the bus stop is going into the city center? Him: Hmmm....a wee bit over there, no? He was pointing up the street and waving us on in the opposite direction.

When we arrived in Bangor, we had to stop to ask where Donaghadee Street was. We couldn't Map Quest the address while in Dublin. At the grocery store, an elderly man, with no teeth began giving us detailed, incoherent directions. A 35ish woman said she was going in that direction if we wanted to follow her. We did that and she pulled over and waved us on. Later that day, she saw us walking along the beach and she pulled over to ask how long we were staying in her town and told us where she lives. We had been by there and knew her house due to the two barking dogs. She introduced herself as Frances. Later that day, she again pulled over and asked how we were doing? Told her we had been out exploring and we loved her town. Tomorrow, we are going to knock on her door with a bottle of wine...unless we run across her somewhere. She didn't have to pull over and chat with us...but she did. We are being welcomed over and over.

Bought two bottles of wine (yup, that kinda day) and the best chat with the clerks in the wine store. The young man has been to several states in the USA, including Ohio, NY, Texas and Colorado. We discussed with the older woman that we had never seen Weight Watchers wine. She said it wasn't bad but we indicated we would go with the "fat wine" for tonight. Left laughing.

Are we Americans that welcoming and generous? I sadly don't think so. I plan to go out of my way to welcome strangers when I can.

Thoughts from Northern Ireland

Hmmm...not sure why the font has hopped to larger size but hang in with me. We are in Bangor, Northern Ireland and while still Ireland, things are different here. For example, instead of kilometers per hour, which is used in the south of the country (Dublin areas), they use miles per hour. Now, the odometer only has kilometers per hour; so I have NO clue how fast I should be going. Also, in Dublin and the south they use Euros and here, we use pounds, or British Sterling. Both monetary systems are light on bills and heavy on coins....all sizes and all colors.

Parking is a serious issue for my driving. Everything is parallel parking and cars are squeezed in tightly everywhere. What makes the driving horrid is HOW drivers park. They can and do park outside of the marked areas along the street...so if a car is halfway into your lane and parked, you must swerve into oncoming traffic to go around the parked vehicle. This means you are literally driving into oncoming traffic. And, of course, that driver is also swerving towards you because there are parked cars on his/her side also. There is one lane (in good places) for vehicles travelling in both directions. Navigation is scary.

Note the cars on the sidewalk. When cars are parked like this on both sides of narrow streets, it leaves a less than one lane space for two lanes of moving traffic to manage. Traffic parked the wrong way when you turn a sharp corner leaves you a bit disconcerted. There are very few street signs and many one way streets...with little signage indicating what direction one is going. An adventure.













 

Dublin, Ireland

Judy Valentine and I made the decision to come to Ireland...a place she wanted to visit and one that I had explored a bit with Heidi, the year she turned 30. We left Detroit yesterday around 3:00 p.m. and flew to Dublin. We weren't able to sleep on the plane but got to town around 8:30 a.m. We decided to go directly to the hotel and see if we could get an early check-in or at least...store our bags til later in the afternoon. The young lady who waited on us indicated there would be no problem. 15 minutes after arriving at the Skylon Best Western, we had a room key and were getting ready to take a nap. Nap, we did. Got up at 11:00 a.m. and headed out to explore the city. We went to The Four Courts above, maneuvered through the throngs of people on the streets and navigated the car traffic going the wrong way down the streets. We look right for oncoming traffic..here, one looks left.  

 
One of our first observations was that there is an awful lot of cigarette smoking going on here...not as much though as we saw in Canada.

The architecture here is wonderfully old and well persevered. Around every corner is a wonderful example of stonework. Apparently, when Heidi and I were here, we rented a car at the airport and went south. This city, I have never experienced and I am loving it. Lots of diversity and am hearing diverse languages being spoken. Many inter-racial couples around also.

Today was a day of walking and exploring...we walked down the River Liffey and across the bridges. Tomorrow, we plan to take the "hop on and hop off" bus to see many of the historical sites that we just walked by this afternoon.

 
Our room is small but very clean. When we arrived we noticed this closet in the bathroom and figured it was a laundry shoot or something. Come to find out, the handle on the door is how one flushes the toilet!

   Lunch was a granola bar and some water while walking around the city. We managed to take two buses and find our way back to the hotel. Decided to eat at the hotel restaurant and I wanted to hit a pub to hear some live music. However, live music begins around 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. and we are totally wiped out tonight. Maybe tomorrow. We both ate, "bangers and mash" for dinner. This is a traditional dish with sausage, mashed potatoes and caramelized onions. Really enjoyed this, although I didn't eat the mashed potatoes.

Went into a grocery store to see what different was on the shelves. Produce is very expensive...rather like in Alaska. They had a "red cheddar cheese" that I might buy to bring home.

Tomorrow, we are meeting the on-off bus at "half eight." How 8:30 is described here. Interesting trying to navigate the English language with words and phrases we just don't use.

 

As we walked around the city, we saw some interesting and some outrageously talented graffiti artists' work. Had to love this one, which stated, "This ain't NO normal advertising" pasted on a building beyond its prime.

 

Today was rather warm for this time of year here. We were wearing long pants and a light jacket but some of the women were wearing next to nothing. Sleeveless dresses that barely covered their butts seemed to be the norm. Saw one young lady whose chest was exposed down to the nipples. She was happily sprinting along with her man friend at a rapid rate. You can tell the local city folks from us tourists...they are speed walking and on a mission. We are ambling along...taking in the sights, sounds and smells of the city.

Juneau, the city

We were able to spend parts of several days in downtown Juneau and had lots of fun checking out the souvenir shops and local businesses. Ate at a crab shack one day and crab cakes. While I enjoy Richard's version of crab cakes, Tracy's, not much more than a cooking shack, had the best dipping sauce ever. Homemade and they don't sell it and wouldn't tell me the recipe. YUM! Ate at another restaurant with Annie and David and The Twisted Fish had great food. Halibut tacos for me.

Richard and I stopped at The Red Dog Saloon, above, one afternoon for a drink. It is quite the hotspot and has a long history. The place was filled mostly with cruise line folks. It has sawdust covered floors and this sign says quite a bit about their philosophy.

Our service was very good but many cruise ship patrons were cranky. The saloon had live music and the place was decorated with many a wild animal or animal part.

The "Danger, Watch for Falling Snow" sign was seen at various places, including the local Auck Bay post office. Means something come winter, but made me smile on a 75 degree sunny day.

One thing I didn't learn when I was cruising on my sister's cruises, when she was a nurse on Norwegian Cruise Lines, was that these companies buy up many of the local stores. Folks disembark from the cruise ships, buy "local" merchandise and the money goes back into the hands of the cruise lines and not into the local economy. Juneau had lots of signs in stores that were locally owned or run by the Native Arts Council. I will look for this when out and about in port cities.

Mt. Roberts

Yesterday was Alex's day off, so we ended up taking a tram up to the mid-point of Mt. Roberts. On our way up we saw these two huge bald eagles sitting and watching us pass by. Nature at its best! At the tram drop off point there is a nature center and the necessary bar/restaurant and trail heads. We hiked a bit...maybe a mile but that mile was straight up the side of the mountain and while the trail was dry (others have not been) it was grueling.

Saw this totem carved into a tree as we hiked the trail. A lovely surprise.

This raptor was caged and although he appears small, he easily could carry off small cats and dogs. Apparently, his relative, the bald eagle, often snags a small cat or dog. Annie and David have seen them in the eagle nests by their home. This guy could carry off Chica and she weighs 20+ pounds!

After we hiked straight up Mt. Roberts for awhile, we came to this cross placed in honor of a priest who was instrumental in Juneau's past. Never made it to the top of the mountain...turned around after this momentary rest and photo. A young lady, Carty, joined us for the tram and hike....she is a friend of Alex's and she also is a UAS student and employee. Enjoyed meeting several of his friends.

Below is a view from the tram looking down on Juneau. Cruise ship coming into port.

 

Hiking: Peterson Trail and Mt. Roberts

Despite my having back issues and a cranky knee these past couple of weeks, we have been able to do some trails and see some wonderfully different plants. Many of the trails here are along bluffs or straight up the mountains. The paths vary in the quality of their upkeep. Apparently, most of the trails are maintained through the use of volunteers.

David and Annie took us on a hike on Peterson's Trail, one of Alex's favorites. At the end of this trail is a cabin one can rent. We didn't to the whole trail...just a couple of miles of it because we had to go back into town to pick up Alex.

Here is a photo of Annie and Richard on the Peterson Trail.

While we were trekking along, we came across a whole field of these white fluffy plants...Alaskan cotton! Not like that grown down south but very pretty.

This is a typical trail...rocks strewn all around with devil's club, spiky plants which you do not want to trip or fall in. There is no way to look up while walking on these trails. Too much to slip upon, slide across or trip over. What is quite fun on these trails is that it is deep in the woods and fairly dark and cool. So, sunglasses come off and so do the jackets. Within 10-15 minutes you find yourself on a bluff and outside of the forest and you reverse the clothing process. Lots of on and off while hiking.

    The dark side of the forest. We have been here almost two weeks now and had rain only one day. This is highly unusual...nice for us but not for the rain forest, the plants and the animals.

Tracy Arm trip

Yesterday was an interesting day…we walked around town waiting for the tour boat to leave for Tracy Arm Fjord,  did some Christmas shopping and had Pel Menis for lunch. These are some sort of a dumpling with a meat center, cooked in curry and boiled in a broth. To die for! After that, we went to the dock but Alex's boat was not there.  I sent a text indicating we were at the dock. Alex called me back and said, “We had to leave without you!” You were late! As we approached, Richard mentioned that they boat must have gone to get diesel before the tour. We had been told to be there at 1:00 p.m. and, of course, I was there at 12:45 p.m. EARLY!

Alex ranted about how much preparation had gone into our getting this trip at no cost to us. The inconvenience, the trouble, the planning…all for naught. I got ticked and upset…we followed directions to the letter and he was bitching me out. I started to give it back and he laughed and said, “Mom…gotcha!” The boat arrived and I gave him a punch. Had a beautiful trip and the best was hearing the comments from the passengers about the “Naturalist” and his presentation. They had NO clue this was our son. One lady said, “He is good.” Another young man, a recent college grad told his mother, “He is going to be so successful.” As the trip continued, people realized Alex was our son and they made the most incredible comments about his helpfulness, his charisma, his grasp of culture, lore, history and nature and he isn’t even a local. We had a great trip but enjoyed watching our son be so professional and passionate about what he is doing. I mentioned to him that he most likely could not give a three minute nature presentation about either Michigan or Florida, two states he lived in for years.

Bad photo...cut the kid's head off...but this is a hunk of glacier that the boat deckhand netted and passed around. This ultimately went into the cooler.

We travelled a fair distance via boat, but first had to load passengers on our boat from a cruise liner. The huge cruise liner just came into port, docked, opened a side door on the water side, opened another door and attached to our boat a hydraulic gang plank. 26 people were off loaded onto our boat and off we went. Reverse off loading happened with the cruise folks. In the meantime, we saw ice bergs, two glaciers, one of which was calving. Dinner was served on the trip and we had a “bag lunch” consisting of a turkey wrap sandwich that probably weighed a pound, an apple, chips, cookies. Drinks were also served by Alex and the deckhand, Kevin. Kevin later took a huge net and scooped up some iceberg chunks to put in the cooler to keep the soda and beer cool. I asked about that and Kevin, a young man from Boston, just working this summer here in Juneau, indicated, “Why not? It’s cold and free!” He had a point.

 

 Saw some harbor seals along the way and some incredible land formations. Glacial carving is so obvious and so pretty. Also saw some magnificent waterfalls as we cruised along.

 

What I am enjoying so much is the natural beauty here. I have visited before but I just don't remember being in awe of all I must have seen.

 

The glacial striations and rock carving and mountain effects of glacier movement over time causes incredible formations.

 

 Sawyer glacier. The color variation was amazing. The sun shining on the rocks and on the glacier glimmered at times. Some rock formations look like they are covered in rust or iron.