Day 36: I Have Never Attended a Yoga Class

You get what you pay for, as they say. Here’s what you get when the price is $0:

You get your wife’s old yoga mat because it’s readily available, but it’s thin and it makes your brittle wrists hurt and you can see why she wanted to replace it.

You get an instructor who uses a shitty speaker system that conks out halfway through so he then has to yell his instructions that are also supposed to relax you somehow, and you get instructions that are themselves confusing to an amateur such as me, because I don’t know jackshit about yoga.

You get two homeless dudes staring down at you for about 20 minutes straight, just staring, because there are 20 women there in tight clothing and even though you are a loose-clothed man, it still makes you uncomfortable.

You get the pain and agony that a very unlimber man gets when he attempts to do yoga.

But you also get to unwind after it’s over, silently laying on the ground as the sun peeks over the Ben Franklin Bridge and your breathing calms and the only thing you hear is the Delaware River gently lapping against the pier.

I will not be attending another yoga class anytime soon, but that last part almost made it worth it.

Love,
Joey

Day 35: I Have Never Been to Canada

Our tour of Ireland complete, we began the long flight home. And because we were still flying Air Canada, it was even longer than advertised. Our layover in Toronto was especially brutal, as our flight to Philly was delayed multiple times. We drank LaBatt Blue beer to pass the time, and it gave us hours to reminisce and reflect on the adventures we had. After reminiscing, we tried to board the plane, but it was delayed yet again, because someone "soiled a seat," which I assume mean someone just shit all over the place in frustration.

But anyway, back to the reminiscing.

I would, first and foremost, consider our vacation in Ireland to be a success. It was definitely a different type of vacation than we usually take. Typically, we go on vacation to relax and unwind, possibly on a beach, probably with drink in hand. Ireland was not relaxing, and at times outright frustrating. Ireland, at times, was not kind.

But having success means overcoming challenges, and every frustration we faced, we overcame together, me and Pam. Lost luggage, declined cards, a GPS system on the fritz, we went through it all, and managed to have a great fucking time doing it.

And I think we went about planning our Irish adventure the right way. One, we lightly planned our locations for each day, and booked a minimal amount of activities beforehand, but also left ample time for aimless exploring, and letting fun things happen to us. Two, we found the correct balance during our trip between what I call the "tourist-y shit" and the "drinking in pubs." We found equal amount of pleasure in the jaw-dropping beauty of the Cliffs of Moher and the slapstick comedy of a drunk old man asleep in a shit bar.

Overall, we soaked in about as much Irish culture that we possibly could over a nine day span. And isn’t that what it was all about? Discovering a new part of the world? It was a great life experience, one that I will cherish for a long time, at least until our next big adventure.

Love,
Joey

Postscript: A List of Every Pub (etc.) We Drank At in Ireland

1. The Hairy Lemon
2. The Duke
3. O’Neill’s
4. The Last Stand
5. David Byrnes
6. some weird-ass underground French wine/cheese bar
7. Bakers
8. Guinness Gravity Bar
9. Peter’s Pub
10. Arthur’s
11. Temple Bar
12. The Quays (in Dublin)
13. Bad Ass Cafe
14. The Cloth Ear
15. Hotplate
16. Crown Liquor Saloon
17. Laverty’s
18. Duke of York
19. The Quays (in Galway)
20. Tira Nora
21. Tira Coili
22. Crane Bar
23. Tigh Neachtain
24. King’s Head Bistro (and later, King’s Head Bar)
25. Taaffe’s
26. Hole in the Wall
27. Monroe’s
28. O’Connor’s
29. Murphy’s
30. The Laurels
31. a bar that we saw live music but I didn’t write down the name
32. The Grand
33. Oliver Plunkett’s
34. Murray’s
35. Old Oak
36. Thomond’s
37. Franciscan Well Brewery
38. Sin E
39. Mutton Lane
40. The Oval
41. Crane Lane
42. Bodega
43. Rising Sons Brewery
44. Pyg
45. Library Bar
46. Stag’s Head
47. No Name
48. Horseshoe Bar
49. Elephant and Castle
50. Fitzsimmons’

Day 34: I Have Never Explored the Rock of Cashel

Hey, here’s some pictures of the 5th-century castle that we visited:

Incredibly, while we were taking the tour of the castle, we ran into someone we knew from Philadelphia. The world is so small sometimes it isn’t even funny.

After the Rock we drove back to Dublin to complete our Ireland adventure. The fun wasn’t yet over, though! Because we arrived in Dublin to meet our final AirBnB host, Patrick.

No pictures exist of this man, but he’ll forever be remember by me and Pam as the worst AirBnB host we’ll ever have.

He was very much intoxicated when we arrived. He brought us through a shady alleyway to his duplex’s front door, explaining that he had his "uncle’s Irish wake" the night before, so he was sorry, so very sorry. Sure enough, the apartment was a mess, there was trash and beer cans everywhere, and a very large pile of crumpled up euros on the coffee table.

We said okay, and were willing to overlook all that, despite the bad vibes. But when we got back after lunch, Patrick was bare chested in the living room, even more beer cans in front of him, with his "boss" in the room as well. From the other side of our (locked) bedroom door, we heard his "boss" yelling obscenities, calling Patrick a "fucking loser," tossing shit around the room, etc. Not a good vibe!

While this is all happening, Pam is booking a room in a hotel. As much of an adventure as staying at Patrick’s would’ve been, we weren’t trying to be murdered in the middle of the night by an Irish druglord.

Patrick refunded us the 100 euro from a huge wad of cash when we expressed our discomfort, and we promised not to review him on AirBnB.

Guys, Ireland was a fucking adventure.

Love,
Joey

Day 33: I Have Never Drank Rising Sons Brewery Beer

Our day in Cork.

I woke up and went for a run along the River Lee. Don’t let the fact that I went for a run fool you—this was a very bad vacation regarding my health and weight.

Pam and I checked out the English Market, which was (in my mind) Ireland’s answer to Reading Terminal Market. We ate bangin’ sausage sandwiches for breakfast. Seriously, might’ve been the best thing I ate all week.

We didn’t really have anything planned, so we ended up at a bar around 11:30, and had a beer. Not pleased, Pam insisted we actually find something to do. So we walked to Cork City Gaol (pronounced "Jail," not "Gay-ol," which I know since a very flustered and frustrated tourist center employee corrected me).

The jail reminded us of Eastern State Penitentiary. Some of it was even a little creepy, such as this jailkeeper mannequin that looks like something the Guilty Remnant would leave in your kitchen to freak you out.

After the jail, we walked down a brutal hill and ended up at a brewpub in an old Franciscan monastery. It was decided that we should continue to explore Cork in the only way we know how: by drinking our way through it. Pam discovered a map online of a bar crawl through the "Cork Heritage Pubs."

What made these "heritage pubs" remained a mystery through most of our bar crawl, though it soon became apparent that there was one similarity they all shared. All five that we visited featured Rising Sons Brewery beer. Locally brewed craft beer, we drank a lot of it throughout the day.

The bars included:
1) Sin E (pronounced "shin-AY")
2) Mutton Lane Inn (two pics above)
3) The Oval
4) Crane Lane (one pic above)
5) Bodega (pictured below)

In bar crawling through these pubs, we were able to get a real nice tour of the city that would haven’t been as explored so thoroughly if we weren’t a bunch of drunks.

We were sitting in Bodega, and we were probably the only people in there are that point, so a guy behind the bar came up and started chatting us up. Turns out, he was the owner of Rising Sons Brewery, which was great timing, because we had just spent the whole day drinking his beer.

When we were wrapping up, he told us to follow him across the street to the Rising Sons Brewery itself, so we did. Generous Irishman that he was, we drank for free the rest of the night, and had a ball chatting with him (he even wisely steered clear of the trump conversation once he could see I was getting riled up!).

Pam and I don’t really make it a point to meet people on vacation, but I’m so glad we made an exception in Cork, as our new friend got us nice and drunk and really made us fall in love with that great city.

Love,
Joey

Day 32: I Have Never Seen a Sheepdog in Action

Today we spent about seven hours on a bus tour around the Ring of Kerry, which is a large peninsula in SW Ireland. The tour took us through a bunch of small towns, and past many spectacular views, all pictured below.

But the best part of the tour, and probably Top Ten for our whole Ireland vacation, was seeing a sheepdog show.

Two well-trained dogs effortlessly marched those sheep around a hillside at only the sound of the shepherd’s whistle. It was fucking wild. I guess this video is better at describing than I am. I can’t really describe how cool it was in person, though.

The sheepdog demonstration started with a description of each of the sheep. They were goofy and adorable.

These sheep started all the way at the top of this hill, and the dogs got them down to the bottom in like fifteen seconds.

I’m not sure if you can zoom in on this dog’s face, but do it if you can. He stood like this for 20 minutes, just watching the sheep.

There was plenty of spectacular views along the Ring of Kerry.

Ladies View.

What a life this dude leads. We found him and his goat in a small town called Sneem (which, as the rhyme suggests, had great ice cream). It was raining pretty good, but there he was, sitting in the town square, silently, goat by his side, and a hat filled with coins. The implication was that tourists could take a picture, and then drop a coin in the hat. Seriously, this dude was making bank. Sitting at work back in Philly and thinking back on this guy, all I feel is jealousy.

Love,
Joey

Day 31: I Have Never Witnessed the Cliffs of Moher

Fodor was hit or miss with its recommendations—one day we ended up at not one, but two hotel bars, because they were both "Fodor’s Choice," wtf?—but it was spot on with the Cliffs of Moher. It truly was the most jaw-dropping thing we saw in Ireland. As with the Giant’s Causeway, pictures don’t really do it justice.

After the Cliffs, we drove to Killarney, which was a small town. The best way to describe it is that it is Stone Harbor to Galway’s Wildwood. Still had a great time!

The first sign that it was going to be fun was that we walked into the first bar we saw and found a very drunk old man fast asleep, clutching his Guinness for support (and the fact that he was asleep in a bar caused Pam to quip that we had finally found one of my ancestors).

Love,

Joey

Day 30: I Have Never Hung Out at the Spanish Arches

Today, like every day in Ireland, everything I did was new, but there wasn’t anything that absolutely stood out as truly special. I chose the Spanish Arches just to throw something up there in the title. But really, Pam and I did something today that is very not new. We spent the whole day pub-crawling, exploring a city, and having fun.

Before drinking, we went to the Galway Market for breakfast. Along the cramped back alleys stood dozens of food and jewelry vendors. Lox and bagel never tasted so good.

How I spent my summer vacation: standing at the bar waiting TWO WHOLE GODDAMN MINUTES for a Guinness to be "properly" poured.

In Europe, they don’t have "bachelor parties," they have "stag parties." A stag party had to have been the reason we hung out with a gimp at a bar, right?

Galway was the fucking best. We drank Irish coffee in a cramped centuries-old bar that looked like someone’s library den; we ate oysters and tons of other seafood; we drank beers in an empty, cheap college bar to escape the rain; we ordered double-vodka and Club Lemons while listening to an Irish cover band that started their set with the Friends theme song. It was a great fucking weekend!

Love,
Joey

Day 29: I Have Never Visited Giant’s Causeway

Per Wikipedia, Giant’s Causeway is "an area of 40,000 interlocking basalt columns." Yes, I had to look that up too. Basically, it used to be a volcano, but all the lava cooled off, and created a beautiful Northern Irish landscape.

The pictures really don’t do it justice.

Tales from the file marked Joe Being Frugal: We got a hot tip from a nineteen-year-old bartender the night before that we should tell the folks at Giant’s Causeway that we are staying at the Causeway Hotel. That way, we could get free parking. Much to Pammy’s chagrin, I went along with this plan, and the parking lot attendee bought my ruse. Even better, when we went into the visitor’s center to purchase the actual tickets, I continued the lie, saying we were staying at the hotel but hadn’t checked in yet. Even without a hotel room key, we got the hotel discount: FREE admission. Saving about $50 total was totally worth the ten minutes of marital discord.

After leaving the Causeway, we took the longest car ride of the trip (only five hours though!) south to Galway:

Galway, more than any other city we visited, matched what I pictured Ireland to be like in my mind before the trip. Lots of tight, interlocking streets with rows and rows of colorful buildings, bright colors and loud Irish music and a pub on every corner. Known as the party city of Ireland, we rolled into Galway on a Friday afternoon, and true to reputation, the party began.

Love,
Joey

Day 28: I Have Never Driven a Car on the Left Side of the Road (or Driven a Car with the Steering Wheel on the Right)

Driving already is scary as fuck, even before you throw in some curveballs. Every American besides those employed by USPS will tell you that it’s a huge adjustment driving from the right side of the vehicle. And then having to constantly remind your brain that you’re supposed to stay to the left, that when you make a right turn you still should be staying to the left, that when you hit that roundabout you should be going clockwise—it’s a lot! The whole ordeal reminded me of this neat video. After a two-hour drive to Belfast, Pam said FUCK IT, she couldn’t take the anxiety of being my passenger, and she took the wheel for the remainder of the trip.

We made an effort to do at least one tourist-y thing each day. In Belfast, we visited the Titanic Museum.

We made an effort to do tourist-y things because otherwise we just hung out in pubs the whole trip. This place, the Crown Liquor Saloon, looked like a church, and even featured "confessionals," i.e. private booths for drinking your Guinness.

Belfast was a pain in the ass in some respects—exchanging money, frustrating city layout, average-at-best lodging—but it really was a beautiful city in certain parts.

You’re gonna roll your eyes when I say that the argument between me and a Northern Irishman pictured above was about politics. But it wasn’t like that at all! This dude, after drunkenly sitting right in between me and Pam, starts asking about trump—which, mind you, wasn’t uncommon when people found out we were American. Most people would typically ask about him in a sympathetic way, like, "Oh man, trump, he’s an embarrassment. How did that happen?!"

This guy, however, managed to stun me with his political rhetoric. He too acknowledged that we have an orange embarrassment as a president, but his logic was: since you’re regretful of trump, shouldn’t you also be regretful that you left the British Empire?

What?! There are people in the UK that still think this? Apparently! He used such talking points as "But the American Colonies were the least taxed colonies at the time!" and "I bet you have never even seen the Queen!" We concluded this absurd argument by him telling me that I am a spoiled brat for disrespecting his country. A 241-year-old grudge! Unbelievable!

Love,
Joey

Day 27: I Have Never Visited the Guinness Storehouse

Pam and I visited the Guinness Storehouse, which is basically a huge tourist attraction for the beer. It’s like Disney World. You wait in line. You move in one direction through different attractions—here’s how the beer is made, here’s how we have advertised throughout our history, here’s how you pour the beer—and you end up at the bar at the top, which gives a 360-degree view of the city of Dublin.

Pam thought it was pretty funny that I posed next to some barrels that read "RAW SMELLS."

Let’s talk about that infamous Guinness pour for a second. Did you know people are very specific about how they pour their Guinness? I guess I knew this a little bit, but the number of Guinnesses I drank before our trip to Ireland I could count on one hand, so it took nine days in Guinness country for it to really sink in.

Here’s a video about how it’s done. The part that sticks out to me, and was a mild annoyance throughout our trip, was Part 4, the fact that you have to wait two whole fucking minutes for it to "settle."

This probably speaks more to my impatience as an American consumer, but in no world do I want to wait an additional two minutes for a beer. It’s tough enough waiting at a bar for a bartender to finally acknowledge you. You’re telling me then you have to wait another TWO MINUTES while your beer sits right there? It ain’t right. Just grab me a Hamm’s, crack the top, and hand it to me.

Pam hated this observation, HATED it, so I stopped rolling my eyes a few days in when we had to wait for the bartender to let our Guinnesses settle. But back in America, I can’t see myself ordering too many more Guinnesses (unless there’s a special and the price is absurdly cheap, which has happened zero times in my life).

I was reluctantly in charge of the map-reading during the trip. When this picture was taken, we thought we were at Trinity College. This is, in fact, Dublin Castle, not part of the college. I am terrible at map-reading.

This is St. Stephen’s Green, a large public park in the middle of the city. It was a nice respite from the hustle and bustle of Dublin.

Another observation that was quickly quelled by my significant other was this: Does the fact that Philadelphia has a few parks like this diminish its value to us? In other words, would I have appreciated St. Stephen’s Green even more if we lived in a city that lacked public parks?

I thought about this first when we were listening to traditional Irish music a few days later. It’s not the first time I’ve heard the Irish Music with the fiddle and the accordion and the flute, etc. Just go to Fergie’s on Sansom St. and you’ll hear it every Saturday afternoon. Does this mean that I didn’t enjoy it in Galway as much as I could’ve? I don’t have an answer to that.

Thankfully, it didn’t RUIN anything. When we heard traditional Irish music, I still enjoyed the fuck out of it. And I still enjoyed the serenity of St. Stephen’s Green.

This is Temple Bar, a bar in a part of the city called, um, Temple Bar. This is where the drunk college kids hang out and throw up in the street at three in the morning. It was fun, if also expensive, to hang out in this area. We also discovered a new favorite fast food restaurant, Apache Pizza (though maybe it shouldn’t be a favorite?) Irish pubs don’t sell food after 10 PM, apparently.

Picture taken 48 hours after landing, when our baggage arrived. Fuck you, Air Canada!

Love,
Joey