Sláinte

We're so back

Mr. Inconsistent has returned after a week (+1 day) hiatus, but at least I have a lot to share. My apologies for the delay. The ensuing writeup + pictures have taken a decent chunk of time to pull together, so the delay is not just out of forgetfulness. Please see attached for a trip down my memory lane from one week ago. This one might be a doozy, so hopefully the pictures help. This also might be one of those ones that get pretty long on the email side of things, so pop this guy onto a browser if it’s too hefty for your inbox.

Day 1: Dublin

After hopping off the redeye, Jordan and I rushed to a coffee shop — we won the airplane lottery of being directly adjacent to three (3) children who slept for a total of zero (0) hours on our five (5) hour-long flight. Upon learning that they haven’t invented drip coffee in Ireland yet, I stumbled upon Americanos as my coffee of choice for the week. With the caffeination boost, we meandered on over to the Boston College ‘embassy’ of sorts.

Obligatory pictures followed (see above), as did a trip to the Book of Kells at Trinity College Dublin, where Jordan spent a semester abroad. They didn’t let us take pictures of the Book™, but for whatever reason they were more than happy with us snapping shots of this ginormous inflatable globe that they squeezed into a building built in 1712. To make matters even better, they wiped the shelves of their 20,000 historic books to “clean them.” Clearly this part of the tour left something to be desired from me.

However, astute viewers may recognize this room from somewhere else.

The long room at TCD was the direct inspiration for the Jedi Archives in Attack of the Clones. In fact, it’s almost a perfect replica. Less than 7 hours into the trip and it was already worth it.

Here’s a few other photos from our first day in Dublin — I’ll put the blog on autopilot for a bit and we’ll reconnect on Day 2.

Ever seen a black-billed magpie? Me either. If my birding knowledge is still up to part, this was my first encounter.

Cheeky panorama of the cliff walk in Howth. Don’t be fooled by the overcast, the weather was stunning.

Can’t caption a video for some reason, but the seagulls had a party during the Howth walk. Oddly, we got no invite.

Some nice people took a nice photo of some nice people. Nice!

Proof of Howth — wonderful little fishing town with a beautiful walking trail. Now back to Dublin proper

Welcome to the Hairy Lemon. Clearly a bit touristy hence Old Glory.

Innards of the Lemon. Cash wall seemed like the coolest thing I’d ever seen until every pub we visited had one. Now they’re all collectively the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

Please see attached a picture of the thickest, frostiest, creamiest pint of Guinness I have ever consumed. This beer above was the best I’ve ever had. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. I will think of this beer every day until I have one better. That day may never come. If it doesn’t, that’s fine. I’m just glad to have tasted greatness. Hairy Lemon, I owe you the world.

Just like that, we’ve come to the end of day 1. The hotel staff left us some delicious anniversary treats that we snacked on before prepping for day 2.

Please don’t tell the hotel that our anniversary was 3 weeks prior to our trip.

Day 2: Dublin Redux

Despite the 0 recorded sleep on the plane and inevitable jetlag from the time change, we set our alarms early and made the trek out to Dalkey and ran up to the Vico baths. This, by a landslide, was my favorite moment of the trip. The morning cold plunge after a humid run in a stunning oasis vaulted me back to life and really put the week in good spirits. Jordan and I jumped in a few times and quite literally ice bathed, then dried off with a hotel towel and, to no one’s surprise, found ourselves in a pub for an early lunch and another pint.

This is all you need to know about the Vico baths. Serene in every sense of the word.

We then moved onto phase 2 of day 2… the Guinness Storehouse tour. Back on autopilot. See you after the tour.

Clever lightbulb organization… look familiar?

The media and advertisements area was my favorite, clearly.

Our plan A was to get Jordan’s dog Guinness on a Guinness. The people who do the printing thing were very anti-dog. Junk. Hence, us on the pint.

LOOK AT THAT SHELF!!!!! #ShelfingIt

I forgot to transfer more photos onto my computer from the evening after the storehouse, so just pretend you enjoyed a nice rest of the evening with us in Dublin.

Day 3: Cork

The main event of the day was golf. After a wonderful couple-hour train through the western countryside, we found ourselves waiting for a cab to take us to the Blarney Golf Club - no stone to kiss there. Before the cab arrived, I was chowing down on this absolute monster sandwich that I cannot even remember the contents of. It was just warm, tasty, and filling before a 3.5 hour nature walk. Please see contents from today — mostly golf, with a couple pub shots. I also tried a Beamish on this day — it’s another Guinness-like stout competitor made in Ireland. It’s no Guinness, but if you handed it to me in an un-branded glass, I’d tell you it was. Catch you on day 4.

Bosh.

Long-time tennis player Jordan Klumb found her stride quite quickly.

I mean you really just can’t beat that view. Who said Ireland was always rainy?

Just a couple pints hanging out at the pub. What do they talk about?

I did indeed find Jordan holding office hours in a barber chair at the pub. Questions welcome about consulting, running, and otters, among others.

Day 5-6: Doolin.

Doolin. Period for emphasis. This town is just marvelous. Granted, it’s a vacation town and just absolutely littered with accents from cities far larger than any you’ll find in Ireland. Regardless, the town was quaint and the locals were grand, as was the food. Our bus dropped us off in Doolin town, though our Airbnb was a bit further uphill. By a bit, I mean 30 minutes, and by uphill I mean directly, with no sidewalks and on the only street in and out of the town.

On our walk up, a gentleman (who we learned later was called Seamus O’Shea) offered us a ride to the Airbnb. We hastily accepted, and think that he offered not just out of kindness but also out of a bit of secondhand embarrassment. In a blistering three minutes we found ourselves at the doorstep to the condo and thanked SOS (self-proclaimed by him, I didn’t come up with that) for his assistance and settled in for 2 days. The following pictures are from our walks on the Cliffs of Moher, our trip to the Aran Islands (though just the island of Inis Oirr), and some absolutely delightful Guinness and beef stew & steak sandwich we found in town. These were the two biggest days of our trip as we had a home base and a laundry machine. You can imagine lugging nasty smelling junk across a country isn’t very appealing. We got clean, took some day trips, and enjoyed a whole lot of quality time together. More highlights below — next stop, Galway.

Tell me that this wouldn’t fix you on the spot. This is everything that an old witch wishes her potion of healing would be.

Still went

Pointing out the first of many cliffs on the Cliffs of Moher trail.

These horses were a few hundred feet in the distance and quite literally walked up to say hello once we waved at them. We figured photo evidence was in order.

Ok

Moo

File saved on my computer as Cow_Picking_Nose.CR2. Seems pretty spot-on.

Good morning from Inis Oirr (Inisheer)! We biked nearly the entirety of the island. The backside didn’t really have anything to check out, so we stayed up front.

This was in a buried church — legend has it, if you can fit yourself through this tiny window, you’ll go to Heaven. Imagine my excitement as I slithered through the other side of the window.

One of my favorite ever photos I’ve taken — hopefully Substack doesn’t throttle the image quality. The Cliffs of Moher were quite literally breathtaking. The grandeur of it all was astounding to sit with. You can truly understand hundreds of thousands of years of history and tradition and legend built here when standing on them — and these aren’t even the ‘main’ ones.

I’m sure the cliffs are far less life changing when we’re squinting and cheesing in your face — sorry to disrupt the view.

This was the softest grass I’ve ever touched… don’t be surprised if our front lawn looks like this in 20 years.

Day 7: Last Stop, Galway

As we finished off our time in Doolin, we took a bus up to Galway for the day to close out a fantastic week. In the afternoon we grabbed lunch at a pub, walked around, grabbed a pint at a new pub, came back to the first pub for some live music, then celebrated Jordan for her birthday at dinner on the water. Just then did it rain for the first time all week. We had been pretty blessed up until then, but asking for 7 rain-free days would’ve been a big ask. Six was unexpected, though plenty. We closed out our week at one last pub with some music and got in bed for a full travel day in the hours following. Only a few pictures from this day — a handful of travel and a lot of desire to be present in the moment for Jordan’s birthday.

I think this was my penultimate pint… a pretty good one, at that. Lunch wasn’t half bad either. Some sort of turkey toastie with crisps.

Sheep acquired for Jordan’s dog Guinness. #SouvenirSunday

Birthday girl at birthday dinner! Unfortunately soon followed by some unwarranted birthday rain.

Final photo from the trip. What a wonderful week.

I still have hundreds more photos, videos, and stories to share about this week. I just don’t have the energy at nearly midnight on a Tuesday to fish them all up. Plus, I’m not sure that people’s attention spans nowadays are long enough to sit through it all. Maybe I’ll keep working on compiling my favorite ones and I’ll do some sort of collage or secondary blog later on about all the bits and bobs that didn’t make it into the first cut. Will pocket that idea and save it for a rainy day. Until then, I hope this was sufficient enough to warrant the week off last week! We were still actively traveling last Monday, and my service was few and far between. I’m back now, and I’m excited to hopefully get productive with life again. Getting back on the blog train is step 1.

Keep your head up this week and keep moving forward. No reason not to.

-Fink