Rain, rain, go away!
There’s something strange about Ireland. Yes, it rains, but this is a stereotype that I do not wish to enforce. Unfortunately, one does not always get what one wishes for.
This morning we left our happy Best Western hotel in Sligo (which we now know is pronounced “Sly-Go”, not “Slee-Go”). The same woman who checked us in now had the morning shift - Ania helped us a little bit also with the pronounciation of Achill (Ah-Kill) and did indeed make sure we understood the perils of the road ahead. More specifically, she explained that the fluffy white creatures called sheep would happily walk over the high way and you had to make absolutely certain that you would not hit them. I was just thinking about dinner, but hey, that’s probably because I’m an insensitive chauvinist pig^Wsheep. Then also, she said to please please watch out for the sheer and steep cliffs. If a bus would come towards us, we would likely fall over the rim there, and drop ourselves miles-deep into the ocean. And all I was thinking is that bus best not touch my rims, or I would have my way with the bus driver.
So off we went, to find some grub. That turned out to be remarkably hard in Sligo, but only if you are foreigners. I had looked up the address of the Three store because unfortunately, despite having a data plan called “All You Can Eat”, yesterday I saw a quick succession of SMS texts from our good friend Three.IE saying “you have spent 6.16EUR in data fees”, then “you have spent 11.54EUR in data fees”, followed quite rapidly by a “15.72EUR” and then a “You have spent 20.00EUR, you have been disconnected.” Please for to come again! Jackasses. So off to the city center [sic] we went, only to not find either a food unit dispenser company, nor a telephone internet repair man shop. So I did a non-Pim thing and went over to some guys working in construction and asked them, only to be told they have no idea in some form of Irish dialect that sounded more like he wanted to bash my skull in. See, that is exactly why I do not do that type of thing. Le sigh…
So we asked another person about the Three shop (“The whatnow?” - The phone shop, please?) and quickly got directed to “a” phoneshop, of course not Three, but O2. I thought fuckit, I’d just go ahead and buy myself a new simcard then - and as in Doncaster, it turned out to be remarkably hard for the lady at the shop to log in to the O2 system, and we loitered for about 20 minutes while she attempted to register the sale. Finally that worked, and we were back in business again, internet wise.
As we turned out of the shop and back onto the street, the huge mall caught our attention. Of course nobody found it necessary to tell these bloody foreigners about the big-ass mall, which had ample food unit dispensing companies (I got a smoked salmon sandwhich, Paul got a Panino). Oh wait, “panino” - we had a discussion about that. I called it a Panini, such as I would figure approximately 99.73% of the world. Yet Paul loves being the minority somehow, and insists that the singular is Panino, plural Panini. I later that day giggled like a girl when I said the word Maffioso when describing Mickey Blue Eyes. I would never have said “Hugh Grant plays a Maffiosi”. Damnit, WEiRD, I hate it when you’re right!
Our tour takes us to the perilous cliffs of Achill. It was a terrible drive, and I was not comfortable at all. This could have been the gushing rain, non stop, endless and mindnumbing amounts of water falling from the skies. But really, it was the puddles. The roads there are maybe 4.5m wide (two 2.2m lanes), no shoulder, and often bushes and shrubs which are acutely close to the roadside. The road, moreover, probably had its last service in 1608 [which, coincidentally is the founding date of the Bushmills Distillery company!!], and so it had rather large potholes. Which were filled with water, and overflowing into significant puddles [there are countries in which these things would be called lakes, I figured]. So what happens if you drive an SUV with 295mm tires through a puddle with one side, while the other side is on pavement? Yes. It pulls to the left like a boss. But on the left there is much bush and shrub. And on the right is that lorry that’s passing you at also a delta-v of way over 120kmh. Did I mention that the puddle is deep, and therefor sprays a few buckets of water over your windshield. Do note, all of these things happen in the same 500-1000 milliseconds and honestly, my brain was failing to comprehend it all. I’ve had more enjoyable drives :-)
When we got to the end of Achill, where the road stops, there is a rather beautiful beach, which was not necessarily beautiful today, because it was raining cats and dogs, and windy to the point that we could hear the wind howling over the car stereo. We hazarded to get out and we tried to approach the sandy beach, but honestly, the wind and sand and mud and rain and and and. So we went back to the car, and instead drove up to the dam. Many sheep again, we took some pictures, otherwise just retreated back inland where the wind was not so ferocious and the water not quite as wet.
We had some lunch at a roadside place called Ostan Oiliann. Somewhat excessive again, I had a vegetable soup and Paul and I both had a steak sandwich [which were actually two steaks on a garlic baguette with mushrooms and onions, and fries, and coleslaw, and a salad]. I felt stuffed like a turkey, so I snoozed a bit while Paul drove onwards to Galway. We had booked a cozy B&B again, Summerville, and it’s just outside of the city, overlooking the Galway bay. Really nice house this time, friendly folks who let us in and showed us the room. We hung out a little bit and then headed into town for some dinner. We chose a place in the middle of town called the Malt House. It was very good, and I skipped the wine (and most of dinner) because I’m feeling increasingly guilty about eating so much food. I took two starters (a rocket [nee, arugula!] soup, and smoked salmon), while Paul took boneless pork ribs, then a ribeye steak, and then local cheese platter. I felt significantly less full now, which was good. It left room for two pints of Guiness, of which Paul made an #Autoawesome (see my Google+ post for that gem).
After that we walked around a little bit, but the rain is just no fun, so we went to find our car and drove back to Summerville. When we got there, it promptly stopped raining. I think this is the cosmos trying to tell me something, but I haven’t yet figured out what. As I write this, I’ve booked us a cozy unpronounceable B&B for tomorrow around Killarney (it’s called “Lios Na Manach Farmhouse” for the terminally curious), and also a boat trip from Doolin to the Aran islands and the Cliffs of Moher. We have to be at the docks there at 10:30am, which gives us some 2.5hrs to have breakfast and drive the 80km via the windy coastal roads to there. Google says we can do that in 1h17m, which leaves plenty of time for breakfast. Oh my, oh my oh deary lordy my, I’m actually doing the B (laying on the B as I type this) as well as the B (I hope they have a good coffee) today.
Posted by Pim van Pelt at 3:10 PM
