Ireland

I was cleaning my craft room (well, more like "de-cluttering") when I came across photos and mementos from one of the greatest trips ever! Twenty-two years ago this month, my friend, Kath, and I were in Ireland on a Pub Tour. I was living in Connecticut at the time, working as a bank teller with a really cool group of people. My manager, Nancy, happened to be good friends with a travel agent named Dennis, so she was always privy to some great travel deals. Well, when she told me that there was an Irish Pub Tour coming up, for only $600 (it was 1989), I jumped at the chance to go! Kath and I were excited, mostly because we were going to the homeland of U2, and even though we knew it wasn't likely, we still held onto hopes that we might see Bono and the guys wandering around their native land. Hey, we were young and silly (now, we are just silly...) We toured the Irish countryside on a bus with our group and a really wonderful bus driver whose name escapes me. We all loved this guy, though. We saw ruins of old castles, the cliffs of Moher and many, many little pubs along the way. Kath and I weren't really big drinkers (we still weren't able to legally drink in the States) but we had a great time anyway. The last two days (it was only a 4-day trip, unfortunately) were spent in Dublin at a nice hotel called Jury's. I remember Kath and I were so excited that they had room service, so we ordered french fries and sodas, which were delivered by a very cute Irish guy!I don't have a photo of the cute guy, but I did get a shot of those fries and sodas!

We didn't do too much pub-crawling in Dublin, just wandered around the city, taking it all in. Also during the trip, we enjoyed a medieval banquet at Bunratty Castle, where I got the only photo of Kath and I together during the trip.

I believe those were a couple of "wenches" behind us! Other things I remember from the trip: going to the Irish Whiskey corner & encountering a very rude group from France, shopping at an Irish Mall (no difference from an American mall, aside from the accents) and going to a newstand to look for music magazines. Then there was the dirty old man at the newstand who stood beside me, pointed at one of the topless "page 3 girls" that were (maybe still are) gracing the covers of newspapers, and told me that he'd like to see ME on those pages! Eww! I hope Kath's memories of that trip are as great as mine!