Misc. Thoughts on Ireland

The Irish eat a lot! I know you are probably saying to yourself, "Duh" right now, but really, they do. I don't think you understand how much they eat. Breakfast is two sausage, two bacon, and ham (not a choice of, but all three included), along with tomatoes, bread pudding, potatoes, and toast. Their lunches are the size of an American full sized dinner, and their dinners are American buffet size. A lunch "snack" is a sandwich with salad and chips (fries). A dinner "starter" is a normal size that we would share amongst two or three people but they all order one for themselves, individually. This is of course before the buffet-sized dinner. Oh, and then their is dessert.

I am not complaining though. Since we left Dublin the food has been awesome, especially the seafood. The salmon and clams up here are a lot more buttery tasting than in the Northwest. Oddly enough though, the pepper smells like manure. I am not joking, it really does, and it is kind of gross.

Speaking of odd things, all over Ireland, almost everywhere you go, there are cameras. Every place you go in, every hallway, stairway, front door, even on the sidewalk, there is a CCTV camera. They are all there to "prevent antisocial behavior" according to the signs, and eerily enough when you ask people if they are comfortable with all the cameras they will repeat to you that they are there to "prevent antisocial behavior." What is antisocial behavior is not clear and it was kind of freaking me out how complacent everyone was having their entire day recorded and watched so I stopped asking questions about the cameras. I tell you though, even walking along a path along old (300 years old) city walls in a small town, there above you was a CCTV camera. (Shiver.)

On a totally different note, we almost ran out of gas out in the middle of no where. A few things to remember in Ireland, road signs may or may not be posted. If they are, they may or may not list your destination. If it does, it may or may not be pointing in the right direction, it very well may be turned to point straight into the adjacent field leaving you worse off then if there was no sign at all. Also, the Irish use landmarks for giving directions (go figure?), so when they say turn left at the pub, pay attention to the name of the pub, don't remember to just turn left at *a* pub. And lastly, just because a town is listed on a map and the last two towns were not, does not mean that town is any bigger than five buildings total, of which none will be a gas station.

All in all I was having a little bit too much fun during this episode, which normally would not be a bad thing except it was at the expense of laughing at Derrick sitting next to me. I am still not sure if he was sweating bullets more over the fact that we might run out of gas in the middle of no where in Ireland or it was my driving. Either way, we made it, as you have probably already guessed.