Ireland - dublin, last set of pix...

So, by the time we got to Dublin, we were halfway through the trip. We stayed close to St. Stephen's Green, met up with one of our former exchange students from England - (redhead with an Irish father, so really Jenn's long lost little twin sister) and wandered around Dublin for a few days..

Christ Church Cathedral

River Liffey, which runs right through the middle of town

Whiskey tasting at the Jameson Distillery. Johnnie Walker, Jameson, and Jack Daniels. Not surprisingly, JW tastes like peat/dirt, JD like burnt corn/gasoline, and Jameson so light and smooth (triple distilling) that's it's almost too neutral, like vodka. Note to self, if you become a distiller, naming product J-something is good luck.

We liked our beverages. I'm still mostly a Scotch man, though.

Kilmingham Gaol. This, and Dublin Castle (no pix, oops) were some of the better historic sites we saw in Dublin. The Office of Public Works really has a bunch of top-notch guides walking you through Irish history...

Random band playing on the streets of Temple Bar.
To be honest, they were actually pretty good.

Wall of Fame in Temple Bar with the usual suspects (U2, Thin Lizzy, etc) - and a lovely CCTV camera watching everything. Hello!

The baby makes more friends in Dun Laoghaire. This old couple was so hilarious sitting on a bench near the harbor. They weren't following the open container law either..

Jedward. These jagoffs need to disappear. Quickly. I saw far too much of them in Ireland, count yourself lucky they have not spread across the Atlantic yet. At least they can sell a nacho to their fellow Irishmen.

Streets of Kilkenny - we took a day trip to get out of the city and popped into a couple of places..

like Glendalough, where BabyGirlHeff got to do another fun thing - touch the historic rocks around this 6th century monastic settlement. That, she loved. The rain, not so much. Very soaked after this.

and the view flying out of Dublin across the countryside and hedgerows as we left for the States.

It's been about a month since we got back - and I do miss it. I think, if we could find equivalent jobs in Ireland (doesn't Tiltware have a presence in Dublin - or maybe I would just pour pints because I'm so chatty and conversational with strangers, not...) or if we won the lottery, we'd move there in a heartbeat.

We'd definitely be in the sticks, though. Not that Dublin wasn't bad... but I'm around a big city, I know what they are like. We both preferred the Irish countryside much, much more.

Living somewhere out near Dingle or Kenmare... now that would be an interesting life. In this day and age, you're so globally connected - those remote places just don't seem that far away anymore.

I'm just happy I got the chance to see Ireland. That's probably the best thing about my wife - she ends up making me do things I'd never get around to under normal circumstances. I feel bad for my daughter - she'll never remember any of this as she gets older - unless we take her again, of course.

OK, maybe this week I'll get the chance to actually play some cards and make $$$ like LJ.

As it is, I've got to go to New York (not the city, the state) with my pop to catch up with family for a couple of days, so any WCOOP play is probably not going to happen. Even AIPS may be tight on Saturday, and I'd hate to miss PLO8... :-(

This is a really low-volume month for me. A nice change of pace.

Ireland - driving, from Kenmare to Dublin...

Driving in Ireland was... interesting..

First off, there's that driving on the left thing, with the steering wheel on the right. That was weird enough.

wishing this was Mario Kart Wii and I had that bullet power-up

And there there was the other issue our one-day delay caused... We lost the automatic transmission for the rental car and had to drive a stick shift... - which wouldn't be so bad, after all, I learned to drive on a stick and my first car was a 1971 baby blue VW Beetle.

Of course, I got rid of that car at 18 and have only used a clutch a handful of times since. So there was an adjustment period. Plus, I was sleep-deprived, the gear shift was in my left hand, the roads have like no shoulder whatsoever... did I mention they were a little narrow?

Driving these buses through the passes must suck.

So yeah, that first day or so, I must have stalled out/missed shifts every 10 minutes, almost hit a car in the first roundabout I came across, and probably scraped something on the shoulder five or six times. It was not a relaxing experience. Oh, it took me a couple of hours and looking it up in the driver's manual to figure out where Reverse was - I knew where it was, but figuring out where the interlock/catch was to slide the gearshift over into it was another matter.

But, every day got better and better, to the point that by the time we were leaving Dingle for Kenmare, I was a reasonably competent driver. By then, it was just the small things - getting used to pulling into traffic... I felt like I was driving the mirror tracks on Mario Kart Wii.

No, I didn't buy the hat. I'm not that good of a driver.

So, picking back up the trip, we drove from Inch Beach to Killarney -

Inch Beach, which is actually like five miles long. Irish humor?

and yeah, Killarney, as has been written about, was a very touristy town with a lot of tour buses and it felt... a little busy (it was a Saturday) and far more... commercial than anything we'd seen so far on the western coast. I grew up in Virginia Beach, I have a pretty good feel for a "resort town" - and it's not a favored atmosphere to hang out in, We did stop and check out Ross Castle, which was a pretty interesting restored 15th century stronghold

Ross Castle, on the Lakes of Killarney

and Muckross House, which is as much a monument to 19th century largesse and going broke to impress royalty as anything else - and then a really nice drive through Killarney National Park on the way to the B&B just outside Kenmare.

Near Ladies View, Killarney National Park

View back through the park at Moll's Gap.

Had a wonderful lamb stew for dinner with some pints, and a good night's sleep.

Sunday morning we decided to check out the fair in Kenmare - Jenn has timed this stop to coincide with the biggest fair of the year in Kenmare - which was a odd mix of a flea market, farmer's market, and bazaar with all sorts of stuff. If you were into pellet guns, tools, or animals (yep, for sale there too) you were in luck.

Main Street in Kenmare

BabyGirlHeff wants a pet. Not.

Since we needed to be in Dublin by Monday morning to meet one of our former exchange students from England for a few days, we skipped out on the Ring of Kerry drive most books recommend, and started making our way across the country. We stopped at the Rock of Cashel, which dates back from the 12th century, midday

Impressive. And pretty high up too.

Rock of Cashel with Hore Abbey in foreground - not as close a walk as it appears

and then got bit by the biggest bugaboo of the trip - no iPhone data because we didn't want to get hosed by Verizon international data roaming charges. We drove into Dublin - and then almost immediately got lost because while there are a ton of signs all over the road, the one thing there wasn't enough of were street signs for the actual road you were on. Yeah, they are supposed to be up on the corner buildings... but in reality, you only see them a third of the time... Ordinarly, you just fire up the Maps App and get to where you're going that way... but now, we were doing this manually, me driving, Jenn reading the map.

So, at first, we kept stopping short (oh, we're too far deep into the city, we must be past the hotel) and once we finally got our bearings on the map - then it became, oh, how do we get there (all the one way streets and "you can't turn right" here intersections) before we finally puzzled it out after an extra 60 minutes tooling around the city... then we had to drive out to the airport to drop off the rental car (didn't need it in the city) and come back....

By the way, you drop off the rental at a major Irish airport... by parking it in the garage, bringing the key to the desk and telling them the mileage. Very different from the American experience.

So, we spent that day driving waywayway too much. But we were in Dublin for the second part of the trip, and we had a friend coming in Monday. All was still good, even if we wanted to kill each other by the end of the night ;-).

Hello Dublin. Boy are you hard to find stuff in...

Ireland - baabaabaabaa

A pause traveling between Dingle and Kenmare - now that I remembered something.

We drive out to Brandon Point. Tiny, tiny road for like 10 miles. Small town with three buildings, two pubs and a breakwater/boat launch area three miles from the point.


Even tinier road past that leading to the point, right on the Atlantic. We see sheep all up and down the mountainside - because obviously no horse or cattle can get up and down the terrain.

We get there - windy and breathtaking. Jenn takes photos, I walk around with BabyGirlHeff in one of those Hangover-style Baby Bjorns. We're about done, and Jenn says something about wanting to see a flock of sheep being driven down the middle of the road while we're in country.

And sure enough, on cue, as we get ready to leave - there's a flock of sheep changing pastures, coming up the road.



There's video of this that's just priceless...

Ireland, County Clare and Dingle

enough silly stuff about Ireland for now. Where did we actually go?

Cliffs of Moher/ The Burren - this was the first day after our missed connection, so I was sosotired and sleep deprived I barely remember it after landing in Shannon - but it was notable that 1) it was clear and sunny on the cliffs and 2) the wild landscape was such a headtrip - you hear about different countries and their unique topography, but to actually see it was another matter all together. Dopey Colgan Air cost us a night staying in County Claire over in Doolin...

Cliffs of Moher

The Burren

Dingle Peninsula - we made our way down, over the ferry from Killimer to Tarbert, and through Tralee to the B&B we were staying at for a couple of days. Freaking awesome view of the Atlantic Ocean from here

Yeah, ocean's just close enough to touch, great elevation.

The mountains are so close, looking back from the beach here.

After sleeping like nine billion hours, we traveled around, over to Brandon Point for a closeup view of the ocean.

Brandon Point from afar and closeup...

and then through Conor Pass to get to Dingle.

barely 3000ft. up, but yeah, that's a small road.

and then around the Dingle Peninsula

pretty much as far west as you can get and still be in Ireland..

and back to Dingle for a meal and some traditional music to wind up the day.

Dingle's a nice little town, just touristy enough without being annoying.

The next day, we took another pass across the peninsula through to Inch Beach

This road really wasn't on a map. "just turn left at the corner and go... lol"

before heading off the Dingle Peninsula to Killarney, Kenmare, and the Iveragh Peninsula.

We started the trip off on a high point. Jenn and I both enjoyed the trip around the Dingle Peninsula: it was our favorite area of Ireland, and we really could have used an extra day there. Just a nice, scenic, relaxed region - we joked if our jobs allowed it and we still got paid, we'd pick up and move in a heartbeat.

More to come...

Ireland - traveling with babygirlheff

was a lot smoother than I thought it would be.

Beehive huts on the Dingle Peninsula.

She's a really social baby who loves everybody - everywhere we went she just smiled at everyone and made friends galore. The only time she really got ornery was when we took her along on a guided tour of anything - that was her cue to use her voice and try to talk to the OPW guides.

Of course, it was nice when she snoozed in the car too.


In other news, finally hit the tables for the first time in a couple of weeks tonight. My usual play-bad, go oh-fer in SnGs with a couple of bubbles - then I get most of it back in 50NL Rush before I play this hand and realize I'm off my game.

I open two kings UTG+1 to $1.50 with $101 behind.
UTG+2 with $80 behind repops to $5.50.
Hijack jams for $35.

I tank fold like a bitch because usually one of these muppets has aces here and I didn't feel like playing a 375BB pot by the time all the stacks went in.

UTG+2 calls with QQ, Hijack's AQo (WTF?) does not get there, board runs clean for KK.

Yeah, I still suck.

return to the states...

(just an iPhone photo for now, appetizer for more pix soon...)

Hey, so we're back now. Traveling across oceans can be such a slog.

Ireland was teh nutz, though.

By popular demand (ok, just @jjok on Twitter) I'll probably put up a few posts/pix from the trip over the next few days to break up the inevitable "I play bad and still make minimal mobney away" posts I pollute this blog with.

It only took the wife a few minutes in Newark airport to wish she was back there. I can't say I blame her.

Finally...

Yeah, it's actually nice here. Time change is tough.

uh, yeah, this isn't very green...

my morning view



So, uh, yeah, screw Colgan Air and codesharing. At least they didn't kill us, merely had a dippy mechanical delay from DC that caused a missed connection and an overnight stay in Edison, NJ's finest Holiday Inn.

Which is like 30 minutes from Newark. Off the Jersey Turnpike. Arriving at midnight midweek with nothing open and nothing to drink or eat but Papa John's pizza.

So that's a winner. At least 1) we got $120 in food/drink comps with nowhere to use them and 2) we're flying on Biz First Class tickets, so we can kill time at the airport today in the bunnyfoofoo lounge until we catch the next flight 24 hours later.

I imagine I will be quite tipsy by the time we board.

off the grid

and in Ireland for a few days. Will have a Guinness or Jameson while I'm there...

WSOP sweat, hello!

yeah, guess we're all going to have to do a virtual sweat Friday night..


Lucko be going deep for a nice five or six-figure cash...

PokerNews or teh twitters will probably be the best way to keep track...

EDIT: damn, that was quick :-(