Free walking tour of Dublin Ireland

Ireland is a beautiful island, the grass is the greenest I have ever seen and there is vegetation growing absolutely everywhere and it is easy to understand why rainbows are synonymous with leprechauns.

(Above picture was taken from the balcony of our friends apartment in norther Dublin, near the airport.)

The second day we were in Dublin, Brownie and I decieded to take the free walking tour. (This is a MUST do here) We had the cutest Irish girl giving the tour, Emer (pronounced like Lemur minus the L,) and on our tour that started at 2pm I think it rained 4 to 5 times, hailed once, windy the entire time and bright and sunny 3 times. Our first thoughts was that we chose the wrong day to take the walking tour but after a week there we realized there is no "right" time to take a walking tour, you just have to have the luck of the Irish.


(our cute tour guide)

(This is where the tour starts. Right outside of Dublin Castle with a person holding the free tour sign.)

The tour is completely free but they do give you the opportunity to tip them after the tour is over and if you don't give them a tip or a decent tip, they won't even blink an eye. I on the other hand gave as much as I would have paid to get that much information, which was pretty decent from an American stand point. I couldn't imagine someone would go on that tour and give less than 5 Euro, it is a very good tour and the tour guide will stop to answer any and all questions thrown at them no matter how silly or difficult they are to answer. In my group there was only one Mexican (Brownie) and two Americans (some guy from New York and me) and the rest were Dutch, Spanish, or German. The tour was 3 hours long give or take 20 minutes, the tour guide was very knowledgeable and she was funny which made the time go buy way to fast. The tour goes to Trinity College, Old Parliament House, Temple Bar, City Hall, Dublin Castle, Wood Quay, Christ Church Cathedral and Four Courts. All of which are interesting and/or beautiful so bring a water proof camera or video camera because you will want to take loads of pictures. The camera doesn't HAVE to be water proof but if you want to be sure it doesn't get water logged, then you better have something to keep it dry at all times. In Dublin, if you like the weather just wait 5 minutes and it will remind you why the grass is so green.

If you can deal with the cold, wind and rain then Dublin is a great place to be. The people there are nice and helpful to everyone no matter their cultural differences, race or class. This is one of the most diverse cities I have ever been in. I heard more languages spoken in one day in the city center than I had in my entire life, though it was strange, it was a good strange. The downside of Dublin is the cost. This is a very expensive city, it is cheaper to fly from Dublin to London England than it is to go out to a nice restaurant for two. (If you fly Ryaniar) A pint of beer is anywhere between 5 and 7 Euros which is roughly $6.50 to $9 USD and for those of you who smoke, a pack of Marlboros will cost 8.50 Euros (nearly $11 USD). If you plan on visiting Dublin be sure to add plenty of room for your food and drink costs. Below are some pictures of the sights you see on the tour, though I didn't take many because my camera isn't water proof. (another lesson learned after the fact)

Dublin Ireland and Social Norms

I thought I would write a quick posting about social norms in Dublin. Social norms are "the customary rules that govern behavior in groups and societies" or that's what the guys from Stanford say. So what that means is how you act in your group or society (if accepted as normal by others) is the social norm but where are the lines that are drawn to let you know you are out of your group or society? By that I mean how does one know that the way they act isn't acceptable somewhere else. Well so far, I have found that social norms don't exactly translate from country to country, no matter how alike one country may be with the other. For example, in Ireland, the natives are caucasian/anglo saxon or what ever you want to call white people and so am I. So is that my "society?" Also in Ireland they listen to music from the United States and they wear clothing from the United States, so I should fit right in right? The answer is a resounding NO! We may look alike, speak realitively the same language and like the same clothing designers but we are worlds apart when it comes to certain social norms. The only example I really have in mind is when it comes to the way I (and most Texas natives) deal with the cold. I dress accordingly, t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, hoodie and hooded coat (an example of how I dressed for the entire time I was in Ireland is below.)



For those of you who don't know the first thing about Ireland, it's cold. Even if the sun is shining with out a cloud in the sky, the wind can cut through you like a knife and it could rain or hail at the drop of a hat. The only thing more confusing than Irish weather is American tax law.

I bring up the subject of social norms because upon my arrival to Dublin, I asked a native Dubliner for suggestions on where to get a good pint of Guinness. Guinness is one of those beers that is easily screwed up, it needs to be kept at a certain temperature and the bar keep must use the two part pour technique to ensure the full flavor of the stout is attained. (These facts are truths you can only appreciate when in Ireland) So my newly found Irish friend points me in the direction of several pubs in Dublin and one of those is called The Porterhouse. Now normally I wouldn't add the name of an establishment that gives me poor service or in this case that refuses me service but I found out that it was MY fault and not theirs. Here is where knowing the social norms of the area you are in comes in handy.

Dublin has a problem with herion/drug addicts. These people live on the streets and roam them as if they owned the town and they aren't accepted as much as they are tolerated. People from Dublin just walk past them and do so as quickly as possible. Visitors to dublin barely recognize them because they look much like anyone else except one simple detail. They wear beanies and hooded sweatshirts all the time, and they wear them with their hoods up, much like me in the picture above. The Irish have some how built up a tolerance to the cold so most of them do not wear anything on their head, though it is very common for men to wear scarfs and a jacket. Being from a very warm climate in San Antonio Texas, I find it hard to leave my head to the elements so I was never with out my beanie and hoodie.

So one night a friend of Brownie's took us out to have a pint of beer at some of the pubs in the city center. The last pub we went to was going to be the Porterhouse. I had managed to get into every pub, restaurant and shopping mall in the city up to this point but this pub had a doorman that wasn't nearly as observant as the previous door guys. Our friend, his girlfriend and Brownie walked right in. I stopped just in front of the door to read the sign outside the door that listed off the specials for the night. When I tried to follow my group in, the doorman slid right infront of me. At first I was just annoyed that he got in my way and that he got really close to me, he invaded my "bubble" so-to-speak. My first reaction was to say excuse me and try to go around the guy, thinking maybe he was moving that direction and I hadn't noticed. That's when he told me I couldn't go in. He said "You can't go in there dressed like that." With my jaw on the ground I pulled my hoods off my head, stood up straight and look at him like he was crazy and said "like what, and American?" Thinking that he had something against Americans, now how he would have guessed I was an American by just looking at me is beyond me but I've had somewhat of a complex about being American since I started traveling. He said "No, just think about the way your dressed, you've got to look decent when you go into a place like this." Please look at the picture above and explain to me what about my appearance looks indecent? Ok, never mind don't tell me because I can't and won't see it because in my society, I looked "normal" for a guy that was freezing his tail off. Since I had no response and I didn't know if this place had some sort of dress code that I was breaking, I turned around and walked off leaving my group inside the pub. My wife quickly left and asked me what had happened and this is the point in which I started to get insulted and no longer wanted go into the pub after all.

Our friends and my brother in laws did tell me later that I looked much like the people the Dubliners call "knockers" which are the drug attics. Before my trip to Europe, I lost nearly 50 pounds so I am skinny, pale and needed more than the average amount of clothing to keep me warm. While none of this mattered much to me at the time, I do realize the guy was just trying to keep the dirt bags out of the pub which essentially is the job of a doorman. If I had known what social norms I was breaking before I went to the pub, I might have been able to try some of the beers there, so the lesson here is "while it is ok to be yourself at home, you must try to "fit in" in new places if you want to go where the locals go. So if you ever go to Dublin, remember... No beanies and keep your hoods off your head.

Aso Valley Italy Pictures: A little slice of Heaven

The pictures will speak for themselves. These are pictures that surround the home we are staying in which is located above the Aso Valley in Lapedona Italy. I learned that Lapedona is so small that Italians living less than 10 kilometers away don't even know the town exists. In small villages like this and due to high gas prices (nearly $11 a gallon) it is much cheaper (and healthier) to use the local bakery, butcher and market for all other goods, than it is to drive 20 minutes down the hill (Altitude is at 1000ft) and go to the supermarket. That is a fact I love, the meat is by far the best, most tender and well priced meat I have ever had. I also love the bread we get from the bakery which is next door to the butchers. So with out further ado, here are some of the most beautiful pictures I have ever taken, not because my camera rocks but because I am living in heaven on earth.

Don't forget everything before you leave

We finally made it, our flight to Dublin was smooth and shorter than I had thought it would be. The eight hours flew by because I slept through most of the flight. I find that I get anxious before a trip because I know I am the type of person that does everything last minute, I forget random items for my trip and I'm late for everything. So I end up not sleeping the night before a trip to organize my things and ensure I have everything I need. I have never been a big fan of flying so it makes the trips easier on me if I can sleep on the plane and ever since I was in the military, I have learned I can sleep just about anywhere and that includes sitting upright in a plane for eight hours. Since we were to arrive in Dublin at 8:30 am I wanted to be awake and ready to become a tourist.

Even though I stayed up all night the night before we left, I still forgot a couple of items which is no surprise to me but frustrating none the less. Items we left behind were; battery charger for the Sony cyber-shot camera, rechargeable batteries for the Vivitar video camera and Fuji DSLR cameras, and rain coats. One item that I left behind was the universal plug adaptor that Brownie's father had given us the day before we left. This one was good for Europe, Ireland, Australia, Japan, Thailand and the Americas (pretty much everywhere) and he gave it to me to take with us. Even though I had plenty of time to make sure I had everything in order, I somehow managed to leave that behind which added a bit of stress once we got to Ireland. Brownie had to be able to do her hair, I needed the laptop to be able to blog, we needed our iPhone for GPS and we had batteries that we needed to keep charged so we could take pictures. This adapter is essential for us because all of our electronics use the 110v plugs and now we have all these gadgets with no way to plug them in. Luckily for us we survived in Ireland by borrowing the adapter we needed there. Once we got to Rome we needed a different type of adapter so we immediately started looking for one, even though we feared it would cost us an arm and a leg. I didn't want to pay more than 20 Euro for something I knew I could get on Ebay from a supplier in China for no more than $10 USD with shipping included and since we were already on our journey we don't have an address to mail anything to I figured we were done screwed. Luckily enough for us, when we were in Rome buying a pay as you go SIM card, we found the adapter we were looking for and for only 10 Euro!!! Not only did this save my neck it made life so much easier on us while traveling. Below are pictures of the adapter which is also a surge protector and I highly suggest you pick one of these up off eBay or at a local electronics store. I'm not sure on the availability of these in your average town in the states so I suggest looking online at least a month before you plan on leaving for vacation.



When you try to purchase items you need in the places you are visiting you find that you will pay a penalty for not thinking ahead. Case in point, Dublin is a very chilly city and the wind rips right through you. If you research the weather trends in Ireland, you find that it never gets “warm” for long there. They don't really have a “summer” it's more like fall and winter, then fall again. Much like my home of San Antonio, they have two seasons just not the two I'm used to. Brownie didn't bring any scarfs or anything to cover her head and we spent near four hours of our time in Dublin looking for a cheap matching beanie and scarf combo to keep her warm. Oddly enough even Dublin has seasonal sales and when we arrived we found out that they were selling summer clothes in the department stores so finding a matching beanie and scarf was going to be difficult and expensive. The only beanie Brownie found that she liked was one in a souvenir shop but the matching scarf had a big green shamrock on it and that wouldn't match everything as well so she didn't want that. After stopping at a dozen or so street vendors, she finally found one she liked that didn't cost near 20 Euro. If she had bought them in the states, both of them might have cost her $20 combined but here we ended up spending right at 30 Euro which is roughly $35. Expensive lesson if you ask me. We were lucky that while we were in Ireland, we were able to use some plug adaptors that Brownies brothers had used when they got to Ireland while we looked to buy our own. While there we never found the universal adaptor her father had loaned us and we started to worry about where to find one when we get to Italy, again we realized that with our proper planning and implementation of those plans we added undue stress to our trip.

Traveling and Blogging Simultaneously

Another lesson learned, sitting in one place with out falling asleep is easier said than done with you are somewhere new. Each day starts with getting ready, cleaning up the room we are staying in and getting our items put away in our luggage. Then we go do what ever plans we have. Once we have gone out and done what ever it is we are doing we go back to where we are staying and plan what we are doing the next day. So far we have yet to get to bed before midnight which isn't unusual for us but we want to adjust our sleeping habits to be able to get more site seeing done during the day. The problem with this is that I'm not making time to blog and let everyone know what we're up to. I prefer to be hands on with my experiences while traveling rather than sitting, writing or even sleeping for that matter. Though I am not doing a good job of collecting my thoughts and putting them with photos and words but that's what this is all about for me. We must have balance in everything that we do because anything in excess is bad. Even the things that are "good" for you, like if you drink to much water, it can kill you and if that is true it (which it is) then think about how you need to moderate everything else and yes fun is included in that too. Traveling is fun and I don't think I will have my "fill" for a long time but there is a point in which I need to stop, sit down and think about everything I've seen. Now I'm not saying that if I travel in excess that would be bad for my health but it will be bad for business. Here in Ireland I haven't taken much time to sit and reflect but for the few moments I've been able to do that this morning has made me realize that I need to take notes. It has taken me 3 days to buy batteries for the video camera (rechargeable) and then another 1 to charge them up. I plan on taking short little videos of where I am, what I'm doing and with whom. That's my lazy way of taking notes, otherwise I'll take my pictures, and have brownie fill in the holes. I won't be able to go do a million things a day then come back home and write about it so my lucky few followers will have to be happy with a story a week at this point. Putting a story together has been more difficult than I had originally thought, I guess just because I talk a lot doesn't mean I can just start typing and "poof" it's a story. Even this posting isn't much of a story but a venting about how hard it is to sit still and write. I really like being in motion, constant movement helps me concentrate on the objective at hand when I stop and sit here and stare at my screen I realize I have a million and one thoughts trying to come out all at once. Ok, enough with the complaints and on with the blogging! Just know that I am doing my best to keep you informed and educated on the stresses of traveling while (Oh poor me right?) blogging about it.

New Blog Address

Just posting to let my followers know the shorter domain name I just set up. I thought the Blogspot addy was to long so I have that as a redirect and the new link to the blog is www.itraveled.net. Don't forget to follow my blog, add it to your favs, like it, +1 it, tell your friends and use it often!

Planning Your Trip Should Include This One Thing

Ok, so the blog posting I did titled "The Hardest Part" is no longer appropriately titled. A lot has happened in the past couple of days, you know the usual trip preparations, visiting with family, checking your lists for the sixth and seventh time. None of that was worth my time or interesting enough for anyone to read but I did learn a lesson the hard way and figured I would share that with you, my apparently bored, inebriated, related or easily entertained reader.

So about a week ago plans changed with our puppy "Tekila." After further review, we realized that it was going to cost close to $1000 USD, just to Mexico. To fly her from Mexico to where ever we plan on being will be nearly $700 USD, which means we would have spent more money on her tickets than we have spent on her since we got her. So needless to say we figured something else out. I called my sister who lives about 5 hours north of San Antonio in Tyler Texas, and asked her if she could keep Tekila for a couple of months and she agreed. My sweet sister offered to drive down and pick her up but I didn't want her to go that far out of her way for me so I asked her to meet me halfway in Waco Texas. (The rest of this blog will be a perfect example of how I take a great idea and turn it into a catastrophe.) She agreed again and we set the day for friday after she left her office for the day.

Now I wouldn't call me the most sensitive person in the world and if you ask my wife she'd say I'm probably more icy than most. I came up with the brilliant idea to invite my mother because I knew it had been a long time since she saw her last. (My sister is my mothers stepdaughter but the step is just a title) Our family marches to the beat of a different drum so communication isn't something we excel in. Now whenever I invite my mother it's almost understood that I have to invite my younger sister. Now I used to point out that this was where the difficulty came in but it actually wasn't, my younger sister actually wasn't a pain this time because it was all me. So we all piled up in my wife's dad's minivan. Drive nearly three hours to meet my sister halfway, we did leave an hour later than I had wanted and luckily for my my sister was also running behind but not nearly as much as we were.

Once we finally make it to Waco Texas, my sister tells me she found a place to eat, a Mexican restaurant which my wife quickly shot down. She isn't a fan of what Americans call "Mexican" food, while she acknowledges that it is food, she said it is to bland to be from her country. So when we met up I asked my sister if we could go to another place down the street and she offered to just take Tekila and go if it would be easier for us. I didn't even have to think twice, my wife and I both were quiet most of the way and I'm almost positive that we both already had tears building up in our eyes. Before we met up, my sister told me she brought her toy poodle "Big" to help ease the strange drive. Well when we got there I introduced Tekila to my sister and her dog and I swear Tekila has ESP because she instantly starting jumping around in her arms wanting to go back to me or my wife she didn't care who, but not in my sisters arms. This single act of doggy intuition caused the water works to open up for my wife. That's all it took, once I saw my wife loose her composure, I lost all control. Once I started crying it irritated me so much that I started to rush my sister because I felt like it was freaking out Tekila and my wife so I just told her to leave. What I didn't take into account was the other people that were there. My mother and sisters got a total of ten minutes to say how much they have missed each other for the past 10 years or so and then I made my sister leave. HOW SELFISH AM I?

As it turned out, not only did I rush my mother and sisters but my wife was really upset with me. She wanted her time to talk to her baby, to explain to her that we weren't abandoning her but that she was taking a vacation to stay with my sister until we can fly her to where ever we plant our roots. My thinking is that the longer my wife sees her baby fighting to stay with her the harder it was going to be on them both so I made a decision that hurt us all but I felt was the lesser of two evils. What ended up happening could have happened either way and to be honest now that I'm not all emotional about it, I don't think Tekila has thought about the incident since or at least I hope she hasn't. When you make choices that seem to hurt your children, there is sometimes a bit of remorse or guilt that lingers afterwards. At this point I have abandoned that emotion, sometimes it is easier to have blind faith in things when you ultimately have no control. Wether or not my dog feels abandoned or not is irrelevant what matters is that she will be taken care of and loved while she's not with us.

What you need to take into account when planning a trip, move or what ever it is you plan to do, don't forget the emotions of the people around you and that includes your pets. I love my dog like a child and I got her for my wife to have until we get old together but I didn't imagine we wouldn't be taking her with us when we set off to conquer the world. I had no idea how much it would cost to travel with our pet, how much trouble it is or the emotional costs associated with leaving her behind no matter who I left her with. I didn't think about the emotions my wife or I would go through and I blame that on ignorance. Ignorance and “PPP” (Piss Poor Planning) are usually the culprit in these situations and more often then not they are my usual issues. For some reason I seem compelled to do everything the hard way. That is great for my readers but hell on my wife's ulcers. I swear if I don't drive her crazy we'll live to a 100.

When it comes to your pets emotions, it's really all about how you perceive them to be, their emotions that is. When it comes to the emotions of your loved ones, then it's a whole new ball game. People tell you all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons. When emotions are involved people tend to err on the side of caution and give advice ( warranted or not ) that way as well. Remember that and take what people say with a grain of salt. People have all kinds of fears and they tend to tell those fears to anyone who will listen. Look it up people, FEAR may be a four letter word but it's just a word and you can change what that means for you. I have a new definition for the word fear, unknown. Every person I have ever talked to about fear always listed their fears starting with the ones they have yet to experience. Change your definition and get to know your fears and maybe you'll realize that there is a lot less to be afraid of than you think.