Do the Irish like potatoes? Beer? Are you sane?

Random thoughts that didn't make it into previous postings:

Food

A co-worker asked me about food after we returned, and as I recall, I didn't have much to say. We didn't eat anything exotic while there, but that doesn't mean the opportunity didn't present itself.

Each day started with what was called an "Irish breakfast." For us, this was a buffet, and the specific items offered differed according to the hotel we were in. But we always had scrambled eggs and sometimes had what looked to me to be poached eggs, but one server called them fried.

A large pan of scrambled eggs would be cooked to varying degrees. If you liked yours runny, they would be at the bottom or to the side. The most-cooked eggs would sometimes be overcooked and dried out. Some days it was hard to find a happy medium.

A variety of meats were also served, sausage, bacon and carved slices of cold meats, for a sandwich, I suppose, or just to eat if you like that sort of thing. The sausage was OK, but kind of bland, and the bacon was more like slices of ham than the strips of smoked goodness we eat over here.

Vegetables were also available -- stuff like navy beans, tomatoes, mushrooms and some unidentifiable, to me, greens. Of course potatoes were served, pretty much in the form we'd identify as hash browns. Along with the potatoes, and looking very much like some form of potato, they would serve white pudding. Black, or blood, pudding was also available. Now, I don't know what you think of when you think of pudding, but if you have images of Bill Cosby hawking Jello pudding with a bunch of cute kids, push that out of your mind.

These puddings are supposed to be a type of sausage. Look up the ingredients on the Internet, and they sound relatively benign, but to my messed up taste buds, white pudding was just awful. I'd grabbed some by mistake, thinking I was getting potatoes. And black pudding is called that because it's black -- quite unappealing to me, though some in our group tried it and declared it to be "not bad." Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

My salad one night. I took a picture because that's a quail
or duck or something other than a chicken egg. Tasted the
same, though.

Cold cereals were available, along with a selection of juices. But the best part was the breads. Two, three, four styles of bread would be served along with that wonderful creation called a scone. I know people over hear who don't like scones -- which is the word they use for biscuit because they call cookies biscuits -- because they're dry and not very tasty. These scones, some with fruit, some without, were more like the best country biscuits you ever had. Team them up with butter -- they also served margarine, but hey, if you're blowing your calories, might as well go for the real thing.

All the breads appeared to be handmade, most some form of whole grain or multigrain, and I don't remember a plain, white bread ever being served, unless you count the dinner rolls, but plain doesn't really describe the taste of those rolls. I could have made a meal just from the breads we were served every day.

Lunches varied in content wildly. At one museum cafe we had "vegetable" soup, which was nothing like our conception of veggie soup. I think that the primary vegetable was parsnips, and I've no idea what else was in it, but it came out as a thin puree that we found quite tasty. And, of course, the bread served with it was wonderful. We missed a couple of lunches by being too busy sightseeing and taking pictures, but we had fish and chips a couple of times, and a couple of meals so ordinary they don't register with me this long after the trip.

Convenience stores dot the landscape and occupy buildings in town with the standard snacks and a bunch of cake and cookie concoctions we'd never heard of. Most stores carried Coca-Cola and Diet Coke, and surprisingly to me, many of them carried Dr Pepper, but not in diet or 10 calorie. My favorite drink was a carbonated orange drink you could buy with or without pulp.

Dinners, or suppers, or whatever you call them, were almost always at the hotel. I wasn't used to hotels having their own restaurants, but I suspect these are the classier hotels -- certainly the ones in Dublin and Belfast were -- and Holiday Inn is a splurge for me.

The meals were all multicourse, and we had a limited menu to choose from as part of our package. Fish seemed to always be on the menu, and beef, pork and chicken were served as well. I think one night the menu featured duck. Usually we were served a large portion of meat and small portions of steamed vegetables, parsnips and two kinds of potatoes -- some combination of mashed, roasted or boiled -- and bread, of course. I didn't have a clunker the entire time, but I think Sharon was less than enthused about one of her meals, though I don't remember which one. We'd also be offered a desert, and there was always an option that wasn't so sweet I couldn't eat it.

One last thing about food. I like tea, so I was in nirvana because Irish tea has a robust flavor sadly lacking in the black teas we buy here (mostly because I'm too cheap to buy the higher end teas offered in the stores.) But at one meal I asked the waiter for tea, and this flummoxed him. He told me that tea and coffee would be served after the meal. So I asked if I couldn't have some with the meal. He assented, but I still came away thinking I'd done something socially unacceptable.

Beer

Want to know how much alcohol features in Irish culture? Well, just walk down a block in a business district. If you don't find at least two pubs, you're in the wrong part of town. And Arthur Guinness has his own day in Ireland. It's called Arthur Day, and towns all over have festivals on that day. Really.

While driving around Dublin on our first day, I noticed a gleaming tanker truck. You know, the kind you see occasionally running around here that usually has a big milk logo or sign on it. Then I noticed that this tanker was marked with a Guinness label. I tried to get a picture, but traffic and angles and all that nonsense interfered. Still, I had to wonder what the tanker hauled. Beer? Do they offload beer at taverns into big storage tanks like gasoline? Was it on its way to a bottling plant? Maybe just carrying water to be used in the brewing process?

Guinness must be poured in a special way. At least that's what an article in the onboard magazine on our American flight said. You pour it, let it settle, and pour again in some manner that creates a froth about an inch to an inch and a half deep on top.

Yes, I tried a pint. We had a welcoming gathering and a farewell gathering in which the drinks were "on us," meaning the tour company. Of course you know it's included in the price of your tour. But since it wouldn't cost me extra, I had one. Honestly, my favorite part was the froth. It tasted really good. To me, anyway. The beer's pretty good as well. Were I a drinking man, I could get used to it quickly, though the drinkers in our group, which was most of the group, said the American version's not quite as good. Maybe because it wasn't poured correctly.

Our guide pointed out one of the pubs, Farrington's I think, because it dates back to the early 1800s and features partitions to create private spaces. If I heard him correctly, the place was a favorite among clergy who didn't always want to be seen drinking in public.

Signs

Most places you visit will have cleverly named shops or some other sign that catches your eye -- like the one from Adventure Island tours that said they'd been doing so well, they'd moved to new digs. Here are a few that caught my eye:

Shop signs -- "Knobs and Knockers," door fittings, in Dublin; Baldies Barbers (do baldies need barbers, or was that the name of the owner, or just a bit of humor?) in Derry; Upper Cuts, barber shop in Donegal (They give your hair a fighting chance?)

Best name for a hotel -- Snoozles

Religious sign -- Ringed around a clock at the Larn Mission House in Belfast: It's time to seek the Lord. (Hokey, I know, but it made me feel like a Salvation Army Band could walk out and break into music at any moment.)

Transportation

Bikes for rent. 

In the large cities, public transportation was readily available. Buses and trains ran all over the place. Dublin had electric trains, and I came close to being run over by one of them, despite numerous signs warning pedestrians to be on the lookout. My problem was that it was our first day in the country, and I wasn't used to looking the correct direction yet. Or maybe I was jet-lagged. Or maybe I'm like the stupid people who ignore the signs at the Cliffs of Moher. But I nearly stepped into the path of an oncoming train. Sharon saved me. Again.

Dublin had bicycles for rent all over town. The whole set up looks like the program they recently started in Fort Worth. Sean, our guide, claimed that a Dubliner came up with the concept first.

Small cars dominate, which you would expect when gasoline costs upward of $7 a gallon, but Sean told us that the yearly registration and taxes are based on the displacement of your engine. Want to drive a big car with a big engine? Fine, but you're gonna pay for it.

To tour or not to tour

Do enough researching on the Internet, and you'll find two dominant opinions about how to visit Ireland. One is to go over there, rent a car, and go exploring. You're limited on a tour, which is true in many ways. Were I better driver (I may not be 5 of the top 10 worst drivers you'll ever meet, but my percentile ranking among all drivers probably isn't good) I would gladly take this advice.

Our group

The other opinion is to take a tour. Ours was much like going on a cruise. Our luggage was handled for us; the rooms and restaurants were above average; and the itinerary took us to many popular spots that fulfill the tourist idea of Ireland. Although you're not always seeing "real" Ireland, you have opportunities to go walk about and experience some of the authentic culture. And the pub crawlers in our group found lots of chances to visit with the locals. 

I was at times frustrated because even though I didn't have to do everything on the tour, precious little of what was offered failed to interest to me. I wanted to do it all, even if it meant that I couldn't indulge some whim. That's why we missed a couple of lunches, but we learned to take a scone and a piece of fruit with us and could always find a convenience store or small grocery where we could pick up a snack to tide us through. If you hate cruises, don't take a tour. But if you want a worry-free jaunt through some of the most beautiful scenery you've seen, a tour may be just right. And you'll meet some nice people.

On the bus ride from the airport to our parking lot at DFW, the driver asked if Ireland was as pretty as it looked in the movies. We both immediately replied with something like, "Yes, and even better."

More wonders remain to be explored in the years ahead. But it'll be tough to knock this one off our top 10 list. (Of course, I already have about five ties for first place.)