Irelabd, Day 2

 

Ireland Day 2

THB has a rude awakening: the fire alarm goes off at 5:30am. Not so bad THB has a standard night's sleep! DB not so charmed, she's been awake for 3 hours.

Breakfast in the hotel (included), and by the time we are done and back in our room, the 4 Martins are dining (at the same table we sat at). 

THB and DB go for an early morning walk. Plenty of people out and either tourists (maybe 30%) or hustling to work. Very pleasant: most stores not open yet, around 65-70 degrees, and a small to strong breeze, a delightful day.

After 2.5 miles, THB is exhausted and dehydrated. The 4 Martins have taken the  On/Off bus tour and had a very good outing. They lunch at a place EM and THB saw on the way to getting pizzas to-go for dinner the six of us last night ate in their co-joined two rooms on floor 5.

Shots around Dublin

We meet our Tauck guide for the week, Sam,;  with 5 other members on the tour we head just a short walk from the hotel to a very small 4 story  museum of Dublin. The guide in the museum is around 25, dressed like a 1910 man-about-town, talks very loud, and asks a lot of questions (the twins love this, they shout out a lot of answers). Even when the guesses are wrong (most of them), museum guide shouts out: RIGHT! and then proceeds to give the right answer (the twins love this, they are always right).

Afterwards, Sam give us treasure hunt quizzes to use in the famous park across the street. Another bonanza for the for the twins. DB heads back to the hotel for a nap. About half-way through the hunt, we come across a playground (more for kids 2-6) and the twins switch from hunting to playing. At this point EM heads for the hotel. 

cider at lunch

 

after lunch and the Dublin Museum there is a treasure hunt - the pics are of treasures found and other pics from park and surrountdings

J on tightrope

CM waiting her turn

THB and DB check out the same place Martin 4went for lunch  and decide to go to a nearby pub: a quick meal of bangers and mash for THB and Cottage Pie, share a cider, 43E.

THB and JM take a very long route and don't show up until much after KM and CM. However, JM keeps THB entertained by continually pointed out all the empty cabs whizzing by. Many cabs. THB has carefully planned the walk around the park by going in the wrong 

Group dinner in the hotel, the tables are separated by groups that know each other: Matin 4 + Briskin; a group of 10  or 11 celebrating the patriarch's 80th; two smaller groups (3+2). The 11 have an 8 year old. She has an older sibling or two or three and may not team up with the twins...TBD!

Book Review

On The Origin Of Sex, the Weird and Wonderful Science of Reproduction, Dr. Lixing Sun (read by Daniel York Loh): THB thinks this is a great DNA/genetics match to the other genetics books he listened to this past year. Does much to explain how complex life (all earth-based life) is and how close we (humans) are to understanding how much of what we are personally is pre-ordained by our DNA. Yet, because this process has been going on for millions and billions of years, understanding the science won’t help all that much, examining the thing changes the thing being examined. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Irleand, Sunday

 

Days 0 and 1

Somehow we ended up on Flight 007 on something called Air Force One. The pilot announced the plane was perfectly safe just as long as no senior government officials were aboard who take HUGE gifts from foreigners 

mumble, mumble, mumble...THB's hearing isn't very good, what did the pilot say? Ahhhhhh, safe as long as our flight doesn't fly over any country with anti-ballistic missile capabilities or BB guns.

We're in first class and everyone we could see looked like they had not died, er, dyed and overblown their hair. Phew. Big sigh of relieve!

Oh shit, is that JD Vance in the flight attendant's jump seat?

THB didn't give it a second thought, strapped on his parachute and went to sleep. 

When THB woke up, he went to get a cup of coffee. NO flight attendants. OK, then the door to the cockpit opened and a pilot appeared and went into the restroom. Maybe 9/11 never happened, there were no barrages with the flight attendants holding on to food carts.

SFO art

the lounge is empty, twins still attached at hips

the pre-meal snack

the ingredients....a wee bit too small for THB eyes

the dinner on flight 007, first mint pea soup

much later, breakfast

Tauck arranged pick-up is on time

the Shelbourne Hotel (haunted for 100 of years)

the lunch includes peas, THB shares good fish and chips with DB when her burger turns out to be not very good

the hotel saga begins, THB thinks this room 295...595 did not have a bath tub

the signage doesn't help

the fire alarm goes off at 5:30am in the entire hotel, shutting all the fired doors. It is now impossible to know how to get to the lobby

the coffeemaker doesn't work

the TV doesn't work

THB's mouse doesn't work, then it does

coffee comes with toast in a cooling rack

the pancakaes are beautiful, and taste good too

our room key does not work the "alternate" elevator so we take the "normal" elevator which does not go to the second floor...and we are now in 295, not 595. 

Bucharest to Budapest and Vienna Observations, slightly updated, plus more miscellaniii and maybe a book review or two and a movie review

 

WHAT THE HELL IS THB DOING IN PATRIOTIC GARB???

           THB ain't no senator's son

For sure THB is no patriot, he don't believe in nation states!

  THB has caught World Cup fever...it goes away quickly

   once the US team plays a real soccer team: the Belgian Waffles

   easily sending the US to the back of the line

WHAT IS THIS: A NEW SANDY TRICK, HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT?

In less than 2 days from now, THB and DB will be taking a Tauck land tour in Ireland. THB and DB have never been to Ireland nor taken a Tauck land tour. 

What in the hell is Schengen? See wikipedia explanation at end of this post. 

Per THB: Schengen is a way to make the traveler go crazy if they think the EU has no border control for people moving around that part of the world. 

THB and DB and the Martin 4 are going to Ireland in a few days, DB and KM are going to Norway in February next year, THB and LB are going to Texas and Pennsylvania in September, DB is going to Washington  in September, THB and DB are going to Venice and London in October and THB and DB may be going to LA in the next month or two. 

Can you please repeat any border controls for these travelers. Will paying $250 for a DJT passport put DJT take over $4B (B as in billions) before the mid-terms?

In this post, if you haven't figured it out by now, THB is mixing and matching again, more mixing than matching. 

From the Eastern Europe river cruise: On the other side of the river, maybe daylight savings time might be just something that was made up by Serbia, sort of like the way climate change is a myth that science imagined to help make sense  of the really strange way the weather has been behaving nowadays. 

Said a different way, there seems to be a race occurring for THB: somehow as he gets older he is getting both stupider and wiser. 

Would THB's Observations after that upcoming trip be more astute, insightful, and helpful to followers of Travels With THB, or would most of the followers (and THB) have forgotten what THB had to say about this trip?

Let's test the waters.

• Nobody would write about how beautiful this par to the Danube was because it wasn't pretty at all. 

Hmmmmm, that seems pretty safe, especially since when you are floating just above the water level and looking around, you can't see much of what lies just beyond the banks of the river. 

• Being able to unpack everything you brought on the trip (which in general was too much stuff) and not think about repacking for another week left THB and DB with much less anxiety about forgetting things when departing lodgings. 

Also a pretty safe Observation...until you remember THB manage to leave his wallet in the cabin's safe, mostly because after a week without carrying his wallet he totally forgot it was missing. 

• Let's try another one: THB lost weight on this trip. Given the number of pastries eaten in 2+ weeks, is that possible? Yes, mostly because THB and DB decided to skip a lot dinners. And not only did we feel better, we also realized later that the food at most dinners wasn't all the good or enjoyable. 
• And this one: AMEX doesn't work Eastern Europe. On the other hand, pretty much every place you spend money accepts VISA and the tap function of the I-phone works beautifully
• Contemporary art was everywhere, and excellent

AHA! Back to our days before leaving for Ireland...

the new two-burner bbq is smaller, better engineering than the old rusted out one

LB and Dug-Digger take the new chair for a test-nap

Nick from Tutka Bay Lodge in Homer, Alaska, is now the chef at the Inn at Newport Ranch.  Newport Ranch is 4 hours from the loft, and about 10 minutes north of Ft. Bragg, on Highway 1. 

We follow Nick around including hosting a small dinner party that Nick catered at the Loft and now two nights of  tasting menus. The first night: exceptional...and on the second night the meal was better than the first! Seven courses each, both creative, and we shared a bottle of sauvignon blanc over the two meals, plus a glass of cabernet sauvignon on night two; $200pp for each meal and the wine was comp'd. Worth a detour. 

a brief stop before and after Inn at Newport Ranch. A great bakery just off 101 in Healdsburg. They moved to this new location 6 months ago

we're going light, we know what's  for dinner tonight. Canale, very good

Mendocino, we're getting closer to the Inn

our room at the Inn, very expansive, very expensive and a hot tub outside; THB has no clue how he got this grey bar at bottom

main building: reception, two large rooms for dining and several bedrooms upstairs

The spa and more bedrooms, some with kitcheoneettes 

our room is in a duplex behind these huge water tanks

2200 acres, the area around the main building is full of wildflowers 

another building next door

these weeds belong in a Kiefer painting

OMG: another grey bar???

while on stroll in the afternoon the marine layers starts coming ashore

most of the benches have rusting sub-structures from old farm equipment

an enlarged map of the Ranch property

THB and DB share fish and chips and local brewski, and check out the catch of the day

harbor seals waiting at the back of the boat

Glass Beacjh

Negra Banderas sez these big boys would look good at Monterey Dunes

BOOK REVIEWS: pre-trip to Ireland reading

Land,  Maggoe O’Farrell (novel, read by Dane Whyte O’Hara): An Irish family of 6 in the 1850s in rural Ireland struggles to escape their past and present full of poverty . A bit of Irish demons, fortunately the myths do not overwhelm the prose in this novel.

Fatherland, a Memoir of War, Conscience, and Family Secrets, Burkhard Bilger (read by the author, pub’d 2022): Bilger wrote a piece in the NY'er on the growing menace of a new-to-the USA, tick. After listening to the article, THB went back looking for more work by Bilger and found this well crafted search for the “truth” about his German grandfather’s tilt toward Fascism. It turned out that his grand-dad was really on the fence, working for the Nazis while protecting his assigned French workers and students.

DOCUMENTARY REVIEW: Andre Is An Idiot (streaming on Netflix) about an unstoppable quipster who made a bad mistake. After watching this one, you won't (or shouldn't) ever procrastinate taking a test that in retrospect you really want to pass.

Schengen Area (Per Wikipeddia):

The Schengen Area (English: /ˈʃɛŋən/ SHENG-ən, Luxembourgish: [ˈʃæŋən] ^ⓘ) is a system of open borders that encompass 29 European countries that have officially abolished border controls at their common borders. As an element within the wider area of freedom, security and justice (AFSJ) policy of the European Union (EU), it mostly functions as a single jurisdiction under a common visa policy for international travel purposes. The area is named after the 1985 Schengen Agreement and the 1990 Schengen Convention, both signed in Schengen, Luxembourg.

Of the 27 EU member states, only two, Cyprus and Ireland, are not members of the Schengen Area. Cyprus is committed by treaty to join the system and aims to do so in 2026, although its participation has been complicated by the occupation of Northern Cyprus by Turkey since 1974.^[3][4][5] Ireland maintains an opt-out in order to maintain the Common Travel Area with non-EU member United Kingdom and operates its own visa policy.

In addition to the member states of the European Union, all member states of the European Free Trade Association, namely Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, have signed association agreements with the EU to be part of the Schengen Area. The microstate of Monaco is de facto part of the Schengen Area as border controls are administered as part of France. Three other microstates – Andorra, San Marino, and Vatican City – have open borders with the Schengen Area due to their small size and difficulty of maintaining active border controls