Reflections on the Emerald Isle, part 1

It is always so hard to sum up a really good experience so that someone who wasn't there can truly understand and enjoy it the way you did.  It's not really possible, you know.  There is no way they can feel it or experience it the same way when they weren't there.  As I sit here wanting to write about our time in Ireland, I am stumped with how to begin.  Maybe I'll just have to do it in several posts.  Whatever.  I'll just begin and see where it goes from there.

At O'Hare waiting to leave.

Tami and Jeff

Jim takes his own picture.

The Irish people are lovely.
  
We  did not meet one grouchy, cranky, or rude Irish person.  Not one.  Oh, there may have been two, but one was drunk and young and stupid and he was the brother of the bride at a stag party (bachelor party) which we stumbled upon our second night there.  The other was a young woman ringing up our purchases at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.  Besides them, we met not a one. In the U.S., it is a rare find anymore to find a clerk in a store saying "please" and "thank you" let alone have a smile on their face and an obvious delight in serving you.  Huh-uh.  But in Ireland, oh, in Ireland, I felt like a queen.  The bartenders, the store clerks, the people we sat next to on a bus, the people we sat next to in the pubs, ALL of them to a person made me feel like I was doing a great service by allowing them to assist me.  And they did it all with their lovely Irish lilt and grinning ear to ear, which just made it all the better.  I tell you, I felt lifted up just by asking for a cup of coffee.  You would have thought they had just been waiting all day for the moment I came in just to serve me.



The Irish are generous.

Jim and I are generous people.  We are generous with our time and our money and our love.  But during that week in Ireland, I had several experiences that have encouraged me to be even more so.  Those stories will come, and more.

Suffice it to say that we went to Ireland looking for adventure through the land, the pubs and the people.  We found it.  The worst part of our trip was the flight to and from and that was only because KLM seats are too narrow and have too little legroom for a transatlantic flight.

A few pics to entice you: