General Observations:
Irish cars do not have bumper stickers…none.
How do you spot a tourist in Ireland? They are wearing sunglasses and ball caps. 99.9% of natives wear neither.
Need a WiFi connection? You’re not going to find a free one in Ireland (outside of hotels). There is lots of WiFi, it’s just all secured and you have to pay to use it.
Ever wonder why some countries drive on the left side and some on the right side? Click HERE.
Some intersections have pedestrian lights, some don’t, and either way crossing busy streets takes some real practice to master. The advice from one chap “don’t pay the rules any attention, just cross when it looks good”.
A GPS is worth it’s weight in gold cause there are hardly any road signs. We did switch the voice to English Jane cause American Jack just didn’t have the right feel.
The summer days are very long in Ireland. In early June, sunrise is at 4:55 am and sunset is at 9:54 pm. However, it is light before sunrise (we experienced it as early as a little after 4 am) and light after sunset (as late at almost 11 pm). Dublin is at 53 degrees latitude compared to 35 degrees here in NC.
Ireland drivers are, almost without fail, very nice drivers. Tourists are, excepting John of course, the worst drivers and I’m sure that the Irish are quite tired of dealing with them.
Road signs in towns are almost non-existent. The ones that exist are usually hard to find and hard to read.
Crows in Ireland are stupid. Really, really stupid. Ran one over because he was too stupid to move. They continue to play (and lose) games of chicken with vehicles. Confirmed this story with another tourist who experienced the same thing.
Ireland Gas Rule: If you think you’ll need gas in the morning, get it the day before. Many places we stopped weren’t open until 9 or 9:30 am. Not much use when it’s 8:00 am.
Ireland Shopping Rule: If you think you’ll need it later in the evening or first thing in the morning…buy it NOW! Most every shop/store seems to close by 6 pm at the latest (except for pubs that is).
Ireland Late Dinner Rule: If you think you’ll be hungry after 7:30 pm, eat before 7:30 pm. Many restaurants close up early (and this includes the kitchens in pubs). We did find one late night food joint in Galway.
I’d like to report that contrary to previous stories I’d heard about Budweiser being the daily drinking beer of the Irish, for the most part they are all drinking Guinness, Murphy’s, and Harp…with some Smithwycks thrown in every once in a while. I have seen some Bud and Coors Light drinkers as well as some Miller Genuine Draft…but not many. They also have Carlsberg on tap just about everywhere and Heineken from time to time. Bullmer’s (hard cider) also has a following…and it’s pretty good.
If you want to get your hair cut or place a sport bet…Ireland is the place to do it. They have to have more hair stylists per capita than anyplace I’ve ever been…followed closely by betting joints.
We kept seeing signs that said “Rent an Irish Cottage” – aren’t they all Irish cottages?
Two things you can be certain of in Ireland - - - sheep and rocks.
At their very best, Ireland’s highways are four lane divided w/ nice pavement. These are far and few between. Most roads are one or two lane. About half of those are badly paved. Quite a few decreasing radius curves that actually have lanes that narrow the farther into the curve you get – joy. 100 km/hr is the highest speed limit and is seen on any road that is at least two lanes with more than halfway decent pavement. The next step down is 80 km/hr and I saw that posted all the way down to single lane roads that were just a step above goat path. 50 and 60 km/hr are seen in towns…with some 20/30 km/hr in tighter in-town scenarios.
Water conservation is NOT an issue here in Ireland. They do have a very noticeable recycling program and a number of large wind farms that we’ve seen along with some private windmills. More than a few people (outside of the cities) still line dry their clothes. But, flush a toilet in Ireland and sea level drops.
Traffic signs are interesting to say the least…so much so that we started taking pictures of them. They range from funny to completely confusing. Some are easy to understand, others take a while, some we’ll never figure out.
If you do B&Bs in Ireland…pack your own soap and shampoo. Only one out of eleven provided soap/shampoo. And for some reason, towel racks/hooks are in short supply.
Radio in Ireland is just plain horrible. As is with most Irish…they love to talk. Every so often they play a song…and it is usually some awful techno/disco eurotrash noise. Once in a blue moon you’ll get to hear something you know…but being sandwiched in between 120 beat/minute techno rap nonsense it almost doesn’t seem right. What is nice is that we’ve stumbled into a few joints that are playing good music on the PA (we’re sitting in one in Sligo as I type this).
The big political thing here right now is the Lisbon Treaty vote that is coming up June 12th. I thought that we had way too many signs in the US when an election is pending….here they are everywhere and they are BIG. Vote Yes! Vote No! Problem seems to be that the politicians here haven’t done a very good job at explaining what the pros/cons of the treaty are…and the average Irish Joe really doesn’t know whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. From what I’ve been able to decipher, there seems to be a lot of mis-information about the vote (hey, they are like the US in some ways!). Oh, and they really don’t give a rat’s patootie about what’s going on in the US (at least not politically). On the other hand, from all of the radio, tv, and print about the premier of the Sex and the City movie…you’d have thought Ireland has won the World Cup.
The car rental place gave us a Ford Fiesta. I’m not sure the little car thought it was much of a Fiesta. It was abused in just about every way imaginable but was returned with all of its parts. Yet another car rental company that will probably never rent a car to somebody with the name Hite. I’m guessing at some point we are going to end up on some sort of watch list.