1. "HOW LONG WAS THE FLIGHT?"
2. ROLLER SKATES WITH MOTORS
3. TEA-- FOR TWO ARMIES
4. SO HERE'S YOUR SCORECARD
5. N.Y.P.D. GREEN
6. WHO WANTS TO BE REGIS?
7. LET THE MADNESS BEGIN
8. HIGHER LEARNING
9. ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK
10. BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
11. BLOW ME DOWN
12. CRYSTAL DUCK
13. OMIGOD... IT'S KILKENNEY!
14. I'M A FARM BOY
15. ASK NOT FOR WHOM THE WEDDING BELL TOLLS
16. SATURDAY AFTERNOON FOOTBALL
17. LOOKIN' FOR LOVE
18. LITTLE DID I KNOW
19. WRAPPING IT UP

BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
We drove to Youghall that night to find a bed and breakfast to stay in. Driving around Ireland isn't hard. You don't need to take Route 102 to Rt. 45 to Main Street, you get on the road marked "Youghall" and drive until you get there.

At a couple points, Eileen had me navigate. Two native Irish in the car, and the American is navigating. I said: "We're maybe 15 miles from Youghall," which I pronounced "Youg-hall."

They laughed. "It's pronounced "Y'All."

"Then what are you doing putting a 'G' in it for?"

We found a great bed and breakfast and I took full advantage of something that I hadn't had full access to during my trip. A shower.

Annie and Paddy have an older house and have a bath, but not a shower. Mike and Mary had a typical Irish shower, from what I could tell, which involves a pull cord that activates a pump that turns on the shower. There's no simple water pressure thing the way we have in the states.

BLOW ME DOWN
Also, at this time, Annie and Eileen came from their adjoining room and said "Your mother called Paddy. There was some message about a computer but he wasn't sure what she was saying."

Now, my Mom doesn't always get this, but in my mnd, if you call someone who's far off, there better be a good reason. So I decided to go downstairs and call.

But my card wouldn't work with the phone. So I went outside and found an Eircom phone booth and called home. I was told the lines were being checked.

"That's odd," I thought. "She just called."

So I decided to call my line in the house. Same thing.

So I called my office. Thanks to the vagarities of world travel, while I was getting ready for bed, it was only four o'clock in Ohio. My office said "There was a tornado that whipped through town, they said."

Great, a tornado might have hit home, and I couldn't reach anyone.

But, I won't hold you in the same kind of suspense I was in. It wasn't a tornado, but it was a strong storm. It took them almost a week to restore phone service. And my mom had called to say that everything was fine, and not to try to call home, since the lines were down.


CRYSTAL DUCK

Youghall is near Waterford, home of the big crystal trees that grow Waterford Crystal. Okay, so maybe there are no trees, but we went there anyway. Waterford is expensive crystal. Now, people saying stuff costs too much is a pet peeve of mine. After all, I hear the same thing about my services as a caricaturist, and there's a lot people don't take into account. After being at Waterford, I can see why things cost so much. Every piece of crystal, on average, has about 36 hours of work in it. It's all hand blown, and then inspected, cut, inspected, styled, inspected and finally some minimum 15-year master craftsmen make the finishing touches. I'm surprised they can mass produce anything there.

I bought a Waterford Book of Kells paperweight kind of thing, got it engraved to my mom, and then off we were again. We saw Juliet Golf Course, a beautiful place designed by Jack Nicalus. Almost enough to make me want to play golf. Almost. Why doesn't Gabby Reece go around designing sand volleyball courts?

OMIGOD... IT'S KILKENNEY!

Then we went to Kilkeneny Castle, in Kilkenney. I liked Blarney, but Kilkenney puts it to shame. It's an old school, huge 12th century castle. It's the former seat of the Butler family. It's decorated as it was in the 1800s. In fact, when they went to restore the carpet, they found a receipt for the carpet in the basement, found out the carpet maker was still in business, and called them. They found the job order and replicated the carpet from the order.

Wow.

The castle was sold for about $50 to the state some years ago, so they could run it as a historical site. The upkeep was too much for the family, and Ireland 's Tourism Authority has done a great job with it.

I stayed that night with Eileen and her family. I slept a little, since my jet lagged body never did fully catch up with the time change. We had dinner, and then her son took me out to a pub tat night, where I did my first (and only) official Bar Caricature of the trip.

When we returned, at a suitably decent hour, I assure you, I looked up and saw the stars. I've never seen so many stars. Ireland, for all it's rolling hills is pretty flat, and there's no where near the same amount of ground lights as there are even in the suburbs where I live. And I was on a farm, so no really tall trees to obscure everything.

There are times when I have to ink a night scene, and I fill it all in with black ink and then spatter it with white paint, to make the stars. It's real easy to go overboard and put in too many.

One of my overboard starfields didn't have as many as I saw that night.


I'M A FARM BOY

Eileen had a little miscommunications with her sons and they left her without a car. A car we needed to take me back into Kilkenney and then back to Annie's. Her husband decided that I could drive the tractor into town, so he decided to give me a lesson in tractor drivin'. I didn't do too badly. The tractor was stick shift, which is fine, but the pedals are a lot farther apart. It took conscious thought to shift between gears, as opposed to the smooth shifting I could do on a regular car.

Eventually, I did get into town with Eileen. We went to the Tower of Cannis. It was part of the Church of St. Cannis, and from the Tower you can see the whole city. Kilkenney's a medium-sized town. Probably an Akron to Dublin's Cleveland. It's got a really nice feel to it. A lot of modern, and a lot of history. We went on a walking tour of the town. A lovely Gallway girl was Eileen and my guide and, through her raspy cold-stricken voice, explained to us everything about the town. "Do you want to stop and get something to drink?"

"No, Gallway's in the all-Ireland and I know I'm just going to lose my voice tomorrow cheering for them."
More on the All-Ireland later.


ASK NOT FOR WHOM THE WEDDING BELL TOLLS
I hooked back up with John and the Murphys to go to the Afters of their neighbor's wedding. The Irish in some way have this wedding thing down much better than we do. They have a wedding, and then they have the reception, which is mostly close friends and family of the bride and groom. It's pretty exclusive. And then the Afters (what we'd consider everything at the reception after the dinner) is open to a lot more people. They don't have to pay for a lot of dinners for casual acquaintances. To top it off, because of agreements wit the hotels, the Afters can go on until four or five in the morning.

Now, admittedly, this has some disadvantages to the bride and groom. But no system, is perfect.
On the downside, Irish weddings generally have a cash bar. I will allow you to insert your own Irish drinking joke here. I told John then when I eventually do get married, I'm going to give him a special sticker, which will certainly not indicate to the bartender to charge John, and John alone, for his liquor.

The weirdest part of the night was certainly hearing an Irish band complete with Irish accents sing Elvis songs.


SATURDAY AFTERNOON FOOTBALL
The next day, I met more of John's brothers, and their wives and kids, too.

That was also the day of the All-Ireland. It's the Super Bowl of Gaelic Football. John and his girlfriend and I watched it. I peppered him throughout with a bunch of questions to understand it. It's like soccer, but you dribble like basketball, except when you bounce the ball off your foot. And there are goals (worth 3) and field goals (worth 1). And they substitute like baseball.

There was a half hour halftime, but aside from that, there aren't any breaks. No time outs, no commercials, no nothing.

At the end, John asked me how I liked it. "Well, let me tell you how we Americans would do it. First of all, we'd put in time outs so that we can have beer commercials. And, secondly, I have two words for you. Cheer. Leaders."

John thought that last one was a good idea. Dee slapped him and said "pervert."

"Yeah," I answered, "I like seeing hot women in short skirts dancing around. I'm weird."

LOOKIN' FOR LOVE
That night, Maried took me out with some of her friends. One of them told her "she had designs on the American."

That was me, by the way.

Mariead, me and Kathleen, before we went out on the town

So we went out to a The Med Bar, where I met a bunch of her friends. They were all great. We had a wonderful time talking and hanging out. After the pub, we went to a The Foundry, discotech, or, as we stateside would say, a dance club. No disco here. I did a little dancing. Not much. I did a lot more drinking. Man, they never let my glass get empty, and they wouldn't let me pay for anything either. I love that place.

Later in the night, Mariead came up and asked, "Any of my friends that you like?"

"Yeah," I said. "I like Stephanie. Vicki's cute, too." (Yeah, I changed the names to protect them, and me, I suppose.)

"Vicki's great."

"I really like, Stephanie, though."

"She falls in love a little too quickly."

"Mareid, I'm only here for three more days."

Eventually, Maried and her boyfriend I wound up at a chipper, getting pizza which we brought back to her parents' place. The Irish do a lot of things well, but pizza's not really one of them.

LITTLE DID I KNOW
I met up with Annie and Paddy at Church and was switched again. Annie had planned a big dinner in my honor, and invited a lot of her and Paddy's relatives over. I liked meeting all of them, although they all seemed obsessed with the American Election. I joked that I couldn't wait to get to the U.S. where we didn't care about such things.

This is everybody who was at that dinner.

When am I going to learn to keep my mouth shut?

I was mostly surrounded by people in their early sixties, two in their forties, and one of them brought their four year old son. No other kids. And no toys.

He was a little bored, and by that I mean phenomenally bored. And, to be honest, at a certain point I was losing a little interest myself. They were telling a lot of farm stories, and I really had no way to relate to them, try as I might. So the kid and I started hanging out. I had my computer and digital camera, so I managed to amuse him pretty much. He was a sweet kid, and it broke him up to see me go.

That night, believe it or not, I wound up with Mike and John and Wesley at a pub. Who would've thought?

WRAPPING IT UP

This is everybody who was at that second dinner.

I went out to dinner, or lunch or something with Mike and Mary, as well as her sister and brother in law, and her brother and sister in law. More election questions (but I was right about who'd win, now, wasn't I?)

Over to Annie and Paddy's that night again for dinner. And then I went to Frank's house and talked relatives and things of that sort with him and his family. All the brothers took me out that night to the Fighting Cocks for a last drink. I invited them all over to the States.

"When i was over there," Dinny said,"his Uncle Denny said he'd throw a huge party for us, and he did."
"Um, John," I explained. "Don't be expecting me to throw you a party or anything. Indians tickets, maybe, but no big parties."

I said my goodbyes to everyone, and then went over to Annie and Paddy's. Annie and Paddy took more of a shine to me than I'd thought. I mean, i knew they liked me and all, but they're very close with my Mom, and as such, they kind of see me as pseudo-son. It was tough saying goodbye to them.

Paddy gave me some holly to take back to my Mom, as part of some long running joke between the two of them. You're not supposed to take plants or food back with you to the States. And so began my life as a smuggler.

The rest of my trip largely consisted of waiting in airports and running to get through customs to try to catch my flight back to the Cleveland. Nothing amazing. My parents picked me up and asked me if I wanted anything on the way back.

"Yeah," I said, "I want a Big American Mac. And some American fries. And for God's sake, no more tea."

I'm going back to Ireland. Not right away. Australia's beckoning me next. But soon. It was a lot of fun.

GO TO IRELAND, PAGE ONE