Irish Adventures Part III

Ready for some more Irish observations? I'm not. First, I should offer up three cheers for The Deuze on his graduation this weekend. No Guinness was consumed in his honor. Instead, whiskey. It was the first drink I've had while here that wasn't Guinness, but it had to be done. I thought about drinking a car bomb so as to toast all graduating peoples at once, but decided it would be best to enjoy both my whiskey and my Guinness rather than tainting each with the other. So, here's to you, The Deuze.

And now, on to the observations/stories:

On Friday I found my new favorite pub in Ennis. Having grown weary of the pub at The Old Ground, I ventured to the other side of town and found Ciaran's Bar. I knew it was a local place when I walked in and found only middle aged businessmen in suits throwing back pint after pint of Guinness (and yes, Budweiser). (Another solid indication, though, is the fact that I can't find a website for the bar.) I sat at the end of the bar and had three pints myself before heading off for some dinner.

Saturdays, even in a small Irish town, are quite exciting. Absolutely everyone was out walking the streets of town. Tables and tents were set and pitched as the streets became a bustling market of all sorts of goods. Was it the beautiful weather that made this happen? Definitely, and I'm glad I was able to experience it.

Irish towns have lots of pubs, yes, but they also have lots of butchers. Pubs and butchers, pubs and butchers. That's all I saw on saturday. Butchers I didn't even see during the week (I believe Saturday is "butcher day" or something). Apparently the thing to do in Ireland on Saturday is buy some fresh grillables and then take them home and boil them. Afterwards it's off to the pub for a pint of (you guessed it!) Budweiser. Or Guinness, but I've seen just as many men drinking Bud as I have Guinness.

Sunday was quiet. I went to mass across the street from my hotel at a pretty-though-not-breathtaking traditional Irish Catholic church. No music. No singing. Just the mass. I think it took about 35 minutes. But it was nice, and I didn't have any trouble understanding the priest.

The streets were dead on Sunday, so I wandered back to Ciaran's and had a few quiet pints and watched a European handball match between some Irish teams. There was an older guy watching the match as well (everyone else in the place was watching horseracing) and he and I bonded non-verbally by cheering for the same team. He clearly felt passionate about his choice, while my decision was based on the names of the teams alone: Armagh -vs- Fermanagh. Both are towns in Northern Ireland. Don't ask me how to pronounce them.

As the game wound down the bar started getting packed with a younger crowd. It turns out that the thing to do on Sundays is drink Guinness while watching the Hurling match between Limerick and Tipperary, the two neighboring towns, in a heated quarterfinal match. As I cheered Limerick on (who wouldn't cheer for a town by that name?), Guinness in hand, I felt like a true local. Well, except the fact that some of the rules of hurling are a total mystery to me. No matter, it was a splendid weekend! I'm thankful I spent it in Ennis.

160th Commencement Exercises

Just a quick word of congrats to all those graduating at ND today. This is actually the first graduation weekend I've missed since I graduated in 2002. Sad. No matter, Guinnesses will be had for you all. Guess I better get started...

Again, congrats, cheers,
Mike

Irish Adventures Part II

I'll try to respond to a few of the comments posted to my last entry, as well as a few new observations:

* I don't have a camera, which is pathetic. I might buy one while I'm here, but in any case I'm relying on my "photographic memory" and my "keen artistic skills" to timelessly capture this place. No need to worry.

* Ireland, or at least this town in Ireland, does have lots of pubs. They also have lots of places to get coffee. Probably espresso too, but so far I've only been drinking coffee. Some of it is crappy in the same was that crappy coffee in the states is crappy but some of it is that fantastic European-style coffee with the nice froth on top. Mmm.

* It still might rain Guinness here; I haven't actually seen it rain yet. I have heard that the Oompa Loompas sprinkle Guinness from the ceilings of the Guinness factory. Yes, Sarah, there are Oompla Loompas. You probably didn't recognize them as such because they look just like Jim Stevens. Crazy, I know. Or perhaps they are invisible to those who can't appreciate Guinness. I've never heard of the river of Guinness, but it's probably one of those things that's very hush hush. Reading Srta's post made my mouth water, though. "Wild, free-flowing, unkegged Irish Guinness" sounds divine. Do you write for their brochure?

* Pubs are interesting here. No distinction is made between tender-of-bar and tender-of-tables. For example, the bar in my hotel seems to be one of the lunch/dinner/evening hot spots. Last night I was there having a nightcap (two pints of Guinness) and I was fascinated by the waiters/waitresses. There were several of them buzzing about the entire bar, taking orders at every table, mixing drinks, bring out food, cleaning, socializing, etc. This non-assignment of server-to-table is only made possible through two simple truths:
1. when patrons are ready to pay, the bring their check (which sits at the table available for any server to make additions when necessary) to the bar
2. no tips are given
An additional note about tips: I left a tip for the nice lady who cleaned my room the first day, complete with a little note saying thanks...she didn't take it.

Alright, that's about enough for now. Time to get to work.

Irish Adventures

So here I am in brilliant Ireland. From the moment I flew over the coast to the moment I sit here typing away, this place has been beautiful. I arrived Monday morning and had no troubles getting a taxi into Ennis. The driver was quite nice (not surprisingly, we spoke almost exclusively about Guinness and President Bush) and knew exactly where to take me despite the fact that I had no address for the hotel. Though it was 9 am when I arrived, I was able to check into my hotel and immediately passed out on my bed for about half an hour. Feeling a bit more awake, I walked around town looking for Guinness, ultimately settling on the hotel bar.

Guinness was, is, not what I expected at all. In my head I had imagined that it would be this explosion of creamy goodness unsurpassed by all imitators. What's worse is that I somehow expected that it would be EVERYWHERE. I mean, doesn't it rain Guinness here? Can you walk down the street and NOT see rivers of heady beer flowing through the narrow streets? Little Irish boys in yellow raincoats and boots, stomping in puddles of the stuff and singing in Gaelic?

Wi' nae wee bairn ye'll me beget
Untwinkle, little ee
My ainly pang'll be regret
A maiden I will dee

Ok, so maybe I got a little carried away there. I'm not even sure if that's Gaelic. It might simply be babyspeak, but it is true that Guinness is not as intertwined with Irish life as I had imagined. To be fair, I'm only in one little town; and, just as it is the states, Guinness can apparently differ quite a bit from place to place, and even bar to bar. Maybe I should train up to Dublin for the weekend and see for myself.

For fear of writing an entire post devoted to Guinness I'll move on, but not without the intent to revisit the topic later. Late Monday afternoon I met some of my work contacts for a coffee and a hike out to the training site. The site is pretty nondescript (however the soon-to-be-complete building is very cool) so let's move right on to talking about the Irish lads, beginning with some gross generalizations. They're quite pleasant - though not in an overly saccharine sort of way - and very nice/accommodating. The men (especially the older ones) are quite jovial and a bit difficult to understand, the ladies are much quieter and so a mystery.

The people starting up this paper are fantastic. They're all relatively young and very bright. The editor is my favorite. He's very grounded and at the same time driven to make the most of this opportunity. They're doing some pretty neat things; the paper will be the first in the country to have color print on every page. If that doesn't sound impressive to you just pretend it is... Today we were discussing different things he wanted to do with the paper and how our software could accommodate his needs and I thought, "I should just stay here and work for this guy for a while."

Anyway, so that's pretty smashing. And by the look of the clock I see it's time to get back to work. More to come soon.

Cheers!

Another day, another Molson.

Well, it's been a while, and I have little desire at this point for a detailed recap. I will say that I survived three weeks in Greenville and am only slightly worse for the wear. While in Greenville my schedule for the month of May took an unexpected twist, resulting in my departure for Ireland this Sunday. I'll be there for two weeks working with a startup paper. Let me put some emphasis on the word "startup" with the following pieces of information:

Only a day and a half ago I received tentative rates that they will use to sell advertising.

They do have an editor and most of the staff hired, but they are not in place yet so an external company has been contracted to run the IT/install/staffing.

The building that will house this new weekly (and free) paper is still being built, so when I spoke to my contact this morning she was in a hotel conference room that they have rented out to facilitate the training. They're still working out all the logistics that this will entail, but certainly anything will be better than sharing a roofless building with construction workers.

Needless to say this should be an interesting adventure.

As the tittle would suggest, Molson is here with me at work again. Right now she's asleep on the floor, but a minute ago she was bounding up and down the building up and down the building looking for other playfriends. She didn't find any. Sad. Anyway it's about time to get back to work. More stories (and hopefully pictures) from Ireland soon.