St. Patrick’s Day Guinness Shamrock pour from Chiuki Com on Vimeo.
I resolved not to travel as much in 2012 as I did in 2011 (over 150K air miles), but I am not off to an auspicious start: by January 17th, I already had just over 9,000 miles and I am booked for another British/European tour in March, but I can say for a fact that 2012 has started off with much sweeter miles, My J-O-B sent me to England and Ireland for 8 days and my sweet little wife, Stamps-With-Foot, got to tag along for the first time in years. I can’t tell you how great it was to have her the with me! I slept great, I didn’t miss her when I saw some new or interesting site since she was right there. I had a dinner date every night and it was guaranteed that would be invited back to her place…
We had a day off in London and a night out in Dublin and we made the most of our time seeing old friends, visiting the V&A, taking the Globe Theatre tour, wandering through the Sherlock Homes “Museum”, visiting favorite shops, drinking Guinness, ogling the floor at Christchurch, more Guinness, and listening to Irish trad music on the top floor of Gogarty’s in Temple Bar. It was a really nice mid-winter diversion for us, though there were some tears shed over Brodie, my wife’s puppy/fur-baby, not being there to snuggle her to sleep…
My J-O-B sent me once again to Northern Ireland to address a possible issue. I REALLY didn’t want to fly into & stay in Belfast again (shiver) and make the daily hour drive through sheep country every morning. Instead, we flew into Dublin, drove north an hour & 20 minutes, and stayed in the seaside town of Newcastle – a mere 10 minute morning commute each day from our intended work site. I was accompanied this time by two coworkers that had never been to the UK or Europe and it was great seeing it all new again through their eyes. I have noticed that I can be blind to a new experience or site in a place that I have been to for work more than a couple of times. They pointed out some really cool stuff and some mannerisms of the local population that I just had never noticed.
It wasn’t 100% work/sleep/work. We got an afternoon to explore Newcastle and spent the evening before we flew out in Dublin – great city! That last night, we stopped by Christ Church to marvel at the floors and spent 2+ hours (them not me) souvenir hunting/buying at Carroll’s, before I took them down to Temple Bar for dinner and so they could see the crowds and sights. After dinner and a little walking to work off the desert, we sat at a high table on Gogarty’s second floor, right next to the musicians bench, watched Irish dancing and listened to irish ballads as we put a few pints of the black stuff away.
One of the reasons my J-O-B pays me the medium bucks is because I will travel anywhere in the world with little to zero notice. I again proved that last week when, with two hours notice, I hopped on a plane from Seattle to Northern Ireland two days before the Memorial Day weekend. Stamps-With-Foot was none too happy. I bought her shiny objects while there to quell the violence in her heart. Man, she really likes shinny stuff because I haven’t heard one more cross word from her about my trip and I am starting to wonder if she relishes when I travel so that she can display annoyance and mock anger to receive sparkly bobbles and guilt-heavy jewelry.
Some rough initial, unedited opinions of Belfast:
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