Survival and Emergency Preparedness

Traveled to Galway on Ireland's west coast today. Approximately 120 miles straight west of Dublin by rail. Ireland has a pretty good rail system but i hate traveling by rail. Big resort town and is at the height of the vacation season so is pretty crowded.

Tomorrow we're off to the Aran islands by ferry.

Wow, sounds like you are seeing everything. How does their rail system compare to Amtrak?

Bmyers wrote: ↑Tue Aug 09, 2022 7:49 am Wow, sounds like you are seeing everything. How does their rail system compare to Amtrak?

Much more efficient and better equipment.

But to put it in perspective, Ireland is a whole country that is 3.5x smaller in size than the state of Michigan and has 5 million less people.

Today we went to Killarney. Tomorrow the Ring of Kerry. Then to County Cork ( blarney castle), then Kilkenny, Middleton, eventually ending back in Dublin.

Glad you are having a good trip. Enjoy and look forward to hearing any exciting stories (how you met a leprechaun or came across a changeling).

Went to blarney castle today and kissed the blarney stone. Blarney castle is a medieval castle that is largely intact and can be toured inside. Then to the english fish market in downtown Cork. Then onto Fort Charles in Kinsale where we're spending the night. Blarney castle was very cool.

Pics when you get back!

Today Kinsale to Kilkenny...went to the Cobh (pronounced Cove) Heritage Center. This port is where nearly all Irish were transported out of Ireland be they criminals, indentured servents or immigrants since the early 1700s. Millions shipped out of Cobh including one of my ancestors.

Hundreds of thousands of Irish were snatched up involuntarily by the British and sent to the Americas, Australia and Canada and forced into servitude during the 1700s and 1800s.

From there we went on a tour of the Jamison whiskey distillery in Middleton.

Back to Dublin tomorrow flying to Iceland on Sunday.

Some facts.. the main form of Gov't in Ireland is at the county level. There are 32 counties. 26 in the Republic of Ireland ( ROI) population 5.1 mill. 6 in Northern Ireland, population 1.9 mil. NI is still part of the UK. NI uses British lb sterling, ROI uses the euro for currency.

There are also 4 provinces in ireland but they no longer hold any political significance. Mostly just historical and cultural.

"Irish" aka Gaelic is the official language of the ROI and both Irish and english is taught in schools. In most of the ROI signs are in irish and English. In some of the southern counties the signs are only in irish and the inhabitants speak Irish as their every day language though most speak english as well.

English is the official language of NI as they consider themselves British.

They don't have professional sports per se. Most sports are at the county level with a lot of county rivalry. The most popular sports are hurling and Irish rules football which is kinda a cross between soccer and rugby though soccer and rugby are also popular. Hurling is kinda like curling.

My roots in ireland stem from my grandmother on my mother's side whose maiden name was O'Brian. All O'Brians come from a guy named Brian Borohime aka Brian Boro who was a high king of Ireland and defeated the vikings in the 1010s. Decendents of Brian Boro were bought off with lands and titles off by king Henry the 8th and turned protestant. Which is how my ancestor turned out protestant. O'Brian is one of the most common names in ireland.

Kilkenny to Dublin...stopped and hiked in the wicklow mountains, powers court falls, an old abby then on to Dublin.

Day 11...travel day. Flew from Dublin to Reykjavik, Iceland. It's only a 2.5 hour flight but it took all day to get here. Left our hotel at 9 am got to our apartment at 4:30 pm.

We're renting an apartment for 5 days before getting on the ship on Friday. We were tired so we ordered a Domino's pizza for dinner. Fun fact...dominos is the biggest, best selling pizza, chain in Iceland.

It feels like October here. Average daytime temp in August in Iceland is 12 C or about 55 F. We learned an easy way to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit when we were in Ireland...multiply the Celsius temp x 2 and add 32. Gets you pretty close.

It was in the upper 20s and 30/31 C a couple times all week in Ireland. That's unseasonably warm.