back from hawai'i, sans tan

yes- i know that's hard to believe, but believe me, i had other things to do. besides, if i wanted to do nothing but lay around and turn bronze, why pay a considerable amount of money to do it somewhere exotic when i could simply hold down a chair by the pool in my apartment complex? (when we get back above seventy degrees, of course....)

while i could easily post a seven-installment series about my recent trip to hawai'i (okay- so only five of the installments would actually see the light of day), i figure it's best to summarize:

~some people rely on pamplets and brochures to plan their vacation. i used a combination of the official tourism brochure and hawaii trails by kathy morey.

~this trip allowed me to cross 3 goals off my list of "30 things to do before 30" ....and a fourth is up for debate. the three certainties are: travel alone to someplace new, hawaii, and visit three world heritage sites. (the other two sites were giant's causeway in northern ireland back in july, and the grand canyon in october.)

~culinary delights: papaya salad, spam musubi
i'm pleased to report that no poi was ingested during this adventure.

~hazards of the fauna variety (on land, unless land sharks make a comeback): none. there aren't any snakes on the big island, no any large carnivores that might want to eat me. as i understand it, there are feral pigs, and i saw a horse with a wild look in his eye, but i was perfectly comfortable hiking solo, knowing that i was unlikely to be chased by bears or mountain lions. most of my animal sightings involved either birds or mongooses. (or would that be "mongeese"?) interesting fact: the mongeese were introduced to the island in an attempt to solve the rat problem. unfortunately, rats are noctournal, mongeese aren't. as a result, there are tons of hungry looking mongeese all over the island.

rather than bore you with more details, let me share a few of my (roughly 1000) photos:


the typical hawaiian scene....though this was taken at a spot where people used to be sacrificed to the shark "gods", which isn't really something that gives me warm, relaxing, hawaiian feelings.


the downside of traveling solo? all of my photos of myself were either taken by random strangers (i got really good at walking up to random strangers), or else have the telltale arm in the corner. this one was taken at lapakahi state historical park.


the view of the valleys on hawai'i's northeastern coast, as seen from along the pololu valley hiking trail. the pololu trail was probably one of the more crowded ones i went on during my trip, but i really can't blame anyone for wanting to take in this view.


the pololu valley beach. it isn't safe to swim in the ocean here, due to fierce currents. random strolling and photographing are perfectly acceptable, however.


my first sea turtle sighting was at kahalu'u beach park, where i returned a week later to get the hang of snorkeling before flying home.


view from the waipi'o lookout. most visitors do not get any closer than this, and for good reason- the road is so steep that only four wheel drive vehicles are allowed to descend it.


once again, i managed to con other tourists into taking my photo. not realizing that the tallest waterfall in hawaii (1400 feet) was in the valley, i spent time wandering around the beach, and not the back of the valley, before beginning the climb back up. the trail was steep, to say the least. as i started to ascend, i was offered a ride by a bunch of college coeds in a jeep, which i declined. about halfway up, i wished i'd taken them up on it, as it seemed the trail would have been easier to handle if i'd just leaned forward a little more and crawled up it on all fours. however, by the time i got to the trailhead, i felt a sense of accomplishment....or maybe that was just the sharp, stinging pains in my calves making me delirious or something.


halema'uma'u crater, in the kilauea caldera, volcanoes national park, as seen during my $225 helicopter ride. during my visit, the crater was pumping out levels of sulphur dioxide that are ten times higher than normal. i found out right after my return home that, on the last morning of my visit, there was an explosion of ash and rock at the crater.


the lava flow, also seen during my $225 helicopter ride.


...and during my infinitely cheaper drive to the end of highway 130.





halema'uma'u crater. the rain jacket was the last thing i grabbed when i left my car at the charlotte airport, and easily one of the smartest packing decisions i'd made, since the hilo side of the island gets an average 140" of rain annually.


stopping along the kilauea iki trail in volcanoes national park. as you can see, i was unable to con any other tourists into taking this picture for me. there were cracks in the crater floor, still steaming after the 1959 eruption here.


my last major hike was to the captain cook monument in kealakekua bay. in addition to the monument, there's supposedly a plaque at the spot where cook actually died. unfortunately, neither i nor my sudden hiking buddy stumbled upon it. (however, since i've mastered snorkeling- one day too late for the hike- i'm totally willing to go back and look again....)




47 states down, 3 to go...and four months left to get them. admittedly, though, hawaii's been my favorite so far. (sorry, arizona.)

photos a go go

in what may be a record for me, i'm posting pictures from the bahamas a mere week and a half after getting home. (i know, i know- i thought the shock would do me in, too.) so, without further ado, a few highlights from my digital photo album:


at atlantis, even the fish are friendly.


bodhi and hot dog in front (well, technically, way behind) the atlantis hotel


are you tilting your head right now? you have my six year old sidekick to thank for this. i knew she had an unusual way of looking at the world.....


i can't remember the informative tidbit about exactly when this cloister was built, but i know french monks are responsible. william randolph hurst bought the cloister and brought it to the u.s., where it sat in a warehouse until one of the developers of paradise island bought it in 1962. it now sits across from versailles gardens.


"why the stern look?", you ask? i'm guessing it's because i probably just finished chewing out the ten year old for bickering with his sister.

while looking for an official link regarding the cloisters, i found something stating that the grounds aren't open to tourists but that one could view the cloister from the road. uh, oops. can i blame this one on the kids?


remember those skits lily tomlin used to do on sesame street where she was a little girl in a huge rocking chair? this reminds me of that. this also reminds me why it is unwise to wear a wet bikini top under a dry t shirt.


check out the rainbow in the background. this is only the third or fourth time i've been able to capture one on film...err...in pixels.


queen's staircase, which was handcarved by slaves in the late 1700s. this place was breathtaking.

i have a really great picture of myself with my sidekick and her brother in front of the waterfall by queen's staircase, but since i haven't gotten permission from their parents to post it, i'm afraid this is all you're getting:





i fought the law, and the law won. locked up at fort fincastle, which is just up the hill from the queen's staircase.


i still don't know what the heck "sky juice" is. (i missed the sign going in, otherwise i would've surely asked for it.) i do, however, know the pleasures of eating conch salad....though i tried to do so in moderation, because otherwise i fear being harpooned the next time i don a bikini.

the land of little green men, part eight

day eight: a multifaceted southwestern education

in no other single day during my trip did i learn as much as i did during the drive from galway to killarney.

seriously.

our first stop was "an international stop" near bunratty castle.

international stop- n- a bathroom break, so named because when you go in, you're a russian, when you come out, you're finnish, and in between, european

when that comes up on jeopardy, feel free to thank me.

useless trivia:

~during the drive from galway to killarney, we passed a bush along the highway that actually held up highway construction for two years. it seems the locals were convinced that the fairies from galway met the fairies from kerry there.

~the world's first duty-free shop was at the shannon airport.

what trip through limerick (home of frank mccourt) would be complete without learning a new nonsense poem? it would be severely lacking, i assure you. therefore, i'll pass along the one taught to us by anna, our tour guide:

there once was a monk from siberia
whose morals were slightly inferior
he did to a nun
what shouldn't be done
and now she's a mother superior

almost (but not quite) as good as my personal favorite:

there was a young couple named kelly
who became stuck belly to belly
because in their haste
they used library paste
instead of petroleum jelly

true, it pales in comparison to poe, cummings and silverstein, but unlike most of their works, it's short enough that i've actually been able to keep it memorized for the past twelve years. (ever since scribbling it on a blackboard during summer school before my senior year. for some reason, the teacher didn't allow me to scribble any more limericks on his board after that. go figure.)

..but i digress, so onward, to the hamlet of adare.

the castle of adare was built by the fitzgerald family. (interesting aside: when used as part of a last name, the prefix "fitz" means "illegitimate child of...")
our coach drove by the castle rather quickly, s while everyone else shopped, i trekked back to the river and snapped a few pictures....right before it started pouring, which was pretty excellent timing, if i do say so myself.



on the way to killarney, we stopped at aghadoe for our group shot, which several members of our group would later purchase for 8 euros apiece. mama and i are cheap, so it was a good thing we befriended one of those generous folks.

since it would be too much of a pain in the butt to get permission from everyone in the photo to post it online, i will only show you the most relevant sliver:



i wonder how many people in our group actually noticed the extra (albeit small) body in the picture....... (and one day, when i remember what the heck the password for his account is, perhaps i'll even get this posted over on bodhi's blog. perhaps)

there are three lakes of killarney- upper lake is the smallest, followed by muckross lake, and lough leane, which translates into "lake of learning". this third lake is named for the ruins of a 12th century university situated on an island in the middle of the lake.

our optional boat cruise on louch leane departed from ross castle, which was the second to last castle in ireland to fall to oliver cromwell's men.

during the cruise, i was mildly surprised to see this sign on the back deck of our boat:



speaking of photos, i should have taken one at dinner. mama and i opted out of the dinner and show excursion, and chose to dine at the hotel bar instead. i wish i'd taken my camera with us. i ordered a ham, pineapple, and cheese panini with fries and a salad (delightful, though unremarkable), and mama had the roast of the day, which was served on (wait for it....) potatoes and a side of (oh, yes!) potatoes. all that was missing was the potato dessert.

perhaps they hadn't scrolled down quite far enough on this website.....

in the next thrilling episode: i learn almost everything there is to know about muckross house, which is a good thing, since they don't seem to offer any informative brochures, take a blurry picture of king puck, meet charlie chaplin, and find a ferris wheel in the middle of killarney

the land of little green men, part seven

day seven: the continuing search for fame, fortune, and that rich man

by this point, i was having to sit on my suitcase (which i'd already expanded a couple of days before) in order to close it. this, obviously, would not do. so, out came handy collapsed box number two, as well as the roll of tape, and i set to work transferring recent purchases (i mean, ahem dirty clothing left behind on holiday) into this box for shipping home.

our first stop after leaving castlebar was at the town of cong, in county mayo.

undoubtedly, you have heard of cong. not because of the giant monkey who didn't know how to spell, but because of that timeless classic, "the quiet man".

what's this? you've never heard of "the quiet man", either? ah, well- you, my friend, are truly missing out. apparently this movie was so utterly fantastic that you have led a truly sheltered life if you've never popped it into your vhs or dvd player. the town is still talking about it, over 50 years after its release, which means that either it's a piece of celluloid perfection, or else the town of cong is really hard up for tourist attractions.

however, i'm afraid all of the "quiet man" this and "quiet man" that left me unimpressed. however, in one of the "quiet man" shops, i saw a thing of great joy and beauty. i later spotted it in other sizes, more suitable for gift giving, but the first was certainly the best. unfortunately, i couldn't figure out how to get it home intact.

this particular shop was run by a little old woman who'd forgotten to put in her dentures that morning, but i think i still made out something about her meeting john wayne personally. she was sharing various "quiet man" tidbits with another member of our tour group, but i was not convinced she was suitably enough distracted for me to be able to fiddle with my camera long enough to get a picture of this wonderful gift.

mama, carefully attuned to my needs, as ever, was kind enough to run back into the store and snap this picture. feel free to bask in its glory for as long as you like:


is it just me, or does the lamp in "a christmas story" pale in comparison?

aside from "the quiet man", cong's other claim to fame is its abbey, which dates to the 12th century.





before leaving town, we visited the facilities (slow to flush, but toilet paper and seats were included, so overall a good pick.), and shipped box number two- which, for some strange and bizarre reason, wound up costing 52 euros, despite only weighing maybe a couple of kilograms. (furthermore, you would think that would be enough to buy my package a first-class cabin on whatever ship it sailed on. however, since it took three weeks to arrive after shipping, i'm wondering if maybe it wound up on someone's canoe, instead.)

on the way to galway, we stopped to take pictures of lough corrib, which is the second largest lake in ireland, and we also stopped briefly at the connemara marble factory, just outside of galway.

galway is the third largest city in ireland, after dublin and cork. the main center of galway is eyre square, and the roundabouts in town are named for the 14 norman families who took over the city.

the main street in galway is for pedestrians only, and was reminiscent of las ramblas in barcelona, right down to the buskers.


since you're supposed to pay to take a busker's picture, i'm afraid i'll have to go back and drop a few cents into this guy's bucket the next time i'm in galway. (oops)

in retrospect, i should have also paid a visit to madam bridget, who read palms (sometimes while even looking at them!) in exchange for 5 euros. i wonder if she would have predicted that i'd find a 10 euro note in the parking lot of our hotel while walking back after dinner that evening.



in addition to living statues, the main street also featured multiple musicians, artisans, scantily clad girls who'd let you paint them for a small donation ("take part in body art", the sign said), and a guy who was either a very casually dressed interpretive dancer...or a drunkard.

one of the musicians caught my eye. he had instruments, like the others. he had a dog, as did some of the others. he had an open guitar case, like the others.

i could not resist taking a picture. when i asked if i could get a picture of him with bodhi, he said we'd do one better. i was handed an instrument, bodhi a pick, and we had our musical debut right there, in the middle of galway.



he "plinked", and when he pointed at me, i "plonked". a crowd gathered, and despite my fear of audiences (hence the stand-up comedy career that lasted a whopping thirty seconds- the time it took me to realize, with horror, that i'd actually have to be onstage in front of people), i made it through the entire song...including our finale with bodhi, whom i started to gather up and stow in my camera case until an italian tourist in the crowd asked to take a picture of.....go figure.

i'll let you kow when we start the world tour. cds were available "on line"- as in the cardboard discs he'd strung up on a string behind us.

actually, i think that, were i to become a busker, i'd take the easy way out- find an old, pouffy dress, paint it (and myself) silver, and stand very, very still for several hours.

in the next captivating chapter: i learn the meaning of "international stop",as well as yet another off color limerick, the meaning of "fitz", and that it is possible to lighten up an otherwise stuffy photo without the photographer noticing.

the land of little green men, part six

day six: of pottery, poetry, and potatoes stuffed with salmon

our first stop this morning was at the ulster american folk park in county tyrone. the park focuses on the emigration of thousands from ulster to north america in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. in addition to several displays housed inside the museum, there are also a couple dozen buildings outdoors, which illustrate the way of life for both the (mostly well-to-do, from the looks of things) ulsterians (is that a word?), as well as the new americans. the star of the park was financier thomas mellon.


three residents of the ulster american folk park

the park was neat, but the two and a half hours we spent there was about half an hour too long, as evidenced by the large crowd waiting for the bus long before our scheduled departure time.

we stopped in belleek for lunch and a tour of the pottery factory.

lunch was excellent, though under slightly cramped conditions. after walking up and down belleek's main street, mama and i settled on dining at the thatch coffee shop.



i can't remember what mama had, but i had a very reasonably priced baked potato with smoked salmon and "seafood sauce" on top (i'm guessing it was some sort of ketchup/mayo/lemon juice sort of concoction), as well as a small side salad and coleslaw. i'd worked up an appetite, so i basically hoovered my food down, then wandered over to the factory for the tour. mama stayed behind, enjoying her pot of coffee (they didn't serve guinness), and still made it to the factory in time to join the second half of our group on the belleek tour.

the last stop before heading to our hotel in castlebar was at drumcliffe, burial site of the poet w. b. yeats. in addition to being yeats' final resting place, drumcliffe is notable for its irish illuminated cross, which dates back to the 11th century, as well as a round tower dating back to the same period.







after spending a few minutes wandering around the grounds and taking pictures, i decided it would be a good idea to make use of the facilities, which featured all of the necessities, except two out of the three stalls were missing toilet paper. since i'm occassionally sensible and industrious, i got the bright idea to wait for the stall with paper to open up, grabbed a handful, and then toted said handful into one of the undersupplied stalls. others followed suit, so maybe i'm one of those "natural born leaders" after all. (yeah- doubt it)

our hotel for the evening was breaffy international sports hotel in castlebar. it was easily my least favorite of the hotels we stayed in during our trip. the hotel was the latest addition to the breaffy house hotel complex, and had obviously opened very recently, as the trim in our room was unfinished and kinks still needed to be worked out.

this was also the first time i'd encountered an electrical system that required insertion of the room key into a slot in the wall for any of the lights or outlets to operate. had mama not encountered this sort of setup recently, i'm sure i would have wound up either calling the front desk (a lesson in futility, as we learned when we requested a sewing kit for our room), or showering in the dark.

this problem resolved, mama and i got settled in before heading to the restaurant for dinner, a journey that took slightly longer than expected, because mama got turned around somehow and tried to lead me to dinner in the small sports arena attached to the hotel. (thankfully, she'd straightened out her sense of direction by her third guinness of the evening, eliminating the need to dispatch a search party.)

dinner was good, though many in our group had issues with being served on couches. i can't recall exactly what i had for dinner, though i'm quite certain salmon was involved. each table also had a large bowl of veggies, which went untouched by many. (it was hard to witness such waste.) mama and i wiped our bowl out, and omehow still had room for dessert.

after dinner, i headed over to the breaffy house hotel, where rumor had it, they had free internet.

was it free? yes. did it have the lightning-fast speed of roadrunner? uh, not so much. it tok me half an hour to send three short emails. fortunately, when i went back an hour later, someone had restarted the computer, and it no longer took five minutes for a webpage to load.

so much for the plan to launch my very own pay-per-view website from the road.*

in the next exciting installment: i find the perfect gift, though i can't figure out how to haul it home without breaking it, travel all the way to galway to eat at mickey d's, and launch my musical career.

*calm down, daddy- i'm only kidding

the land of little green men, part five

day five: in which i meet my sister's future husband, and after which, mama will undoubtedly get a frantic phone call.

after several mornings in a row of rolling out of bed before 7am to get packed, stuff myself full of food, and get all my worldly possessions on the bus by 8:30, i was thrilled to finally sleep in. in fact, i was so thrilled that i passed on breakfast, which allowed me to catch at least an extra half hour of sleep.

when the spirit finally moved me (and by "spirit", i mean mama, who was clearly highly caffienated at the time), i pried open my eyelids, threw on some clothes, and we headed down to the coach for our walking tour of derry.

i have pages upon pages in my journal of tidbits and trivia about derry, mostly gleaned from our tour guide, ronan mcnamara. i will spare you the bulk of it, but here are five interesting tidbits:


tidbit #1: there are approximately 104,000 inhabitants of derry, which lies near the border of northern ireland and the republic of ireland. according to ronan, roughly 74% are catholic, 24% are protestant, and there's one buddhist. (that'd be ronan.)


tidbit #2: bogside, just outside the western wall, is full of murals depicting scenes from the struggle between the catholics and protestants in the 1970s and 1980s, a time referred to as "the troubles". glenfarda park, located in bogside, commemorates january 30, 1972- bloody sunday- when 13 people were killed and 14 injured by police during a civil rights march protesting the imprisonment of citizens without a fair trial. ("sunday, bloody sunday" by U2 also commemorates the event.)

tidbit #3: one of the men killed on bloody sunday, john duddy, has a brother who named one of his sons in his honor. this younger john duddy is a boxer in america. interestingly enough, the local paper ran an article on the boxer the day we tooled around derry.


tidbit #4: the walls of derry were built between 1613 and 1618, and there were four original gates. of those four, bishop's gate, built in 1789, is the oldest. in the 1800s, three new gates were added, making a total of seven that one can walk both across and through today. the walls of derry measure 1 mile in circumference.

tidbit #5: at the end of the bridge over the river foyle, which runs through derry, there is a sculpture called "hands across the divide". this sculpture is designed so that the two figures can be moved closer and closer together as the city comes closer to achieving a lasting peace.

after our walking tour ended, mama and i continued walking along the remainder of the mile-long walls, stopping to take pictures every 50 feet or so (anyone who's travelled with me knows how photo-happy i can get). i'm afraid mama was a little nervous about snapping this one, since i was on the edge of the wall, roughly 30 or 40 feet from the grass outside the wall:



after finishing our mile, we cut through the center of the city, then exited the walled portion of the city near guild hall, a stone's throw from the public bathrooms at the bus station. i was treated to the relative luxury of a commode with both a seat and toilet paper, while mama hovered while reading about all the people "jennifer" (or was it "jessica"? i didn't get a picture) loved.

lunch was eaten on the hoof, and i tried out a tuna deluxe sandwich (tuna, mayo, bell pepper, and green onion) and ham and cheese potato crisps (still not my favorite, thought they were edible.)

we returned to the hotel for a short break, then set out on our tour of the inishowen peninsula.

the peninsula is part of country donegal. when ireland was divided in the early 1900s, only six of the nine counties in the ulster region of ireland were included in northern ireland, due to their protestant majorities. county donegal was one of the three counties left behind.

our first stop on the peninsula was at the Grianán of Aileach, an ancient fort that's been traced back to the druids. i wound up lagging behind the rest of the group, as i had to change rolls in my pentax. i wound up walking through the gates with a local guy named jonnie. he and i chatted during the short walk up to the fort, and he set up his laptop while i took pictures of the panorama. (you can see three counties from the walls of the fort, including county tyrone, from where my great grandfather's family hailed.)



before leaving the fort, i asked jonnie if he'd mind posing with the gnomes, as we'd conversed about them a few minutes earlier. he said he wanted a picture with me, and a few of the gnomes snuck in.



post-picture, i acquired jonnie's email address and promised to email him a copy of the photo. conversation ensued, and while i won't bore you with the details (you'll have to wait for the book, i guess), at one point he asked if i had a sister who was looking for an irish husband.

so, sibling......

we drove up to malin head, the most northern point in ireland. on the way, we passed a town (i didn't catch the name) with a police station that's only open from 6-7pm monday through friday.

yes, you read that right. sadly, my photo of the sign listing their hours was both blurry and poorly aimed. i'll try to get a better shot at it next time.

dinner was a buffet back at the hotel. many in our tour group opted for the optional evening excursion, which was dinner and a medieval show at a local castle, but a few of us decided we'd rather pay $30 for the hotel buffet than over twice as much for the medieval show. the buffet was very good, and i wound up positively stuffed. (my chocolate cravings got the best of me, i'm afraid, and i wound up making an uncharacteristically large number of visits to the dessert bar.)

after dinner, i headed back to our room, while mama stopped for a guinness nightcap at the bar. around 9:45, we were startled by a piercing sound, as were many of our tourmates, judging from the large number of folks standing in the hotel hallway in their nightclothes. we later found out that one of the members of our group had a temperamental hairdryer in their room. (hairdryers were provided in every hotel room we stayed in.) it seems that, while using the hairdryer, it emitted a puff of smoke, at which point he shut it off and decided that dripping dry was preferable to setting anything on fire. several minutes later, the fire alarm went off.

it's nice to know that if the building had actually been in flames, we would have been notified...eventually.

in the next electrifying passage: baked potato + smoked salmon = bliss, review of the facilities at yeats' resting place, and mama nearly gets lost

the land of little green men, part four

day four: i am my own grandpa...or something like that

our tourmates included an 81-year-old man who took copious notes on everything (scribbling first on a newspaper, and then in a spiral bound notebook), and his companion, at first thought to be his daughter, but as it was soon discovered, she was, in fact, his wife. they happened to be seated next to us at breakfast in belfast on the morning of the 21st.

as our other tablemates discussed the excitement of the evening before (apparently, the wedding reception got a little out of hand and rowdiness, chaos, and drunken behavior worthy of lindsay lohan ensued), the daughter/wife (we hadn't worked out the particulars just yet) decided to strike up a conversation.

"so- are you celebrating anything on this trip?"

mama and i looked at each other, and replied that we supposed we were celebrating our recent birthdays.

daughter/wife's reply singlehandedly rendered mama a broken woman for the remainder of the trip:

"oh. normally, when a grandmother and granddaughter are travelling together, it's to celebrate a graduation or something....."

it's a good thing mama wasn't drinking her coffee at the time, because she surely would have spilled it in her lap or shot it out her nose or something. while she recovered, i broke it to daughter/wife that i looked young for my age (most estimates on our trip shaved ten years off, which i'll happily take), and that mama was, in fact, mama, and not grandma.

daughter/wife apologized, and i don't recall having any other conversations with her for the duration of the trip- though, as you'll learn a few episodes from now, that was not the last we'd hear from her.

where, you may ask, was her 81-year-old spouse during all of this? well, though he was sitting just a few feet away, at the other side of the table, i believe he missed the entire conversation, as he was enjoying the view on the other side of his eyelids.

perhaps this contributed to mama's cranky disposition during our ride to derry. (perhaps "perhaps" is an understatement.) at one point, i asked her if we needed to start getting her guinness in "to go" cups, but i'm afraid the idea doesn't seem to have caught on in ireland....which is surprising, considering all the marketing guinness does- right down to guinness underwear. (i passed, mostly because thongs weren't an option.) i am certain that guinness drive-thrus will soon be as common as starbucks is here in the states. the time is coming- mark my words.


carnlough, where the public bathrooms feature both toilet paper and seats, and the postmaster decided my first box back home was full of "clothing left behind on holiday" and therefore was of no value, as far as customs was concerned. i'm still trying to figure out how one wears four canned leprechauns and a few dishtowels, but given enough time, i'm sure i can come up with something fabulous.

we arrived at giant's causeway around lunch time. giant's causeway is a world heritage site, and in case you're trolling for interesting vacation destinations (and who isn't?), here's a list of the others.

there are a couple of legends regarding the origins of giant's causeway- both involving giants. the official version is here, but i prefer our tour guide, anna's, version, which was far more romantic- there was a giant in ireland who fancied a giantess in scotland, and he built the causeway so he could walk across and "get his hands on her".

ah, young (giant) love.

had the camera nuked my pictures from the causeway, i would have been devastated.




in the background, our 81-year-old tourmate, undoubtedly scribbling in his notebook while roaming around the causeway.



after our visit to giant's causeway, we reboarded our "coach" (tourbus), and continued our drive to derry.

a few miles from the causeway, we stopped at bushmills distillery, the oldest legal distillery in europe (dating back to roughly 1608). while the rest of our group took the tour, mama and i wandered around town for a while and took pictures of some rather unique cows that wre grazing next to the distillery. the cows are called "belted galloways", and since my pictures turned out to be blurry images of belted galloway butts, you should probably click on the link, rather than holding out for my artistic rendition....though it must be noted that i'm pretty good when it comes to drawing stick figure cattle.

our next two nights were to be spent at the everglades hotel in derry. i found it amusing that an irish hotel would be named for an american national park, but sleep deprivation had caught up to me by that point, and i was even more easily amused than usual....which is saying a lot, now that i stop to think about it.

upon entering our room, mama and i discovered we were not alone. a stranger (though, admittedly, a rather cute one) was hiding in our shower.



we found out over dinner that not only were we not the only ones to find a stranger in our shower, but as it turned out, everyone else had one the night before, as well.

needless to say, mama and i felt a wee bit rejected. i mean, why was everyone else met in belfast by their own, personal little yellow welcome wagon, yet we were not? we'd taken showers that morning. we'd remembered our deodorant. we had minty fresh breath. we would not stand for this! so, we did the sensible thing.

we (well, actually, mama did the dirty work) told a little white lie. we stopped by the reception desk upon our return from dinner, and we left with not only an additional unadorned duckie, but a smaller one sporting a santa hat (suitable for hanging on the christmass tree), as well.

thrilled with our unexpected bonus, i headed to our room with our two new friends, while mama headed to the bar to make two (three? i neither know nor care, as long as she made it back to the right room) new friends of her own.

in our next thrilling episode: mama and i fight over the lone buddhist in derry, i meet my sister's future husband, and way too many of our tourmates wind up standing in the hotel hallway in their skivvies.