TAKE AWAYS FROM IRELAND

Sadly, the time has come to board our plane and fly back into our real world.  We've spent nineteen days on the road, we're out of clean clothes; and my little dabs of make-up, carefully squeezed into tiny containers, are nearly exhausted.  So...what did we learn?

1:  Brita water bottles are wonderful.  Believe the ads...they are correct!  Fill them with water from anywhere (don't ask) and it tastes great.  Our one dramatic test occurred at our B&B in Kenmare where the water was saturated with iron (per BC) and tasted really awful.  I filled up the Brita bottle and, the next morning? Voila!  Good water!  Not to be irreverent, but kind of like a miracle. 

2:  Do not complain if your rental car is covered in scratches, scrapes and dents.  Your rental agency, thieves though they may be, have done you a huge favor.  Be sure they have marked the damage diagram thoroughly, and then relax.  Bounce off a curb?  If you're OK, they're OK.  Skim a furze bush?  No problem.  Lightly scrape the corner of a wall?  It's nothing.  Drive and enjoy!

3:  Pop for an automatic transmission in your rental car.  Even my most frugal second son-in-law recommended this, but we ignored him.  We wanted the full experience.  It's not that we couldn't handle the full experience...well, let me re-phrase that.  It may be possible that I couldn't handle the full experience quite as well as I thought.  I had no idea how long a burning clutch could smell.

4:  Guinness really is better in Ireland.  Don't be afraid to try it.  Try it more than once, because it takes at least twice. 

5:  Buy a "Heritage Card".  It can pay for itself in one day if you get up early.  We were truly impressed with it.  No hassle to buy, no hassle to use and free entry to 96 sites.  The "Heritage Island Explorer Touring Guide" (as you can probably tell from that title) isn't nearly as convenient to carry or use, but it will also pay for itself relatively quickly.

6:  Rick Steves is a godsend.  I know I might have been a bit snarky about a few of his comments, but he led us from B&B to B&B with no false steps in the process.  He enriched our trip, he took us places we might not otherwise find, and we're forever grateful.  Thank you, Rick!  (Or as BC would say--he has a terrible time with names--Thank you, Steve.)   

7:  This is a stretch, but it's a fact that if anything stands still long enough in Ireland, something green will grow on it.  Actually, I mention this only because I've been hoping to use this photo and it's my last chance.

8:  I'm a bit of an introvert married to the quintessential extrovert, so I questioned the B&B plan much more than BC did.  Well, what I've written is honest.  I thoroughly enjoyed each host family and truly hated to leave each time we moved on.  The experience definitely enriched our trip.

9:  It was interesting how closely our world is aligned.  Bank bail-outs?  Ireland's been there.  Real estate bubble?  Ireland's been there.  Half empty housing developments?  Ireland has them everywhere--especially in the "holiday" house market.  Banks not lending?  Ireland's there.  Unemployment high?  Ireland's there.  The U.S. and western Europe are so closely tied together--we may not speak the same languages, but we experience the same economic woes.

10:  Throwing away a scheduled itinerary (except for arrival and departure days) was a wonderful way to see and experience Ireland.  We had decided early on that if we didn't make a full circuit of the island because of pausing here and there for an unexpected site or event, it was OK.  And indeed it was more than OK...I think it was close to serendipity.

11:  Aer Lingus still has small hard seats and charges for wine in steerage.  But they are spit and polished, attractive, blonde, wrinkle-free and constantly at your elbow with tea. It's all good.