For my vacation this year I went on a 10 day hiking trip to Ireland. Like all the other trips I've done, this was a great trip in many ways. I left home July 13 and got home again July 24. I was supposed to have flights from Indy to JFK in New York to Dublin, Ireland and to return by the same route.
The trip did not begin well. Jim Fleming was going to pick me up at 1:00 on departure day and drive me to the Indy airport. About 12:00 that day I received a call from Delta Airlines notifying me that my flight had been delayed two hours. I got really uptight but quickly remembered that I had a three hour layover so I should be ok. About 12:30 I made a final pit-stop before departing and managed to break the zipper on the slacks I was wearing. I quickly commandeered the slacks I had set out for when I returned and addressed that issue.
On getting to the airport I checked in as usual. Since I had a longer time there than originally planned, I checked at the gate and found that the flight still had a two hour delay. So I took a long walk around the entire A and B concourses. On returning to the gate I found that it was now a three hour delay. I went up to the Delta agent at the gate and said I didn't think I was going to make my connection. She worked at the keyboard for a bit and then said "They've got you booked through Atlanta." A little more keyboard work and she said "Here are your new boarding passes. The flight to Atlanta departs in 10 minutes over there", pointing to a gate just down the concourse.
I got to Atlanta and found the gate for the Dublin flight. At that point I had time to call Mountain Travel to let them know my arrival plans had changed since I was supposed to be greeted at the airport on arrival and transported to the hotel. On boarding the flight my suspicions were confirmed - I wasn't in premium class which is what I had booked for my JFK to Dublin flight. I suspected that would be the case since the boarding pass showed my seat assignment to be 15G.
On arriving in Dublin and going through immigration and customs, I didn't find Ged, our trip leader. Since my new schedule had me arriving an hour earlier than my original schedule I wasn't surprised. We did eventually connect. He hadn't gotten word of my schedule change until I'd already arrived. But all's well that ends well. I got there and from then forward everything was great.
The return home was very different. On arriving at the Dublin airport for heading home I checked in like any airport. As I was checking in I was told that I would go through the usual Ireland immigration and security. But after that I would go through U.S. pre-clearance and that my bag was checked all the way to Indy. Huh? This process was all new to me.
U.S. pre-clearance means that you go through U.S immigration and customs in Ireland and not when you arrive in the U.S. The only way to get to the departure gate is through U.S. pre-clearance so everyone on the flight had gone through this. What this meant is that when the flight arrived at JFK in New York we just exited the plane directly into the concourse. I proceeded from there directly to the gate for my Indy flight.
On coming into JFK I was watching out the window and saw 17 planes in line to take off. I figured it was going to take my flight to Indy awhile to get going. But we boarded on time, we pushed back on time and other than waiting for a couple "Gate Gourmet" trucks to cross in front of us, we taxied to the runway and took off. We ended up arriving half an hour early.
One of the unique aspects of this trip was learning about and actually practicing the Irish sport of hurling. Hurling is a cross between soccer, field hockey, ice hockey and rugby. You do have a stick / bat called a hurl or hurley and a ball called a sliotar (pronounced slitter). The hurl was between 3 and 4 feet long and the blade roughly 4 or 5 inches square, flat on one side and a bit rounded on the other. The slioatar was about the size and weight of a baseball hard ball but a little softer. It would take more than I care to write to describe the sport and how it's played. But learning about it and practicing it was great fun.
The trip ended but I had to spend my last night in Ireland in an airport hotel since my flight out wasn't until the next morning. When I went down to the hotel restraurant for dinner they had a big screen TV showing a hurling match. Of course I asked "Can I sit in front of the TV?" So I got to watch the last part of a match - more great fun since I had some idea of what was going on. In fact a waiter asked me if I knew how much the players we were watching were paid. I knew the answer - nothing - see the next topic.
In addition to hurling we learned about the GAA - the Gallic Athletic Association. This group sponsors three sports which are traditionally Irish, hurling, Gallic football and handball. I have no idea how Gallic football is played. And I thought handball was a little more universal than traditionally Irish. But these are the sports the association promotes and supports.
Those playing in the GAA are totally amateur. They receive no money at all, not even travel expenses. But for hurling there are large stadiums, for example one holding 82,000 spectators, which take in receipts. The money goes back to sponsor the local GAA clubs.
Speaking of local clubs, the club in the area where you're born is where you play even if you move. It's your club for life. So there's no bidding for players (totally amateur) and no players changing addresses to play with a different club (your club for life). I think the NCAA could learn something from the GAA.
On day 3 we did some hiking on roads and a boat ride across a couple lakes ending up at Ross Castle. We had a great tour guide there. She mentioned some things I knew and something I'd wondered about for some time. The first item she discussed was the stumble stairs. Many castles have spiral stairs which spiral clock-wise. They're called stumble stairs because each step is at a different height and a different width. This makes it difficult for someone attacking up the stairs to charge straight up them - you need to pay attention to the stairs and hence less attention to the defenders. The reason the stairs spiral clock-wise is because the attackers heading up the stairs have their right arms against the center and have less room to swing their swords while the defenders about have more room.
Another thing the guide pointed out is that this was a bad period to be left-handed as I am. Left-handed women were suspected of being witches and were tested. The test was to throw them into a pond - if they sank and drowned, they were innocent - otherwise they were witches and burned. It turns out the left-handed men were picked to be the first attackers to charge up the stairs. Of course they still had to deal with the stumble stairs making them prime cannon fodder in any case.
On day 4 of the trip we attempted to hike to the highest point in Ireland, Corran Tuathail. This was a really tough day. The weather was great, clear skies and warm. There was a long approach to the base of the mountain where the real work began. There were two ways up, the Devils' Ladder and the Zig-zags. The Devil's Ladder was basically straight up a rocky draw while the Zig-zags were longer and still fairly rocky. We went up the Devils' Ladder and came down the Zig-zags. Ladder isn't a bad description. For about the first half of it we were able to sort of hike even though it was very steep and rocky. But the last half earned the term ladder. If you're going up a ladder, you can't just use your feet, you also want to use your hands. The Devil's Ladder was similar in needing to use your hands some. We all eventually made it to the col (saddle) with yet another hour to go to get to the actual summit. We were all fine skipping going to the summit. Coming down the Zig-zags was longer and not a walk in the woods either. After getting down there was still the long approach to get back to the van. I found that on that last leg I was going really slowly. Whenever I decided I was going too slow, I'd stop and drink some water which would pick me up. I ended up drinking all 2 quarts of water I'd been carrying and was still a bit dehydrated at the end. The good news is that there was plenty of water in the van. While clear and warm weather is unusual for Ireland I wouldn't have minded overcast and cool without any rain this day.
Later in the trip we were supposed to go up another peak. However the weather was rainy and not good weather for doing the peak. Instead we spent time at Kylemore Abby touring the mansion and hiking to various points around it. Of course there was a light rain the whole time. We were prepared so everyone was wearing their rain gear. That afternoon we went to Connemara National Park and did about an hour hike there. No one was really excited about this last hike because the rain was coming down really hard by then. But everyone did the hike even though at one point we had horizontal rain in our faces. On getting to the hotel that afternoon we had to work at drying everything out. Even rain gear can get overloaded.
On the next to the last day of the trip we returned to Connemara National Park. This time we had a beautiful day, clear with comfortable temperatures. We repeated the hike we'd done in the rain the previous day but continued up to a spot called Diamond Hill. While the hike included some "ladder" work there wasn't nearly as much as the Devil's Ladder. But we weren't in a draw this time but there wasn't a lot of exposure. So not a trivial hike and making for only a sort of tough day.
On getting to the van after the tough day, Karen raised the question "How do you say holy shit in Irish?" expressing her reaction to the day. On getting back from the sort of tough day, she repeated the question only this time directed at our trip leader. His reply was "You can translate the words individually but the phrase really doesn't translate well. The best you can do is say "Holy shit" with an Irish accept.