Welcome to the Rock.
3/6/2009 4:25 PM
It’s here our story gets truly historic. Arriving at the Rock of Cashel we wheel into the parking lot and after running and ID check and a blood sample on a the parking staff, Norb feels it’s safe enough to park in the lot in one of the most visited spots of Ireland. Like most castles in Europe it’s on the outs. It’s like arriving at a really great party around 2 AM. There is just the traces of the good times that happened about 4 hours ago and Don Johnson passed out on the sofa. We decide to forgo the paying tour to take pictures and to eaves drop on the other tours that pass by. It’s your standard Irish day. Overcast with just enough sun slipping through to light up the greens on the surrounding hills. We meandered through the outer cemetery, past its impressive 90 foot round tower. Once the seat of the Kings of Munster, a majority of the Rock was built between the 12th and 13th centuries. It finds a place in my heart with other European cathedrals and landmarks. When things were built over long periods of time, when people built things for a greater good than themselves. It’s also historic because it is the supposed birthplace of Christianity in Ireland where St. Patrick (Yes...that St. Patrick) converted the King of Munster. Topping off the ceremony when the Saint spiked the King with his staff breaking his foot. As the tale goes the King said nothing just figuring that it was "just part of the show". I love that story...its nearly Midwestern in its attitude. Its not the last time the Irish would be getting the sharp end of the (stick)staff from Christianity in the coming years. If he was smart that king would have tossed Pat out on his arse right then.

One of the most noticeable landmarks of "the Rock" (yes, we did that bit...alot) is the rather large chunk of the castle sitting in the lawn on the north side of the grounds. I am giving Norb an impromptu history lesson of how it occurred during "the night of winds". Where it crack and fell away from the castle. This then led into the inevitable imagination of the night...a squire sitting by the fire then a sharp crack as he stares wide eyed into the stormy night then someone walks in "Well I'll just be checking in on our friend he's just in....what did you do?!". That’s going to be a hard one to live down. "Hey mate...thanks for breaking the feckin' castle. Good luck getting the touristas in now." We take our leave and decide its probably a good time to start searching out a place to stay for the night. In the small library I carry. What Norb is for rental car security I am for rentals...I have 3 books and a notebook full of listings and phone numbers and addresses. We arrive anywhere and a tiny voice in my head begins to shout:

"You have no place to stay! You have no place to stay."
"Quiet tiny voice in my head! There is plenty of time."
"Yes..but...You have no place to stay! You have no place to stay."

It takes a week of drinking Guinness and Jameson before tiny voice gives in and drowns. I hate tiny voice. I can link a majority of my failure and liability to act to tiny voice. But we heed its warning now and begin to search Cashel for a place to hide our crap for the night and to eventually set our beer laden bodies later. We drive up and down the row of B&B's. The popular ones in the travel books are occupied. Our familiarity of the main street becomes fantastic from driving up and down it 12 times. In performing an automotive maneuver in defiance of several traffic laws and at least 2 laws of physics, we ramble down a brick sidestreet and enter a most definite residential part of town. But out of nowhere, we see a B&B cloverleaf sign on the side of a house. Our options running low, Norb decides I should go ask if there are vacancies, while he stays with the car to keep it safe and begins loading a shotgun to protect the car from the 3 eight-year-old girls having a tea party in the neighboring yard.

I knock.

Long pause.

Knock again...far harder.

Long pause...then a faint rustle.

I turn to Norb, shrug, he fires a warning blast over the tea party.

I AM NOW POUNDING ON THE DOOR.

There are few struggling noises within that can only be described as hiding a body.

The door flies open and there stands our B&B owner...now I may be making this up, but I swear there was a thunder clap that accompanied it.

"Can I help you, sir?"...Well at least my murder will be a polite one. He probably just wants to lure Norb in as well.
'"Yes...please. Do you have any vacancies?"

"I do, I do...A lovely room for the night. Just one?"
"No, there are 2 of us."

What I want to say is '...and people on the street have seen us...so there are witnesses and I took a self defense class in college an attended all the classes before finding out it was pass fail.'...but I don't.

"Well you'll shake my hand and we'll look at the room". He's so charming...like an Irish Ted Bundy. We shake hands and he has a grip that astounds me. It's not that he crushed my hand or oversqueezed it. Rather it was solid and it made my blood run cold. Its how I expect Quint's grip (from Jaws) grip to be. Its whatever I do once this hand grabs me I won't be able to change the outcome. If I was smart I would bolt for Norb and the rental jump into the passenger seat while screaming "DRIVE! DRIVE! DRIVE!". Instead I turn, meekly smile at Norb and give him a thumbs up and take solace in the fact I won't die alone.

B&B's have a interesting habit of showing you the room before you agree to stay there. we are paying roughly $40 each to sleep in a guest bedroom. If there is a blanket and a surface to lie there is precious little that will turn me away now. I don't get it but feel its rude of me to say "look could you just kill me now?". Norb soon joins us with the luggage and we have a comfortable yet odd conversation in our room that seems just a little TOO long. The kind where you laugh it winds down and then ends with a sigh and "yeaaaaah". Irish Bundy then takes his leave and returns to the basement so he can finish burying the Thompsons from Michigan. Unable to maintain his reserve, Norb inquires "Whats the story...?" I then run off of my suspicions and Norb genuinely feels that I am right on in my suspicion that this guy is serial killer material and the best we can hope for now is being his "Gimp".

No reason to stop us from going out and getting a pint first. We also have a few other tasks to complete one of which will lead me on a 5-minute rant...getting a power adapter. We both came amply supplied for power and recharging. However like a fool, I figure Ireland would be using the same type of plugs the UK does and the way my plugs are shaped, I can only charge one thing at a time. So as an open question to the world I ask you...What the fuck is with the plugs?

As a planet we have straight prongs, slanted prongs, 2, prongs, 3 prongs, some have grounds, some don't. It’s not like when electricity started we thought it would be a fad and we could all go our own way. Would it have been a big deal to make a couple calls and everybody get on board with 1 unified plug/outlet? And I am not "all American" way about this. I'd be happy using a Lithuanian plug design just as long as I don't have to cross borders with a James Bond technology kit so I can power up my Ipod every couple of days. Speaking of James Bond...that’s a scene I'd love to see in a Bond movie. The clock is ticking. 007 opens his bag of gadgetry...then eyes the neighboring outlet..."Hmmmm is that a straight, curved or slanty plug? Oh damn..." Then he would shoot the outlet.

But I have digressed from my original digression. Plus the fact that most of us attempt to circumvent these adapters via the "might makes right" method. No mattter how inconceivably-shaped our plug is to the adapter we all at a certain point are just jamming them together in a rage. I bet even Albert Einstein found himself in a water closet somewhere trying to jam a 3-prong slanty into a 2-prong standard..."Ach! Mein gott in Himmel I cannot fit it in zee slanty-slotsen!!!"

We set out into town to see if we can either locate A) a new adapter we can use here or B) a metal file so we can grind down one of the plugs to fit in the outlet. Before you ask...NO that's not a safe idea. But we were Amercian adventurers out in the Isle...risks must be taken. I have an entire U2 Ireland playlist on my Ipod I have not listened to...safety be damned! As we wandered throughout Cashel looking for A or B we immediately found ourselves in 3 different pubs. My experience in Carlow has shown if you want directions and/or advice...go to a pub. Well actually you should got to a pub for about 88% of the things you encounter in life. The day grows a bit hazy here in the memory time and Guinness have taken its toll. But it was not without lessons learned. Our first pub the Brian Boru...the guidebook said it was very popular, we found 5 local mothers who were in there having a drink. Now shock and alarm will go off in our American minds. From eavesdropping I found they were returning from walking in the park and honestly how many of you mothers out there couldn't use a stiff drink after an hour in the park. Another thing that warmed my heart, aside from the Jameson (Thank you very much, barman!) was how friendly and polite these kids were. My observations of typical American kids in public are either nearly catatonic with fear when anyone speaks to them or they are obnoxious on a level that makes Jerry Lewis cringe. The little Irish boy we watched ran up to the bartender...In a showcased reaction the Bartender says:

"Hello! You startled me..." feigning a heart attack.
The lad giggles and says "Hello! How are you...I'm Jeremy."
"I'm very well, Jeremy!
"would you like a soda?"...gives him a small glass.
"How about a 5 and hug?" The kids smacks his hand and gives him a slapping hug. While his Mom looks on.

My Grinch heart begins to swell...you never see anything like that in America and we're worse for it. It’s my first observation of Irish "community" and the famous craic you hear of. 2 pubs later we decide we really SHOULD find that converter before we have to into one of the stores as we peruse the main street we swagger past a phone booth. Norb raises a tipsy finger "I should call home..." as we pass a phone booth. I return a tipsy raised eyebrow just at his matter of factness. It’s as if he doesn't realize he is 1/4 of the globe away and he needs to let them know he's running a bit late and he expects to be home sometime in a week from now.

He enters the phone booth and I lurk huddled outside it like an Mob enforcer...well an enforcer on holiday with jaunty camera bag. Our hero in the phone booth removes his credit card...squints at the instructions...squints at the card glances to me. Then begins programming a number sequence into the dial pad that is akin to a nuclear launch code. I would not have been surprised if at the end of punching in all these numbers that the telephone booth would have spun three times and disappeared into time, ala Dr. Who. But after a few minutes he gets through and performs the obligatory..."HI!...I'm in Ireland!" with a congenial warmth that only 6 Guinness’s and matching Jameson’s could muster. You could be on the phone with Dick Cheney and warm up to him in such a condition. "Hey...buddy, how’s it going?!!!". Not to be outdone in family concern, I too call home and with as much difficulty as my friend. I am eventually pitied by the operator and connected to my wife. With the congenial glow of Ronald Reagan...In my condition there could be bombs going off and I'd doing pretty good. This nonsensical rambling goes on for a few minutes. I hang up the phone smiling, comforted that I've checked in. The 3-minute call and a practice in non-sequitor will literally cost twice as much as we spent on drinks...and we spent quite a bit. A smart man would put a phone booth with a sign that says near every tourist pub in Ireland and could make a million…perhaps he already has? For what I paid I may as well set up a scholarship and send someone to the University of Wisconsin and tell them to stop by and say hello to my family. It wasn't the first nor last foolish expense of the trip to be sure.

As the last of the afternoon light began to slip away and the cool grey day would become the cool grey night. As we roamed the store fronts looking for a hardware store or any shop that my carry the elusive adapter...we come across a window selling...Not making this up...A bag of sticks, sorry a "small" bag of sticks. You need to be precise in this because you could wander in and ask for the bag of sticks and getting scammed into the "Large" bag of sticks. Without making this distinction you're going to get stuck for twice the cost of a small...bloody tourist. Are sticks a big buy in Ireland? So much so they get displayed in the windows of the shops. I imagine a panicked local bursting through the door, gasping for breath..."Bag of sticks....NOW! Not the feckin' small bag...you think I'm playing games?!".

Our shopping adventure continues winding up in the hardware store or DIY (Do it yourself) because we think our wants will most likely be found here of the stores we've strolled past. That and because given when lost a lonely men tend to gather in a pub or hardware store and since we've been to the pubs...The woman behind the counter is friendly enough and admires our inventiveness in wanting to file down one of our plugs to fit our current adapter. She offers another solution if we make our way to the druggist down the road they have some affordable converters. I think it’s the Irish way of saying..."I've heard your plan and I now somehow feel a party to them and they must be stopped in however I can." Undeterred we head a few doors down and are pointed to the adapters...I buy one. In the distant memory, I recall us regaling them with tales of America and whimsy. When in reality we were just another pair of tourists who didn't come prepared.

We head back to the B&B amongst new found drizzle that will follow us throughout the week. Later, we return and the gentle rain has turned to miserable downpour. Starving, we set out for the night for a traditional Irish dinner. A 5-minute walk in the pouring rain so our plan was quickly changed to simply finding some place open. We wound up at a place that seemingly employed and serving ex-soviet bloc citizens. You may reprimand me for prejudice but, as god as my witness, Boris Badonov was the bartender "making whiskey for moose and squirrel!". We double-checked the Irish name and settled in with a pint and a dinner I don't recall very well. It was deep fried and possibly either cod or a dish towel that had fallen in the deep fryer. My hunger made identification impossible. After dining and dosvedanya we adjourned back to the B&B, where we collected our camera bags to get some pictures of "The Rock" at night. In the midst of our dinning and drinking, we speculated about how cool the inside of the Rock must look in the spots and shadows within. Gazing at the wall and contemplating the security and jail time involved, we abort our plan. After finding out how much it was to call home, I shudder to think what bail there would be.