I hope you find what you are looking for....

I have received a lot of well-meaning and interesting advice regarding my upcoming solo trip to Ireland, which I gladly take. It seems that everyone who has an opinion…..well..…has an opinion.

I'm glad to consider their suggestions. But the fact is, I've traveled a lot. Maybe not alone, but I’ve got a few overseas trips under my belt, and most of them to countries with serious language barriers…

On San Marco square in Venice, Italy, I had the absolute pleasure of surviving the amorous (and graphic) flirtations of a very hunky Italian, delivered in Italian.

I’ve been on the receiving end of shouted opinions regarding American political issues from passionate Germans in a guesthouse in Germany and lived to talk about a walking tour I took by myself in the bowels of Panama City, Panama right after Operation Just Cause.

I endured a 4th of July celebration with a man named Davey Jones from (ironically) England, and a held a rather uncomfortable conversation with a topless German women on a nude beach in Italy. 

Heck, I ate shellfish in a 3rd world country and I am still alive to write about it in this blog


So I think I can handle Ireland.

Advice, ideas and opinions begin to fly about the room as soon as the topic of my upcoming trip is brought up.

“Well, ya got ‘ta kiss the blarney stone....”

“Whatever you do, DO NOT kiss the blarney stone! Do you even know how many people have put their nasty germs on there?”

“There’s no friendlier folk than the Irish…just drive to small towns, find a pub and just talk it up with the locals”

“Don’t talk to strangers”

I love that one best. I’m going to a country with 4.5 million strangers I’m apparently supposed to avoid.

I’ve received all kinds of advice on what I will see, what the people are like, the food…the language, the pubs, the roads, the weather, the men, the women, yada yada yada….

Whether they’ve traveled there themselves or are sharing something they read in an old magazine in their doctor’s office, most everyone I talk to has something to share. Seems they want to live vicariously through me. And I’m okay with that. In fact, I’m counting on that through this blog.

My girlfriends hope I’ll find a boyfriend in Ireland. There’s no end of advice on that topic. In interest of good taste and readers under 18, I’ll not share their candid and demonstrative suggestions. Suffice to say I wish I could just wipe it from my memory, but there it is. I’m just hoping for a good time – nothing against Irish men – but my experience with across-the-pond celtic men have had questionable results.

Recently, a friend wrote “I hope you find all you are looking for in Ireland.”

This got me to thinking…what AM I looking for?  I want to go and have a memorable and relaxing time…I want to have every one of my five senses tickled and maybe have a moment of reflection on the dock in Cobh. Frankly though, I just need a vacation. And it just so happens that right now, green is my favorite color.

I’m not sure what I’m looking for in Ireland. What is anyone looking for who packs a suitcase? Whatever it is...I hope I find it daily.

I have no idea what I will find, see or experience. But I plan on having conversations with at least half of the population as well as a lot of quite/alone time - and no, I do not plan on kissing the blarney stone. But I wouldn’t mind kissing a few Irish cheeks, or being kissed in return.

And, I plan on taking all of my friends with me through this blog. Through pictures and words I will share the sights that take my breath away. 

I will give details of quirky conversations, and do my best to describe the sounds of whispered conversations and footsteps as they shuffle on old stone in a castle. I’ll try to describe the sounds the surf makes as it smacks against the cliffs of Moher and I will search carefully for words that describe the smells in a small-town pub and the feel of the fur on a border collie.

I’m looking forward to our trip together. If you’ve never been to Ireland, let me know what you want to see or experience through this blog and I’ll do my best to deliver.

And maybe, just maybe, at some moment I’ll find what I didn’t know I was looking for all along. I’ll let you know.

Slainte