Disclaimer: This document is for entertainment only and is not intended to instruct or educate anyone about anything. If you choose to emulate the stupid things I do you are on your own, and I take no responsibility for the consequences of your actions.

Trip Report: At some point during the Spring of 2006 my friend Caryn proposed that a bunch of us meet and hang out in Ireland sometime around the end of August. I was due to lose some of my vacation days on September 6, 2006 and I had never been to Europe, so it all seemed like swell idea to me.

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday the 26th of August and landed in Dublin at 8:30 a.m. Sunday the 27th of August. Because I was flying East across several time zones it didn't actually take me 28 hours to get there. In any case my second wind hit me as soon as I saw the green glow of the Emerald Isle and was faced with the entertaining task of learning how to drive on the left side of the road. It was basically like a video game and I spent the first half hour or so behind the wheel just giggling at the fun of it all and wandering aimlessly in whatever direction looked least likely to get me into an accident. Before long I was in a town called Lusk where I stopped to soak up the glorious sunshine and try to conjure up some sense of direction.

I could see some sort of ancient structure near where I had parked so I decided to stroll toward it and check it out.

It turned out to be a massive church that had been built in several phases over many centuries. The impressive round towers were built sometime in the Ninth Century and the rectangular cathedral structure was added sometime in the 1800s. I had read that Ireland was chock full of ancient towers, and castles and so far this was proving to be true.

My only logistical task for the day was to figure out exactly where my friend Dermot lived, or more exactly where his parents lived, since they were putting me up at their place for a few days. I had Dermot's phone number, but it was in my email inbox so I needed to get to an Internet connection. I asked some of the locals for directions to downtown Dublin; but none seemed to be really sure how to drive there, so I decided to just backtrack and follow the signs. I knew that I was north of Dublin so it occurred to me to hang a small hiking compass from the rear view mirror of my rental car.

This compass would prove to be an invaluable resource over the next few days, since most of the roads in Ireland tend to meander around instead of running straight and place names are more common than street names. On the many occasions that I got lost I just drove until I found the name of whatever town or suburb I was in, located it on the map, used the compass to find the general direction toward the town I wanted to be in and then just drove in that general direction. This system seemed to work better than whatever technique my friends were using in their rental car.

After driving generally south for a while I found myself somewhere in downtown Dublin. As it was Sunday morning, parking was easy to find. As I packed up to go trekking in search of Internet connectivity my alarm clock went off in my backpack telling me that 24 hours had elapsed since I woke up in Austin. Perhaps that would explain why I was starting to look like a gangly crack head while I enjoyed my first Irish breakfast in a restaurant near Temple Bar.

I was also able to find a free, but slow wireless Internet connection in this restaurant, so I eagerly slid into the role of overtechnologized American and fetched Dermot's number from my email, while chowing down on the components of a hearty Irish breakfast: sausage, back bacon, eggs, toast and a hot tomato (you must try the hot tomato).

After breakfast I rang Dermot's house, but he wasn't home. His flatmate was kind enough to give me a place name and street name for Dermot's parent's house. I figured this was good enough, so I decided to wander around downtown for a bit before giving up my parking spot.

While wandering around the Temple Bar area I came to the realization that the Irish are way more into trendy, faded jeans than we Americans are.

I ended up at the Quays on the River Liffey

Here I am standing on Ha'Penny Bridge, which was built in 1816 and go its name from the fact that a toll of a half a penny was charged to cross it until 1916.

And here is a shot of the lovely 190 year old bridge in its litter strewn, chewing gum encrusted glory. There had been a panhandler half way across the bridge a few minutes earlier but sadly she did not stick around to adorn the bridge for this photo.

Here is a shot of the Quays from a spot where a drunken reveler might jump in and drown while trying to swim across the River Liffey on a dare. Later in the week my friend Dermot would inform me with all of the seriousness of a drunk driving PSA that this is an all too frequent occurrence and to beware of being goaded into such foolishness while pub crawling on the Quays.

After this brief downtown meandering I decided to brave the drive to Dalkey. Dalkey Quarry is located there and I figured some bouldering at the quarry would help to wear me out enough to get a good dose of shut eye that night in an attempt to reset my body clock to Ireland time. The drive from downtown to Dalkey would prove to be my first encounter with the delightful insanity of most of Ireland's roadways. While the roads from the Airport to downtown were fairly spacious and tame, the road from Downtown to Dalkey was squeezed up against the coastline. In many spot it was only wide enough for one vehicle or possibly two with mere inches of clearance on either side. This scenario proves particularly entertaining when you are driving a rented Ford and the other driver is in the high end German vehicle of the typical Dalkey resident. Over then next few days I would discover the joys of this tight passing scenario while driving at 100 km per hour on narrow country roads in Western Ireland. In any case I eventually parked next to the Dalkey train station and started walking toward what looked like the cliffs of Dalkey Quarry. After a few minutes of walking I ended up in this residential Cul de Sac overlooking the sea.

The open grassy area was lovely, but this dead end clearly wasn't going to take me to Dalkey Quarry, so I backtracked and then found this little trail leading up to the cliffs.

After following this trail for a few minutes I found myself in the lovely and somewhat overgrown Dalkey Quarry.

As it was a Sunday afternoon there was a handful of Dubliners out practicing their rock craft.

Particularly noteworthy were the women climbers. These were not just top-roping, plastic pulling tag alongs as you might find at a typical American crag, but full on helmet wearing, gear plugging, lead climbing hard women like this one here.

I was beginning to realize that Ireland is the kind of place where I could spend some extended time.

After hiking around the quarry for a bit eating berries off of the bushes I eventually found the bouldering spot: a low cliff band with a grassy open area in front.

I managed to pull off a hand full of entertaining boulder problems here. Nothing too radical, just a little tune up for the big bouldering show at Glendalough later in the week. I nice man showed up and started bouldering a few minutes later. He was helpful with beta and general information about bouldering in Ireland. He confirmed what I had gathered from my Internet research: that Glendalough is by far the best bouldering in Ireland, so after talking to him I was even more stoked to be headed that way in a few days.

Once the bouldering session wrapped up I wandered around the quarry a bit more before scrambling up a ramp to access the cliff top.

There was a trail along the top of the cliffs that provided a good view of Dublin Harbor as well as climbers at the base of the cliffs who were getting their flirt on instead of climbing.

The hike back to my rental car took me past some of the many mansions of Dalkey

including this one with a name that sounded strangely familiar.

Unfortunately there were no elves in the vicinity and the only hobbit-sized thing to be found was the trash can under the sign.

Any country that has Subarus is alright with me

Finally, I was back at the train station where I had parked.

My final task for the day was to actually find Dermot's parent's house. I knew that it was located in Rathfarnham, so I located Rathfarnham on the map, got a compass bearing and commenced driving in that general direction. After several navigation stops and with the help of some friendly strangers I finally found myself parked in front of the correct house before just before dark. The house was a fairly busy place as Dermot's mom hosts foreign students studying in Dublin. A special Sunday dinner was served with the highlight being the delicious, whiskey laden Irish coffee, which I enjoyed with Dermot and the assorted company of the house.

With the Irish coffee on board I was pretty knackered, so I was off to bed in preparation for the insanity to come.