Four Feet Forward: Life Lessons Learnt in Ireland

Dublin, Galway, Cliffs of Moher

Sometimes there are moments when travelling that really don't make sense, but can be some of the best experiences. Like dancing to Elvis with a bunch of 60 year olds in an Irish pub. Let me explain.

We were in a pub in Galway, on the west coast of Ireland. We were with a couple of American guys we had met a few days ago in Dublin. It was a Friday night and we were doing our own little version of a pub crawl with the Americans, Garrett and Chris, and a Canadian guy (whose name escapes me so he will just be Canada from now on). After a couple of ciders at this cool bar with live music, we decided to move on to see what else we could find. We walked into another bar and immediately realised that we were the youngest there. And I'm talking like the people had a good 40 or so years on us. Common sense would tell us to walk away and find a new place with people our own age. But instead we stayed for a drink. And then later when the geriatric band started up and played an entire collection of Elvis songs, Canada suggested we all go for a dance. And so we did. Things that really didn't seem to go together- a bunch of young travellers looking for a fun night and a local Irish bar with oldies who love their Elvis- felt like the most natural pairing. And while we were all dancing along putting the old folk to shame with our youth, I couldn't help but think that our trip to Ireland taught us a lot. Like how to cut a rug like they did in the old times. So here are a few of the other things I learnt from our trip to Ireland:

1) Irish people cannot be understood (and I'm still not convinced they all speak English).

Before I go any further, let me get one thing out of the way- Irish stereotypes. During our time in the country we visited Dublin for 3 nights and Galway for 2,and in that time I tried to see if any of the stereotypes ring true:

They like their potatoes- fact. And they make some very tasty potato related things.

All Irish are drunks- hmm. This is the country that thinks 17 standard drinks a week is a 'low risk' amount for men, you make up your own mind.

The people are always singing and dancing in pubs- not entirely true, but they do have this thing called 'Trad music' in pubs which is the most natural form of music to see. Basically anyone can just turn up with an instrument and they sit around in a circle just having a big jam. We witnessed this one night in Dublin and strangely enough an Italian even joined in with a massive double bass and some locals started singing and it was awesome to see.

There's a leprechaun and a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow- fiction, but there ARE a lot rainbows, so maybe?

And lastly- the Irish accent is all 'diddly diddly dee potatoes'. This one is a bit trickier to answer. We did one of the free walking tours in Dublin with a hilarious young guy as our guide. He had a great Irish sense of humour, and he was talking about how much he wanted to kill the actor Gerard Butler for his fake Irish accent in the movie PS:I Love You. Granted, the accent is pretty terrible and over the top. But the Irish can sound pretty hilarious at times. Take our walking tour guide- the Irish don't seem to pronounce the letters 'th' all that well, and so when they say 'three' it sounds more like 'tree'. He was trying to talk about the booming Irish population and the way he said 'birth rate' sounded exactly like 'Bert rate', and left me feeling very confused. But the ladies in the supermarket seemed to have the best of the accents we heard- high pitched, fast and exactly how you picture an Irish person to sound. One of them asked mike 'would you like a plastic bag' and he actually just stared at her blankly, waited til I replied on his behalf and then when we got outside asked "soooo, what did she actually say in there?". So for this reason, I'm still not entirely convinced that they all speak English over there.

2) Dreadlocks are a rare phenomenon for Irish people (and they will stop you on the street, stare at you or touch them as if you are some god-like idol and they must rub them for good luck.)

On our second night in Dublin, our hostel (Four Courts) was offering a pub crawl for a discounted price. Never ones to turn down a good time, we joined the pub crawl and I have to say it was one of the best we have been on since our travels through Europe. We went to about 5 places, and one of them was a pub with a traditional Irish band playing singalong songs. But the best part was the nightclub at the end- normally on pub crawls they take you to some trashy place with top 40 music. But this one was playing old songs from the 90s, and along with our American friends that we met that night, it was some of the best fun I've had in a club. It was also in this particular club called The Village where Mike became very popular, and every second person was coming up to him, high fiving him and asking how he got his dreads. Needless to say I don't think I saw one Irish person with dreadlocks, so it was a bitof a giveaway that we weren't locals.

3) Americans LOVE Ireland (and they also love to talk politics and the meaning of life)

During our travels to Ireland it seemed like every second person we met was American. This came as a bit of a surprise because so far we have found that it's not too common for Americans to pack up and leave, let alone for a six month euro trip like us Australians. Then one American we met explained to us "Americans love Ireland because it's only about 6 hours away, the culture is not too different, and everyone speaks English". Man those Americans are all about new cultural experiences aren't they? But before I give them a hard time, we actually met some really great Americans on our travels in the country (sadly I didn't take any photos though so you will just have to take my word on this one). We met these two guys,Garrett and Chris, in Dublin and then later when we spur of the moment decided to visit Galway on the West Coast we worked out they were going to be there at the same time and so we met up again. At the time we met them the election was going on in America, and in the early hours of the morning we found a whole bunch of Americans sitting round a computer eagerly waiting on progress updates on the results . They were all so interested in the outcome of the election and I couldn't help but thinking- if this was Australia having an election, you'd never find a group of young Aussies hitting refresh every second to see the updates on whether Julia Gillard is still prime minister.

So apart from learning that they love their politics, I also found out Americans love their d&m's about life. Anyone who knows me knows that part of the reason I'm travelling is because I was feeling lost with uni and didn't want to make decisions about what to do with my life. I had a great long chat with Garrett about all of this, and in the end he said something that I'll remember: he points to all the old people around us in the bar (see above about how that turned out), and he goes 'see all these people here? They are here exchanging stories because at the end of it all, that's all you've got- your money will be dwindling, your beauty will be gone and all you will have left is the stories you have to tell about what you have done in your life. So you and Mike are doing exactly the right thing- making stories.' He then went on to say that 'what you do' for work isn't what's important in life, and in fact he ranked the people you are with as the most important thing, then the place you are as the next most important, and then only in third place came what you actually do for a living. Yeah it's cheesy as hell talking about life like that, but I think it doesn't hurt to do it sometimes. We went on to have a great couple of nights with those guys, but I think I will remember the words Garrett said a lot longer than I remember the drinks we had.

4) Pouring the perfect pint of guinness.. It's good for you?

While we were in Dublin we took the opportunity to visit the home of the black stuff- the Guinness factory. The storehouse is a five storey building and each level has different information about what goes into making the beer and the history behind Guinness. I really liked the level that was all about the advertising that has been used to market Guinness, like the slogan 'Guinness is good for you'. After reading one of the ads talking about how all the different ingredients helped improve your health, I found myself thinking 'yeah, Guinness IS good for you'. We finished off our visit learning how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness at the bar. See, here's our certificate to prove it:

5) It rains UPWARDS at the Cliffs of Moher

Take my word, the water is actually moving UP

Above all else one of my favourite parts about our time in Ireland was our daytrip to the Cliffs of Moher. We joined a tour group from our hostel in Galway (which was called Eyre Square and it was awesome because there were fresh scones in the morning!) We saw the strange rocky landscape of the Burren:

Went hunting for leprechauns in the so-called 'fairy rings' amongst the trees:

Stopped for lunch in the little town of Doolin and had a guinness pot pie:

And then came the best part, our actual visit to the cliffs. The Cliffs of Moher are the most visited place in all of Ireland and after our trip there I can definitely see why. The cliff faces stretch on for something like 8km and all of the rocks are covered in this thick green grass/moss. The grassy/moss stuff looks so soft that it seems like you could just roll down it and if it wasn't for the fact it would be a death roll over the cliffs onto rocks, I probably would have. The day we visited had been rainy earlier but by the time we visited the weather had cleared up and it was mostly fine, except for this bizarre thing- it looked like it rained upwards. The winds moved the sea mist upwards over the cliff tops in a strange way that made it look like it was actually raining upwards and it was really interesting to see- I tried to capture it in a photo:

It was also really windy during our trip, so it was a bit hard to take some photos:

We spent about two hours walking the length of the cliffs and taking photos and it was only at the very end that the rains returned, just as we stepped onto the bus. Of course it did- it was Ireland after all.