"Ugh! Overcooked again, Mary!"
I’ve went traveling in Ireland recently, which, I have to tell you, was a real freak show. Leprechauns, Unicorns, sheep, Bono, smiling non-threatening people acting friendly. It was twisted. Quaint, but twisted.
If YOU are planning to travel to Ireland, here are some things to be aware of:
--The Irish don’t know what the fuck to do with bacon. Certainly they don’t know how to cook it. In fact, I’m not at all convinced they’re even trying to cook it, although they insist on presenting some flaccid fatty version of it endlessly at every meal. I’ve long been a fan of bacon, but the stuff they have there seems to have been prepared by having prisoners roll around in it in the shower.
--The Irish population is very nice, with the exception of the airport rental car woman, who is a whore, and our waiter from the hotel restaurant last night, who I’m guessing has recently just lost his last job supervising bacon production at the local penitentiary.
--The weather in Ireland is not, as is often reported, cold, gray, wet, and dreary. However, if and when a day occurs when it improves to that degree, an Emergency National Holiday has been planned to accommodate the retina blinded rampaging mobs of Irish nationals who presumably will be crashing across the landscape tearing off their clothing and splaying themselves grotesquely with legs and arms outstretched akimbo, thrust upon every available square foot of open land in the hopes that at least once before they die, they might experience Vitamin D in it’s natural form and the Keltic equivalent of a one year Caribbean vacation.
--The Irish are skilled drivers. When it comes to giving directions, they are criminals.
--Nobody in Ireland has ever heard of any address you are looking for. Nobody. This includes the property owners themselves, the mapmakers, the census takers, police, postmen, as well as residents standing inside of the actual address you are looking for.
--Driving in Ireland is not difficult. It is beyond difficult. To prepare for driving in Ireland, Americans are encouraged to practice, practice, practice. Besides screaming hysterically, this should also include operating an unfamiliar motor vehicle while wearing borrowed prescription sunglasses and driving the wrong way through an active car wash, in reverse, drunk. Ideally this scenario will also include a cow.
--Somewhere early in it’s history, Ireland was invaded and occupied by Vikings, whose contribution to the Irish gene pool was the introduction of red hair. Hence originated the measurement acronym “RCH”, commonly used to describe the distance between two vehicles passing on any Irish road.
--Mealtime in Ireland consists of four courses. A Guinness. A sandwich. A cigarette. Another Guinness.
--Snack time in Ireland consists of four items. A Guinness. A sandwich. A cigarette. Another Guinness.
--By law, everyone in Ireland is required to consume at least one sausage product per meal. Be ready to provide verification. They take this one very seriously.
-Nowhere in Ireland will you find anyone speaking Gaelic. Never-the-less, every street sign, menu, receipt, message board, instruction manual, ingredient listing, television broadcast, verbal threat and public announcement gets translated into Gaelic. Nothing in Ireland occurs without getting translated into Gaelic. Water gets translated into Gaelic. Dust gets translated into Gaelic. Dreams get translated into Gaelic. Dogs barking gets translated into Gaelic. If you fart in Ireland, it gets translated into Gaelic.
--Whether you want to or not, expect to tour a castle within three days of your arrival. By “tour” I mean “purchase something from a gift shop set up next to a heap of old stones”. Nobody cares if you have any interest in history, just do it. And make sure to pretend to be enchanted, even if to you it just looks like a big pile of discarded building materials from a medieval housing boom that didn’t go so well. If you don’t at least fake enchantment, people will become suspicious of your intents, and the tourism police may ask you for proof of sausage.
Fota Wildlife Park, Cork, Ireland
--Fun fact! Ireland leads the world in the production of six-legged zebras!
(click photo>)
--Visitors should be aware that national law in Ireland prohibits the following:
- Easy access to good tasting coffee.
- Flavored food.
- Hotel vending machines containing useful items.
- Package stores within walking distance.
- Bathroom fans.
- Toilets that require less than 7 flushes per use.
- Cooking bacon longer than 17 seconds.
- Street signs.
- Intersecting route signs that appear more than 7 feet prior to the intersection.
- Any stretch of local roadway longer than .5km lacking a roundabout.
- Sharing secrets about zoo animals, in particular, zebras.
Finally, American visitors to Ireland should be aware that despite anything you may have heard to the contrary, Irish nationals have practically zero interest in hearing about your Irish heritage, what your mother’s maiden name was, how much you like Colin Farrell, how sorry you are about the DeLorean, how close your great-grandfather came to sailing on The Titanic, how well Catholics and Protestants get along in America, how many times you read Angela’s Ashes, how much you like wool, how much you enjoy having guilt-free orgasms, how much you like Irish coffee, Irish cops, Irish soda bread, or how much you don’t understand hurling.
They’re not much interested. They’ve kinda heard it before.
Instead, what they do want, is not a pat on the head, but perhaps a pat on the back, and a little recognition, for life has sometimes been hard on the Emerald Isle. In their long history they’ve had to endure a lot, ...invasion, oppression, famine...and some days it’s hard to be Irish. But in Ireland they don’t drift in and out of being Irish, they’re Irish everyday. They embrace it, and they enjoy it, and if you ask them they’ll tell you; ...They’re proud of it.
...Even if they don’t know what the hell to do, with bacon.
© 2012 J. Mark Rast
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