Notes on Ireland

-the local grocery chain is called SPAR

-the stereotype of the friendly/jolly Irish farmer seemed to be pretty true. When I was out walking, you could tell the natives from the tourists: the tourists scowled and were silent. The Irish smiled and waved hello

-"How are you?" was the standard greeting

-When in Scotland, people want to know if DC is close to New York.
In Ireland they wanted to know if it's close to Boston.

-When eating dinner in Inis Oirr (I really didn't have enough food to be stranded on this island!) the TV had on a Celtic vs. Rangers football match. (They are both Glasgow teams: the Celtics have mostly Catholic fans, and the Rangers mostly Protestant fans.) Everyone in the pub, all seven of them, were rooting heavily for Celtic.

-There was an interesting mix of Americanisms and Britishisms. They sold sweaters and not jumpers, and we were to form a line not a queue, but I still boiled my water in an electric kettle, followed the ferry timetable, and 'couldn't be bothered' to do things, except maybe if they were 'well good'.

-I had some truly delicious Irish stew. And soda bread, that was pretty popular as well.

-Everyone drank Guinness. Seriously. Everyone. (Okay,maybe except for some older couples who seemed to all drink red wine.) And it was no better coming out of the Irish taps than any other Guinness, that myth is such a lie.