First I just want to express how excited I am that I have 2 followers today! My life is exciting.
Today I started reading Rick Steves' Ireland 2013. I'm learning so much, it's hard to handle. And I'm only on page 12. However I am taking notes, so that I can share with my readers the things I am learning, and hopefully to help me retain some things and have a reference to look on when I decide to return the book to the library.
I started at the very beginning, a very good place to start, according to Julie Andrews. The first several pages of Rick Steves' book tells many general facts about Ireland, some I knew, some I did not know. One of the main things to know about the Irish is their passion for their past. There is an old Irish adage that goes, "When God made time, he made a lot of it." I like this expression, because it reminds me that while the history of the United States goes back hundreds of years, the history of Europe goes back thousands of years, to times when the earth was thought to be flat, and our country was not even a thought in anyone's head yet, and the world was much smaller than it is today. Rick Steves' wrote, "While much of Europe has buried older cultures under new, Ireland still reveals its cultural bedrock, dating back to the time when our ancestors finally stopped hunting and gathering and began to build at last."
I learned that Ireland is split up into 4 provinces, and further split into 32 counties, each with their own county pride, similar to our 50 states. The climate is fairly mild, and while they get next to no snow (a big change from Cleveland), they get LOTS OF RAIN. Yay. Time to break out the rain boots, I suppose. Irish writer Oscar Wilde once quipped, "There is no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing." ...Good thing I bought a new rain coat.
Something I think I'll love about Ireland is that the people are described as "passionate, poetic, and pugnacious." Freud once said that "the Irish are the only race whose insanities cannot be cured by psychoanalysis." I love that. I think, being the lovably crazy person I am, I will fit right in.
The reading I'm doing is also making me very excited to eat in Ireland. Mr. Steves has informed me of all the Irish specialties and staples, like Irish beef, lamb, dairy, seafood, and of course, potatoes. When I go to the pubs I'll be looking for Irish stew, chicken curry, and fish & chips (which better be as good as the fish & chips at the England pavilion in Disney's Epcot). I'm also gonna have to be on the lookout for Guinness, Smithwicks, Harp, and triple-distilled Irish whiskey.
That's all I've got for now, but tomorrow, I shall venture into the actual Introduction. (Apparently there's a pre-introduction and an actual introduction.) Until then.
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