FRIDAY 05-06-12 12:40am IRELAND:

Hey there, Junk Food Nation.  I have to admit, I’m no longer sure what day it is … With the time differences and the off sleep schedule, I can’t tell whether I’m coming or going.  Oof. You’re about to get a very extreme stream of consciousness post.

So, Ireland is great. I don’t find myself speaking in a Irish accent but my ears are used to it now. I’ve eaten more potatoes than I have in the one year span prior.  According to my tour guide, back back back in the day, an Irish man would eat almost fourteen pounds of potatoes a day. A DAY, PEOPLE. It was Man vs. Food every day! Oof again.

My tour guide has filled me with lots of interesting tidbits that I’d love to share with you. You judge the truthfulness or correctness of these statements:

1. The Irish call their Natural History Museum the “Dead Zoo.”

2. The reason the Georgian doors are painted different colors in front of the houses is to help you figure which house is yours when you stagger home drunk.

3. The reason the spiral staircases in the Blarney Castle go clockwise is because most invaders were right handed and forcing them to go upstairs leading with their left hands made them vulnerable.

4. The winding roads in Ireland are called cocktail roads because they leave you shaken not stirred.

5. O means Son of. Mac/Mc means Grandson of. And Fitz means Illegitimate Son of.

Just some fun facts of the day. I’ve taken over 900 photos, nation. Can’t wait to get home to share some with you.

Goodnight, all.

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WEDNESDAY 05-03-12 10pm IRELAND:

So here’s what I’ve learned about Galway, Ireland, Junk Food Nation… It doesn’t have the most reliable Internet in the world. My apologies for the delays in updating…I’m in a hotel where the Internet just DROPS. I haven’t experienced thIs in a long time. Back in the days where AOL and Netscape ruled the web. So I’d type a post and the Internet would drop, and the draft would be lost.  After a few tries it got frustrating and I said EFF IT.

So TOMORROW I hope to be back to normal blogging capacity.  I’m surprised this blog snippet even posted.  Til then …I remain your friendly neighborhood Junk Food Guy

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TUESDAY 05-01-12 10:00pm IRELAND:

Today, Junk Food Nation, we took a little tour of the Irish countryside near Killarney. I’m not gonna get all photo geeky, but some of these views were stunning.  Eventually we made our way to the Skellig Islands info center, which looked like a bomb shelter and felt like a really bad museum exhibit inside. Nevertheless less the info about the Skellig Islands was incredible. In short: the monks from back in the day took a teeny random little boat to a bunch of rocks, climbed about 400 ft into the air up to even more rocks, and then built an incredible monastery out of even more rocks. To show their devotion to God! Crazy impressive monk shit!  Wait, was that blasphemy?

I hope you’ve been following my Twitter or Facebook page because I’ve been Instagramming a few photos here and there, and that’s how you get three social networks into a sentence at once.  I finally broke down and bought some goodies.  There’s too much bizarre stuff here.

After a few meals straight of meat and potatoes, my stomach and intestines were crying out for veggies. We stopped to ask an ice cream vendor where the best place to buy a big fresh salad was. He grinned and then started laughing. Like, full on Yuk-yuk-ing it up. “Order salad? Er… Salad just comes on the sideof a plate.” MAYBE IN YOUR BACKWARD ASS COUNTRY IT DOES! Jerk.

Actually he wasn’t a jerk because when he stopped guffawing he pointed us to the best meal we had so far on the trip. Shepherd’s pie here is LEGIT. Cliffs of Moher tomorrow!

 

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MONDAY 04-30-12 10:45pm IRELAND:

Nation, today I kissed the Blarney Stone.  Um why did no one tell me you had to hang upside down to kiss it??? I saw another couple on the way down and they showed me their hanging upside down picture, and I thought, “man you guys are WACKY.” And then we get up there… And that’s what EVERYONE has to do! What is this Cirque de soBlarney?  *crickets* Yeah I’m getting a little rusty with my shtick over here.  Anyways, here is me kissing the Blarney.

It rained all day and I’m starting to feel sort of water logged.  That’s ok though.  With each stop I took so many pictures of wacky products and junk foods that I can’t wait to share with you all when I return! Still I haven’t purchased anything truly bizarre yet… Waiting until I see just the right item(s).

Dinner was in the hotel and man people were right when they said Ireland is not known for its food. After some halbr recent breakfasts and lots of half-meals, this was the first full sit down dinner I had.  Yikes. Salad-not the freshest. Chicken Florentine-as Anne Burrell would say, ddddeeeerrr-YYYYYYYYY. The beer was good though.

Half way through dinner the wait staff came up to our tour group and said they heard someone was celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, and who was it. And not to be mean, but there’s really only one couple amongst the group who looked old enough to be married 50 years, if you know what I mean. It was the crypt keeper and his bride sitting in a side booth, if you know what I mean.  They were effing old, if you catch my drift.

And then the highlight- the staff came out to surprise them with a whole cake in honor of their blessed Occasion and achievbirthday singing “Happy birthday.”   It. Was. Priceless.

Afterwards our tour guide took us on a mini pub crawl … Made it to a bar where some locals were watching Man City take on United. There were a lot of people wearing red. United lost. We got the hell out of there.

More adventures tomorrow!

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SUNDAY 04-29-2012 7:45pm IRELAND:

Junk Food Nation, this trip got off to a sort of slow start due to me not reading my itinerary closely.  I left über early in the morning to fly from Dulles to Logan Airport in Boston only to realize… I have a six hour layover before Ireland. Wow. Talk about a trip momentum killer!

It didn’t help that the middle aged dude in front of me found a friend on the flight to Boston and proceeded to talk loudly the whole way. Or to put it another way, he wouldn’t shut the eff up. I know planes are loud; even more reason your volume of voice shouldn’t be so friggin’ noticeable!  I knew that if he sat in front of me on the way to Ireland, I might throttle him.

The six-hour flight to Ireland was a daze (I slept…not at all) and after getting through customs, checking into the hotel, and changing into appropriate clothing (um its freezing here) we embarked on Day 1: a quick bus tour of Ireland.  Here’s what I’ve learned about Ireland so far:

1) The Irish have their technology and progress DOWN! Wi-Fi in the airports, all hotels, on the buses, hotspots on the street… Impressive. Add that to cool enviro-friendly buildings, appliances, etc… Why the hell doesn’t DC have this!?

2) Apparently the Irish are broke. Like, dead broke, economy in the shitter, etc. Who knew? Well, me now. Our bus tour guide mentioned a number of times that Ireland had no money and that’s why people drank and bitched about politics so much. Yikes. Remind me not to tell anyone that I spend money on junk food to write a blog… For fun.

3) Apparently education is FREE in Ireland. Um, let me collect my jaw from the ground.

4) One thing Ireland does have is WRITERS. James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde… Impressive again! And Ireland has been building a number of bridges naming each one after a famous Irish writer. The first few were very impressive and our tour guide was proud. By the time we got to like the eighth bridge, the tour guide was back on how much a waste of money it all was…awkward.

5) Apparently my hotel is on the North side of Dublin, and the affluent side is the South side. As the joke goes, why did a South side Irish girl go North to see a North side boy? To get her handbag back.  *rimshot* *crickets*

6) Ireland really is a beautiful place. The mix of old and new architecture is pretty amazing. Maybe I’ve been looking at IKEA catalogs too much, but all the right angles and color schemes … Good stuff.

Anyways – that’s just day one. I’m exhausted.  More to come,

Junk Food Guy

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SATURDAY 04-28-2012 morning, USA

Junk Food Nation, if you’ve been listening/reading closely, you’ll know that today I head to Ireland for TEN DAYS!  A real vacation – wow.  You guys know how I feel about vacations. Well, that’s gonna change today.  Rest, relaxation, a endless plane flight across the pond, and lots of Guinness awaits! IRELAND: HERE I COME!  And here’s what I’ll be doing until May 8th!

Can’t decipher it? Yeah, me neither.  Apparently I need Indiana Jones to get his staff and go to the Map Room to figure out what’s going on with this thing!  Anyways.

So what’s going to happen with this blog? Well, to be honest, it’s going to be a little different for the next ten days.

1) I have no guarantees that I’ll have phone service, internet, or access to Twitter, Facebook, email, Instagram, etc…this is gonna be a little rough.

2) I have no way of being sure I can upload photos.  That sucks.

3) 1 and 2 means that I MIGHT be a little quiet on the social networking roads for a little bit.

BUT WAIT!  ALL HOPE IS NOT LOST!

Do I have ten straight days of pre-written posts for you?  Well, no. I almost put myself into a coma trying to eat all that ice cream before my Vegas trip – that was a bad idea.  I wasn’t ABOUT to do the same thing for ten days.

Nope, what I’m going to do instead is this: I’m going to use THIS BLOG POST for a running travel diary!  Doesn’t that sound interesting? (Stop shaking your head NO, jerk).

Basically, I think I’ll have internet access one time a day – in my hotel each night. Maybe. So on a daily basis (whenever that is over there, I still have no idea what the time difference is) I’ll come back to this post, and add an entry about what’s been happening that day until I return on May 8.  Hopefully this’ll work.

I’m not gonna have any way to notify you that I’ve updated the travel diary, so just keep checking back!  There will be a new update waiting here…eventually 😉

Honestly, I’m a little scared.  If my server crashes, I can’t fix it.  If a company comes knocking on my door to sponsor me, I won’t be here (And that happens SO often…cough). I’ll be sort of cut off from the world.  Maybe this is a good thing.

Anyways, what YOU can do for ME is to comment below!  Let’s interact!  I’ll respond to every comment when I can, and if any of you has any tips for Ireland, things I should see, buy, eat, try – comment comment comment!

Until May 8th – happy trails!

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Comments? Hit me in the comments below or on Twitter @junkfoodguy or on my Facebook Page.

Sincerely, Junk Food Guy