Yes, Guinness is better in Ireland.
Way better.
Man that beer is so smooth and easy to drink. It is the easiest beer I’ve ever drank. No wonder there are so many alcoholics here. As I’ve been waking around, I’ve been trying to find good restaurants. The drinking culture here is so prevalent. From what I’ve seen, there isn’t really a great separate food culture. Sure, I’ve had some nice meals, but in mostly empty restaurants with people drinking their dinner and smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk patios.
I know so many “Irish” people in the “U.S.,” people who strongly identify with being Irish whose grandparents or great-grandparents who were Irish, even if they themselves have never been to the motherland. I don’t think any other nationality is quite that in touch with a place they have never been to or have no living relatives there.
And yet, I saw so many people here who look like people I know in the US. The Irish woman I sat next to on the plane looked like the sister of two of my friends. I’ve seen at least three people who looked like my high school boyfriend. This morning, I thought I saw one of Jack’s cousins in a coffee shop in Kilkenny.
The Irish are still a little sore after being colonized by the English for a thousand years and finally got “Home Rule” about one hundred years ago. (Ireland was the only colony within Europe, which has got to sting.) I’ve been reading about the Great Potato Famine in the 1860’s which drove half of the country to move to the US so they wouldn’t starve. And the reason for the famine? There was a natural cause of bad weather, but then the British really screwed the pooch by exporting food instead of letting people in Ireland have it. Like they could make more money exporting the gain than they could get from the Irish. Or something like that. Disclaimer: Hey kids, don’t use this info for your school paper. Look it up yourself and don’t trust everything you read on the internet.
Anyway, when India was colonized by the British, Gandhi lead them out of it through being peaceful and “offering wicked no resistance.” The Irish took more of a “Fuck You” violent approach, which gave the British the rationale to respond back with more violence. Oy. It was a shit show. Everyone acted poorly, though the British were more wrong because they started it.
I love traveling because I learn so much history. Instead of reading it in a book—which is useful, don’t get me wrong—I absorb the history through my skin when I’m in a place. Last night, I went to a comedy show and two of the people brought up the IRA. One guy thought his dad might have been a terrorist How do you sort that out? My dad blew up cars so we could vote on our leaders. Yay?!
I am still suffering from jet lag and I need to go to bed. Today I took a bus tour of the countryside. I was so looking forward to looking out the window and seeing the countryside. Instead, the gentle bouncing of the bus was like Rock-a-Bye-Baby and I zonked out. That and too much Guinness the night before.
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