The Billygoat trumps Doonbeg and the capital

 Patient, patient Reader, 

It’s been two days.  I have forgotten where we were (Doolin? That cottage?).  I’m only barely cognizant of where I am now.  The answer is “back in Dublin”.  In fact, in the very same hotel we stayed in last Tuesday night here. 

It’s been a long…two days.  

We started yesterday morning with a trip into Doolin, a little fishing village north of our cottage (there was a clamor that we just keep it).  A cute one. 

Picture of house and village. 

I don’t know how many shops in a town of almost nill are needed to sell woolen goods, but it seems like “a lot” is the answer.  And there were literally bus loads of people getting out there to…to…

Okay, Doolin is the beginning of the cliff path, but still.

Side note:  Dbrolaw’s car had a tire that kept going flat.  He decided in Doolin to finally do something about it.  No help from the roadside assistance numbers from the car rental agency (Europacar, if you want to avoid them, like he will forevermore) but he goes into the ticket agent for sightseeing right by our cars and asks and the woman says, “I’ve got a guy.”  Then says, “actually two guys.”  One who would give a receipt and one who wouldn’t.  So, the guy comes and in a few minutes he finds a puncture, fixes it, and moves on.  DBrolaw says, what do you think he charged?  I”m thinking backwoods Ireland, it’ll be cheap.  I go 5 euros.  He laughs and says 153!!! 110 just for the call out.  Well, he’ll get reimbursed.  Right?

Then off to golf.  Thursday was somewhat controversial (not really) as we were playing Doonbeg, which is (not subtly) “owned” by Mr. Trump.  Trump International is on everything.  You could buy a hat in the pro shop that just said “Trump”.  NO mention of golf. 

Away we went, with the weather again cooperating.  Here’s a picture of the clubhouse from the fairway.  It’s not exactly a design that says much, though admittedly he bought it from people after it went bust.  Greg Norman’s name is all over the original idea and he designed the golf course. 

We liked the course. 

In terms of first world struggles, I was beat.  We all were.  It was a long day, fighting light winds, some 

rain, and the tough Irish golf courses (lots of thick rough, deep bunkers) and we didn’t finish till almost 8 o’clock after almost 5 hours on the golf course. 

We stopped in Lahinch to have a drink in the pub popularized by the Tourist Sauce gang (I won’t put a link to their golf travel videos on YouTube, but you can find them yourself).  After texting to and fro, we brought home Chinese food from the place next door to the pub.  It was not worthy of a food porn pic.

We were out of the house at 610 this morning (a good 5 hours sleep) for the second tee time at Lahinch.  It  fights with Ballybunion (which we played Monday) for the best/most prestigious course in this part of the world.  WE think Lahinch wins.  

First, there’s their logo.   Picture.

Then there’s the fact that they have these two little goats grazing on the course.   Here you can see them working the snack bar for…well, probably almost anything.  :)

Then there’s the beauty of the golf course. 

Not that it’s the first course this week with ocean views, but there were some pretty nice ones.  

TK played his best golf of the week, looking like the 0 handicap he is.  And he wound up with the birdie money and a bunch of match money.  

We had some good caddies and some bad ones.  Today DBrolaw and TK shared one, Jon, who they liked. Jimmy, who was rushed in to serve me, I thought made some mistakes, but he was quite the cheerleader.  Rah fucking rah. 

We rushed back to the house (sort of), finishing packing, packed the two cars, and gave up the house (reluctantly) and headed to Lahinch for lunch. 

We ate at Vaughan’s on the Prom, which overlooked the bay.  Somewhere there are more water pics. :)

But here’s food porn: the fish and chips (today it was hake) and the lobster and langoustino roll. 

And then it was across country to Dublin.

But first we were low on gas.  I completely misread the data on the dashboard, which I thought said we were averaging 5.9 l/km.  Instead it was 5.9/100km.  🤦🏻. We were about 280 km from Dublin, so needed either 60 liters of gasoline or a lot less. 🙄

It took us 15 minutes to get into the gas tank and start pumping.  We couldn’t open the gas door!  We looked everywhere for a little handle.  I tried the 1000 page owners manual from the glovebox, which had no help under “gas,” “fuel,” or “door.”  TK finally found a YouTube that said just pull the outside middle of the door.  I finally decided we needed to pull out the keys and shut the driver’s door.  Wah-la! The door opened.  Then we couldn’t figure out why the nozzle wouldn’t go in the hole.  Finally I realized we had the unleaded nozzle in our hand when it took diesel. 🙄

There were many jokes about ruining underwear on the tiny roads back to a real highway — there was at least once we almost hit a car coming to fast around a blind corner.  Nothing like Wednesday, but still. We were happy to be out of those…until we hit the streets of Dublin.   But I no longer have a car, so I’m good. :)

And now for the joke.  Told to us by our caddy yesterday, a lad named Johnny (he was in his forties, probably).

A Scotsman, and Englishman, and an Irishman are walking along the shore when they come across a mermaid.  She asks if they can help her learn about life.  The Englishman says “Have you ever been hugged?”  She says no and he gives her a hug.  He does and she says “that’s nice.”  The Scotsman says,  “Have you ever been kissed?”  She says no and he gives her a hug.  He does and she says “that’s nice.”  The Irishman says “have you ever been fooked?” And she says no.  He says “well, you are now because the tide’s gone out.”  😂

Tomorrow we start with Irish breakfast, then a Guinness tour.  We’ll see about when the next blog is.  Erin go Bragh.