Last weekend from March 25th to 28th I joined six of my closest castle companions on a journey to the Irish countryside. Riley, one of those friends has an uncle who has a mom who owns a condo in a building in the mi
ddle of nowhere near Arklow, which is about one and a half hours south of Dublin. This place was right on the coast and was considerably magical in a variety of ways.
On Thursday night we arrived at Dublin airport and decided to take a van cab to Arklow where we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some food for the weekend, then continued on to attempt to find this random house in the dark. Eventually after much searching with our thankfully very understanding cabbie, Paul Carroll, we found our way to our beautiful Countryside abode. Upon arriving inside the place and trying to turn off an alarm that wasn't on in the first place we had our first meetin
g with the coolest damn pro golfer in Ireland: Patrick. Patrick was our next door condo neighbor and from the moment we met him he proved himself to be one of the nicest humans I've ever encountered. For one reason or another Patrick just loved to give us free stuff. On the first night that stuff consisted of the weather report and some coals for our fireplace - but it only got better from there.
The next day we woke up to see our surroundings for the first time in the daylight. The farming countryside was hilly and beautiful, and the coast was a short walk away and had a mix of small cliffs and untouched beaches. There were also a group of dilapidated rui
n-type buildings nearby our building that were very cool to inspect. It wasn't summer weather, but most of the time it wasn't all that cold either. We spent both of our full days there exploring the area around us and enjoying the serenity of a travel weekend not touring around in a city, devoid of pressure to "see the sights." We also met Patrick's incredible dog, Gromit, of whose pictures you can find below. Gromit could fetch for hours, fit four sticks and a tennis ball in his mouth all at once, and apparently runs out to the mailman every morning, accepts the mail in his mouth and brings it directly to Patrick in his condo. Needless to say, he's a pretty badass dog.
It was a weekend filled with exploring beaches and cliffs, eating pasta with red sauce, enjoying the company of some good humans, getting some real rest,
and occasionally a communal kaossilation. The last night we spent at the house Patrick topped himself once again by sneaking in and saying to the group (please read in Irish accent), "I'm sorry to bother ya, but you kids look thirsty," carrying a half full bottle of rum. Although we were actually all fairly 'quenched' at the time, we still accepted the gift. At that moment we all seemed to realize the overall sweetness that was Patrick and Paul and most other Irish individuals we encountered during our short stay there.
This was without a doubt one of the greatest, if not the best, traveling weekends I've had during this experience. Europe, I can't believe you've been hiding this emerald gem from me for so long! You're score has skyrocketed to an impressive 329. But alas, David B. Weaver's still consistently ahead with... 330 (?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!)
Dear Readers,
