When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night-
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.
Flann O’Brien

Well the tightly pulled drapes, useless for keeping out sound and light, but perfect for making the room stuffy, along with the heavy coverlet, has taken its toll on me also. The sleepless night keeps us from taking our Tram trip up the coast, so we settle for a long walk first to a museum recommended by Rick Steves, closed Mondays, and then through a shopping district. The streets are closed for traffic and filled with people, flower vendors, and street entertainers. This and Starbucks keeps us amused and awake until its time to catch our train west. It’s been years since we have ridden a train, Ireland’s are new and modern; however they are geared for day travelers. There are no accommodations for two old farts struggling with 6 pieces of heavy awkward baggage, but we get aboard and find places for all 6 pieces, nothing left behind, were quick learners. The really fun part is in Limerick, where we must gather up the baggage, go the length of one platform and back down another, get aboard a second train and again find places to put everything, all in eight minutes. Between Dublin and Ennis (our final destination) we enjoyed a leisurely ride through the middle of Ireland filled with horse, cattle and sheep farms. The plots of land divided by stone fences containing all the forty shades of green never got boring. We are entering another dimension of Ireland, leaving a city where you are controlled by time and entering an area where the people control the time. A Taxi took us to Temple Gate Hotel, through streets lined with houses and modern shops to the Hotel parking lot where we entered the main entrance. It would be like coming into Brookville or Tipp City. Since it was after 7 we quickly refreshed ourselves and left to go to a pub the taxi driver recommended. We exited the Hotel through another door into a courtyard and out into a time warp. Narrow streets lined with pubs and small business, I couldn’t take enough pictures. As always in Ireland, the pub food was terrific and OMG (G = goodness) Sue wants to learn to drink Guinness. She started her venture, trying first a half pint of Smithwicks, which she enjoyed.