Tuesday, Day Three, Outfit #1. Top o’ the mornin’ to ya! Here’s the Bugatchi o’ the Day! All I can say is Bugatchi better get its corporate butt in gear and start sponsoring me and this tblog. I mean–actual people actually ask me the for the actual brand name of these actual shirts, and they actually ask me where I actually purchase these actual shirts. (Nordstrom Rack, BTW. From the “clearance” rack.)
All this green clothing/neckwear–and St. Paddy’s Day– has put Ireland in my head, wall-to-wall. My favorite place in said country was just outside Lisdoonvarna, in County Clare. Ballinalacken Castle is a sprawling Victorian lodge, and it stands beside the 16th-century O’Brien castle ruins. “Castle ruins” is a bit of hyperbole, since what remains of the castle is a round, rock, silo-shaped remnant of the bottom of a turret.
The lodge itself is surrounded by 100 acres of wildflower meadows. And it is situated on a hill, with a panoramic view of the Atlantic, the Aran Islands, Galway Bay, and the Connemara Hills. (Heard of Connemara marble, anyone? Gorgeous.) Sat on that hill and watched the sun mosey its way over the Atlantic for hours, until it finally slipped under the horizon, then under the water, at almost 11 PM.
And one of the best spaces in the kinda haphazard insides of Ballinalacken Castle was a dark wood pub, in a corner about the size of a medium-sized walk-in closet. You know I was in a beer heaven I can’t belong in anymore.
The room we stayed in at Ballinalacken was the least roomy in the lodge, and the only room in the place that had no windows. That’s how we rolled through Ireland. Drove all day, saw whatever interested us. When we were done for the day, we’d find a pricey hotel. I’d walk up to the front desk and say, “We want your worst room.” (I had to go in alone and do the asking, cuz it embarrassed Shari. Not that she minded the pricey digs one bit.) So that’s how we stayed in expensive hotels we couldn’t otherwise afford, all over Ireland for two weeks in 1997. Can’t believe it was 20 years ago. I clearly had a groovy time, as evidenced by the fact that I still remember how to spell “Lisdoonvarna” and “Ballinalacken”.