The Irish Countryside from the Outside of a Bus

We made a brief stop in Galway, a town on the southwest tip of Ireland.  Donal, our tour guide, was a jovial fellow full of corny jokes and anecdotes about this quant, sea-side town.  A long time ago, there was a big wall around the city of Galway, and anyone who committed a major crime was lynched.  Decapitation, it seemed was also a popular activity. 

After walking around in the rain listening to stories of beheadings, we hopped back on the bus and stopped at a pub in Doolin to have a quick lunch. 

There are many things that baffle me about the United Kingdom and Ireland, but I am always astounded by their restaurant procedures.  Perhaps I am accustomed to the pampering of American service, and being a waiter myself only further perplexes me about the dining habits of the English and Irish.  The procedure is as follows:

First, you choose whichever seat you want, undirected by a hostess, and then take note of the number inscribed on the table. 

After analyzing the menu, which was nearly always the same at every pub I went to, you order at the bar and tell the bartender your table number.  The bartender rings in the order, you pay, and then you wait at your table. 

On paper, this process seems orderly, and to some extent it is.  The instructions are clearly laid out to you, and the tables are visibly labeled.  However, numerous customers pile up at the bar and create a massive confusion.  Since most of the space is filled with tables and chairs, and not to mention people are sitting at the bar, there is hardly any room to form a proper queue.  As several busloads of tourists entered the restaurant, the kitchen is bombarded with orders. 

When your food arrives, the waitress will walk into the compartmentalized dining room and loudly announce the dish.  You must claim it before she disappears.  If you want more water or you fancy another pint, and I realize this sounds baffling, but you must get out of your seat and wait in line again at the bar.

Not all English and Irish restaurants are like this, but from what I’ve seen I prefer to dine in America, where they kill you with fake kindness and urgently refill your water after you’ve sipped a few cubic centimeters.  While dining in the pubs, I felt such a strong desire for a stranger to inquire about my day.  I would pay good money for that, maybe even 20% of my bill.    

Another oddity regarding the English and Irish pubs is the lack of seasoning on the food.  I heard the English were bland cooks, but I thought this was only a stereotype.  Undoubtedly there are great chefs in the United Kingdom, but I didn’t find any until I went to Jamie Oliver’s restaurant on my last night in London.  Of the cooks whose food I sampled, I believe they are under the assumption that since fish live in saltwater, they don’t have to add any more salt. 

 
Despite my complaints, the bangers and mash I ordered was quite fulfilling.  While my meal was churning in my stomach like a load of laundry, I approached the Cliffs of Moher.  Since these cliffs were advertised as a popular destination, I expected them to more than just the meeting point of land and sea.  There was something supposedly majestic about this stretch of drop-offs.  Honestly, I came here because I had nothing else to do in Dublin, and I spotted a picture of the cliffs on a pamphlet in my hostel and decided on a whim to go.

I climbed a set of stairs and wedged myself between two tourists and peered over the edge.  I was eager to discover how the advertisers tricked me into coming here, so I scrutinized the view but instead became momentarily hypnotized by the sea.  The sea continuously slapped the rocky face of Ireland.  Far out on the horizon, the ocean blended into the sky.  If you deluded yourself long enough, you could pretend you were at the end of the world. Usually I’m not one to gawk at famous tourist views, because part of me can’t stand to like what everyone else does, so I looked at the precipice for few seconds, snapped a couple pictures, and sauntered off down the path to the tail-end of the cliffs.

The moving was slow-going at first because the average human being does not walk very quickly, and I’m learning that many Europeans, despite their lean frames, love to clog up the entire lane.  For the first part of the trail, many of us were corralled into a narrow pathway between a fence and a large rock wall.  

At this pace, we could cover a mile in just under an hour.  Judging by our speed, you’d think we were balancing on thin rope rather than planting our feet on firm ground.  But such is the pace of sightseers, especially the Japanese who are impelled to photograph everything both momentous and inconsequential.  

On our way to the cliffs, I kid you not, I saw a Japanese man photograph our bus fueling up, and I don’t think he was creating a compendium of gas stations across the globe.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see him clicking away inside the gift shop to preserve in his memory all the things he didn’t buy. 

To break away from the herd, I had to jump on top of the large rock wall parallel to the trail.  The bus driver advised us not to climb over the wall because the ground is very loose near the cliffs and could very well crumble like fragile Graham crackers.  At the risk of toppling over the edge and crashing onto the rocks a hundred feet below, I leapt over the rock wall and passed the crowd and jumped back onto the path.  Out in the open now, I spotted the remains of a decrepit castle in the distance.  The cliffs snaked inward and outward, bending at the tail toward the water.  The derelict remains stood on the tail, which didn’t seem so far.  I remembered the driver telling us the path stretched three miles from the tip to the parking lot, and I had already covered a portion of that.  I checked the time and judged that I could reach the castle and retrace my route to the bus in under two hours, so I started walking. 

The morning air was chilly, but now the sun peeked out through the clouds.  I shed off two layers and unzipped the pant-legs from my hiking trousers.  I rolled up my sleeves as sweat accumulated and then stuck to my shirt.  The buzzing insects started biting my arms, so I rolled my sleeves back down.  The path turned from concrete into dirt.  There was no longer a barrier between myself and a final dive.  Soft mounds of earth hugged the edges of the cliff.  To appease my stupid sense of curiosity, I gingerly tapped the grass with my extended foot and felt it bounce against my weight.  The bus driver was not lying; the soil near the cliffs is extremely loose.  A gust of wind could send you into the drink, he warned, or the ground beneath your feet could collapse. 

I trotted toward the castle and skirted around the danger zone.  I ventured just far enough to feel slightly anxious but close enough to solid ground that I was confident I wouldn’t fall to my meaningless and easily-preventable death.  I wasn’t staring death in the face so much as I was squinting at him through high-powered binoculars.  I knew I was safe because I saw a handful of dummies just asking to fall off the cliff. 

I saw a couple sitting on the edge dangling their legs over the cliff as though their perch was a perfect place to fish.  Down the path, I saw a young man teetering along the fringes of the earth as he tested his masculinity with every step nearer the brink. Nearby a group of teenage girls ambled toward him but remained on the trail.  The young man lost his footing and flailed his arms but suddenly regained his footing.  One of the girls saw this and shrieked, but the young man laughed as though this were all part of his devilish scheme.  He was a few inches away from a sure death.  If he knew this, he didn’t show it.

Inside the remains of the castle, there were only wet stones and the odd candy wrapper.  Outside, the sea smacked against the rocks on the shore and wafted a salty spray upwards.  Gulls dove from perches in the cliffs’ crevices.  From a safe distance, I threw a rock in the water, knowing full well I wouldn’t hear the splash. 

I checked the time on my phone.  It took me over an hour to walk here, and I had forty-five minutes to reach the bus.  The driver announced in a friendly manner that he would not hesitate to leave us.  I could only make it back in time if I ran all the way.  The deadline gave my adventure a touch of thrill——a sharper edge.  I climbed up familiar mounds and trod upon the dirt with the sea to my left and open fields to my right.  If the bus left without me, I thought, I wouldn’t mind being stranded here.