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IRISH EYES ARE SMILING...
Sunday September 13, 2009 Seattle, Washington 4 FRIKKIN AM....
That about says it all. Four am Sunday morning. Can't really think of much good that happens at this time. But the alarm is blasting away and I'm juuuuuuuussst a little short of being packed for my 6:30 am flight to Philadelphia.
He's done it again. Tom Newell, who talked me into going to the Caribbean (like that was a tough sell) and to China, is doing some basketball clinics for coaches and kids in Ireland and has graciously offered to include me in the trip. I just need to get to the airport on time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Newell
I'm notorious for cutting it close to boarding times, I think it's some genetic flaw. I manage to throw everything together (and for once, there's not one thing I forgot) and arrive at the ticket counter nearly an hour before the flight. Fifty-seven minutes to be exact. Tom's checked in and waiting for me by the ticket counter. Checking in late, the only seats left on the plane are in first class and I get bumped up there. Tom just keeps muttering on his way back to his coach seat, “Don't even say a word to me.....” Just like in basketball, sometimes there's no justice on the court.Nice smooth flight to Philly, we arrive in the early afternoon. I'm waiting for Tom as he deboards. He looks at me and says, “Not a word....” I oblige, but chuckle as we head for lunch.
Our flight to Dublin is six hours later at 8:45 pm. I figure we have enough time to catch the train to downtown Philly and hit the little restaurants along Market Street near the Liberty Bell Museum. The restaurants there are very similar to the outdoor cafes along the Rue de Rivoli in Paris. The food is outstanding and the people watching is better. Tom nixes leaving the airport, so we hit a sports bar.
As we get to the gate for Dublin, my Sunday the 13th luck runs out. I'm sitting in coach with Tom.
8:30 AM MONDAY SEPTEMBER 14th DUBLIN, IRELAND
One of the reasons I love Europe so much is public transportation. Our first basketball stop is Belfast in Northern Ireland. We plan on taking a train, but there's been a bridge collapse on the train line which is disrupting service. So we sign up for an express bus to Belfast. We miss the departure by four minutes, but one of the bus attendants hustles us to another bus and essentially explains that we take the local bus to a town, change buses there for one stop then catch the express to Belfast from there and arrive ahead of the next express bus. Sounds good, even to a couple of bald old guys. As we're getting on the second bus a guy with an Irish accent asks if this is the bus to the Belfast express bus. I told him that's what I thought and asked him if it was. He said, “I don't know I'm just following you.” I told him he was in a world of hurt, if that was the case. We both laughed. When we got on the bus, he sat a row behind me and across. Across from me and in front are three elderly Irish people. I see them looking at a cellphone and ask them about picking up a sim card for my cellphone to make calls in Ireland. I unknowingly unleashed an avalanche. We have the most animated twenty minute conversation, and I understood nearly 70 per cent of what they said. Halfway through the avalanche, the guy following us on the buses looks at me and says, “Look what you started.” As we near the bus stop, the older guy sitting to my left says, “We don't know each other, we just met too.” They'd been talking like they were lifelong pals with similar acquaintances. Tom gets off the bus smiling and shaking his head, “Stoneman that was one of the most interesting conversations I've witnessed and you were right in there with them.”
We pull into Belfast sometime around two or thereabouts. It's been 26 hours since we left Seattle, counting layovers and bus rides. The Belfast basketball contingent sends Noam Fishman and Ed White to pick us up at the bus station in downtown Belfast. Tom brought a slug of bags and it takes a couple of trips to haul them across the street into the car. Pointing at one of our unattended bags across the street Noam says, “In the old days that bag would be gone.” Thinking he's referring to someone running off with the bag, I just shake my head (which of course rattles my half functioning brain even more) and continue loading the car. I notice the name of the hotel connected to the bus station, but can't place the name in my semi-hallucinogenic state.
We head to a little restaurant called Maggie Mays. The beef stew is amazing. Everything is starting to clear up and we talk about the hotel where we were picked up. The Europa Hotel. Noam says it's the most bombed hotel in Europe. He explains that an unattended bag several years ago would have resulted in the police swooping down and destroying the bag. Huh.Our hosts in Belfast are Dave Cullen and Charlie Tolan. They're part of an organization that I love the name of, Full Court Peace.
Their goal is to integrate Catholics and Protestants through mixed basketball teams. Dave mentions that all the other sports in Ireland are religion dominated. Dave says that he can talk with someone for five minutes about sports and know what religion they are. He says, no religion has basketball, so Full Court Peace, among other projects, is trying to make it non-denominational and a vehicle for peace and understanding.
We get settled in some spare rooms at Charlie's and head out for a 'wee pint'. We hit a nice pub on Ormeaux Street called “The Hatfield'. Cool pub, with a lot of wee pints. We have a nice group and meet a couple of local students, Monica and Michaela. They join us for a few more wee pints. They're students at Queens University of Belfast, and they join our group that includes a couple of jet lagged bald old americans, talk about slumming it..... We tell them we just arrived this afternoon and Dave mentions we arrived by bus outside the Europa Hotel, which he notes happens to be the most bombed hotel in Europe. The girls Irish accent isn't that thick, but there are words that are different. Michaela mentions that she has an american boyfriend who is playing american football is Glasgow, Scotland. She got a lot of weird looks when she told him they would have some great crack together. This makes absolutely no sense to me, because she doesn't look at all like a drug addict. I don't have time to get a clarification because the stories and laughter are rolling, I let it pass. The next day I find out that the word she said that sounds like 'crack' is actually spelled 'craic' and means fun. We call it a night pretty early, we're touring in the morning and then heading to a basketball practice that night.
9AM TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15 BELFAST, IRELAND
Not bad, went to bed about midnight, slept straight through til 9 am when Noam rang the doorbell. We have a tour of Belfast scheduled with the Black Taxi Tour. Paddy our cabbie loads us up across the street from the Europa Hotel and mentions that the Europa is the most bombed hotel in Europe. You don't say....? We're about to take a photo and Tom remembers we forgot to grab the tea we ordered for Patty and I somehow videoed the whole episode. It's located on the video bar on the upper left of this blog. We roll about 20 feet and he points out a pub on our left called the Crown Pub. Even though at first glance it appears to be a tribute to the British Monarchy, it's exactly the opposite. As you enter the pub and look down you will see that the tile is a crown mosaic and was placed there so people could wipe their feet on the monarchy. A subtle protest.
Our next stop is a leaning clock tower and one of the oldest pubs in Belfast. The two are located near the waterfront, where sailors would come ashore. McHugh's has been operating since 1711. I think they still have one of the original cocktail waitresses working there.... The clock tower is leaning four feet off center and the story is all the 'working girls' would lean against it while waiting to be picked up by the sailors, which caused the tower to tilt. 
Next we're off to the docks. I had forgotten that the Titanic was actually built in Dublin along with her sister ships. There's a lot of memorabilia of the shipbuilding industry along the water, but not a lot of shipbuilding anymore. One huge building has been turned into a movie studio, complete with guards. We go a little further and see the huge dry dock of Belfast. A lot of the British warships from WW II were built in Belfast. Because of that, Belfast took a pretty good beating from German bombing missions. The hills to the north of Belfast were a sanctuary for the people of Belfast during WWII. Those same hills, from downtown Belfast look the outline of a face.
Apparently that outline was the inspiration for Gullivers Travels and the Chronicles of Narnia. Once we roll away from the waterfront, the real tour begins.
I thought I had a grasp of the 'difficulties' between the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland. I didn't have a frikking clue. What a stupid, arrogant American I was. “Oh yeah, I get it you don't like each other...” Frick. (that's the word I”m going to use instead of our obscene 'f*ck', which is really, really used commonly in Ireland, north and south). It's just an accent, and even more so when everyone's had a few 'wee pints', it just rolls forth as an adjective, noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, and exclamation. But it is pronounced slightly different, it's more like 'foook'. But the Irish are always adaptable to new variations, later in the trip, I used the particularly randy phrase of 'frick me dry and call me dusty' and our Irish host nearly wet himself laughing. I'm sure he's using that line now, but I digress).
This was the meat and potatoes of the tour. The wall murals. Belfast has a lot of amazing art work on the sides of buildings detailing the struggles between Catholics and Protestants. First we toured the Protestant neighborhood.
There were two murals that particularly struck me. The first was the sniper mural. As you walk along the street it appears the sniper keeps pointing at you. I have a video of that.
Great art, but hugely disconcerting. A non war mural struck me personally. My grandfather on my mother's side was John Ronald McIsaac. After several beers my grandfather and my aunt used to regale me with stories of the family heritage and how a member of our 'clan' was in a race for a piece of land. As the story goes, the land would go to the first person to lay their hand upon the land. Well, our 'clansmen' clearly had my speed. He fell behind in the race. As the contestants for the land were crossing the river, approaching the land at stake, my ascendant, apparently cut his hand off and threw it onto the subject property, thereby becoming the 'first person to set his hand upon the land'. I had always laughed these stories off, until I saw the mural and froze in my tracks. As Paddy the cabby was telling the story, I told him I knew the ending. I told him about the McIsaac connection. He said it was actually the McDonald clan, but the McIsaacs were probably part of that lineage. The mural that depicts this is the 'Red Hand of Ulster'. Ulster is the county where Belfast is located.
Once we finished the protestant tour, we saw the wall that divided the Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods. There's still a wall separating them, even in 2009. Recently some Protestants placed some cars against the wall and lit them afire. There's also a section of the wall where people write on it, mainly peace wishes. 
We all signed the wall. I climbed some of the outcroppings of the wall and placed the highest signature on it. Paddy looked at me and said, “I didn't know we brought 'frikking' spiderman with us.” It was surreal.
On the Catholic side of the fence, the houses have nets above their backyards to keep out anything that's thrown over from the protestant side. Unbelievable. Living like that. We head off and see the Sinn Fein headquarters and a mural that's dedicated to other struggles around the world. There's a huge church nearby and Paddy explains the history of the potato famine and how a bread was made for the people to avoid starvation, he even sings a little ditty for us, about the bread.
Our tour ends where we started, across from the Europa hotel. Full Court Peace had Paddy give us the 'deluxe tour'. More than two hours long and fascinating. We lunch at the Crown. Great chicken and broccoli soup. Tom heads off to golf and I want to see more of the city, so I walk down Craigah (pronounce like craiger) Street from Charlie's all the way to the city center. About two and a half miles, but it's a great walk. I love seeing all the little shops along the way. I wander around downtown Belfast and then take the bus back to Charlie's. There's a meeting at the offices of Full Court Peace and then a practice tonight for us to attend. Dave's there with some of his co-ordinators and players.
We hit the practice and Tom does some evaluations for the coaches. I'm pretty much useless, but I look good doing it, years of practice.
After the practice, Tom wants to head back to McHughs to get some shirts. We have a wee pint there and head to a pub near the Europa. Did I mention that.... never mind. We have a few drinks there, talk to some locals and other ex-pats. Two of the guys at the practice are Americans living and playing basketball in Ireland. Mike and Chris. A guy at the next table decides to join us and regale us. He's an Irish 'attorney' living on Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean. He's in Ireland with his boss/girlfriend who owns a magazine. He decides he needs to impress us with his dangerous connections to Irish history. He's been back to Ireland several times over the years for funerals. One of his uncles was one of the original hunger strikers. He rips off several names of dead relatives from the war and says we should know some of them. Sorry. He keeps rolling more and more, pounding the table and yelling, even though he can barley stand.
Tired of this, I look him in the eye and yawn. He goes nutcase, screaming, “Did you just yawn? Are you 'frikkin' yawning? What do you 'frikkin' think you're doing?” Mike and Chris jump in with, “He just got here from the states, he's really tired, don't worry about it.”
Annoyed that I wasn't hanging on every drunken syllable, he walks away muttering and then finally blurts out, “I know where you live.”
Mike and Chris just about laugh themselves silly once he's gone. They ask if I know what he was trying to tell us. I say, “Of course, he was trying to let us know that he was IRA connected.” Huh.
The rest of the evening is uneventful. There was a great Irish band in the pub, then we shot off to a dance club that wouldn't let me in because I was wearing 'track pants'. Sweats. I stood around and looked mournful (years of practice at high school dances without much success) and lamented about how far I'd flown and the bouncer finally said, “Go in.” Nice dance club. Fun to watch.
10AM WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 16TH, BELFAST, IRELAND
Ten fifteen AM, we're off to Cork today and everyone just arrived at Charlies to pick me up. When we rolled out of the dance club, I asked Noam to call Charlies at 9 and have me woken up. There's no alarm clock in my room. No call and now everyone's waiting for me. Shower, shave and pack in 30 minutes and we're on our way. Noam has a friend from the states, John, joining us for the five hour drive to Cork. We pile into an Audi A4 sedan and after 30 minutes, this dog ain't gonna hunt. Tom, John and I are squeezed in the back seat leaning on and against each other. Dublin is now just over an hour away and I tell Noam to drop me at the train station. I'll take the train to Cork. Better a couple hours on the train than as a sardine in an Audi.
A train leaves Dublin every hour for Cork at the top of the hour. I walk into the train station at 1:54pm. The ticket machine is across the terminal. It spits out a roundtrip and I have four minutes to get to track five. I have to walk the length of the train to get to the gate for the trip. I get onto the train and find a seat right next to the bar. Less than two minutes later the train rolls out. Plenty of time.
I buy a Guiness and some chips and get back to my seat, the lady sitting across from me, Jennifer, is originally from Australia and married a guy from Cork. She even lived in Seattle for three months when she was ten years old. She lived in the Laurelhurst neighborhood while her dad was working for the University of Washington. She's a speech therapist. She asks about my trip and I tell her the basketball connection. She asks if I've done that anywhere else in the world and fill her in on the Caribbean and China details. When I mention Changchung, China, she almost laughs. Turns out her husband is a construction engineer with one of the worlds big construction firms and is heading to Changchung that weekend. They might be moving there in the next three months. I fill her in on all the details I learned from being there.
How strange is that to take an empty seat on a train and have two cities halfway around the world in common with the person sitting across from you?
We have a great conversation all the way to Cork and she offers to give me a ride to my hotel. It's actually not that far from the train station. She gives me a little parting gift for my daughter and actually models it for me. I had shown her a photo of my daughter wearing an outfit with wild sunglasses and she thought the pair in her car would make a lovely gift.
When I arrive at the hotel, the Basketball Ireland contingent is sitting in the hotel lobby bar waiting for us. I explain that I jumped out of the car in Dublin and took the train. Thirty minutes later, Tom, Noam and everyone else walk into the lobby. They're stunned that I got there before them. I fill Tom in on the trip and tell him about Jennifer and Changchung. He decides he's going to take the train back to Dublin.
We sit with Martin Hehir the Development and Technical Director of Basketball Ireland and his assistants Kim and Sinead. We grab a quick bite and we're off to the Neptune Basketball Club gym. There's a line of coaches stretching from one baseline to the other, sitting in chairs. They've come from as far as three hours away for the clinic. The clinic lasts a little over two hours and we're back to the Maldron Hotel. We get back a little late to pub hop, so we order in chinese food and have a few drinks in the pub. We're only staying in Cork this one night and then off to Dublin. More time in Cork would be nice.
9AM THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 17TH, CORK, IRELAND
Slept like a log last night. Kinda glad we stayed at the hotel. Feel really good. Join Tom for the buffet breakfast in the lobby restaurant. Check some e-mails and start packing. Catching the 1:30 train back to Dublin. There's talk of heading to Cove, the last piece of land the Titanic saw before it headed to sea. It's also the town where the bodies from the Lusitania washed ashore and were warehoused to be inventoried after it was sunk. There's actually a Lusitania bar in Cove. Unfortunately, our schedule's a little too tight to hit Cove and make Dublin on time.
I stroll along the river walk in Cork from the hotel to the train station. Some really cool side streets, I love exploring streets like these, but don't have nearly enough time. Only about a fifteen minute walk to the train station. The train from Cork to Dublin runs on the half hour. Which reminds me, they tell time a little different in Ireland. When we were first in Belfast, Charlie had left and said he'd be back at 7 pm. Someone stopped by looking for Charlie and I told them he was out. They asked how soon he'd be back and I asked what time it was. The answer was “Half six”. Ok. Does that mean three? I eventually assumed it meant, “Half past six.” So the trains leave cork on the half. If you ask anyone in Ireland what time it is and it's near the bottom of the hour, the answer will be half .....whatever... 2,3,4,... That was interesting.We roll into Dublin and are looking for our contact there. Dave Baker. We don't even have a description of what he looks like. Tom spots him instantly. The give away is the basketball Ireland shirt he's wearing. Just like the one Tom has on.
Dave Baker is the funniest man in Ireland.
We head to his car and he's asking about our itinerary in Dublin. He never got a copy, just a phone call to pick us up. I pull the itinerary out of my pocket that Noam handed me and show it to Dave. We have clinics set for Thursday with the women's team Dave coaches and Friday at the Tolka Rovers facility. Other than that it's pretty open. Dave is starting to get comfortable with us and starts rolling. He notices a little note on the itinerary that says, “arrive to Mr Baker's house/dinner”. This is news to him and once he sizes up his audience he has us rolling with laughter about the possibility of suprising his eight month pregnant wife with dropping us off for dinner. We head straight to the facility where he coaches his women's team and have dinner in a restaurant there and tons more laughs.
The reason we head straight to the practice facility is, frankly, traffic sucks in Dublin. There was no way we could have made it to Dave's house and then the gym. And they're both on the north side of Dublin. I've never seen traffic like this. Unbelievable. It takes us nearly two hours to get from the train station to the gym. And Dave thought it wasn't that bad. Must be why he has such a great sense of humor.
After dinner we head down to the gym. Tom's working the team through drills and I'm taping. They're a division two women's teams with players ranging from 22-49 years of age. After practice we head over to watch some American players trying to get jobs in Europe that Noam is acting as agent for. They have a game against a local club team as a warmup and showcase event. It's rough basketball. The americans are jet lagged and their legs are gone in the second half, but they hang on to win in overtime.
Another long day wraps up at Dave and Sue's house and we're laughing hysterically about the events of the day, the practices, the game, the drive, and just about everything else.
Sue is a saint, pregnant, but a saint nonetheless. Dave says he married above his station. We don't disagree.:-) Every now and then the sun shines on a dogs butt.FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH DUBLIN, IRELAND
Dave's a ball of fire in the morning and he and Sue are preparing a huge Irish breakfast for us. He's even brought out the blood sausage. He doesn't like it, but wants us to experience an Irish classic. He's warning us that, he's bringing his sight seeing 'A-game' today. So we need to load up, we're going to need it. His hospitality is really above and beyond. And I really can't remember meeting someone who can make me laugh like he can. I've met a lot of funny people, but Dave has a killer instinct for it. Once he finds a funny thread, he can exploit it like I've never experienced, one of the most quick witted people I've ever met. I never knew it was possible to damage your vocal cords from laughing.
Our first stop is Malahide Castle which is on the way back into Dublin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malahide_Castle
Outstanding old castle. As it turns out one of Dave's relatives worked at the Castle and is actually buried in the cemetery on the castle grounds, next to the old abbey. We convince Dave to jump the short concrete fence surrounding the cemetery so we can get a photo of his relative's grave. He then takes a couple more photos for us, including one of the grave of a lady who supposedly haunts the castle.
We head into Dublin through a rough suburb where the movie The Commitments was filmed. From there the next stop is the Guiness factory. Guinesses 250th anniversary is about a week away. We tour the factory and head up for our free pints in the lounge at the very top with an amazing panoramic view of Dublin.
On the way down, I end up squeezed in an elevator next to three cute girls from Sweden who are touring Ireland. What horrible luck. We talk and laugh all the way down and I get a photo with them at the gates when Tom and Dave finally arrive on the next elevator.
It's getting late in the afternoon and we decide it's time to start heading out of Dublin for the next clinic.
The traffic gets so bad, that you have to plan hours ahead to go ten miles. It's unbelievable. We head up to a restaurant close to the Tolka club site for dinner. For dinner I had creamed cabbage, mashed potatoes and bacon. The bacon is actually a huge slab of ham. The creamed crabbage is amazing.
Dave says he'll send me the recipe.
The clinic tonight is actually two clincs. The first group is a girls team and some younger players. I video and then help Tom with the drills. There's a ton of players. As Tom is lecturing near the end of the first session, a player comes over to me and tells me he's going to get sick. I told him to turn around and head out the door. He looks at me and I point. He starts heading towards the door. He looks back at me and I told him to just run out the door. He doesn't make it. When the first blast hits the floor I jump back and look down at my shoes. Near miss. I step behind him to guide him out the door and the second volley fires away from me. Now we're really moving toward the door. Tom looks over, analyzes the situation, turns back and doesn't miss a frikkin beat in his talk. Amazing. The player gets out the door without wreaking further damage. People start scrambling for towels to clean the court. I keep checking my shoes and can't believe I didn't get splattered. It turns out the player in question had a house full of sick siblings and wasn't feeling real well, but didn't want to miss the clinic.
The first clinic runs long (there's a huge surprise once you get Tom on the court). The second clinic is slightly less populated and is an older boys team. It starts a little later than anticipated after the holdup of cleaning up the court. As Tom gets into his intro, I chat with Dave. He's impressed that my shoes remained unscathed.
Dave is driving us back to Charlie's in Belfast tonight after the clinic. He's talking about just driving up and heading right back. I tell him that's nuts. The way it's going we're not going to get out of the gym much before midnight and it's two hours to Belfast and another two hours back, which makes it an all nighter for driving. For once Dave drops the humor and talks cautiously about Belfast.
He tells me some first hand stories that stun me, about how people from Dublin are treated in Belfast. He's not really sure where we'll be staying and he's concerned, rightfully so. Apparently, a Dublin license plate is a beacon for trouble in certain neighborhoods.
I explain to him that I've walked all the way from Charlie's to dowtown Belfast and didn't experience any trouble or even a hint. And I have a pretty good nose for trouble, whether I want it or not.
Dave gives me a wry smile and says, that's different, adding, “You're an American, they can tell by your accent, and the safest thing to be in Belfast is an American, everyone loves you. On the other hand, I'm from Dublin so I'm disliked by both sides. The radical Catholics see me as a traitor and the protestants see the license plate as another Catholic trouble maker.”
This really gives me pause. It just reinforces that I had no depth of understanding of the Catholic-Protestant struggles before I came here.
Right then Tom's rolled the clinic to the point he needs me under a hoop directing traffic. Dave heads off to the other hoop. The clinic is going to run long, no question. We run through Tom's drills and then he puts a team on the floor to run through an offensive set. Dave and I keep checking the time, Tom's in a zone. Finally a couple of the coaches of the kids mention they have to go and Tom runs the offense just once more and we're done.
We head to Dave's to pick up our stuff and head north again. We've convinced Dave to stay overnight in Belfast so we can have a few 'wee pints'. Dave's the designated driver and it's just killing him that he can't have a few pints with us. He's like a ketttle bubbling away ready to burst.
We head off to Belfast just after 11 pm. Dave's gps won't take Charlie's address, but I tell him if he gets us to downtown Belfast, I know the way to Charlie's.
I direct Dave down a road toward the train station, tell him we take a left over the bridge, first right, down about a mile, turn left and then Charlie's place is about five blocks down. Sounds simple until we turn the corner for the bridge.
There's a police road block. Dave is visibly shaken. In the old days police road blocks in Belfast are almost always runs by protestants and are looking for Catholic troublemakers. This seems to be a 2 am drunk driving road block. We're a few cars back and Dave is really concerned.
We get a cute blond police officer and Dave rolls down his window. She asks where we're heading and Dave tells her he's driving us to where we're staying, but he's not really sure where it is. I remember what Dave says about the safest thing to be in Belfast is an American, so I tell the officer where Dave is driving us, by saying Charlie's address in my thickest 'American Accent'. The cop smiles.
One thing I've learned in my years crossing the Canadian-US border and dealing with police situations is, when you get that person to smile, you've disarmed a tense situation. Dave and the cop and I talk a bit more and she realizes Dave's doing the heavy lifting here and gives him a smile of condolences and sends us on our way. The only thing she chastised us about was Tom not wearing his seatbelt in the backseat, which could have cost Dave four points on his driver's license. The cop just says to put the seat belt on and away we go.
Dave is impressed that the cop and I were having, as he said, “a bit of craic”. I wanted her to know that he had a car full of harmless Americans and not Irish troublemakers. It worked. I later explain to him my smile theory.
We get back to Charlie's and Dave's worried. The neighborhood gives him concern for the safety of his car. I offer to get us a hotel and he accepts.
We head back downtown, find a place with parking security, check in and grab a cab to head out for a few late night pints. We end up in a gay techno bar in a warehouse district. We fit right in...... We decide to head back to the hotel, have a few drinks and call it a day.
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 19TH BELFAST, IRELAND
We roll out of bed slightly after 10 am, well maybe closer to 11. OK a little after 11. Not much worse for wear. Dave Baker is heading back to Dublin this afternoon, some weak excuse about a pregnant wife. But before he goes, he wants to meet Dave Cullen of Full Court Peace. Dave Cullen is running an invitational basketball tournament at the University of Queen's Physical Education Center. I'm surprised to learn the two Dave's have never met.
I decide to head back to Dublin with Dave Baker that afternoon, I have a return flight to Seattle on Sunday.
We get to Queens and it's quite the tournament. Noam's ex-pat team of hoop mercenaries is in the tournament and playing well, they're rested from the trip over the pond. There are quite a few teams on several courts.
We find Dave Cullen and Tom and bid our farewells. Back to Dublin.
We roll into Dublin at 6 pm and I get a room near the airport so Dave won't have to drive me across Dublin in the early hours for my flight. We plan to get together that night, but I'm pretty tired and the UW Husky football game against USC is starting at 8pm Dublin time and all things considered I'd rather wind down in my hotel room watching that game on the internet. The only consolation is Dave looks more tired than me and I would put even money on him falling asleep when he gets home. Which happens. And it's ok with me. The Huskies pull off a stunning upset which ends just after 11 pm Dublin time. I hit the bed right after that and sleep like a rock.
SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 20TH DUBLIN, IRELAND
I'm flying Dublin-Philly-Seattle. I head to the airport at 9 am. Eleven am flight to Philly. Beautiful sunny day in Dublin. I wander around the airport and clear immigration before I get on my flight. That way I go straight to customs when I land in Philly and avoid that half hour line in Philly. Uneventful flight, make the connection and land in Seattle at 4pm.
I reflect a lot on the flight home, I can't believe how little I knew about the 'difficulties' in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Both Dave's make the mistake of inviting me back and I'm going to take them up on it.
