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Published: April 9th 2009
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After our late night the evening before, we slept in a little to prepare for our day. We grabbed some free breakfast at the hotel and headed for the car. I think we circled the city 5 or 6 times trying to find the right way out of town to take the back roads . We headed for a small ferry a little outside of Waterford . The quick ferry ride was only about 20 minutes and before we knew it we were crossing country roads in County Wexford. We headed for Arklow which was recommended as a good place to stop over before continuing on the Wicklow mountains. Tara called in the favor again and we ended up booked into the Woodbridge hotel which is said to be the oldest hotel in Ireland. Once we dropped our cases in our room, we headed for the pub/restaurant so that Tara could get her soup fix for the day. We all enjoyed a late lunch and then a nap. We rallied the troops in the early evening and headed into Arklow proper to get some dinner and we soon found that most of the pubs had stopped serving food. We found one place, but could only order starters (appetizers). We all ordered Chicken Caesar salads and we were all disappointed but we ate enough to get us through. We asked about live music and were told to try across the street at J Kay’s pub. We parked ourselves at the bar just in time to catch the end of the Munster v. Leinster Rugby game. Tara struck up a conversation with Tom McGillicaughty. With a couple of pints already in him and a thicker accent.... it sounded as if he had marbles in his mouth. She was able to make out the stories pertaining to him and the Mrs.’s first date, the secret to a 50 year marriage (which by the way the way he says it’s because she is the boss), his 3 sons and where they live, and finally all the details of his town’s rugby team. An hour later…. He told tara he thought that she was 22 and was worried that her mommy and daddy were worried about her. He was shocked to hear she was 35 and was insistent that she must use a special cream on her face that he saw on TV!
Tara volunteered to be DD for the evening as she needed to detox from the evening before. We found this pub a little different than the previous pubs we had been in before. The people were less friendly and we didn’t really enjoyed being elbow to elbow. We did end up meeting the local butcher in Arklow and Jessica had a marriage proposal from the butcher’s son who we refer to as Butcher Boy (aged 21 years). The Butcher and his wife were very friendly and chatted with us for awhile. We were all very polite and overlooked the raw meat smell. We were easy to spot in this pub with our jeans and travel clothes on. Everyone else was dressed to the 9’s. So when 4 other Americans walked in, we immediately acknowledged one another. After working up a little courage, Jessica went to the bar and struck up a conversation with Mike (aka Chicago Check). We were all impressed with the american’s jobs. This crew was part of the technical crew for a new show called International Ghost Hunters. We spent the rest of the time at the pub chatting with Mike and a guy that looked like Jesus (Tom). When the pub closed, we decided to head for Sally O’Briens nightclub as a group. We made our way thru the crowd, but we only stayed for one pint. Tara packed the car with us and the American ghost hunters and we all headed back to find a wonderful surpise in our hotel lobby. There was a folk club reunion in the lobby. The group has been getting together for 40+ years. The group was farily funny and had some great songs. We stayed up and listened to them for a few hours and then headed to bed.
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