Saturday, November 5, 2011

What I Miss about Ireland

1.

Every morning in Ireland is a foggy morning, but it’s not like the fog here that sits on top of the mountains. Fog in Ireland reaches down and touches you, leaving your skin feeling like it’s just been kissed.


2. Irish tea. There is nothing here that compares.
3. The lilting song of the Irish language.


4. Traditional Irish music played by locals who do it for the sheer joy of it. I especially miss the sound of an Irish flute.
5. The way the Irish use words like “that’s perfect” and “absolutely” like Americans use “cool” and “phat.”
6. The shops in Ireland remind me of those I visited when I was a child. I miss the sight and feeling of handmade sweaters, caps, scarves and incredible jewelry. I never saw a mall or shopping center.
7.

I miss the Irish villages! The houses and storefronts are painted in bright reds, yellows, blues, and browns. They seem to avoid green because paint can’t compare with the green of the landscape.
8. I pine for the crisscrossing stone walls.
9. The surprise of driving by a house with a cow in the backyard and sheep in the front.


10. I miss seeing an Irish Setter patiently waiting outside of a bar or store for its owner.
11. When the “lift” opens, you never know if you’ll find an elderly, slightly “inebriated” gentleman who exclaims, “Hello, Darling! I knew you were there and I stopped to pick you up!”
12. In “certain establishments,” I miss how I was proposed to by smiling “inebriated” gentlemen, who were always impeccably dressed.
13. I yearn for the sound of the ocean crashing against the Cliffs of Moher.
14. I wish a waiter would ask me if I want “chips.”
15. I long for an Irish rainbow!
16. The feel of a 12th century castle wall.


17. More than anything, I miss the feeling that I can step back in time and commune with the spirits of that place.