O'Coileain Pub

Cheryl and I got back to Florida last night after a very long day, starting at 4:30 am in Adare, Ireland, driving through the night rain and into a crazy set of detours through Limerick, signs and blinking light pointing left and right, clockwise twisting roundabouts filled with early morning beer trucks, until the driving seemed very much like some surreal and twisted video game, playing at the highest level of difficulty now, heading toward the ultimate goal: the rental car return at the airport, which I fully expected to be surrounded by fire-belching leprechauns, cow-tossing catapults and rocket-propelled grenades.

And then we made it, though of course the rental car guy hadn't made it to work yet. So we waited in darkness as the clock ticked and Cheryl got a little animated. Finally we made inside the airport only to go through no fewer than 5 security checkpoints, bags x-rayed twice, then we were both body frisked, tickled, cavity-probed, dog-sniffed and all the rest. I was so glad to be out from behind the wheel that they could have stripped me naked and stuffed me with cheese and I wouldn't have complained.

And now, after a few days, I have mellowed out and am purging the less pleasant memeories of the trip from my memory. Here's our favorite pub, O'Coileain (translates to Collin's). It was a fun time.