Hi from Rick: Discovering your Inner Irishman
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| Rick & Anne root for losing Donegal and find their inner Irishness. |
Dear Traveler,
If you've been with us for awhile, you know that every year my wife and I like to get away for a week together in a great city. This summer, with older teens to consider and Anne's Irish heritage in mind (I don't dare tell her the Irish are just my ancestral Vikings shipwrecked), we chose Ireland for a family break.
We spent an entire week in Dublin. From a parenting point of view, all I can say is "great call." Dublin is new, fresh, thriving, and a great engine showing off the exciting change going in throughout Europe these days.
Dublin is also an easy place to really connect with the local culture. We found a thrilling way to do this, taking in an Irish football match at Dublin's 80,000-seat Croke Park stadium. (Irish football is like soccer but you can run with the ball as long as you bounce or kick it every three steps.)
At the game I saw that Ireland's charming "rough edges" are surviving its new affluence...but with a bit more polish. Like many of the fans that day, we spent a generous €30 on scarves, hats and flags with the correct colors (gold and green — we were rooting for Donegal).
This was a big change from 20 years ago, when I was in the ramshackle stadium that previously stood on this spot. Then, the "colors" were cheap dye on crepe paper hats for a buck. The rain was causing my colors to run from my hat down my face — gold and green (for Donegal, even back then). I put my dripping hat atop my umbrella...not realizing it would run in eight small rivulets...coloring those around me. Luckily, they were Donegal fans too. With today's affluence, the colors hold fast, and the Irish no longer bleed on each other.
Inspired by our family fun on the Emerald Isle, we're featuring Ireland in this month's Tour News, with articles on the island's history, pubs, pluck, and more. You'll also learn how you can win a free tour in our online Tour Scrapbook Contest (open to everyone who's gone on a tour in 2006), and see some winners from a "secret" photo contest we held for our Family Europe, Scotland and Scandinavia tours this summer. Have a look, you may get hooked.
Waving my Donegal flag and cheering myself hoarse brought back to me how thrilling it is to stretch our identity-boundaries when we travel. For a couple of hours my inner Irishman emerged…and I really enjoyed being around the guy. As the stadium emptied, I stayed put with my flag. I didn't want to leave. Donegal may have lost, but I found something I wanted to hang on to for a while.
Happy travels,
Rick