"Here I Go Again On My Own"
- sanderssam
- Aug 14, 2019
- 6 min read
Quick sidebar before I dive into the departure of my parents and me settling in for a few days here... do people really know the story of the original lyrics to this song? The story behind it is somewhere between unsettling, hilarious and awful. Here are the original lyrics to the chorus:
Here I go again on my own
Going down the only road I've ever known
Like a hobo I was born to walk alone
If "hobo" strikes you as weird, it's because yes, they changed it to "drifter" in later versions of the song. Why, you ask? Because, and I'm quoting multiple websites here, they were concerned about "hobo" being misheard as "homo", and their lead singer didn't want that confusion. That's where we were in 1982.
Alright, history lesson's over. The more you know.
Mama and Papa left a couple of days ago. We did a lot of touring around, hearing about some history of Dublin. Stopped in Phoenix Park to try and unsuccessfully see deer... did not though. Saw a cool monument though... more like a wider imitation of the Washington Monument.
We did a lot of the classic "last day" stuff together... buy souvenirs at a tourist trap before you forget to bring anything home, one of those "Hop on Hop Off Tours". Based on the stop we got off at, he recommended we do the incredibly touristy "oldest bar in Dublin", the Brazen Head. My real question is, "How many 'oldest bars in Dublin' are there"? Seems like a gimmick to me. However, challenge accepted.
Look, if you like paying more than you should for a beer in a place that doesn't look that historical, this is your spot! Do not buy the overpriced merchandise.
Lastly, of course we had to work in a last dinner that probably was not diet-friendly, but delicious all the same! I do recommend the Larder in Temple Bar, an oasis in a sea of not that great tourist trap restaurants.
Jambalaya balls and that ol' Irish classic, Chicken Supreme. Not sure the history there. Wait, I looked it up and it's not great culinary-wise-- dates back to post WW2 Greece. Anyhow, it was pure deliciousness.
After saying goodbye to the 'rents the next morning, I was truly "On My Own", let's just say Eponine-style, again! But I had a couple of missions over the next day or so:
1) Whiskey-related tourism in Dublin that my parents were less eager to pursue
2) Going back to Galway for a visit
Let's start with phase 1, whiskey. My new place, pretty much a converted dormitory, was right outside of the Teeling Whiskey distillery. Since I couldn't check in for several hours, but I was able to leave my luggage, that left me with *very* few other options... a difficult decision for sure, I know. Tour time!
As soon as I walked through the first phase of this tour, I knew that if I didn't have to kill time, I definitely would not have wanted to pay for the tour, and skip to the tasting. I think that's a common theme among a lot of distilleries for people who've been on distillery tours... "I understand the process, you haven't really presented this in a cool way, just give me my free (well, already paid for) alcohol".
Teeling is no exception, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's a very new distillery. While they might say their history goes back to 1782 or some such nonsense, this distillery has only existed since 2015. The history helps them actually have whiskey for distribution-- Irish Whiskey has to, by law, be aged at least 3 years and 1 day-- but does not help this location ooze the wisdom of the ages. Not their fault really... while "The Liberties" area once had the largest concentration of distilleries in Ireland, that really got thrown off in the 20th century by American Prohibition, Irish economic downturn, and a general falling of the preeminence of Irish whiskey in the worldview.
Bored yet? Welcome to my tour! You know it's authentic when it's done by an American girl from Connecticut who stopped faking an Irish accent after the first 2 minutes of the tour.
Let's skip to the Whiskey, it's actually quite good!
If you go to Teeling, do yourself a favor, skip the tour, go to the tasting room, and just try the "Distillery Exclusive" and the "Small Batch". If you can't tell the difference, just get the Small Batch. If you really like their Distillery Exclusive-- it's really smokey, and you can taste the wood a lot for an Irish whiskey-- get it! You can only get it here after all. And you can get it personalized, see the below picture. If you don't like either, you probably don't like whiskey.
Anyhow, after the distillery, I was actually able to check in. What I will say about this place is it's super modern and not as bad as I thought it might be! Here's a quick view of the room/view.
Not the biggest, but hey, it's just me here, and it suits me fine.
Decided to head into Temple Bar to see the Whiskey Museum, but *JUST* missed the last tour. Oh, don't worry, I'll be back, they have whiskey *AND* karaoke combined on Friday... just try and keep me away from that. I did meet a nice German couple from Stuttgart who I talked to about the merits of Oktoberfest there. Also, I learned that I should either learn "Ein Kompliment" or some song called "Freedom" from "Bissinhagen" (I tried googling the latter, but I must have really misspelled or really misheard) on piano to play for and impress a German girl. Fair enough!
Took a lovely walk back and saw the day closing by St. Patrick's, where I'll leave you until part 2 of this post.
Part 2: "Baby I've been here before, I've seen this room and I've walked this floor, you know I used to live alone before I knew you"
Why not a second post? Ehhh, there wasn't enough meat to merit it. But I returned to Galway yesterday, almost expressly for the purpose of getting a tattoo. The portents were favorable though as I stopped into a coffee shop for a snack beforehand though!
Things are looking up! You know, I had that problem where you're on a date but you get there too early... and you don't want to seem overeager, right? So I waited outside what was an old church until 15 minutes beforehand.
I met up with Ollie, my tattoo artist I'd met with a couple of weeks ago about the design. This might be a worrisome thing-- a lesser man might have thought "hey, I wasn't quoted a price or shown a design before coming back here". Oh ye of little faith. Mercifully, he showed me several great options with Celtic Knot and the Harp, and I chose my fav! Mercifully on the price front, it ended up being about the same price as my last tiny tattoo in the US... which, WHEW! Because I took out a bunch more cash than that just in case.
Without further ado...*NSFW ALERT*-- bare skin below, here was the final result
Let me tell you a few things about this experience:
1) This one hurt a *LOT* more than my first one. So many lines!
2) I now think I hate 3 separate Muse albums because it was all that was playing here
3) Once I forget about the pain, I will of course consider getting another one.
Now that I can keep Ireland close to my heart wherever I go, I felt relieved! That was quickly forgotten once I was handed a paper with the fine art of new tattoo maintenance.... I'm really not cut out for that stuff. Especially when *this* is the cream they make you buy here
I treated myself afterwards to Dough Bros-- my absolute favorite place in Galway-- for a Peter Stinger, a spicy, delicious pizza. Please, if you're in Galway, go to this place. Locals and Tourists alike love it. If you're so inclined to go to O'Connell's for the "post Ed Sheeran music video experience", they even have a small shop in the bar there.
After this, I took one last long walk through Galway-- to the Old Long Walk, to the Spanish Arch, and looked out on the place for a while. Not to be that old sappy guy, but I'm really gonna miss this place. Then walked back to the train station so I could catch my last train back to Dublin.
Random Things:
Moment of Zen
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