My work is done for the time being, and I’m off to frolic in the green fields of Eire for a few days. This should be a pretty exciting trip: we’ll be traveling around with my brother and a friend of his from Seattle, neither of whom have ever been to Ireland before. We’ll have the luxury of a rental car this time, and we’ll try to see as much as we possibly can between Wednesday night and Sunday night.

Jeremy and I will kind of be tour guides, so we’ve been poring over maps and scouring guide books and the Internet to try to decide what absolutely must be seen and how we can travel between all the major points of interest as quickly, easily, and yet picturesquely, as possible.

The problem, though, is that the things I consider "must-sees" are not really the things that someone else would necessarily want to see. I get obscenely excited about mossy piles of stones and windswept landscapes, but I’m fully aware that such things are not to everyone’s liking. It’s hard to be objective about these things, though. I’ve been around the Dingle Peninsula, and I thought it was one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I found it so breathtaking and wonderful that I really can’t conceive of someone not liking it - I mean, how could you not like a coastline like that, with all the ancient forts, and the waves crashing against the rocks, and the wind and the changing light? How could you not feel an almost spiritual connection to a place like that? How could you not want to stay there forever?

Well, I’m sure there are a good many people in the world who could tell me exactly how they wouldn’t like it. And that’s fair enough - each to his or her own. But when the trip-planning is left up to me (which it essentially has been in this case), then I just have to go with my own feelings on what’s worth a visit and what’s not. So even though I know they are pretty hardcore urbanites, my brother and his friend are going to be treated to just one evening of Dublin nightlife before we all head west to Galway, and then south, hopefully hitting the Cliffs of Moher and Dingle, then east to Killarney (and possibly some golfing, weather permitting - which it probably won’t) and Cork, and finally back up to Dublin again.

That’s the rough plan, anyway. I hope it’s not too much rural splendor for two active young Seattleites - but I know two fairly sedentary, somewhat older Brightonians who are looking forward to it very much.