FUN-travel: Ireland – Dublin to Kinsale
September 21, 2011 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on FUN-travel: Ireland – Dublin to Kinsale
Day 5 – Saturday, September 17 – Dublin to Kinsale – cool, windy, rainy
Pickup Hertz car 10:30 – OMG! Worse than driving on the wrong side is sitting on the wrong side!
Kilkenny Castle
- 1st stop Kilkenny – “Ireland’s Loveliest Inland City” – cathedral & castle stand like historic bookends higgledy-piggledy on High Street of colorful shops and medieval facades – castle restored to Victorian splendor
- 2nd stop Rock of Cashel – high atop hill – one of most historic & evocative sights – built 300 ad
- Arrive Kinsale 4:30 & immediately park car! (Stay at Old Bank Inn for 190 euro for 2 nights includes breakfast)
- Stroll through town – very cute! has laid back Sausalito feel – pub stop for a Guinness & shot of Jameson
- FUN food find – Crackpot – mussels in white cream chowder like sauce, salad, fresh halibut w/fried potatoes and vegetables – YUMMY! We are now 5 for 5 on FUN food experiences!
FF (FUN-Facts) We purchased the Heritage Card (32 euro) in Dublin and have now seen 6 sites for free!
Rock of Cashel
Day 6 – Sunday, September 18 – Kinsale – cool, windy
- 1st stop Charles Fort– 45 minute walk to see Britain’s largest star-shaped fort built 1600’s
Kinsale
- 2nd stop Desmond Castle – 15th century was once customs house – then converted to a prison housing the French – includes wine museum with Irish families that moved to Bordeaux to make win
- FUN food – Fishy Fishy highly recommended – disappointed by extremely slow service – 45 minutes and still no mussels – ticket clearly got lost in the kitchen & no one was even aware until we asked (server did give us a free bottle of wine to make up) dinner took 2 hours! Monkfish w/risotto entree just so-so
FF – Service truly does make the food taste better!
FUN-travel: Ireland – Dublin – 3 days
September 17, 2011 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on FUN-travel: Ireland – Dublin – 3 days
Day 1 – Tuesday, September 13 – arrive London 2 pm – depart 6 pm – arrive hotel 8:30 pm – windy, cold
- FUN food find! Hugo’s – smoked salmon salad, chips (fried potato wedges) & mussels – Dan our waiter suggests the Butcher Grill for our next meal
Day 2 – Wednesday, September 14 – Hop On Hop Off Bus Highlights – partly sunny, windy, high 50’s
- Guinness Storehouse – Ireland’s #1 tourist attraction – 250 year old brewery turned into 7 story interactive visitor experience – Gravity Bar, top floor w/360 panoramic views of city & includes a free pint of Guinness!
- Kilmainham Gaol – Dublin’s Jail opened 1796 – executions by hanging (quite the local entertainment) and firing squad prevalent – housed many political prisoners
- FUN food! Butcher Grill – rare ahi tostados w/avocado salsa, oysters, grilled yellow tail on horse radish mashed potatoes – when asked, Ivor our waiter suggests White Friar Grill for our next meal
FF = (FUN-facts) – in 1759 Arthur Guinness paid a 100 pound deposit for yearly lease of 45 pounds, for 9000 years
Day 3 – Thursday, September 15 – Hop On Hop Off Bus Highlights – partly sunny, warmer, 60’s
- Dublin Castle – built on spot of first Viking fortress – very well preserved 13th century city wall and moat visible from underground portion of tour
- Old Jameson Distillery – highlights – free Jameson drink! & Chris picked to be Official Whiskey Taster and earns highly coveted personalized certificate (it really is smoother than Jack Daniel’s & Johnny Walker Black
- FUN food! White Friar Grill – bone marrow and Ox tail w/green salsa, duck shepherd’s pie, side of greens (yummy beans & peas) – our waitress suggests Ochos Tapas – FUN ladies at next table suggest La Bodega for our next meal
FF – street addresses very confusing so directions given by the closest Pub (across the street from Smyth’s Pub)
Day 4 – Friday, September 16 – Walking Tour Highlights- rainy, cool, low 60’s
- #29 – 1794 fully restored 4 story Georgian home
- National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology – includes Viking Age, Medieval period 1150 – 1550, recently found bog bodies from the Iron Age
Dublin Castle
- FUN food – picked La Bodega based on first impressions – great choice! bean salad, mushrooms in garlic butter (just like escargot) lamb stew & mussels in white wine & garlic
Myth – have heard that Irish (& UK) food is not very good
FUN-damental Truth – we have no intention of having a bad meal (we don’t consider ourselves “Foodies” but can’t fathom 4 weeks of boring food or wasting calories on something we don’t like)
WOW Word-Of-the-Week #371: Influence
September 14, 2011 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on WOW Word-Of-the-Week #371: Influence
Influence – the power or sway used by others to get us to say yes.
Are you an easy target when asked to support a cause? Do you have unwanted magazine subscriptions? Do you feel obligated to make donations, buy girl scout cookies, or help the school fundraisers, etc? Are you able to say no when called by a telemarketer? Do you have the ability to sway your customers, guests, clients or members to say yes when making a sale or recommendation?
Robert B. Cialdina, Ph.D. is the author of “INFLUENCE: The Psychology of Persuasion” and for the next seven WOW’s I am going to share ways that you can influence your customers, guests, clients or members to increase sales, as well as, how to not be swayed by someone trying to sell you something you may not want.
Dr. Cialdina writes, “Automatic stereotyped behavior is prevalent in much of human action, because in many cases it is the most 
efficient form of behaving, and in the other cases it is simply necessary. You and I exist in an extraordinarily complicated stimulus environment, easily the most rapidly moving and complex that has ever existed on this planet. To deal with it, we need shortcuts. We can’t be expected to recognize and analyze all the aspects in each person, event, and situation we encounter in even one day. We haven’t the time, energy, or capacity for it. Instead, we must very often use our stereotypes, our rules of thumb to classify things according to a few key features and then to respond mindlessly when one or another of these trigger features is present.”
“Civilization advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them. Take, for example, the ‘advance’ offered to civilization by the discount coupon, which allows consumers to assume that they will receive a reduced purchase price by presenting the coupon. We expect coupons to do double duty. Not only do we expect them to save us money, we also expect them to save us the time and mental energy required to think about how to do it.”
“It is odd that despite their current widespread use and future importance, most of us know very little about our automatic behavior patterns. Perhaps that is so precisely because of the mechanistic, unthinking manner in which they occur. Whatever the reason, it is vital that we clearly recognize one of their properties: They make us terribly vulnerable to anyone who does know how they work.”
This week’s focus is on influence. Both how you are affected and swayed by others, as well as, how you sway your customers, guests, clients or members. When asked to support a cause you really don’t want to support how do you get out of it? Have you ever been caught off guard and agreed to something and later wishing you hadn’t? Have you ever bought something (mindlessly) and then realized afterwards it wasn’t really what you wanted?
Reader Responses
“My wife gives me a hard time because I am an easy mark for solicitors of most stripes. I will ALWAYS buy Girl Scout Cookies or those canisters of caramel corn from Cub Scout Troops, because I was once a Cub Scout. And there are times when young men, usually dropped off by a van in our neighborhood, will attempt to sell large bars of candy for $5 a piece for team uniforms. If I have the money, I will buy those. One thing I won’t do anymore is purchase magazine subscriptions. I did that once and was burned. When asked if I have money for a cause or fund I am suspect of, I will show the person my empty wallet. If they persist and ask for a check, I will tell them I have two young girls I am trying to support, and they are getting all of my money. I say that I am sorry, but I can’t this time. Now, whenever I see a person on the street with a plastic cup, I will put whatever change that I have in the cup or a few dollars, because I know that is probably all that person is going to have for food that day. Most of those people live from day to day in cities all across the country. As with any other business, there will always be charlatans in soliciting. Whenever I get a hard sell from one of them, my antennae go up and I just cut the conversation short. Many car salesmen are like that. However, I am polite. I do not slam doors or get into arguments. That does not pay. But those are a few of the ways that I deal with it. Thanks, Susan. Have a wonderful weekend.” – “Warrior” Joe
WOW Word-Of-the-Week #370: Curiosity
September 7, 2011 by Susan Clarke · Comments Off on WOW Word-Of-the-Week #370: Curiosity
Curiosity – a desire to know or learn.
Do you have a desire to learn about new things? Do you think the older you get the more curious you are? Do you think that you know everything you need to know?
This week’s WOW comes from Kim with her response to my WOW#364 on wonder.
“What a great idea for a travel theme. I recently had to travel around the US for work, and they bought an RV for me to do it in so I could bring my dogs. I was on the Lewis and Clark Trail and didn’t know it. I kept seeing T shirts and magnets in the stores with Lewis and Clark on it. I then started going to every museum about them, and camping in or close to their original camps. I hiked parts of the trail that are in State Parks. I looked at the statues in the various towns, and read the inscriptions. I watched the movies, and read the books. It was amazing what they did.”
“In school, it was 2 guys in a canoe going up a river. I loved it too, to be reminded that one of the miracles of the trip was that they were saved numerous times by Sacagawea, a 16-year-old young Indian woman carrying a new born on her back the whole time, who served as guide, interpreter, food expert, diplomat, doctor (and basically made the trip successful) the whole time her French husband was getting paid. It was a pleasure to read about their adventure and to have a look into the politics of the day.”
“I had a friend tell me her travel ‘theme’ was to visit great American mansions all around the US. (The ones she has visited: Ca’ dZan: John Ringling’s Florida winter home for the circus; Moss Mansion, MT; Pittock Mansion, OR; Graceland Mansion, TN; Old Westbury Mansion, NY; Hearst Castle, CA; Biltmore Mansion, NC, Fallingwater, PA; House on the Rock, WI)
“You should take the Silk Road Marco Polo traveled! There is an interesting book about that called “The Journeyer” by Gary Jennings. A FUN adventure read for travelers. I read that one when I traveled all over Asia. Safe travels.”
This week’s focus is on curiosity. Do you have a desire to learn something new? Do you have a travel theme? Do you have a hobby or a trade someone would like to learn about?
Reader Responses
“I like to joke with people who meet us for the first time that my daughters have their mother’s brains and good looks, but their father’s stubbornness and curiosity. The fact that I am a curious person is one of the reasons I became a journalist. I wanted to know what made people tick, and wanted to go places that I would never get to go to if I were not a journalist. We are all so different and come from so many different places that there are great stories to tell. Everyone has a unique background, and that is why we are just so darned interesting. I liked the mention of Lewis & Clark. It reminded me of when I was in grade school and learned about Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet and their travels through the Illinois and Wisconsin territories along the Mississippi River. They befriended Native Americans along their route also. Their travels piqued my curiosity as a child. Since curiosity is a natural human trait, I am always amazed when I meet people who are not curious at all! Without that natural curiosity, we really don’t open our minds to worlds – and peoples – outside of ourselves. We remain ensconced in our own little worlds. Something, unfortunately, I am seeing more and more as I approach my dotage. Thanks for the word, Susan.” – “Warrior” Joe