We were headed for Kinsale. We were very close, only 20 or so miles away … we knew our way to Cork, and after that, all we knew was – we needed to head almost directly south. And there would be Kinsale.
In our dreams.
I was Driver at this point, and Allison was Navigator. It was dark now. It was about 6:00 pm … and I had promised Jimmy at the B&B in Kinsale that we would be there by 7, because he had to leave at 7. Cork, obviously, is a city, and I find that driving in the city is far more stressful than a long inter-county roadway, even with all the roundabouts. So we pretty much promptly got lost. We didn’t know where we were, or how to get where we were going, etc. I also had to pee. So I did a blasted RIGHT HAND TURN and we pulled into a gas station.
Allison asked a young guy pumping gas for directions. (One thing: I found, in my experience over there, that the Irish are incapable of giving bad directions. We got absolutely awesome directions from no matter who we asked … but this particular time was parTICularly good …)
So the young guy started telling Allison where she needed to go to get to Kinsale, and then almost immediately stopped himself. “My mother’s inside – we should wait for her to come out. She’s great at directions.”
Boy, was she ever.
Allison and I LOVED these people.
This mother was so unbelievably generous with us, she gave us sterling directions … I mean, we didn’t realize how sterling they were until we were on the road again, and at every single point when we COULD have got confused, then there would come the landmark she had told us about, or whatever.
“Wait – where are we?”
“Oh … there’s the river and the trees … she told us we’d see that when we came round the bend … this is the right way …”
She drew us an awesome map. Her son hung around with us, too, validating his mother. “Yeah, that’s right … then you go through the Tunnel … right …” She was the FIRST person on our journey to tell us about the Americans crashing into the Minister of Parliament. Ha ha ha ha
We stood by the gas pumps, as she drew her map, all of us chatting up a storm – how we found it driving on the other side of the road, where we had been, what our plans were … We also chatted quite a bit about what she called “the hairy roundabout” – She gave us profuse warnings about “the hairy roundabout”, which we needed to go through to get to Kinsale. It was south of Cork, and apparently a gazillion cars have crashed there, and she made it sound like shrieking hellatious chaos. We had to get ourselves into a certain lane, otherwise we would get stuck in the roundabout forever, etc ….
And goldurnit, we followed her instructions to the letter, and lo and behold, we were in Kinsale at 7:01. With poor Jimmy waiting for us at the door. Not too shabby!
As we stood around the car, and she walked us through the directions, another car drove up. She glanced up and waved. Informed us, “That’s my husband.” Then another car pulled up to one of the other pumps, she waved to the driver of THAT car, and informed us, “If I weren’t married to my husband, I’d be married to him.”
And one by one, all of these various people – her husband, and the guy she’d be married to if she wasn’t married to her husband, joined our little coterie and looked at the map, and gave us suggestions … We were a small party by Gas Pump # 2.
Our ring-leader woman would introduce us to every new arrival: “These 2 American girls are trying to get to Kinsale …”
Every new arrival informed us of the “Americans crashing into the Minister of Parliament”. And every new arrival put the fear of God into us about “the hairy roundabout”.
More suggestions came in, adding, clarifying, until we had the most specific set of directions EVER GIVEN for a mere 20 mile drive. She even gave us emotional directions for “the hairy roundabout”:
“Just stay calm … stay calm … get yourselves in the right lane, and stay calm …”
Allison and I drove off waving hail and farewell to all of our new-found friends. At the gas station in Cork.
God, that reminds me of how great it was driving to Armagh with my aunt Mary in the car. I had no idea where I was going or what roads to take or anything, but it didn’t matter AT ALL, because she was the best navigator in the world. She would let me know exactly when we had to change lanes, exactly where to get off the road, but exactly. As soon as I had a question about what to do, she would tell me as if answering my silent thought. Similar to your emotional hairy roundabout thing – she told me precisely how to go through every roundabout, which lane I should be in, &c.
It was strangely RESTFUL.
I think there’s all of one roundabout in the entire state of Minnesota. It’s in a suburb of Minneapolis. A “hairy roundabout”….heh, that would certainly be a tragedy here. Having rented cars in unfamiliar cities many times, I completely understand the “emotional directions” thing.
As travel stories go, this is just one of the coolest I’ve read …ever… about such a really mundane thing too .
True seekers of adventure can have fun at anything, or at least make it sound like it was fun.
it was like a scene in one of those endlessly entertaining twee quirky comedies of the only-in-the-British-isles stripe …. Waking Ned Devine, say; or Local Hero. Or Cold Comfort Farm.
I can see a younger Brenda Blethyn playing yourself.
Sheila, honestly, you should be an essayist for This American Life. Or a screenwriter.
You go, girl. Stories like this are gold (whether they actually turn a coin or not, if you know what I’m saying)
… and the gift for the telling (well, you ARE somewhat more Irish) I can only aspire to.
I knew there was a deeper reason I always say I’d be happier pumping gas than working at a newspaper.
Last year I spent a week and a half on holiday in Ireland after the wedding of two friends, which was held in Kildare. I was there with my girlfriend, who is Irish. (I’m English.) One day we drove through Cork to Kildare, probably following the route that you took. Despite the fact that my girlfriend was born in Cork, grew up and learned to drive there, the roads were so confusing and poorly signposted that we got lost several times, and she got more and more stressed as the drive went on. Happily we had plenty of time to get to our B&B, and spent a lovely evening eating fish and drinking Guinness when we arrived.
“The hairy roundabout” is famous. I was warned about it on several occasions before we started the journey, and I must say it lived up to its reputation.
The hairy roundabout is famous!! Weirdly – when we drove through it at night, we didn’t really get why the warnings had been so dire. But when we drove out of Kinsale a couple days later … I saw the absolute chaos. It is one of the most insane things I have ever seen. I was literally in a SWEAT as I made my way through it.
Sheesh!!
Dano –
Now aren’t you so kind. Thank you, thank you. I’ve sent my stuff to American Life, believe it or not. No luck yet. But yes … I do think there would be a place for me there, if I do say so myself.
Moments like those are, actually, my favorite moments of traveling. I mean, seeing monasteries and cliffs and stuff are all well and good, but how often do you hang out around a gas pump and shoot the shit with total strangers?
Dave E.:
Too funny, right? “Emotional directions” – I found that when driving, I would have sudden panic moments: “Holy shit, pay attention, are you on the correct side of the road? Don’t zone out … stay alert, stay calm!!”
Allison, as she got behind the wheel after we got the directions, said, “I don’t know if I’m happy or bummed that she warned us about the hairy roundabout.”
We approached it with fear and loathing.
But we made it through.