I'm not entirely sure if it was purely because all of Ireland was in Christmas cheer, but the Irish have to have been the nicest group of people I have ever met while traveling Europe. Germans are... well... Germans, and Finns and Norwegians tend to keep to themselves, but the Irish always seemed happy to make your acquaintance, whether you were attending their pub, grabbing some ice cream, or if you looked any bit lost while wandering the streets. Yes, when my family and I were looking for a place to eat and stopped for just a second, a person came up to us and asked if we were lost nearly immediately. Once we told him we were just looking for a place to eat, he spent the next five minutes telling us the best places to get various meals. Upon bidding him farewell, he said "Not a problem," and carried on as though he went through the act of assisting tourists daily.
Waiters and waitresses too, often spent the time to make a bit of conversation. Like I mentioned briefly in my Religion section of this blog, the Irish seemed to enjoy having tourists visiting their country. And going during Christmas, when almost all tourists were spending their time in the warmth of their home gave us plenty of opportunity to really talk with all of our tour guides, sales clerks, or what have you. In fact, we spent almost an hour on a tour that was supposed to last 30 minutes merely talking with the tour guide about the Dunbrody, a famous example of the ships used by the Irish's mass exodus during the potato famine. Us four were his only visitors all day, and he spent some extra time telling us anecdotes about the ship and her famous Captain John Baldwin. Overall, the pleasure of saying merely a few sentences to a complete stranger was something I never passed up during our visit there.
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