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Central America, Countries, Deals, Flying

Now we Cancun fly Aer Lingus from Dublin

21st May 202521st May 2025 funtime65

I’ve done the Guadalaharry ole, hung with The Three Caballeros and sung Mariachi so I reckon I’m Mex-ready now we Cancun fly Aer Lingus from Dublin.

Guadalaharry’s was my first introduction to American working life.

If you discount being pressganged into moving dumpsters at the back of my aunt’s business The Irish Cottage in Queens.

A Mexican restaurant in Quincy Market in Boston back in the Eighties, I was employed as a bus boy .

And I was rewarded with a pittance and a cut of the waiters and waitresses’ tips.

And as well as clearing up the dishes and washing them I had to join the staff in celebrating customers’ birthdays.

Which involved Mariachi music and a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday ole, Happy Birthday ole, Happy Birthday from Harry’s, Happy Birthday oleeeeeeee.

Mariachi Murty

Not surprisingly the mariachi band who entertained us in Orlando years later hit their notes rather better.

And Donald Duck and the Three Caballeros at Epcot, well they have had years of practice.

While when it comes to Tex-Mex, well the San Antonians on the River Walk bandstand no doubt learned it at their mother’s knee.

And their love of Cerveza at their father’s.

A new Mexican wave

Because after all the Lone Star state of Texas is infused with Mexican heritage.

Where the lines have been blurred over the centuries and the best compromise of all is the sobriquet Tex-Mex.

Less well known probably is that Scots and Irish, my mixed bloods, enmeshed themselves in the rows between neighbours down in this part of the world.

With a bagpiper heralding the Battle of the Alamo and Irish emigrees too fighting to the death.

Today’s Scots and Irish head to Tex-Mex territory and the motherland for Tequila and Tacos and sun, sea, sand and sangria.

But up until today’s Aer Lingus announcement of direct routes from Dublin to Cancun that has involved circuitous stop-offs.

Ireland’s national carrier will operate three times weekly on the airline’s A330-300 aircraft, operating from 6 January to 29 April.

Cancun cookin’

Of course, if you want to wander from the Caribbean beaches, the region is also home to awe-inspiring archaeological sites.

Such as El Rey, Ichkabal, Coba, Kohunlich, El Meco, Chichén Itzá, and Tulum.

All of which offer a fascinating glimpse into Mexico’s rich heritage.

And because we got a taste for the enchilada back then in Guadalaharry’s we’re keen to tuck into the local fare.

And Cancun offers a wide choice from the smoky, charred richness of grilled meats to the region’s iconic zesty ceviche.

From Lobster Pizza, Queso De Bola,crispy sweet Marquesitas or freshly made Guacamole.

Friends across the water

And all this as Ireland and Mexico mark the 50th anniversary.

Of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

So it’s Areeba, Areeba from us and now we Cancun fly Aer Lingus from Dublin we know what we’ll be doing in 2026.

Particularly with flights to Cancun available from €291 each way, including taxes, fees and carrier charges.

America, Countries, Ireland

Trump letting the rivers run green on St Paddy’s Day

17th March 202517th March 2025 funtime65

It is, of course, the day when the Irish take over, with even Donald Trump letting the rivers run green on St Paddy’s Day.

Whisper it but The Donald has kept the tradition, started by Michelle Obama, alive of dyeing the fountain on the White House North Lawn an emerald hue.

But hey, the 45th and 47th President considers himself a great friend of the Irish.

Particularly the Irish-Americans who he namechecked in meeting Taoiseach Micheal Martin for voting him into the White House.

Of course, The Donald may believe green is also a good way of ‘draining the swamp’ in Washington.

It was too a very practical solution to a drain problem that inadvertently gave rise to the greening the water tradition.

Green and White House: Fountain is green

Now synonymous with St Paddy’s Day in America.

And which Chicagoan Michelle was only too glad to adapt to her new Washington surroundings when she and Barack lived in the White House.

The Limey City

Chicago for green: A staple of the calendar

Nor would The Donald want it to be mentioned that it was a Democrat who got the whole thing flowing.

When in 1961 Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley used a special green dye to clean up the river which had become a dumping ground.

Or more specifically Daley’s pal Stephen Bailey, also the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade chairman.

Whether Daley and Bailey had heard that Savannah, Georgia, had tried to counter their problem by greening up, Chicago has dined out on their dye job ever since.

And other emerald cities

Now where Chicago led others followed.

With San Antonio‘s businessmen dyeing the River City Walk, an unmatched oasis in a city.

And they keep their river green a whole three days rather than Chicago’s half a dozen hours, around the same length of time Tampa Bay, Florida colours their water.

Randomly Indianapolis and Charlotte, North Carolina both get into the greening around St Paddy’s.

And so while Indianapolis colours their canal green over their four days of partying.

Charlotte goes one step further with participants in their 5k run dousing themselves in green.

All of which points to it being green for go for the Irish in America.

Particularly with Donald Trump letting the rivers run green on St Paddy’s Day.

America, Countries

Lincoln’s whiskers a real chin scratcher

15th October 202315th October 2023 funtime65

And it’s the type of quandary that keeps folks up at night… Lincoln’s whiskers a real chin scratcher.

Why, we ask, would a prospective US President fur up his chin and leave the rest of his face shaven?

We know the answer, of course, being the wise counsel of an 11-year-old girl.

Grace Bedell, for it was she, sent a letter to Abe (well, this was pre-Twitter (0r X) and Love Island was some way off too) advising him to whisker up.

Although she put it rather more lyrically than that… they were taught better then too it seems.

Dear Mr President

Seat of power: With Abe in Washington DC

Grace wrote: ‘If you will let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you, you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin.

‘All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husband’s to vote for you and then you would be President.’

Abey days are here again: The Westfield Lincoln festival

Now politics being as much about profile then as it is now Lincoln answered the Westfield, New York State girl.

‘As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin it now?’

Hair what do you think: Cartoonists had their fun

His male ego flattered, Lincoln, though, acted upon Grace’s advice and grew out the whiskers.

Not a beard you understand but whiskers as was then defined by facial hair holding up the chin.

Briscoe bust

Taking it on the chin: Abe’s bust in the Briscoe

All of which came to our attention at the Briscoe Western Art Museum by the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas.

Where among its many artefacts it houses a bust of a clean-shaven Lincoln with the letter underneath.

And not any old bust but one sculpted by Gutzon Borglum, the principle sculptor behind the presidential faces on Mount Rushmore.

It was a thing of sophistication then and without the Amish overtones it has now.

While rough beards were considered rough, agricultural and radical and more akin to a John Brown.

As in the revolutionary who led the raid on Harper’s Ferry which was the trigger for the American Civil War.

A battle of beardies

America’s bloodiest war was for those of who have studied it and followed Ken Burns’s leading documentary series a conflict of hirsute hombres.

As worrying too is that we are not the only ones to make this link with the Smithsonian mag helping us identify the most luscious commanders in the field.

Major General Alpheus Williams may have been largely forgotten other than by Civil War enthusiasts.

But for his moustache with wings.

He was heavily engaged in the Battle of Antietam, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg and joined General Sherman in his March to the Sea.

The Land of Cotton (Wool)

Nor was the love of a bushy beard just a battle hymn of the Republic.

Because the South wasn’t called the Land of Cotton (Wool) for nothing.

Major General JEB Brown was there at Harper’s Ferry to grab John Brown.

And he was there too during the Peninsular Campaign and Gettysburg.

Before he curled up his toes and his beard and died at the Battle of Yellow Tavern.

The long and short of it

Upside down: Schofield is bald on top, beard below

When it comes to length (and we’re sure Freud would have something to say about all of this) then Lt. General John McAllister Schofield is the hair apparent.

Schofield crippled the Confederate Army at the Battles of Franklin and Nashville and joined General Sherman’s army in North Carolina.

Before serving in the Andrew Johnson administration as Secretary of War.

As a postscript to this all, of course Ulysses Grant and Robert Lee both had conservative beards.

And Confederate leader Jefferson Davis’s face was as smooth as a baby’s behind, although much good it did him.

So that’s one of life’s great mysteries cleared up..,

Lincoln’s whiskers a real chin scratcher.