http://www.littlehavenonline.com/

I was thumbing through an old journal when I realized something: I'm supposed to tell everyone to stay at Una's Little Haven, in Dundalk, Ireland. No questions asked.

If you care to know, here's why:

It's 2005, and I'm about to land in Ireland. Up to this point, I have never left the United States. I've probably wouldn't have left the midwest, were it not for my brothers' duty stations.

We land in Dublin. Thankfully, we thought ahead and booked a "comfortable" place to stay before jumping headfirst into European backpacking. We've elected to start off in an English-speaking country, tormenting as it may be.

The bus ride north to Dundalk is real smooth--pricey, but smooth. I haven't been out of the country once in my life, so smoothness is a commodity I'm willing to pay good money for.

Once in Dundalk, we get a true dose of Irish hospitality--the first of multitudes. Turns out, we've lost the sheet of paper that tells us where Una's is physically located. We somehow determined that it was off of some street and foolishly hoped for a grid structure--no such thing exists in Ireland, much less in Dundalk. After wandering around aimlessly, we finally find as a nice old lady, who is pushing a stroller, how to get to this street. She immediately does an about face and offers to lead us there.

We find the street, but its not that simple. We were hoping that Una's would be a big, obvious B&B in the middle of town. It's not. What we find, instead, is a Subway sandwich shop. The man working behind the counter looked like an english professor. We ask if he can look up the number to Una's little haven, which he not only does but also dials the number and corresponds for us.

"I've got a couple of people here, says they're looking for your place" (I'm not even going to ATTEMPT to pheonetically write an irish accent, especially almost 3 years after the fact).

Following a brief and difficult to understand conversation he hangs up. "She'll be here in a bit."

No shit, she picks us up and drives us to her place. But it doesn't end there.

We spend a few days recovering from jet lag and soaking up a little bit of Irish culture. We have cash, albeit very little. On checkout day, we're ready to face any adventure.

"I don't take card, dear" Una tells us...a problem, as we're not carrying the €110 or so in cash.

"Uh, can you take us into town to find an ATM?" No shit, she happily drives us into town.

As we're driving she begins to enlighten us to the history of Dundalk. County Louth sits right on the border of Northern Ireland and she regales us with tales of how blown out of proportion the whole conflict was. She then regales us with horror stories.

"Some friends of mine used to go play bingo in a town up north. They've have these checkpoints and everyone would warn you to not let your car out of your sight, because they might plant something to get you caught at the next checkpoint down the road"

In the end, she put it all into perspective. "Some fellas came through here and tossed a firebomb in downtown Dundalk," she says, point at a building, "all the American media was here, and suddenly people are saying 'don't go to Dundalk, don't go to Dundalk' as if we were some hotbed of violence." You have to be looking at Dundalk to see the irony in that statement--I've never seen a town more deserving of the titles "sleepy" and "quaint". She finishes, "But its like back when we used to watch Oprah--we all thought every American had ten kids apiece and multiple mistresses"

I guess what she was trying to say is, media lies. But I digress.

So we're at the bank, facing the moment of truth. Our ATM cards didn't work at the airport, and they don't work here either. No bother--at the Airport we were able to receive credit advances.

"We don't do credit advances" we're told by every (3) bank in Dundalk. The whole while, Una has been driving us around. What will we tell Una? What do we do?

"Don't you worry about it," Una says to our complete and utter shock, "You can just pay me when you get your money."

She even asked us if we had enough cash, ready to loan us some if necessary. It was like having a spare "mom" in unfamiliar territory.

Needless to say, we paid our debt to Una (from Germany...but that's another novels worth of stories). At the time, I had written in my journal that I would pay the interest on this "loan" by letting people know what a great human being she was, and directing them to her Haven.

I took a quote from the back of a sugar packet and transcribed it into my journal: "A good word never broke anyone's teeth".