In what will probably be my last entry for a while

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at least until I have the time to go somewhere cool or I get so stressed and exhausted that I decide to make time. My birthday is in a few weeks, and it happens to be the day before a major assignment is due, which is the day before a weekend. So I may celebrate by running off somewhere, maybe wandering around some moors and resisting the urge to yell quotes from "The Secret Garden" .

We'll see.

An amusing thing about living in a foreign English-speaking country (I can think of at least four, probably more, readers who can relate to this) is seeing how long it takes your accent to register with new people.

Recently I went to an Occupational Health Clinic to speak to a nurse about the fact that I haven't had a BCG vaccination (translation: TB, though here they seem to use the terms interchangeably). I told her I'm a speech therapy student and she said "And may I ask why you - oh hang on..."

Because it had obviously just occured to her that I had pronounced the final 'r' in "Master's", which is not done by locals. This is probably not amusing to anyone but me. But oh well.

(For those who are still confused, British people my age have had these vaccinations, but they aren't done in the US.) Anyway.

My final day in Ireland was Easter Sunday, when people in the British Isles spend less time hunting little plastic eggs full of jelly beans and more time eating chocolate, which is a culture difference I certainly don't mind.



Also we visited some ruins. A graveyard inside a ruined abbey, which is interesting. There's a memorial to a famous Irish man, who apparently refused to sell his horse to an English man, during a period when that was a crime. He was later killed. By the English, I presume.





Something that fascinates me in old historic sites is spotting the original dividers between ground and upper floors. Because although some of these structures are huge and grandiose, the ceilings are often very low. This is especially apparent in sites like this where the ground has raised since the building was constructed.

This site is preserved and open to the public, but the castle just over the field was not. Yet judging from the gap in the stone wall and the obvious path, it seems the public goes anyway.

So we did too.





The top floor below what I assume were the watchposts on the roof. If this castle is at all similar to Blarney castle, this would have been a family room or a chapel or something. I loved how the carvings in the windows were still preserved, even though everything else is so overgrown.



Don't look down. Especially on the outside.

We were wondering what that building in the background could be. Is it equally as old or has it just been left to the elements? We weren't sure.



It occured to me later that this castle could be seen from the major road we had taken to get to Kerry, so anyone driving past could have seen us up here. I wonder if it's a regular sight?

So now I'm back. A huge thank you to the Murrays (and the Barrys) for letting me stay and being so wonderful for the week I was in the country. Ireland is beautiful ("bee-you-di-full" as Brits and/or Irish people would say, imitating my accent) and I am so glad I got to see this part of it.

And thank you, as ever, to all of you who continue to read these (and/or look at the pictures) after all this time. I would be lying if I said I didn't check my hit count obsessively, and every bit of feedback I get, be it comment, message, twitter, facebook or anything else, makes me extremely happy. I said before that doing this is almost like pretending I'm a travel writer (something I would have loved to do in an ideal world), so thank you. All. So much.

See you in a few weeks.

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Comments

[Gpa]

Were the living room roofs low to make the rooms easier to keep warmer than the out of doors? Please never stop taking pictures and writing about your travels and studies.

[Julie QW.]

I miss you Sarah. Beautiful pictures. Thank you for sharing them!