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Published: April 23rd 2012
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Surreal is the best word I can think of to describe the past three days on the Dingle Peninsula in a beautiful home on the coast that cost one fifth of something comparable in Seaside Park. Just saying....
"Sheep to the left of us,
ocean to the right,
here we are,
stuck in the middle with ... No one"
Even the dogs are nice. Out walking, we picked up an escort (think black Lassie type) who led us down toward the mussel (not muscle) beach when we were heading in the wrong direction toward the main road. Claire put her Cesar Millan dog whisperer skills to use when a pack of Dog bullies started a rumble on the beach with our pooch. Also got stuck behind a herd of cows on the way to be milked (them, not us). I won't even get into into the memories that evoked in Jeanne reminiscent of her post partum days. Just looked painful to me.
The tour of Dingle with an awesome older hippie was a blast. Learned a lot of history and saw more natural beauty packed into such a concentrated area than I have in all
my travels - and that's saying something. And you gotta love Steve Jobs! Those I Phone cameras produced all those pics I posted on Facebook. You can't even see the screen in the sunlight but it doesn't matter. Just hold it up and press go. Can't miss in this place. We asked a lot of questions and got a lot of off the wall answers but I think they just make a lot of it up. Maybe something to do with that Blarney Stone business. But that's OK because we all just want to hear something about our heritage since we won't make it on to "who do you think you are" any time soon. Apparently there is a famous musician named Paddy Keenan who has been one of the current enigmas of traditional Irish music. His father and grandfather were traveling pipers, so that morphed into a story of the Keenans being a traveling tribe. My father used to say that "the day they stop talking about you is the day you need to start worrying" so we would have been bummed if he had said the Keenans weren't noteworthy - that would be devastating after we came all
the way here!
The seafood is crazy good! And the live music is a huge hit with the locals. Personally, I think all the songs sound the same - like bluegrass does to me - but Claire says it's because I'm not listening. I'D rather have some words to think about - even if they make you wish you didn't leave your rusty razor blades back at the house. And of course you have to drink been while you're listening. We even got Claire drinking beer. The rest of the Dylan song comes to mind here:
"I'm so scared in case I fall off my chair,
And I'm wondering how I'll get down the stairs
Clowns to the left of me..."
I have a picture of Jeanne outside O'Sullivan's live music establishment doing a jig in the hail storm while we were waiting for a car to take us back to the house. She looked like the blessed mother (or and eastern European peasant woman with a babushka) but we'll go with blessed mother as it's more in keeping with her alter ego image. Because I love her we'll keep it off facebook.
Met up with Anthony again today who drove us through the burren and to the cliffs of Moher. Talk about paving paradise and putting up a parking lot!!! We are expanding our vocabulary tremendously and have picked up even more cliches. Just what we need. Everyone swears like troopers here! Jeanne has become particularly fond of "feckin idiots" and I'm so relieved there's "no pockets in the habit" so I can keep spending money on travel. Claire has been translating basic conversational speech for us. I can't understand a word that a lot of the locals are saying. And just a final thought about the locals. Because we have no car and are in the remotest of remote areas, Anthony called our Dingle tour guide to confirm he was going to show up, Denis (our Dingle tour guide) called his friend to set us up with rides to and from the house, and he got his wife as backup when he was busy this morning. I could get used to this lifestyle if only I knew how to milk cows, play a fiddle, or wasnt afraid I'd destroy every cell in my liver. Jeanne would like it too. Every day she says she looks more and more like she had filler work done. I think it's the Guiness.
Tomorrow we're off to Connemara for some more breath taking views. I'm not sure I can take much more. It's too much!!!!
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