Blogs from County Kerry, Ireland, Europe - page 36

I set the alarm for 9am this morning and then turned it off when I woke up tired. I did get out of bed around 10:30am so that’s a pretty good start for the day. I could hear the water running for forever this morning and then when I go to climb in the shower, no stinking hot water! So if you ever wonder, you now know why I am wearing a hat in my pictures today. I’ll have to get up super early in the morning in order to get a shower. Two days in a row is a No Go. I think we actually made it out of the house well before noon today, probably since Robert and I didn’t have to take a time-consuming shower. We took the bubble car today with Matt ... read more

After not going to bed until early this morning, our day didn’t turn out as great as I had hoped. I’ve been hearing all about the Ring of Kerry and the breathtaking views along the route. The house we are staying in is only 8 km away from the Ring. We headed south on the highways since we have already been into Killarney several times and we planned to just finish up there and hit the internet café. Nothing quite went as planned though. Robert was the designated driver today so we were all in our rental car. My only expectations were to see the “awesome land and sea views” along the Ring. Our driver was trying to go the speed limit (100km/hr) along these narrow little roads with very few turnouts so it was hard ... read more

Wow, what an adventure it has become to get us to our final destination. I was barely able to get any sleep on the long leg of our journey over the Atlantic Ocean and what ever waters we crossed. My geography needs to be brushed up on. We landed in Shannon around 11:30am local time (3:30am PDT). Passing through immigrations was quite easy and I now have another stamp in my passport, yippie!! After grabbing our luggage, and Robert realizing that his suitcases had been damaged in transit, we headed over to the Hertz counter to claim our right hand sided vehicle. They denied my credit card even though I paid it off before we left so I had to use Kara’s card (so sorry darling, but I’ll pay it off when we get back). The ... read more

Just to clarify, we are in the Republic of Ireland (in the south) and not Ireland (the north). To get you more familiar with the country we are exploring, here are some of its claims to fame: U2 (Bloody Sunday has new meaning) Gaelic Language Tristan and Isolde movie Guinness Far and Away movie Celtic crosses (a mix between the early Christian missionaries crosses and the native Celtic circles) Potatoes (and the multiple devastating potato famines) St. Patrick (the superstar missionary credited with converting all of Ireland) 3 leaf clovers-used by St Patrick to explain the Holy Trinity Johnathan "Babyeater" Swift who wrote the satire "A Modest Proposal" Oscar Wilde The Book of Kells (illuminated biblical manuscript made painstakingly by the early monks) The Cranberries (not the edible fruit; the band) ... read more

This post is about Dingle, but I'm going to write about Killarney a little bit since I did spend a night there. I'd heard good things about Killarney, and bad things as well. Most of the bad centered around how over touristed Killarney was, and unfortunately it's totally true. I got to the Railway Hostel, which, unsurprisingly, was located across the street from the rail/bus station. The hostel turned out to be really nice, and I almost had a 6 bed room to myself, but a couple people arrived around 9. The town, however, sucked. It was total tourist hell, and I hated it. This is the first place I've come across where I just wanted to leave. The town was absolutely filled with older American tourists browsing the souvenier shops that were in almost every ... read more