hello loved ones,
i'm back from the southern europe part of my trip. before i get into it though, dad thought it would be a good idea to at least give you a run through of my irish trips before i get on to the most recent stuff
so, february 20th... i went to kerry. it's beautiful countryside and it was a lot less stressful for me because it was a school planned trip, i signed up and paid before the trip started and the rooms and meals were covered by that. they took us around by bus and showed us all the gorgeous scenery.
the food was fantastic too! our tour guide was a woman named marion, she's a teacher at ucc and her family owns the hotel we stayed at in kerry, so we basically had the run of everything. she and out bus driver, tommy, had a VERY funny dynamic. anytime marion wasn't sure of a fact she was giving us, she would say, "isn't that right tommy?" and he would correct her. for example:
"there are not so many people working at this building now, maybe less than ten, isn't that right tommy?" -marion
"no, no, no, it's definitely more than ten" -tommy
he also drove us onto a lot of roads that definitely were not supposed to be driven on... at one point it looked like we were barely squeezing by and as i looked out the window a street sign that said "strictly no buses" passed by my face... evidently these rules don't apply to tommy and his bus. those weren't the only rules broken, we definitely found ourselves in places like daniel o'connells house, that were not open during the winter time-- for everyone but marion.
it was a short trip but a lot of fun, we did a ceidli dance and went to bed exhausted the first night but i felt like i was in the scene from titanic when jack and rose go below deck to the real party with the irish passengers.
the next weekend, i didn't really have anything planned but i hated the thought of wasting the weekend so i joined a few friends who were going to kinsale. it's a beach town near cork. it would definitely have been busier in the summer, but it was really cute. it had a very small town feel to it, in the way that it was quaint and everyone knew each other.
we went to charles fort, which is one of the best examples of a star fort in europe... its basically a fort shaped like a 5 pointed star. inside, i almost broke my leg when i tried to hop up on a little wall, and tripped... of course
back in town we stoppd at a pub for lunch and ended up watching the england vs. ireland rugby match... it was SO much fun to watch it in that environment, where obviously most of the town comes to the same place to watch the important sports matches.
the following weekend, i went to galway. i really liked it in galway. it had a small town feel for ireland's 3rd biggest city. my hostel was right in the middle of the action. it's beautiful there and there was a lot to do, the city has a great night life.
we went to the cliffs of moher there but it was SO incredibly windy and foggy. i could only see the cliffs if i looked down to the water, and i had to fight my way up the stairs because the wind was so strong. it was fun though because the wind made being on the cliffs exciting.
we met and irish coast guard man and he liked my hot pink wellies. he was exactly what you think of when you think of and irishman of the sea, big raincoat, rain boots , knit cap and big scruffy beard.
well, its 2am technically on easter so i'm going to bed. i'll write more either tomorrow or the next day... in the words of my mother, TTFN
