Thursday, April 14, 2011

Ireland, Part 1

We’re home from our trip to Ireland, safe and sound. Wow, am I wiped out though. Time changes will do that to you. That and a terrible cold. Thank you recycled air.


I’m a little overwhelmed from this trip and honestly, not quite sure how to begin to describe the beauty of this little island country. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that the landscape seemed to get greener as the week went on. Everyone laughed at me when I took a drink of water out of the tap and yelled, “The water even tastes green!”

So, yes, our flight(s) out there went off without a hitch. Our plane had screens built into the seats and they had a pretty decent selection of new release movies to watch. I watched Black Swan then took a couple of Benadryl and fell asleep. We landed at 7am and once we got our luggage, hopped on a shuttle over to the rental car place.

Have you ever been in a car that has the steering wheel on the passenger side? And then driven that car on the “wrong” side of the road? Through 7 or 10 “roundabouts,” trying to make your way out of the airport? At 7am, after hours of travel and Benadryl? Oh no, you haven’t?

I felt like we were in National Lampoon’s European Vacation, trying to get out of the roundabout. After the nice woman on the GPS said for the 5th time, “Enter Roundabout,” I had a fit of the giggles and couldn’t stop. Slap happy.



You don't realize how much driving is kind of an "automatic" thing until everything you ever thought about it was wrong.

We found the place where we were going to be staying but unfortunately couldn’t check in until 2 pm, so we went and had breakfast. Nothing special, just food in our bellies. Next we found a grocery store where Country and I proceeded to get into an argument over a pineapple. Don’t ask—I’m not even sure why we were fighting over a pineapple, but at that point everyone was tired and crabby and we just wanted to get unpacked and relax. I actually slept in the car for a couple of hours while it was parked right in front of a busy hotel and I was just too darn tired to even move the car. Finally, 2 o’clock came and we checked in.


We stayed in a 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom townhouse.


The place was a decent size and it had a washing machine and a small fridge. We unpacked our groceries and then everyone tried to take a nap; some of us had better luck than others.

For dinner that night, we walked over to a local pub called Durty Nelly’s. We had fish and chips and it was fabulous. Something about their batter is different than here---it’s light and flaky and not so heavily breaded.  Now here's we need to talk about beer for a second.  You see, I am not a beer drinker.  Never have been and probably never will be (unless I move to Ireland.)  Before we left, several people told me that I must try the Guinness while there.  Yeah, okay, whatever.  But just for fun, I had a Guinness here in the states before we left so that I had a reference point.  It was just okay to me.  But WOW!  Guinness in Ireland is a whole 'nother story!  It is delicious!  Don't believe me?



The next day we got a late start (there is a 5 hour time difference) and jumped in the car. We headed to a tourist spot called the Cliffs of Moher. 











Beautiful, right?  Afterwards, we went to a town called Ennis and had some lunch (and also the best red berries tea I have ever had in my life.)

Wednesday we slept late again (well, considering the time difference, we actually woke early) and got out of the house at about 11 am.  Before we left for Ireland, I had purchased a book called The Backroads of Ireland or something like that.  We knew we wanted to head towards the coast and in the book there was a picture of an old stone mill on the way to Killinabaoy that we thought looked pretty cool.  Country drove us over there and when we got there, we realized that attached to the mill there was a house where someone obviously lived.  Oh, and a Private Property sign.  We were bummed out. . . .until Country talked to worker on a neighbor's roof that said the man who owned the mill was nice and we should go knock on the door.  And that he had a really, really big dog.








We ended up chatting with the owner, Dick, for a couple of hours and had coffee, tea and bisucts with him in the house!  To say he was a pleasure meeting would be a complete understatement.

More to come. . . .

2 comments:

  1. wow what a beautiful place!!! did you go to the kissing rock? i cant remember the name of it but i have seen pics of it online.

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  2. Hey Amelia, no we didn't go to Blarney Stone. We were on the west coast of Ireland and it takes forever to drive anywhere because so many of the roads are tiny. Maybe next time! LOL

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