The road trip was about an hour-ish from the Cork Airport. Sean, Leanne and I caught up, which was so fun! As we got closer, we drove through a town and I yelled something like: "Holy crap! A castle! Is that a Castle?! And why is it attached to a bank?!" It was a beatiful castle, but attached to a mini-mall typo set up. Totally normal to have extremly old castles in the middle of town. Sean parked so we could look around :)
I took a shower, and the we went out to dinner. I had steak and potatoes of course. Then off to my first REAL Irish bar in Tralee. The town of Tralee was beautiful and quaint. The roads are curvy, so when you look town the street you see beautifully colored "brownstown" type buildings, all attached and all different colors. Many of the steet lights and shops had flower baskets hanging from them. The irish pub felt like a theme bar...except it was not a theme bar, it was a real Irish pub. Live music, everyone happy to be there, and people of ALL ages enjoying themselves.
I had my first REAL Guiness. It was delicious! All the foam stuck to the side, so Sean reassured me it was a good one. I had my own room in a hostel in town, and when they handed me the key, I giggled. It was like a skeleton key. You know, the ones that open treasure chests. It was hard for me to believe it was real, and could actually lock a door. I loved it, and hoped all the keys would be like that.
10/23 - woke up 29 in Ireland! I slept great, woke up ready to explore County Kerry! As Bad luck would have it, My digital camera was not working. This happened when i went to Australia in 2008 too. So I bought one there. Get to Ireland, it breaks. So I grab some throw-away ones. Sean and Leanne gave me a birthday present, a much needed and beautiful scarf!
We headed off for the Ring of Kerry, and saw the most amazing things! The route we took was Tralee, Ross Castle, Killogrin, Killarney and Killarney National Park, Kenmare, Waterville, and back up to Tralee. It remided me of the scenery from "the Lord of the Rings". One of the things they say about Kerry is you might experiance every season in one day. And we did! It would go from bright and sunny, or pouring and windy, back to sunny, and so forth. We cracked ourselves up yelling out: "SUMMER!" "WINTER!" "SPRING!" Every time it flipped. I finally get the whole leprechan, gold at the end of the rainbow thing. Driving around for one day, I saw about 20 different rainbows. :) Total magic. The best part of exploring was The Gap of Dunloe. Its this teenie windy hilly road, that will only fit one car, that cut through what looked like a fairy tale! (It's closed in the summer to cars, we were super lucky it was autum and we could check it out. When a we met a car, someone had to reverse far enough to let the other pass. Sean is the best driver, ever.) Sheep on the hill sides (All spray painted a differnt color depending on the farmer), Stone bridges, rushing rivers, Colorful little story book irish houses tucked into the hillsides...it was amazing.
On our way back to Tralee, I made Sean and Leanne stop at this funny little tourist attraction, a Bog Village. It was thached roof village showing how they used to live way back in the day. It was funny, and totally worth the 5 Euro. Parts of the Ring Of Kerry passed though towns which only spoke Irish. So we'd see the sign "GHAELTACHT" which told us it was an irish only town. I found that really neat.
On 10/24 we left Tralee at 6am to head back to Dublin. We were all very sleepy, not because of the 6am call time, but because Tralee was rowdy last night...it was a bank holiday weekend, so everyone had a big one. (not us, we went to bed early, but that didn't matter b/c we all got kept all night by the fun-havers.) When we got to Sean's house, his family welcomed me into their home, where his dad, James was cooking dinner. A bunch of Sean's uncles and Aunts lived on the street too, so they came over, had tea and breakfast and chatted and laughed. When they spoke to me, I had no problem understanding them. But trying to overhear their words to eachother was like listening to another language. The breakfast was so yummy! Irish sausage, bacon (called hashers i think?) Toast and the most perfectly cooked fried egg, ever. Sean and Leanne had to run, so Sean's dad and mom were nice enough to take me to the Bus station to catch a ride to Belfast. Sean's dad took me on a diving tour of Dublin, complete with history lessons at every turn. I wish I could have hung out with them more! The warmest, most welcoming and friendly family ever. I was sad to leave Dublin, it looked liked such a neat place, and I wished I could spend time there.
I was dropped off at the Bus station, bought my ticket to Belfast, got on the bus, and ...quiet possibly slept though most of the 2.5hour ride to Belfast. I didn't know where the bus was going to drop me off, but I had an address to my next hostel, and figured that'd be enough.
