When you blink your eyes...

Ireland has been quite enjoyable so far. I landed in Shannon on Thursday 5am Ireland time on a redeye flight from JFK. I took a quick nap then we drove around the town Justin had stayed in the previous night called Ennis. I had my first Guiness and we asked the bartender advice on where to go in southern Ireland.

He advised us to not take the route through Limerick and take the ferry across the bay. We decided on a destination of Dingle as this was agreed upon by all 3 locals in the bar as the place to go. They also recommended we go to Kinsale instead of Cork for the next night. Its not mandatory to tip a bartender unless the service is exceptionally good, so more often than not we were told not to feel obligated to tip anything. I gave 1EU tip to the bartender in Ennis who drew a map for us of how to get to Dingle and Kinsale and he seemed very appreciative.

We stopped in Tralee and I had a couple more Guiness’s at a pub there. We noticed more older men just sitting around watching horse racing or sports.

The drive to Dingle was beautiful and hard to describe in words alone. The ferry was 18EU and definitely worth it if not for the convenience just the experience of riding across the bay. They said it is not uncommon to see dolphins swimming but we didn’t see any that day. However, the wind and spray in the crisp air was quite refreshing. We made the winding drive through the hills along the ocean to Dingle. The views were breathtaking and it rained off and on most of the time. I got some decent photos I think, however, I felt better about the results of the next day much better.

There was a particular spot we drove through in the mountains that was especially breathtaking, it was raining lightly and extremely windy. I got out to take some photos and felt like I was going to fall over several times, trudged up the hill to see if I could get a better view and place to take a leak where the wind wouldn’t blow it back on me, I fortunately succeeded on both accounts.

Dingle was a pretty little town, seemed quite touristy though. We were told there were 52 licensed pubs there which seemed like a huge amount for such a small town. We asked a waitress which pubs to go to and she wrote down a list of 3 places. One was a hardware store / bar that turned out to be good, another was a “jazz” bar that had mainly American speaking folks in it with not-so-great wine, another was a larger place that we went back to at the end of the night. I ended up with about 8 Guiness or so by the end of the night, didn’t go to crazy which my body thanked me for the next day. Had several interesting conversations with old Irish fellows.

Got around and had breakfast at the B&B we were staying at in Dingle which was quite nice for 35EU. I wanted to do the 30km drive around the peninsula which we were told was worth taking. This is were I started to feel better about the wide angle photos I was taking, started to get more of a rhythmn and had Justin stop frequently as I saw something that caught my eye. Curious to see how they turn out.

The drive to Kinsale turned out to be just a few hours drive and I like it even more than Dingle so far. The sunny weather here is also coloring my impression possibly, a lovely day on the southern coast of Ireland. When driving outside of Kinsale we noticed a small castle/tower which turned out to be a graveyard up on a hill above the bay. We stopped in and walked around and I took some more photos here, some of which I liked quite a bit.

We have a room at B&B in Kinsale which is in a good location within walking distance of downtown and the water. Thinking of staying here another night and just driving to Dublin early on Sunday. They are shutting down the internet cafe here so I have to finish this off for now, will write more later.