Each day seems to find me more and more enamored with this country. Kerry was stunning; it was everything you would expect Ireland to be. So many sheep, beautiful greenliness everywhere, stone walls and huts and cliffs jetting out into the ocean. However, because it actually never rains here (one unmet expectancy), I am tomato red after exploring one of the Blasket Islands, a land where no trees exist, for nearly 2 hours! It was amazing though, but I’m paying for it now. And man is it hard to find sunblock here! Apparently it must actually, usually rain but it’s being abnormal right now…cause seriously, who doesn’t have sunblock?!
Anyways, so a little bit more about our wonderful trip! We took two trains and a bus to get where we were going day 1. Of course, the train ahead of us derailed on the first leg of the trip, so we were delayed by an an hour and a half! When we finally did get to Kerry, we went to a giant, lovely park, where we caught boat rides to Ross Castle, originally made in the 14th century! Apparently the king and all his “castle people” seemed to have a terrible life. They had to sleep upright because they all had bad respiratory systems from all the fumes and unhealthy living styles back in the day. And all the king’s court, or whatever they’re called had to sleep in the same room as the king and his wife. Talk about lack of privacy…eew. Not to mention the bathroom, or rather, “poop chute” where 3 people could go at a time. No thank you!
After the castle excursion, we drove out to Dingle, a quaint town with various vibrantly painted shops and pubs. The food that night was so good! We went to a bunch of cute little pubs that night, my favorite of which was sort of cave like, with low ceilings and a maze-like feel to it. So many people though. We happened upon a large crowd of people in there that were chanting and shouting while watching a man who was likely the pool shark of Dingle. It was quite the rage!
The following day was my favorite for sure though! We drove out to Dingle Peninsula where we stopped to see lots of different little views and sites. There were the beehive huts which were quite cute, a crucifixion scene, the beach(more beautiful than Hawaii!), a little Blasket Island tour/museum place, and Blasket Island itself! It was such a nice weekend, and as I said earlier, I burned to a crisp! We ended up climbing up half the island or more, to see all the old ruins of houses that were left behind after the island was evacuated nearly 80 years ago. I love the way the people talk here by the way; as we were hiking up the side of the island one of our IES Program leaders was like “Man, you get a feckin’ work out in this place!” Haha, great role model, yes? 🙂 Anyways, there were just random sheep and donkeys everywhere and so many dogs, at least one for every stop! While on the island we saw a one-legged seagull, a seal and perhaps a porpoise or something as well! I love Dingle, such a great little place. It’s also so much easier to find live traditional Irish music there! Good craic. Anywhoo, pictures still won’t work but are going to be on facebook, so check em out!
Lastly, today I was back to the grind at my internship. And got a half day, I was out by 1 o’clock, pure awesomeness. So the 5 of us interns grabbed lunch and went grocery shopping. I ran lots of errands today finally and ended up walking probably a total of 3 hours! I am exhausted and thus am going to sleep soon. Hope you enjoyed reading! 🙂