Ireland - Take Three

September 20, 2010 – Day Three

Good morning from Kinvara. Well more like afternoon. We all slept so great last night, in fact Carrie's still asleep and it's 12:30 in the afternoon! We were in need of some rest.

We left Dublin at 4:15 yesterday (about 45 minutes after the kickoff of a huge Gaelic football game). The drive out of the city was stressful even after we waited until 90% of the city was at the game. Trying to drive on the other side of the road in a big city is very confusing. On our way out of Dublin, we bumped mirrors with a French woman (nicknamed Frenchie). There was NO WHERE for us to quickly pull over (envision parking in NYC). After we drove about 50 yards, Frenchie magically appeared out of no where to let us know that she wanted us OUT of the car or she would "ring the guards". All I could picture was sitting in an Irish jail with our passports revoked.

Since Cheryle was driving and is typically the most level headed, she got out to speak with Frenchie. Amanda also got out to be a witness (read...to take pictures for our scrapbooks), which did not make Frenchie happy AT ALL! She kept saying, "Why are you taking pictures? I didn't say you could take pictures!"





The funny thing is that Frenchie kept pointing to our mirror to make her case that we hit her. After twenty times of  Cheryle stating that she was illegally parked, our mirror looked like that already, and we were not going to "ring the guards", Frenchie got into her little car and drove off. Crisis averted!

Once we got out of Dublin it was smooth sailing until we got to a toll booth. Cheryle was driving (and doing a great job) but her brain kept saying that we should pay the tolls on the left. The toll lady was on the right. We ultimately figured out, paid our 3 euros and went on our merry way.

The drive was breath taking! Mountains in the distance, pastures so green they looked fake and sheep everywhere! We were so excited and ready to get to the country.

Our house is about 3 hours west of Dublin. It's long and yellow and sits right on Galway Bay. We each have our own bedroom and there's 2.5 baths. We drew cards and Cheryle won out on the master, Amanda and Carrie got to the two middle rooms with queen beds and a jack and jill bath, and I drew the twin bedroom! No worries, I slept like a baby.

The showers are interesting. There are about four cords hanging from the ceiling. You have to pull them until they click to activate the boiler to heat the water.

After we got settled in, we drove into town (about 3 miles from the house) to get something to eat and do a little grocery shopping. The roads are all two lane and so narrow that every time a car would pass, we would all shrink our shoulders in and scream. If you've ever seen the movie Holiday with Cameron Diaz, it's just like that.

We had a great dinner and came home and crashed. Today we're going to walk to the bay and go into town.  You can go to http://www.kinvara.com/ to see the town near our house.

September 20, 2010 – Day Three Part 2

Good evening from Kinvara. Today was a very relaxing day. We walked to the bay late in the afternoon and took a ton of pictures. Special thanks to Wanda for lending us the gorilla tripod (Amanda keeps calling it the monkey). It has been a god send. We set the timer on my camera and clicked away. Amanda wanted us to all do leprechaun jumps in front of the water. We complied, but her jump looked more like a Jackie Chan round house kick. The two old girls (me and Cheryle) are a bit sore from all the crazy jumping! I see Advil in my future.

Today was a beautiful clear, bright and sunny Irish day. It didn't get below 65 degrees during the day. We are right next door to a  sheep farm (wool farm??) and we have tried to make friends with them. No luck thus far. Did you know that instead of branding the sheep, they dye initials in their fur? It’s crazy to see sheep with blue and pink initials in their hair.

We went into the village and ate at an Italian restaurant for dinner. Funny huh? We got a pizza and it was far better than Pizza Hut! : ) Following dinner, we walked across the street to Keough’s and split apple pie and ice cream. Yum. Yes, we are eating and drinking our way through Ireland.

After dessert, we went back to the grocery store to get some more staples for the week. I went to the meat section to get a pound of ground beef and the butcher and I had a language breakdown! Ground beef is minced steak and they sell it by the kilogram. Approximately 1 pound is a 1/2 a kilogram. Once we figured each other out, we became good friends. We also bought some lunch meat, bread, coffee, and milk. I'm sure we'll be back many times before we leave.

We came home, poured glasses of wine and settled in for a good chick flick. What a great, relaxing day!! We did invite our neighbor cows in for some after dinner drinks. They seemed appreciative but mostly just stared at us.

Right now, Carrie is playing sudoku, Amanda is typing an email and Cheryle is writing in her journal. We're making good use of our sun room (with heated tile) and the beautiful full moon!

Tomorrow we're going to The Cliffs of Moher, The Burren & Galway City.

Driving still sucks. Remember..."Stay to the left!!" Hopefully Hertz won't look at the passenger's side of the car! There might be a few new scratches on Piecea!! : )