Day 12 - Last day in Ireland

Rain Rain Rain! Whatever!!! I do not want to leave, but I really want to escape this crappy and depressing weather. I really want to see my squirty brown dog too. I miss her cute brown butt and sweet face. So last night we stayed in what is probably an original style B&B. It is where you are really IN the peoples house, not an annex that they have built on for customers. The "sitting area" was literally their couch and we were invited to watch tv with them. TV - we have not seen it for 2 weeks. We declined politely - as this would have just been weird. We went to the Abbey Tavern for a couple pints and dinner. It was very delicious. Slept well in our tiny twin beds and up for breakfast. Gee, I wonder why I feel so fat! Anyways, there is no breakfast area other than the home's dining room table. There is another couple there from Canada. I have had no coffee, and really not good at small talk anyways. Uncomfortable, to say the least. The little old man who lives in the house is quite a character. He tells us funny story's and asks us questions that he has already asked us a few minutes ago.. You could tell he was quite the entertainer in his time. We finish breakfast and it is back in the car to see two castles before we head to the Bunratty Castle in Shannon, our final destination. The 1st castle is not open. The 2nd castle was really cool and we found an old megalithic wedge tomb - Indiana Jones style. It was on our most awesome map, but not listed on the property grounds. As we were one of the only people there at the time, we asked one of the folks working there and he told us how to find it. He said it is not posted on their map/land because they didn't want kids climbing on it. It is as if they could care less about these thousand (or two) year old tombs. It is really strange. In the states, we would have it sectioned off, or in a museum and you would have to pay extra to see them. Instead they are in random cow/grazing pastures and you just go find 'em! Anyways, we then head to Bunratty. This would be a cool place if you came here 1st. It is like Disney Land and kind of cheesy but still fun. The castle is nice as it is furnished with really cool stuff. We checked into our hotel, had a pint at the pub and packed up our bags. We then took a nap as we were scheduled for the 845pm banquet at the castle. It is one of those pretend you are invited by the Earl to dinner, and you better watch your manners or you may end up in the dungeon kind of dinners. We know it will be cheesy, but decide to go. It is actually very entertaining. The main "actor" reminds us of our friend Roger. He is a total flaming ham! So off to sleep we go. We manage to get up and out of the hotel. We have our last experience driving in Ireland as we make it to the airport to check in the car. We have to explain that the hubcap is in the back of the car. We did not want to put it on as we were worried it would fly off again before getting back to the airport and then we would be charged for it. We make no mention about the flat and having to get a new tire. We didn't want them to look at the car too closely in case something else happened to it. Lisa and I both laughed, envisioning us pulling into the parking lot, closing the doors and have them all fall off, the wheels would spontaneously explode and the windows would implode. You get the visual - mostly like an old Seinfield episode - you know, Kramer in the parking lot with the AC....one of those kind of scenarios.  We escape the car rental return without being charged for anything being damaged - shuuueeeww! We have made it through immigrations and passport clearance and are sitting in the Shannon airport waiting for our flight. I have purposefully not checked the weather channel.....I don't even want to know! I can't wait to sleep in my own bed and see our dogs. I am truly going to miss the Guinness and the soda bread. I am frightened to step on the scale. I think the post Ironman recovery period has ended and it is time to find out how much residual damage I am still having. That will have to wait until sunday though. I hope you have been entertained. I will hopefully get some Blogger tips from my friends and make this a better site to read. I am sure we are now about 50weeks away from IM Canada 2010. It is really not that far away, the weeks fly by as does life. Whatever - I am not a philosopher - don't even got good english skills :=)

Day 11 - The Burren Ireland continues

Good evening peeps. Hope ye been keepin’ well. We spent yesterday evening at a fine pub in Doolin. Had us a Guinness and some dinner then headed down to the peer to try and get some sunset pics. Our efforts were thwarted once again by the damn clouds. The sun got within 5 minutes of setting and it got socked in by the clouds…..ergh. So back “home” to the best B&B ever – the Duhblinn House in Doolin if yer ever in da airea. :-) We have figured out that tomorrow should be 45% sunshine –again whatever that means. So we plan to get up and hit the coastal drive up to Black Head and then see one of the castles up there and head down to Dysea O’Dea Castle, abbey and High Cross (yippee). Well we wake up and …… you guessed it – RAIN! We really don’t want to leave our B&B – they make THE fluffiest omelets and eggs (almost as good as Shawns). The house is so homey and warm and has totally good vibes , unlike the Bates Motel! But, we have to go. We have an extra voucher that we could not use d/t arriving one day late so Lisa & I decide to give it to the owners of this B&B. They have 2 cute girls and an awesome place, we figured they deserved it. At breakfast, we met a group of 4 from Newport News and Suffolk VA. What are the chances? Of course they were soooo incredibly loud I was embarrassed that we were from the same general area. After breakfast we hit the road – Lisa at the wheel (thank god). We have dark skies but only sprinkles and we can see some blue sky. Looking for that damn 45%. We get on the coastal/scenic road and it starts to downpour. “Look Lisa, a scenic overlook coming on our right”. Well, we blow through that route and pull over on the side of the road to figure out what we are going to do next. We decide to head down to where there are a bunch of stone forts and tombs that we hadn't seen and try and find them. Basically another treasure hunt like yesterday. We actually find one of the old wedge tombs. It is up some miniscule road where we park barely off the road and then hike up a hill and through a couple of different fields until we get to a pile of rocks and some ruins. These have been here since 5000bc. I would post a picture but it really just looks like a pile of rocks. (Maybe I will just for kicks) We manage to make it back to the car before it starts raining. We head next to a really cool church that we saw yesterday because I found out that I had missed a demon sculpture carved into the doorway. We are going by it anyways so it is not like I am making Lisa backtrack. Get the pic, then decide to try and find a wedge tomb that is off the beaten path. It is up one of the really scary "two lane roads" that is only wide enough for one car at most. It is of course raining as we pass by another “scenic overlook”. Lisa turns a corner and a huge tractor is coming right at us. She pulls off of the road as best she can without sending us off of the cliff and the tractor manages to get by us.I am so glad we got the extra insurance. I think this is really wearing Lisa out! So we continue on and are pretty sure we have missed it. We earlier found a stone fort out in the middle of nowhere that we were lucky to find. So Lisa goes on looking for a safe place to turn around and..... look over there! There it is! A cool wedge tomb!!!! Score! We are really feeling like Indiana Jones. It was really cool. Ok, so we decide to get back on the main road and head to Dysea O’Dea castle, abbey and such. We find the castle and go in. We are really in search of the high cross and the cool doorway with the sculptures over top of it. We pay 4euro’s each and head into the castle. They are not here but in the field adjacent to the castle (which would have been free!). So we head over to the next field and park the car. We start walking down a gravel road and it starts to rain just as we get to the cross. Damn it! We both run back to the car. We scrimmage around and eat a cliff bar and some granola that we have in our food sack and wait out the rain. We really want to see this cross.  So it stops raining and we head back out. We take pictures of the cross and Lisa hollers that it is going to start raining again as she can see it coming from across the field. We decide to run to the Abbey which has no roof, but has a big tree next to it. We hang out under the tree and stay relatively dry. On the way to the tree we have to slog our way through really wet boggy grass and I have mud covering both legs up to my calves – nice. The rain subsides and we get to tour around the ruins and get some good pictures. We slog back through the mud pit and are greeted by two noisy cows. We get in the car and head to Ennis. We manage not to get lost and make it into town. Our next B&B will be just beyond the town so we are close to stopping. We visit the Abbey and the Friary; take a bunch of pictures and Lisa spies an Ireland bicycling jersey that I end up purchasing. We then go to the B&B. Once we find it – by chance – the lady is in a “spot of bother”. There is “a problem”. OK. She starts rambling on about her husband and has an xray sleeve sitting on the table but she is waving these 2 envelopes at Lisa & I and finally gets to the point. Her husband had a 3rd knee operation today and she put him in the downstairs bedroom that we were supposed to be in. But she has a plan. She has called her friend up the road and has found us somewhere else to stay. We hop in the car and follow her “down the road” – 5 miles across motorways and through some back country roads that are not marked. I am glad Lisa & I are getting along! It would be a great place to leave me :-) It is an older home – no internet access (curses) – but very pleasant people. It turns out to be only a couple of miles from where we were going to explore tomorrow anyways – so really not so bad. (Twin rooms but with private bath). Now I must confess. A majority of rooms that we have had have had the old skeleton key type locks. They kind of freak me out. I think I watched too many old Hitchcock movies (or Scooby Doo cartoons) and think that people are either spying through them or will push a hairpin through the opening to make the key fall on the floor, landing on a piece of paper that they have slid under the door, then get the key and break in the room and attack! Irrational? Yes! It doesn’t matter. Every time we have one of these rooms I make sure to take the key out of the lock (so they can’t get it) and hang my coat or hat on the door (so they can’t peep through the hole). Weird or what! Back to the story. Lisa and I go to a pub and have dinner. We manage our way back despite a couple of Guinness. It is hard to believe that we only have one more day left in this beautiful wet country. We really have had a lot of fun despite the rain. This is the 1st international trip that we have taken alone, just the two of us. It has been good for us. Neither of us like to go out of our comfort zone and make decisions or ask strangers questions……etc. We have had to do that this time (we are not traveling with tour guide Karen B – recreational specialist!). Hopefully, this will make us better traveling companions in the future (no promises). Tomorrow we stay at the Bunratty Castle and are scheduled to go to one of those medieval dinner shows. Should be cheesy but probably pretty funny! As a side note, the rain has been really messing with me. Today I decided to count the number of times I had a hot flash. By noon it was four (far - in irish speak) and as of tonight I am up to 7. They totally suck! Well, here's hopin' ye B-ach-es are dry!

Day 10 - The Burren

Good day people. Hope you are warm and comfy. We had just another marvelous day of RAIN here in Ireland - again! I am not talking about a little sprinkle here or there, I am talking road flooding! But Lisa & I decided that we could care less (right) and we were going to go on a little archeological seek and find in the rain. We had a really good map and had looked up and bunch of really cool churches, megalithic tombs, cairns and castles to discover. We figured today would not be the day to tour the "beautiful coastline". So off we go. We really did find some cool stuff. It was like being on the amazing race. The flooded roads, the unmarked roads (sign wise and general road markings) along with driving rain and wind made for it to be fun, when we used our imaginations. It became really old when my pants were soaked up to mid calf and my toes were cold and had that pastie white shriveled up look. Both Lisa & my REI raincoats where beaten down by the Ireland rain as they both suddenly became not so waterproofed anymore - this is truly how much rain we have had. So, still pretending to have fun became a little harder. We only have a couple more days left here and are hoping tomorrow will be sunny so we can see the coast here. We went down to the peer and took some more pictures of the Cliffs of Moher with some giant waves crashing and some really dark clouds coming in (no surprise). We have both just changed into some warm dry clothes. We stink. Despite it not being hot we are are both wearing dirty clothes, and mine do stink from the endless hot flashes. I am not sure where we will eat dinner, but I am totally looking forward to the Guinness. Maybe Guinness stew - won' dat be lovely! Wid a little soooda bread. My diet will officially start the Tuesday after labor day. Sunday or Monday, upon or return, Lisa & I are already talking about having to go to Sine or O'Tooles for dinner to get us a pint back home to truly compare. We already know there is no comparison but it will be a good excuse to have another before the big calorie cut starts. oh yeah....360 something days to IM Canada...I am still trying to figure out why I thought this would be a good idea!

Days 8 & 9

So day 8 (I think – I don’t have wireless connection so I cant see where I left off!) we wake up in a beautiful B&B in Dingle. They have wireless! I see that Ironman canada is over and Marcul & some dude I don’t know won. I also see that Sister madonna Buda (or something like that) finished in 16:48 or close to that. At 79, holy crap (sorry God) man she rocks! There is no way I will be doing Ironman’s at that age. I don’t know if I can do another one ever! Anyways, back to Ireland (for now). So we wake up and have another yummy breakfast. Of course IT IS RAINING!!!!! WTF!!! After we eat, we try to figure out what to do. I look at the weather forecast and see that we are supposed to have a 35% sunny day –whatever that means. [ Susie Q, if you ever read this, I apologize now for my incorrect sentence structure and use of dashes, commas and dots. I stick needles in people, they don’t care if I can properly construct a sentence!] So we pack up our bags and start to pack up the car. Even though we are spending another night in Dingle, our B&B does not have rooms available so we are going to have to move. As we are finishing loading up the car we are slightly blinded by this bright light shining in the sky. UNBELEIVABLE – the sun. We hurry our asses up and get in the car. We are going to circle around the coast on the Slea Head Drive that we did yesterday (in the rain, fog and mist). Poor Lisa, it’s bad enough driving on these roads, but to do it in these conditions and then have to backtrack. Let me tell you, it was worth it! The area was absolutely gorgeous. We kept saying that we could not believe that we had been on the same roads, you would never know it. The day before we could only see a feet in front of us, now we were seeing beautiful coast and the “creamy beaches”. We had been to the grocery so we ate on the fly our new staple of: soda bread, cheese, apple and salami sandwiches – yum. Really anything you put on this soda bread would be good. Anyways, we made back to Dingle and found another B&B, not nearly as nice as our last. In fact, it is OK but kind of creepy. It gave me a Norman Bates kind of vibe. Anyways, we head into town for a fried snickers. Yup, that’s right people...a fried snickers bar! Shawn & Karen have been talking about it since their Ireland trip so Lisa & I had to try it. It was interesting and good. But I think I would rather just have had the delicious Murphy’s Ice Cream! Lisa & I have seen countless people stumble out of bars completely wasted. It is amazing. I guess the difference is that they are not getting into their cars and driving home….they walk….er…sort of walk. So, some dude stumbles out of the bar, looks at the harbor and the boats, makes some sort of harsh remark to someone/something that had done him wrong and gives the old f-you gesture.  The one where you hit your elbow with one arm and  it makes that arm bend up raising the glinched fist up in the air (you get the picture). Then he proceeds to sit down next to me on a bench (lucky me). He is still kind of cursing under his breath and then he drops a pack “Chesterfields” out of his hand and it goes flying and lands under the bench behind him. I help him retrieve his little cancer sticks and hand them to him. He tells me, more with grunting than actual words that they are for me, a present. I think he may have been speaking Gaelic, but really it sounded more like caveman. I told him I didn’t smoke, he wouldn’t take the cigarettes from me. Then he takes off his Ray Bans and sort of tells me he has had them for 25yrs, then asks if I want them (as only a caveman could --- grunt and shove them towards me). Lisa said it was time to go (oh darn) so I go up and politely left the cigarette pack next to him on the bench (nice caveman) and left. We later saw him rumbling up the street kicking some piece of trash and still mumbling to himself.
Unfortunately, after all of this excitement, there was no way we were going to be able to make it up to Connor Pass because it was raining and we wouldn’t see a thing anyways so ….. off to the grocery, the pub and then to the Bates Motel (we’ll sleep with the lights on).

Day 8.5
1230am – Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring! S:”what is that?” L:”It’s the phone” S: “Where is it?” L;”I don’t know” Lisa stumbles in the dark, finds the phone which has now stopped ringing. She has purchased a phone with international service that has her phone number and only those people watching our dogs (and our family) are to call if there is a problem. So naturally we are worried that something is wrong. The caller ID says it was Shawn. So we call her back. “Ironman Canada is open!”. I am not really awake yet. Ironman Canada I thought wasn’t supposed to open until some time in September. Shawn is asking for numbers, she tells me Squirty (my dog) is with her – What day is it?!?! Shawn was supposed to get Squirty on Monday. It is Monday you dummy. OK. So after a little waking up and calling Shawn back a second time, I learn that her and Karen have managed to enter me into Ironman Canada 2010 (damn!). I know this is supposed to be about Ireland but it is the “Irongirl Chronicles” after all. Now I can’t sleep for the rest of the night worrying already about something 364 days away.

Day 9

We survive the night! I have decided that this is the trip of hot flashes. I have been having them now for well over a year now. They come in spells, I have them for a couple months and then I won’t have them for a couple of months. Well, I have been having them for a couple months now at least. I have them almost every hour of every day. It is disgusting! I take a shower, put on clean clothes sit down to eat breakfast and then I am covered in sweat. Why bother showering or changing clothes. They are only clean for at the most, an hour. I am over it! So after we watch it rain while eating breakfast and sweating, we pack up and decide to leave Dingle and head towards the Cliffs of Moher. We are not sure how far we will get but we need a change of scenery. Again, packing up the clouds start to break-up slightly so we decide to leave via Connors Pass . We start to drive up there and we are going through clouds and fog. You can see the coast(s) from up there but not clear enough to take any pictures. Brandon mountain is completely enclosed in clouds. At the overlook it is just Lisa & I and another blue car. I get out (with my camera just in case) and so does Lisa. After a couple minutes, a man who had been sitting the car, gets out and asks if we want him to take our picture. We politely decline as there is nothing to take a picture of. He asks where we are from and he informs us that he is from Wales. He looks like an old fisherman with crinkly leathered skin, blue eyes and a white beard and hair. He is hoping the clouds will lift too. We tell him we are not waiting around and Lisa starts to head back to the car. I pat the man on the arm and tell him to have a safe trip. He seizes the opportunity and says: “Hugs. Can I get a hug?” At this point he has already grabbed me so I just go with it and give the man a hug. One of those, I’m hugging you but my chest and hips are about as far away from him as possible. For those of you who know me, I DO NOT HUG MY FRIENDS so why would I want to hug a stranger!!???!!!!?? Anyways, he wants Lisa to give him one too. She really doesn’t want to but reluctantly does and we head off down the mountain. Lisa then makes the proclamation that she is not hugging anyone else. The guy and the circumstances gave her the creeps. Off we go. The sun actually does come out. We stop a bunch to take some pictures of some cool Guinness signs along the way. We make it across the River Shannon on a car ferry and actually get to the Cliffs of Moher ahead of schedule. On issue…..it’s starts to drizzle and some clouds roll in (no, I am not kidding!) The good thing, the wind is so strong that the clouds blow over pretty quickly. It is 2-3pm so the sun is not in the best place for pictures but we don’t care. We can see the cliffs, take pictures and it isn’t raining! We have our second argument of the trip. The coolest part of the Cliffs is on private property. They have a big sign and fence but everyone walks around it and walks on the top of the cliffs. There is no one there to stop you and it is obvious that the trail is so tramped down and established that the only reason that the signs are there are so if you fall off it isn’t the property owners fault. I head out onto the Cliffs. The views are amazing. I forgot how scared list is of heights and edges in particular – she gets vertigo. So I convince her to come over and get someone to take our picture, she will not back up so I am kind of pulling her back and she is getting mad at me. Long story short, I should not have pulled her back or made her go out onto a ledged area. She was very mad at me. I told her I was sorry and we kissed and made up! Over & done! We tramped around the other side of the cliffs and started to head back to the car. It is Lisa & my 10year anniversary trip, so I asked if she would be my girl for another 10 years. (it is really romantic at the cliffs – what can I say!) She said she would think about it! We went into Doolen – the next town up- and got a very nice B&B that is supposed to have internet. I can’t get on :-( Anyways we went down to the peer and saw the Cliffs from afar. We tried to watch the sunset over the cliffs but some clouds came in before it could actually set. Oh well, we got some good shots anyways. Tomorrow is The Burren!

Ireland Days 6 & 7

Day 6 was Dunloe Gap. We booked a trip that would provide us with transportation to the hike and a boat ride through the 3 lakes of Kilarney. Of course, it is raining when we get up, great! Day 5 of rain and we are supposed to hike 7miles and we aren't going to see a damn thing. Fun! We eat our delicious breakfast (I am going to have to wear sweat pants home I am getting so big) and walk into town to buy fixin's to make a picnic lunch (still full from breakfast and already worried about lunch). We buy bread...which I could live off of by itself...cheese, and apple and some cookies. We get to the tour place and get on the bus. The man comes on and wants our tickets. He tells us we are on the wrong bus...oops! We make our way onto the correct bus and off we go. The sky's are overcast and there is a misting in the air but it is not really raining. We make to to the start, which is Kearney's Cottage. The person who lived here was supposed to have magical healing powers (too bad they are dead, if I could have found her grave I would have rolled on it!)

So you have an option of riding horse back or buggy ride (jaunt) or hiking. Of course the horses are extra. Lisa and I are excited to hike to we head off. I read somewhere that when they did this hike they followed the path of poop. Now I know why! Horses sure are messy. After a while you forget about it. It is kind of like hiking in Switzerland. There is cow pooh everywhere and so after a while, you forget to even "look out for it" unless it's a large fresh pile!

I was going to bring my garmin for fun, just to see how far (not how fast) we had been. At the last minute I decided not to bring it. I wish I had. We had 3hours 15minutes to go 7miles. It would have been nice to know that we were goofing off too much in the 1st part, taking pictures and such. It seems like the last hour we were walking faster than I had walked during the ironman, (not saying much there am I) and we were worried we wouldn't get there in time. We made it with 30 extra minutes, enough time to eat the lunch we brought. I think besides Lisa & myself, there was one woman from France who also hiked, the rest were on horses - slackers. Oh btw...we didn't get rained on, just overcast! Lucky us! We got on our little boat ride through the lakes which was nice. We were with a group of 8 other women. Lisa was talking to one of them and found out they were here on a "hen's weekend". We thought that was funny. I wonder if they have rooster weekends instead of "going to Vegas". We made it to shore and we were at the Ross Castle which is just a little over a mile back to our B&B. Lisa decides she doesn't want to wait for the bus (and all the other people to come in by their boats) and says she wants to walk. We only get about 2-3minutes up the road when the bus passes us...ergh! Did I mention I was going to have to wear sweatpants? Shut up and walk! Dinner was 2 pints of Guinness!

Day 7- Dingle

The goal today was to pack up and head over to Dingle, find a B&B and do some site seeing. It is raining hard! We have found out from the locals that it was a beautiful June. It rained the last day in June and it hasn't stopped yet! Everyone is sick of the rain. This July has had the most amount of rain in the past 50years and they figure August is going to be another record as well. How many days away is September? Anyways, we make it to Dingle and drive by the B&B that is our #1 wish list pick b/c it has wireless internet, parking and is in town. The sign says "no vacancy's"rats! So I convince Lisa to call them, hoping that they just haven't changed their board yet. Sure enough, vacancy for tonight but not for tomorrow. Oh well, we will worry about that then. So we head to the tourist information office and get some info. Right across the street is the place you can get fried snickers bars. Yum! I may not even FIT into my sweatpants. We decide to save that for another time. We get some info on two museums that are free today, so we head out. Now Dingle is supposed to be prettier than the ring of Kerry. We couldn't tell you if this is true because all we could see was road, windshield wipers and rain. We did see some cool archaeological stones and stone monastic sites. They look fitting pictured in the rain and clouds. We did get a glimpse of what was described in one of our guide books as a "creamy stretch of beach". All I could think of was Shawn doing her Irish accent talking about the "creamy soups". We did see another skin cancer prevention sign and had another good chuckle. I mean really, who are these people kidding. They must have actors and photographers who stay camped out all summer, and on the ONE day it is sunny, they run down and do a camera shoot so they can publish them in the guide books. A bunch of crap they are! We are hoping that tomorrow will be clearer so we can get a view of the shoreline. What we could see looked very pretty. We have learned about two very popular sports while we have been here (and spent some time in the pubs) Hurling and Gaelic Football. I have also had to read up on the European football (soccer) league. People here love their sport! More reason for me to love this place (just not the rain).

Hopefully tomorrow won't be so miserable. Lisa and I are ready for it not to be raining. We are wondering why all of our summer vacations have involved us freezing (Peru, Sonoma valley, Maine, Switzerland and now here) . Next year may have to be somewhere warm.