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.

Day 5 - Ring of Kerry

Good mornin' lasses. The day started off pretty good. We are at a nice B&B that is just a few minutes walk from Killarney. Last night there was a terrible storm, bad wind and a lot of rain. The wind has been incredible, I thought it was just always like that, but apparently this is a bit unusual. So, no run this am. (at this point any excuse will do!) We got an early start and jumped in the car with our Ring of Kerry map and hit the pavement. Alot of standing water in the roadways, but at least it wasn't raining hard. Our 1st stop was the Kerry Peat Bog Village. What a rip off! I made Lisa stop because I didn't want to sit in the car all day, drive around the peninsula and not get out of the car. Since I was navigating, I told her to stop. Really cheesy! Back in the car to the next stop..someplace that starts with a C, is really long and I have no idea how to pronounce it. Anyways, they have a bunch of cool ruins and Churches and stuff. We go to one fort (fart in irish speak) and one castle. Both were really cool and we could see another set of ruins but had no idea how to get there. The place was extra cool because the buses couldn't get there so we basically had the whole place to ourselves! On our way back into town to get back on "the ring" Lisa pulled over because someone was on her butt. The still driving pull over that just lets the person pass but you don't have to stop kind of pull over. She made this maneuver just as i was opening up the map, partially obstruction her view. WHAM! She hits a rock sticking out of the embankment. We drive a lit bit further and we hear a noise. You guessed it, flat tire in the middle of nowhere. Lisa wants to walk into town, I decide that we are going to change the darn tire....my Dad taught me how to do this for a reason! Since it is a rental car, we are having to search for the jack.....finally find it under the passenger seat. Try to loosen the lug nuts......I think they purposefully put them on so that no other human can loosen them without an air compressor! I can not loosen them. Welcome Jack O'Shea to da story! Love these Irish people! Jack O'Shea changes our tire in under 5 minutes - I think he used to work for nascar. But guess what...it gets better....he has service station 3k up the road. We follow Jack O'Shea and he fixes our tire and gets us on our way in less that 30minutes total (including the original tire change)! Holy Cow! I thought our day was going to be ruined, but no...Jack O'Shea to the rescue.

So on our way we go. Lisa is now a little unnerved and is a little more tentative driving. She has been doing great and the whole thing was a freak accident but she is taking it personally. We get to a beautiful overlook and I am hollering at her to pull over. Unfortunately, there is some funeral going on and there are all these cars pulled over on the side of the road making it truly a one lane road (yes with 2 way traffic). The roads are narrow enough to begin with, but this was ridiculous. Anyways, I was getting inpatient and saw an area that she could pull over for a second, she didn't want to pull over and well.................our 1st fight :-(
Don't worry, we got over it pretty quickly (20minutes later after 2 people mooping in silence).

We made some fun stops (one to pee at the side of the road) and made it back to Torc waterfalls in the national park. We saw the waterfalls and then did a little hike around it. We then decided we were going to walk to an abbey a mile or so away when we saw the "Jaunts" which is a horse drawn carriage. I decided to treat Lisa to a buggy ride around the park to the abbey and back in payment for all of the driving that she has been doing. It was fun. We got pelted on (by freezing rain) on the way back. By the time we got in the car and started back to Killarney, the sun had come out again...truly wait 5 minutes and the weather will change. We made it back to the B&B and changed shoes and headed back out to get some dinner (and guinness). We booked a trip to the Gap of Dunloe tommorrow. It is a bus ride, with a hike in the middle, then a boat ride through the 3 lakes. It will take all day, and Lisa won't have to drive (the best part!). Hopefully, I will get a run in tomorrow, especially since we can sleep in. The tour doesn't start until 10 turdy.

Funny observations:
The speed limit on these roads on the Ring of Kerry is 100km. There is no way to really get above 50k...I guess the point is you can go as fast as you dare...



Killarney won a "tidy town" award. There is horse poop everwhere! I would hate to visit an "untidy" town!

At one of the beaches we stopped at today it had a sign warning people about skin cancer and the need for sunscreen, especially between 11a and 3p. Mind you it is august, the temperature is 60 and the wind was gusting about 20mph (at least). Who the hell is wearing a bathing suit let alone actually sun bathing? None of the people who live here are tan. It is the home of rain. WTF!!







There is apparently an Irish tradition of being in love and having your picture taken by your S.O. when you are out in the woods. In involves standing on an object (preferably a rock) and crouch down resting your head on your fist. We saw several of the "poses" on our hike today. I had Lisa take one of me. I am not sure if these are supposed to be private pictures or not, so I am not sure if I should share (haha).

Ireland Days 3 & 4

Wow, two days. I can't really remember what we did. Too much Guinness and not enough note taking, or maybe just killed off enough brain cells! I woke up early, wanting to go for a run prior to getting in the car. We had a full day of driving and some touristy site seeing to do. I looked out the window and it was raining. There was a momentary thought of, "I'm not training, I am supposed to be resting, it's raining, go back to bed". I am glad I didn't listen to myself. I ran across the river and into the park and got to run next to a 16th century castle. How cool was that! Not something I ever get to do. That made it all worth it. It was only 3 miles, but that is enough to make my leg hurt for a couple days.....ergh!

We drove from Kilkenny and ended up in Kinsale. We bypassed the city of Cork but drove around it 3 times (poor planning). We stopped at the Blarney Castle. I was supposed to kiss the Blarney stone. We stood in line for about an hour at which point someone came out of the tower and told us it would probably take another hour from where we were in line. FORGET IT! We got there when all the cruise ships were there..Bad timing. I decided that when you get old, instead of wearing your race t-shirts, cruise people where their past cruise t-shirts around (kind of the same idea) pretty funny. So no kissing a piss covered stone - oh well. I don't really want the gift of gab. I think it would take more than kissing that to work on me! Next stop...Jameson distillery. What? Really? That's on the other side of Cork.....ok. It was ok, but we got thrown in with a dutch group and the movie presentation was in dutch so we had to leave. The next english tour would be in another 1/2hour (darn - wish they would have told us that before we bought the tickets) Anyways, the tour of the old factory was cool, but I don't really want to see how they make alcohol anymore on this trip. I would prefer to see other things and drink my libations. They gave us "free" Jameson's to drink at the end. I was nauseated for a couple hours afterwards...yuk! Don't know why I thought I might like that stuff, I guess I figured it might be like Guiness...better here than in the US (wrong).

Anyways, we drove to Kinsale. Lisa is really good at the driving thing and I have figured out (mostly) the navigating. Here's the thing though. We can get to our destination..ie the city we are going to....but then we don't have street maps for the towns so we drive around in circles trying to figure out where we are supposed to be going. This night was no exception. We were looking for our B&B. We had the street name and actually found it on a map. But none of the streets have signs on them so you have no idea where you are! Frustrating! To get our B&B I had to call them on the phone while Lisa was driving to see if they had rooms. Lisa did not want to call them b/c it is hard to understand them and figuring out the numbers is difficult. I didn't really want to call either, but decided that since she was driving I would suck it up and make the call. Lisa was cracking up. I guess I reverted to some weird form of Irish/american accent about 2 octaves higher than I usually speak. Hey, we got the room. I understood her, she understood me. As a side note however, when we left the B&B the next morning, the owner asked where we were from. She said she couldn't tell we were from the states except every once in a while it would "flash out". Haha, must be getting better at me accent.

Day 4 - Kinsale to Killarney

We were going to stay in Kenmare but it was torrential downpours and really strong winds so we decided it was a good day to just drive to Killarney. We figure this is a good headquarters to see a bunch of stuff that is close by. I am tired of packing my suitcase. I like to nest (for those of you who don't know me). So 2-3days in one place will be a little like heaven! We went to the grocery and got two baguettes, cheese, apples and cookies for a little lunch. We went to some stone circles in the middle of nowhere. Lisa (the formally known horse whisperer) is now a cow whisperer. Some cows were grazing as we got out of the car. Lisa had to keep rushing them along the path to get them to move. She broke out her mad intellect and informed me that cows kick out to the side (followed by a brief but hysterical demonstration) unlike horses who kick backwards. (ok brainiac) Anyways, the cows parted and we saw the circles. Cool b/c is was rainy and eerie.
We then drove over the Cahal Gap and down into Killarney natl park. It was very pretty, although rainy. Once we got there, the rain stopped. We walked around town, had some beer, dinner and then walked to the Ross Castle. I will have to start writing down all the funny things as I am drawing a blank. I am going to bed now. Since I have internet(for next 2 days) I will have to catch up next time.

Turdy Tree is:
A. a smelly bush
B. the place your dog goes to the bathroom
C. the number of euro's you owe for your dinner

Day 2 - Dublin to Kilkenny

We both slept about 11hours. I did not get to run because it was 8am when we woke up. Too late as we wanted to get an early start. We headed down to breakfast, it was a very nice spread of cold and warm items. Was that sausage? A couple sat down at the table next to ours. Definitely an american white woman (loud) with a very quite black man (don't know if he was american or from africa) who seemed like he was a business man or dignitary. Lisa and I both thought of the movie "Pretty Woman" with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. The woman was totally out of her element and trying VERY hard to please the guy, doting all over him. OK.

Off to the rental car company. Do we want the extra insurance? YES We have a hard enough time crossing the road on foot, let alone driving on the other side!

Lisa does great. The 1st hour or so is very nerve racking. I think she is going to drive me off of the edge of the road into the trees and fences. She thinks she is going to have a head on collision. Eventually, we both figure it out and Lisa really does great. We only miss two turns. (I am navigating so I am surprised there wasn't more). The 1st one was because I was upset, thinking I had left my garmin at the hotel and was not paying attention to the signs, the next was just not recognizing that the right hand "turn" was not a turn at all but the street we were supposed to be already on. Anyways, we realized straight away that I made a boo boo and turned around before driving on for hours lost! Lisa had to stop for Sheep running out and down the side of the road.

We visited Powerscourt, Glendalough, wicklow gap, ate in Roundwood (highest village in Ireland) and ended up in Kilkenny. (I think of Southpark everytime I say that name - "you bastard") We saw the Smithwick's brewery today and drank a pint at dinner. I love this place.

The best was at Glendalough - I keep pronouncing it glen-da-low but it is really glen-da-lock, Lisa keeps yelling at me. It is an old monastery founded by "St Kevin". He is proof that Ireland really is my homeland, and he & I must have been related. He liked to "talk to the animals" and liked to live secluded. He had a cave, called Kevin's bed, the ULTIMATE HIDEY HOLE that he lived in!

Planning our day tommorrow. We have to cut off half of the things that we wanted to see on our way to Cork and Kinsale. We are trying to make up for the day we lost :-( It is taking us longer to get places and do things. Oh well.

Irish accent lesson 102:
Phrase: "How you ladies keepin?"

Day 1 - Dublin

Yeah, we made it!! Now for the bag drama: none, yes it made it, unbelievable!!
Now I am going to have to kiss the Blarney stone (even if locals pee on it like Shawn says). I told the lady at the baggage claim that I would kiss the blarney stone for her if my bag made it! Kissin' piss=gross, having my ironman finishers shirts/hats and not having to clothes shop=priceless. Besides, pee is sterile (haha). So day one in Ireland was Dublin. We ran our sleep deprived bodies all over and don't really remember the names of all the places we went. We decided that we were tired when:
1. We decided we were happy when we hit a dead end road. It was the 1st place we decided to go. We got our map, headed out of the hotel and turned right. Kept walking until we hit the dead end. It was the wrong way. If we hadn't hit the dead end we would have surely walked into the river!

2. We both, simultaneously, fell asleep on the hop on, hop off city tour bus.

3. Got real excited by the number of public toilets advertised in big red signs all up and down the road. After looking more closely, I discovered they were not toilet signs but: TO LET. Remember, we had not slept for a while!

4. Almost getting run over repeatedly while crossing the street. Then we looked down only to find that they have "Look Left" or " Look Right" painted at the start of the crosswalks for us morons who can't figure out which way to look for oncoming traffic. (they drive on the left hand side of the road)

5. We almost were showered by "Lisa's people". A city tour bus company has old Duck Boats that are themed viking ships. They have the people on board wearing the old viking helmuts with the horns sticking out. Anyways, they spray out water from the side of the "boat" as they are going by, hooting and hollering. We almost got nailed!

6. Funny conversations like this one:
L:"was that a girl"
S: "no, it was a guy with boobs"
L "It looked like a tibetan monk with boobs cuz it was bald in the front and hair down to it's shoulders in the back. And it was wearing a long skirt"
s: "yah - like the ultimate mullet"
L: "I'm glad you saw that too, I thought I was so tired I was imagining things."

7. Lisa thought the cars were driving themselves. No one was on the "drivers side" of the car.

We ended the day in the Guiness factory - awesome! We went then and had a pint and some fish 'n chips for dinner. All and all a great day. tommorrow=driving, should get interesting :-)

Irish accent class 101:
They pronounce thr as tr, th as t. And they cannot pronounce cathedral.

Ireland - Days 1 & 2

Now I realize that if your reading this, my title might imply that days 1 & 2 of Lisa and my Ireland trip are going to be about Ireland..........NOT!

Day 1 was running around getting ourselves together so that we could leave in the afternoon for Dublin. It started off with me cutting the grass at 8am - the only speed work I have done recently - I heard thunder so I was practically running around with the lawn mower to get it done (I have a checklist you know). Shawn so kindly pointed out that you could not even tell that I cut the grass as it really hadn't grown in the past week. I had to check the box! Shawn & I ran..man was it humid and saw a really scary character...looked like he was stalking a girl walking down a street so we stopped to watch what he was doing. Other than the sweltering heat/humidity, it was fun to run with Shawnee.

After finishing up my chores, I decided to turn on the TV and relax for the 45minutes remaining before Shawn was coming to pick us up to go to the airport. Almost immediately, the tv program was interrupted with a severe weather warning......tornado warning. Flipped to TWC and holy crap!!!!!! This nasty little storm was coming into Richmond. I REALLY hate flying. I know I used to be a travel agent, but I am a white knuckle flyer on good days. I was on a Pan Am 747 going to europe not long after the Lockerbe bombing, when our plane was struck by lightening right in front of where I was sitting (in the window seat). We all thought it was a bomb at 1st. I probably don't need to say anything more about that....I am sure I had to change my shorts!
Anyways, Lisa & I saw the storm on the radar, but thought that we still had over 2hours before our flight was to leave Richmond, and 7-8 hours before our flight was to leave for Dublin, surely we would get there, maybe a bit delayed.

Shawnee dropped us off at the terminal (thank-you) and Lisa & I check-in and go up to security. We have plenty of time and the security area is pretty much deserted, interesting. We both make it through security without either of us being strip searched. It is a minor miracle as we believe that Lisa was on a terrorist watch list. Every time we fly, she would get "randomly selected". We have a good chuckle about our good fortune and head to our gate. When we get there, the 130pm departure is still at the gate. They have been delayed d/t the weather...poor suckers. We then here a urgent announcement from the gate agent for the 130p passengers: "you have 15minutes to get on the plane, get seated and close the door". "We want you to be safe, but you need to hurry". The captain must have seen a small clearing in the clouds and decided it was now or never. I briefly thought to ask if we could get on this flight, but knew that the airline personnel were too stressed to figure it out so I kept my mouth shut. The flight left, and it wasn't 10minutes later that the skies opened up! I am glad I was not on that flight.

Almost immediately, the gate agents were saying that there was a possibility that they would not be able to leave Richmond. It was still only 3:30pm???? WTF? By 4pm they made the announcement that the flight was canceled and there was no other way to get to Philly....no way to get to Dublin. It is not like it used to be when the airlines cared about your travel itinerary and would find other ways to get you to your destination....very sad! So we were booked for a 7am flight the next morning and would have a 12hour layover in Philadelphia.

I started to make phone calls to see if we could change our car rental and hotel in Dublin. Lisa got her first taste with a REAL Irish accent on the phone...haha. She could not really understand the person on the phone, even though they were speaking English. I hope we have a hotel room when we get there. On our way home, the clouds parted and the sky was blue. It was only 430pm. Still unclear why we couldn't have made it to Philadelphia. We figure there must not have been enough customers on the plane, so they were going to lose $$ if they flew.....how convenient there was a storm. As we were leaving the airport we noticed that USAir was the ONLY airline that canceled flights. Oh well, another awesome dinner with Shawn & Karen at a new place on Broad by Bellvidere called "the Bellvidere" - I would highly recommend it! At least we weren't stranded in some foreign country (Miami) with no place to go/stay and no one to help you (Brazil).

Day 2 - 5:00am - up and stumbling around trying to get out of the house. We make it to the airport without event. We hope to be able to run around Philadelphia with all our free time. We check-in and learn that the airlines will not check our bags all the way to Dublin d/t the long layover - like we asked for it! Damn! Now what? We don't want to cart all of our bags around with us all day. We are pretty sure that after 9-11, there are no longer lockers at the airports, oh well. The flight to Philly was uneventful and we get our bags without any incident. We start looking for options of what to do, do we bring our bags and go into town??? do we spend 12hours in the airport (sounding like Brasil yet?). We happen to walk by the Usair Lost baggage claim area and Lisa decides to go ask them if there is anything they could suggest for leaving our bags. As she is explaining our sad tale about missing our flight, long layover....one of the girls makes a comment about starting a side business and that she could make a lot of $$$ storing bags for the day. Lisa says that she would gladly pay for such a service - wink wink. We go out to the side of the office where all the bags are lined-up (in a secure area) and the lady takes our bags and Lisa slides her a $20.00. Awesome! Now we don't have to lug those things around.

We head out to the train tracks and get on the train to central Philly. We had an awesome time running around the city. It was not too hot which was good as we were dressed for airplane/Ireland weather = jeans. Not too smart. Should have worn shorts and changed into jeans when we got back to the airport. Oh well, now we will smell like Europeans :-)
In our day tour we say the liberty bell, independence hall (inside and out), Benjamin Franklin & Betsy Ross's gravestones and tomb of the unknown soldier. We also went to some really old street - started with an E - oops, and of course had a Philly cheese steak.

Probably the best part of our tour was when we were in the Independence House. There were some breeders with a few young offspring. One of the kids was screaming/crying and carrying on. The parents were not really making any attempt to shut it up. It was very distracting. Finally the tour guide told the woman that she was going to have to do something about her kid, or leave. She actually started to argue with the guy, with a whole room full of people. I would have been mortified. She eventually packed up her kids and left in a huff. It was the 1st time I have seen someone actually speak up and say how annoying it is, and then ask them to leave! :-)

OK, we make it back to the airport without any issues. We go to pick-up our bag, and of course, the crew manning the baggage claim area are all new people. We go to get our bags and Lisa's bag is there....mine is mysteriously missing. I know all of you reading this are thinking, dah.....what did you think was going to happen! Well, honestly, I didn't really think they would loose my bag. We have a heated conversation with the lady at the baggage claim area. She swears that my bag will be in Dublin.....right. I will shave my head if my bag shows up :-)
She is saying that they start looking at the bags and see where the passenger is going and that they must have sent mine forward to Dublin. We shall see. I will only be disappointed about losing all of my Ironman finishers shirts/hats that I will lose......bastards!

This blogging thing is hard work. I am not so cleaver.....if you are still reading this is you must be bored. sorry!

We are in the Philadelphia airport. I hour until we leave? Hopefully leave - with my bag mysteriously in the bottom of the plane.

Night before leaving for Ireland

So...it is the eve of our Ireland vacation. I have just returned from having a celebratory pint (or two) with my BFF's Shawn & Karen, and of course my girl McBrathy! Trying to figure out how this whole blog thing works so I can entertain my peeps with excerpts from our upcoming trip. My belly still hurts from watching highlights of mascots running into things and fighting on tv. My explanation of this would never do justice....let's just say (with an Irish accent) "there was not a dry eye amongst the lasses". Getting very excited. Lisa is packing. Tomorrow morning will be a blur...running, cleaning, packing, cutting the grass..then off to our homeland--well for one of us anyways. Lisa's kin just pillaged and plundered there. Peace out for now...have to see if I am doing this right :-)