traveling with my parents

This post comes to you from Lexington, KY, where I'm visiting my sister Clare and her husband Peter (joined by our other sister Sarah) for a week before I come home.

So, on Friday the 13th my parents arrived in Dublin and we traveled for a week. We had sunny weather for A WEEK STRAIGHT - this is UNHEARD of! We were as lucky as you can get.

The first thing we did was to head out to Mountainstown, but since you've already seen plenty of pictures of all my walks, I'll just include this one of me with Ozzy and Schnoogie.

This is one thing that surprised me about being at Mountainstown - I learned to like dogs! I missed them as soon as I left, and now I've started hoping there is a dog at my job this summer... I never thought it would happen to me. I still like big dogs better, though. And part of the reason I liked these dogs is that they are well trained. So I don't have a blanket love for all dogs. Don't get any ideas.




So, the first stop on our journey was Ardmore, on the coast, which has a lovely coast walk as part of St. Declan's way. The cemetary near his church - note all the Celtic crosses:


View from the walk:

Check out this thatch!

Sign for a hiking trail:

St. Patrick's Day! We went to a parade in Killarney - lots of kids. Yes, that is a Guinness in my hand...

Happy cigarrettes?

The next two nights, we stayed at the Harbor House and Leisure Center on the end of the Dingle Peninsula just outside of Castlegregory. If you find yourself in Ireland some summer wanting to do some scuba diving or surfing or horseback riding - this place was empty when we were there, being the off season, but you can tell it's a blast in season - they are big into all of those things, the whole family dives, the proprieters talk talk talk talk talk (they're Irish), but they are lovely people, they have a nice restaurant... I definitely recommend this place.

Anyway, our first night featured a glorious sunset, so we went and played on the beach.

Mama and Papa:

Papa finds a toy:

We climbed some sand dunes to watch the sunset:




And the sun had a tail:

We got unnaturally tall:

And then we saw this guy telling us to stay off the sand dunes - oops:

Next day we drove over Connor Pass to Dingle. There were some spectacular views along the way:

In the west, we found more rocks:

And more glorious views:

Obviously this is a very small taste of our trip - but if you are planning to travel in Ireland please tell me so I can either tell you about places I liked or just live vicariously!

So, that's my final blog update until next time I leave the country - stay well!

weekend in Cork

I went to Cork for less than 24 hours, due to various factors. Here are some pictures - certainly not the best I've ever taken, but I guess they'll get the job done.

First, how I travel:

The tiny room in the hostel. This is how boring I am: I was completely exhausted after having spent the week alone with the kids, so I ended up going to bed at 7:30 and falling asleep by 8. I'm sure my roommates were unimpressed, but then again I didn't really talk to them since I was catching up on some much-needed sleep.

View of Cork

I toured the old Cork city gaol, which took forever to find because the Irish don't believe in decent signage - quite frustrating, in fact - I've noticed it in Dublin and Galway as well, signs are sort of arbitrary and you only get them if you're lucky. So some streets won't be marked and you just have to hope for the best, and other times you come across a signpost with literally 10 different signs pointing to different sites and such. This is the jail:

The tour is kind of cool, you get a headset and listen to an audio as you walk through the rooms. There are figures in different places and the narrators tell you their stories, why they are in the jail, what they did, and also giving you some information on conditions during this time (mid 1800's to early 1900's). It's a good tour, but very weird and grim.

This is to show how thick the walls are - that's my foot:

Apparently during this time people believed that criminality was communicable, so most prisoners were held in solitary confinement. As a result some people went insane. The most common crime, as my tape was fond of saying, was that of poverty.

Jail or castle?

Obama is everywhere! The button reads "YES YOU CAN" - it's an Aer Lingus ad (which I see EVERYWHERE) for cheap rates to the US.





Well I guess that doesn't say much about my time in Cork. I didn't do much, just eating, wandering, getting lost - I did walk through the University campus, but being a Sunday morning, not a lot of people were out and about.

As of FRIDAY, 13 March, I'm finished at Mountainstown! I'm traveling with my parents for a week and then I'll be heading back to the fifty nifty United States.

I know you've missed these

So I'm putting up some PICTURES FROM MY WALK TODAY!

This is the ruin out behind the house. It's become a cool foresty area. Atty is thinking of restoring it to a garden but I think it's kind of neat the way it is. Still walkable but a bit overgrown.

The one in the forefront is Millie, Atty's thoroughbred. In the back is Champ, the littlest pony and the oldest. Johnny rides him.

Daffodils in the forefront, snowdrops in the background. A little droopy but give them some credit, they endured a frost last night.

And after walking through all that... ta da! Steps leading nowhere. Unless you count down a ditch to the horse pasture.