Day Six: Killarney, Pt. 2

For the first time on the trip we get to sleep in, which means I wake up for breakfast at seven-thirty instead of six-thirty in the morning, and I don’t have to put my luggage outside our door. Pure bliss.

Our first excursion of the day is a drive around the Ring of Kerry. It’s a shame that we’re coming to this area so late in the trip, because so many people have told me that the Ring of Kerry boasts some of the most beautiful landscape in the country. Unfortunately, I’ve seen so many picturesque coastlines, I’m kind of landscaped out. The days are blending together, and one rolling green hill looks exactly like the next. The days are blending together as well. I’m starting to get vacation fever, where I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t living on a bus. Is it day? Is it night? How many thatch roofed cottages are too many?

We stop at what our guide promises to be an absolutely spectacular view, and apparently he was right, because one of the pictures I took from this spot is now the background on my iPad and it still makes me want to cry a little every time I look at it, especially when I’m playing the Lord of the Rings soundtrack on said iPad at the same time. On an unrelated note, I eat seafood chowder for the third and final time on our trip.

We eventually return to Killarney for our jaunty car rides. My tour book calls it a “jaunting” car ride, but I swear, our guide said jaunty and I like the sound of that better. We climb up onto old timey wagons as our jaunty car driver doles out plaid fleece blankets. I am squashed in on a bench next to a cop from New York (or was it Boston?) of Irish descent and his sassy blond wife. Our driver is a short squat fellow who looks like a Mary Poppins extra and pronounces his “th’s” like “t’s.” I don’t remember his name, but the horse was named Charlie. Alka, a doctor from New Jersey, keeps sassing our driver about his jokes. I knew I liked her for a reason.

Riding through a national park, our driver points out a herd of deer, which are allegedly of Japanese origin, and are kept in this park for the sole purpose of feeding an indigenous eagle. It is illegal to hunt the deer, as this is the eagle’s only source of food. In hindsight, this story sounds kind of crazy and I’m wondering if our guide was just making crap up.

The jaunty car takes us to Ross Castle, where I once more harass my mother to take comical photos of me climbing around the ruins. On the way back, Alka convinces our driver to let her sit in the front, and then drive the jaunty car. This lady is out of control, and I am greatly amused. While I appreciate how modern travel allows us to cross countries and even continents in a matter of hours, there is something about traveling by horse that is charming and magical. For a moment, I almost wish I was one of those awkward girls who grew up on farms and learned to ride horses since she was three. I don’t want the ride to end. I want to jump on the horse and run away to join a traveling Irish circus.

Back in town, it instantly starts to pour and my mom and I duck into a shop to purchase my father a hat very similar to the one our jaunty car driver was wearing. When the rainstorm intensifies, we help the lady shopkeeper drag her racks and baskets into the store. See Ireland? See what a kind, helpful American I am? Wouldn’t you like to have me dwell within your borders? I thought you’d see it my way.

We’re on our own for dinner, and I am horrified to discover I am craving pizza. After a deal of whininess on my part, we walk back into town and find a nice, relatively inexpensive Italian restaurant to eat at. It’s not bad, but it’s no Papa John’s pizzeria.

Back at the hotel, we sit down with a lovely lady from Vancouver for a drink. I proceed to get slightly buzzed and tell her how happy it makes me to meet a successful, beautiful single woman who is 40. We talk about marriage, choosing our future paths, and just life in general. I think for the first time what an opportunity it is to go on one of these tours. You’re thrust into close quarters with a bunch of strangers, and while some of them might be real weirdos, you can also meet some really incredible people. With that thought, I fall into bed, now more than just buzzed, and quickly pass out.

Day Five: Killarney

I don’t remember much about the next morning, because I was hungover. I remember wanting a Perrier and settling for the Ireland equivalent. Our first stop of the day was a quick stroll round the quaint village of Adare, chalk full of thatched roof cottages. Most of our time in Adare, however, was spent trying to find dental floss. There was none to be had, at least in the sense there was nothing like the spools of thin waxed string that we crazy Americans are used to. We did manage to buy a sack of individual thick threads that the lady at the apothecary claimed would be exactly like our dental floss, only it wasn’t at all, and I could barely get it in between my teeth.

For the first time ever, I managed to doze on the bus. It was that or get even more nauseous from the constant twisting, winding coastal roads. At last we stopped for lunch, in the most whimsically named town ever: Dingle. Needless to say, Dingle was a real delight.

If you’ve ever heard of the town of Dingle, you may know that it the city has a mascot. That mascot is Fungi the dolphin. Fungi is actually a real dolphin who likes to hang around the bay in Dingle. He first showed up in 1984. In case you hadn’t checked a calendar in awhile, it will soon be 2012, which makes Fungi a few years past the typical twenty-five year dolphin lifespan. Our tour guide pondered the question of what Dingle will do when Fungi is no more. Along the wharf was a charming statue of Fungi. Somehow I managed to bamboozle my mother and Evelyn into taking comical pictures with the Fungi statue. Joy is had by all.

I have to say the only downside to Dingle was the dog poo that seemed to be all over the city, in spite of the numerous signs posted telling people to clean up after their dogs. Did the people of Dingle just not care? Maybe they didn’t have as strict of fines as they do in Los Angeles. Or maybe the dogs are all jealous of the attention Fungi gets, and aims to ruin Dingle tourism. All I know is that it took fifteen minutes, several puddles of rainwater, and a very thin twig to clean off my mother’s shoe.

After saying goodbye to Fungi and the good people of Dingle, we continued down the coast, expecting to wind our way up to some famous rock or something up on a hill. Perhaps if we’d actually made it up to said rock, I’d remember the name, but we didn’t so therefore I didn’t. After the previous day’s downpour, a coastal bridge had washed out, denying us access to this mysterious rock and the picturesque landscape leading up to it. You could literally look across the enormous hills and see the long strips of brown where the rain swept the dirt from the mountain top down to the sea. What was most impressive though, was the skillful way our bus driver Mickey managed to turn the bus around on a narrow coastal road without falling off the edge, or running down one of the various sheep or cows meandering around the place.

All in all, it wasn’t the most exciting day, but it was a nice break. We arrived in Killarney that evening and had a bit of time to just relax, take a hot shower before we dined at the hotel on horribly salty mackerel. If you can imagine the texture of cooked fish, only instead of a meat or fishy taste, it’s like you dumped an entire container of Morton’s onto your tongue. I believe it was that evening that I vowed to stop trying to eat in Ireland and just stick to the Guinness.