Exploring the Regions of Dingle (hee hee!)....

Day 4: Killarney through Dingle to Ennis

So the Hals sleeping schedule is an adjustment for me. If I don’t force them to hit the town, they go to bed at eight. And last night they definitely did…which is why you all had such a thorough blog post. To top matters off, they went to bed around 8 or 8:30 and I got up forty-five minutes before them to shower and start getting ready so that we could all be set for the day…and then Emily and Daniel had the audacity to tell me they were tired. Sigh. Emily also woke up with a super stiff neck – so she was not a happy camper. In her defense, our beds are rocks, the pillows are bricks, and the sheets are burlap. And we’re in four star hotels. Yikes.

On a really funny note – last night we all raided the convenience store for various goodies – including these Canterbury Chocolate buttons that have teased us all week – so we picked up white chocolate buttons…that we played the “can Emily catch it” game from the couch. …And…Emily fell asleep on the couch with white chocolate buttons…and her black cardigan…and well, it’s now a mess. To top it all off, Emily was not only tired, but also pissed at Daniel, covered in white melted chocolate, and unable to turn her head to the right. It was a great morning.

So we set out for Dingle Peninsula (hee hee) and had to grapple with Daniel’s confidence-in-driving issues yet again. Daniel has a lack of confidence when driving in foreign countries on the wrong side of the road with a left sided shifter and thus, requires his passengers to reaffirm all of the directions AND signs back to him verbally over and over again. While Beth is a woman of great, infinite, patience…Emily…is not…and to put it politely, was shrieking ten minutes into our car venture. We also had gotten an extremely convoluted set of “from Killarney to Dingle” directions from the front desk that we actually threw out in a matter of minutes.

And, to make matters ever more challenging there is a lack of consensus concerning the appropriate temperature for the interior of the car. Daniel thinks the car is an inferno…Emily and I are freezing our tails off. It’s a miserable, perpetual fight.

Now, despite all of that, we had an awesome time today. The Dingle Peninsula was gorgeous. We discovered in Castlemaine that it is the “birthplace of Wild Colonial Boy” – who knew? We worked our way to the city of Dingle – which was really quaint and beautiful, and then headed out to do the famous “Dingle Loop.” As you can imagine - potty humor abounded, but…well, it was the Dingle Peninsula after all!
We checked out a stone fort – which I found far more interesting than Emily or Daniel. The whole fenced in fort was infiltrated by goats, so we spent our time trying to avoid the goats’ pellets, but I enjoyed the awesome views of the coast and the really neat stone walls and tunnels.

After that Daniel and Emily vowed they were done paying to see old stuff, so I ventured into the Neolithic “Beehives” myself – which were really cool! I hiked up a pretty steep hill to be rewarded with a nice view and several walled rooms, each of which I had to nearly crawl into. Historians believe humans inhabited the Dingle Peninsulas as early as 4,000 BCE – which caused us all to shake our fists at creationists. :)

We made our way to an extremely beautiful lookout – stopping at many “scenic overlooks” to take pictures, and headed back to the city of Dingle where we enjoyed a delicious lunch. After that we headed through Connor’s Pass – which was another one-lane-claiming-to-be-two-lanes scenario with gorgeous views of a valley that our desk clerk in Killarney told us was hard-struck by the potato famine in the 1840’s.

We found our way out of the peninsula after many more stunning views and photo opportunities – but still managing to cheat darkness – which falls just after 4 pm, and made it to Ennis around 7. We arrived without much incident – aside from being rerouted just as we entered the town (due to flooding, of course). Nevertheless, we found our hotel and managed to check-in, settle in and set out to explore the town and grab a meal. So far we are not loving Ennis as much, but have avoided the old people who glare at us, and managed to find a few good pubs to grab a bite to eat and check out the town.

We were blessed today with good pretty good weather – we had some great shots while on the Dingle Peninsula, and are just hoping to have a few more hours of sunshine tomorrow as we check out the Cliffs of Moher. So far we’re having a great time and have really soaked in the Irish countryside – as well as laughed ourselves to tears in the car as we brave the two-lane-wannabe roads.

Click on the image below to view our explorations of Dingle:

Exploring the Dingle Regions

Happy Thanksgiving to all! We’re working on finding a “nicer” meal for tomorrow to celebrate our holiday.

Cheers!
-Beth, Daniel, and Emily

Part 3 of Getting to and around Killarney

We've posted three or four different posts tonight - so scroll back to see - these videos will make much more sense after reading Parts 1 and 2!

A tribute to Pam Hals - as a thanks for the Flip Camera! :)

This is a video of the raging waters at Torc Falls -



And this video captures:
1. The experience of driving with Daniel in Ireland
2. The flooding that is going on
3. The waterfalls that are developing along the road!

Getting to and traveling around Killarney: Part Two

Day 3: Around Killarney

"Greatest flood in recent memory" - generally not a good sign

So, mid last week I emailed Daniel and Emily with a link to a European news article describing the immense flooding in Ireland, with a comment stating "ok guys, be prepared to get wet..."

(Click on the picture below to see our latest pictures!)

To and Around Killarney

Little did we know, my statement could not really have been any truer. We were not very affected in Dublin, and saw a few large pond-shaped puddles in some of the fields yesterday, but today the flooding really affected us. We had two potential choices for today - a day trip to Cork and the surrounding area...or a trip to Ross Castle and checking out the first quarter of the Ring of Kerry.

Okay. So as we were leaving this morning (after another divine Irish breakfast), we asked the front desk for some basic directions. When they found out where we were hoping to go they made a face. Never a good sign. One woman said that she had tried to go to the castle the previous day and couldn't even get there because of flooding. Another woman said that Mulls gap - part of our way to reach the Ring of Kerry had been closed for days and she didn't think it was open yet.

Well..we decided to see for ourselves, but Emily and I made Daniel promise that we would only try to find places if he agreed that whenever we said turn back it's too dangerous, he would actually...turn back. He hesitated but more or less agreed. So we set out for the castle first...and ended up stopping when we reached the point that not only were the forests on either side flooded up to road level, but there were waves rippling across the road and two boats stranded on the pavement.

Turning around.

So we headed back to the main road to see if Mulls Gap was closed. We had a few close calls - areas where the water was so high on both sides of the road another hour or two of rain would flood the road over completely - and areas where waterfalls had formed down the sides of cliffs and mountains rather than natural trickles that may normally have existed. Some of these waterfalls dumped out across the road as you drove past.

We stopped in some gorgeous places along the way - in Killarney National Park we stopped to check out Torc Falls which were roaring with a vengence and were truly an out of control waterfall and rapids. We also stopped at many places along our way up to the "Ladies View of Killarney" which provided us with a gorgeous lookout over mountains and a valley that was very overly full of water. It seems like there is a lake there - that was now many feet over full.

Challenges? It was raining the entire time - so taking pictures safely and not getting the camera wet or getting raindrops on the lens was quite a feat, it was reallllly windy, so it was hard to convince yourself to get out of the car at times (Emily took a lot of coaxing), darkness falls early and quickly - so we really had to watch the time and make sure we made it back before night fall, and the speed limit was 100 kimmies - which is ridiculous because even at 60, every being in the car was white-knuckling it.

We came back before dark and Emily and I went shopping for a little over an hour before the shops close (they all close between 5:30 and 6). After that we came to retrieve Daniel for dinner and went seeking a yummy traditional Irish pub for our meal. We were out pretty late last night, and we need to get up pretty early tomorrow morning to tackle Dingle Peninsula and drive to Ennis, so we made tonight an early night.

So far we are having an excellent time, we are laughing incessantly, have eaten so much we have not felt hungry since we boarded the plane, and are hoping for slightly better weather tomorrow. We're embracing the flood that the locals claim is the worst they have ever seen - we could be disappointed (because it has definitely botched some of our plans), but we're trying to enjoy the fact that we are here during a historic time and enjoy the country regardless (which we definitely are!)

Congrats to Chris who closed on his home today - we're really excited to have a new neighbor! And extra hugs and thoughts to Kristi!

We'll keep you posted as we hopefully have clear roads to visit the Dingle Peninsula tomorrow (the title of which sends Daniel and Emily into fits and giggles)...Daniel has even developed a Dingle Dance to prepare for our visit tomorrow :)

Good Grief.

Cheers!
-Beth, Daniel, and Emily

Getting to and traveling around Killarney: Part One

Day 2: From Dublin to Killarney

So we woke up a little later than we meant to – I forgot my travel alarm clock was in military time when I set it. But we managed to get up, enjoy our first big Irish breakfast, and hit the road. After struggling to find the main road we needed, we did a few extra turns, tackled several roundabouts, and found the route we were seeking.

We enjoyed the green pastures and farmlands of the Irish countryside and noted the way shrubbery was used to separate plots of land, marveled at how medieval castles stood crumbling in the middle of pastures, and smiled at the fields of horses, sheep, and cows.

As per Chris and Ginger’s recommendations, we decided to visit the Rock of Cashel along the way, and were excited to find ourselves with a large hill and castle complex before us. The Rock of Cashel is the site where St. Patrick first converted and baptized the king around the 5th century and is supposedly the site where he first used the shamrock-trinity analogy. Since then, a cathedral and castle have been built on the site – during the 11th-13th centuries.

After touring and soaking in the castle grounds and lots of beautiful, mossy stone walls, we decided it was time to check see if the local town had any shoes for sale. Before leaving the castle we asked reception if there was a local shoe store and showed them Daniel’s shoes (which at this point were held together with hair elastics). The man’s reply was a quiet, polite “oh no.”

They proceeded to give us directions - and were given the opportunity to truly experience the long-windedness of the Irish. Daniel and I had a pretty good sense of where they were sending us within about forty-five seconds…so by the time the gentleman finished giving us directions over five minutes later, I was intrigued and Daniel was really ready to go.

We ventured into Cashel, a very cute and quaint Irish town, and beelined it for the nearest shoe store. Thirty minutes later - after much struggle from the shop owner who struggled to find Daniel's "enormous" US size 13 shoe, we were victorious - and emerged with a MUCH more attractive, MUCH more functional Clarks, sneaker cut, gore-tex laden, hiking book. We were all happy. We then went on in search of lunch and found a very cute little place that offered something delicious for all of us - tuna melt for Daniel, cajun panini for Emily, and the special of the day - chicken wrappen in bacon, stuffed with couscous, and drizzled with lemon butter sauce (delicious!!!!) for Beth.

And then we were back on the road, heading for Killarney - fighting the fall of darkness (we lost the fight). Because it's nearly December, darkness has been falling around four pm here...maybe four-thirty...and so, it's been hard to make it back to "home base" before dark. We had tried googling directions for our new hotel, but had been unsuccessful, so we were a little nervous heading into Killarney. Fortunately, our stop at a convenience store as we pulled into town was smart, because a woman at the counter gave good directions and we soon discovered that our hotel was smack in the center of the city and was within seconds of several strings of cute little shops, restaurants and pubs.

We had free parking, free internet, a huge room with a couch, desk, table and chairs, and an extra bed, and we were all set! We settled in and set out to check out the town and had a great evening exploring the city!

Safely in Killarney!

So, despite not actually being able to get directions to where our hotel was going to be when we arrived in our next city, we are safely in Killarney and are loving our hotel and its location - we are right in the city center and are a 30 second walk from strings of shops, restaurants and pubs! We will try to post more later today - it's a very rainy, cold, windy day here, but we are going to try to venture out for a bit and see if we can brave the weather for a while. And don't worry, Daniel is using my hair elastics to hold his boot together. :)

You will be excited to see below that we have attached an album of Dublin!

Cheers!
-Beth, Daniel & Emily

Mastering the phrase “Hit the Ground Running”….

(Click on the image below to see our picasa album of Dublin!)

Dublin

After a somewhat crazed day of packing and repacking the suitcase, our friend (and neighbor!), Justin, drove us to the airport where we enjoyed a nice meal at Macaroni Grill and cleared security and rode the tram to our gate in less than eight minutes. Boarding was simple and we found ourselves in a center aisle row – but a row of three! Perfecto! And so our journey truly began…

First I must say a few things about our flight and flying in general. Daniel, Emily, and I have all agreed that after you have weathered the 15+ hour cross-Pacific flights (which are often paired with an additional five hours from LA to the East coast), a flight announced to be seven hours and ten minutes is not really very daunting. But that doesn’t mean that it’s fun. --Second, I have decided that flying when you cannot fall asleep or get comfortable and really would like to/need to is the ultimate purgatory/first or second level of Dante’s hell.

Highlights of the flight? We were served an Irish dinner – which was delicious and only made us more excited about where we were headed. Two – this was definitely Daniel’s time zone transition – a 7 pm flight where you really should go right to sleep? Getting up really early? Perfect for him. Emily and I cursed him many a time. Third – we arrived 45 minutes early – unheard of for many flights…and very unfortunate in this case, because instead of landing at 8 am Ireland time and THREE am Florida time…we arrived at 2:15 am East coast time after sleeping for maybe an hour and a half. Ouch.

My favorite part of the trip? I was desperately trying to get comfy to go to sleep. And so I hit the recline button on the arm of the seat that housed my controls for my in-flight entertainment. Evidently, albeit illogically, that was Daniel’s button and the sound asleep lucky one experienced the sensation of falling and was jerked out of sleep looking incredibly flustered and startled…the look on his face was…priceless. :)

After landing we cleared customs and reclaimed bags with ease and were quickly waiting in line for our rental car paperwork. We were then whisked in a shuttle van to the rental car parking lot with a driver that had a knack for making fifty pound bags go flying. We picked up our rental car – laughed as Daniel struggled to adjust his mirrors, seat, and realized that his boots were going to make it very hard to distinguish between the clutch, brake, and gas pedals. We arrived at our hotel without incident but were then struck with the struggle of finding somewhere to park. Our options were hoping to get lucky and score a Sunday spot on the road or paying 35 euros for parking (for one night!)… Thankfully at the last second we managed to get the first of those. We dropped our bags at the desk and were off to tour the city!

First stop: the Guinness Brewery. This was a wise choice for us for many reasons. By hitting it early we avoided the crowds. We enjoyed a fun self-guided tour of the brewing process and marketing campaigns through the ages and then enjoyed a very tasty “free” brew from the Gravity Bar on the seventh story of the building – which is the tallest building in Dublin and offers an awesome 360 degree view of the city. Very cool. And, then we were hungry for lunch and were able to go down to the Guiness restaurant and enjoy Guinuess influenced creations – extremely yummy.

Recharged, we set out to explore the city and see more than we did on our initial walk towards the brewery. We each had a problem. Emily didn’t pack a real coat and spent the afternoon searching for them on the main shopping drags. For me, the combination of my mutation (the extra bone in my foot), swelling from the plane ride, and being on my feet all of last week meant that my right foot turned into a full blown swollen mess – major kankles – the worst my foot has hurt since I’ve gotten my orthotics, so I was being conservative with my paces. By the time we got back I was disturbingly swollen. And then Daniel. Who chose not to pack two pairs of shoes like I asked him to,...so of course his eight year old pair of Timberland boots disintegrated mid-multi mile trek. With the sole of one of his shoes detaching two-thirds of the way….and Mr. Stubborn doesn’t want to buy a new pair of shoes… The broken shoe is currently tied together with many linked together hair ties I graciously supplied Daniel with…but this cannot be a permanent solution. Emily and I are fighting him hard.

Despite all of our adversities, the motley Hals crew stuck it out and still put in a full day in Dublin. After the Guinness tour we shopped on Grafton Street, checked out the Dublin Castle, and visited my mom’s recommendation – the historic Book of Kells, which is housed in Trinity College and is a phenomenal medieval monastic manuscript of the four Gospels dated back to around 800 CE – it’s known for being one of the most ornately beautiful, amazingly detailed documents of its time. We also got to see the Long Hall – a twenty + floor to ceiling library of beautifully old, treasured books. Ahh, the nerd in me loved the smell of old books.

We checked into the hotel and crashed for a bit and then ventured out for dinner. We managed to find a wonderfully delicious restaurant called “Kate’s Cottage” where I found amazing Beef and Guinness stew served on sourdough bread. Daniel got his standard order for Meg O’Malley’s from back home and affirmed that Bangers and Mash really are better in Ireland.

Overall we had a great day – despite some of our challenges. :) We are off to Killarney in the morning and are hoping for decent weather and that the flooding in the lowlands doesn’t interfere with our plans. We’ll see – it’s hard to tell.
But so far, we are loving this beautiful country!

Cheers!

-Beth, Daniel, & Emily

And we're off to Ireland!!!

Our bags our packed, we're ready to go! And this time we have Emily with us too!

The itinerary includes:
1 night in Dublin
2 nights in Killarney
2 nights in Ennis
and
1 night in Dublin

We will be home Saturday evening.

We'll post more soon from the other side of the pond! Here we go! :)